Average fans of A Christmas Story likely don’t know that director Bob Clark had once made creepy horror pictures with Alan Ormsby, but this independent shock effort of the early ’70s still casts a spell of dread. Although Vietnam is never mentioned, the war’s shadow strikes deep into the heart of a small-town family. John…
Ladies and Gentlemen, we have a precedent! Barbet Schroeder’s documentary gets up close and personal with a narcissistic dictator consumed by his own ego. Idi Amin rants and raves incoherently and demands to be the center of all attention while taking his country down a road to ruin. This is Africa in 1973, where Uganda…
We’ve all met Tracy Flick — the eager-beaver student that charms the right teachers, wins all the awards and corners the big scholarships. Alexander Payne’s witty, perceptive look at High School shows the predicament of a model teacher who can’t help but sabotage a pupil’s run for class president. Reese Witherspoon’s wholly original characterization scores…
Are ’70s auteur pictures liberated and loose, or flaky and undisciplined? Bob Rafelson’s Alabama escapade places Jeff Bridges amid a wide range of choice-quality nuts, with both Sally Field and Arnold Schwarzenegger staking their claim on the big screen. What do the changing face of The South and competition-level body building have to do with…
Tony Curtis grew up idolizing the suave and funny Cary Grant, emulated his romantic moves as an actor and then performed a brilliant impersonation of Grant for Billy Wilder. The next step had to be co-starring with the great man himself. Blake Edwards’ amiable, relaxed submarine movie allows Grant to play with ladies’ under-things, while…
No, it’s not a the-day-after sequel to The Lost Weekend, but a class-act mystery-horror from 20th-Fox, at a time when the studio wasn’t keen on scare shows. John Brahm directs the ill-fated Laird Cregar as a mad musician . . . or, at least a musician driven mad by a perfidious femme fatale, Darryl Zanuck’s…
Aooowww — Woo! Jack Nicholson summons his inner dog — and dons the makeup and scary contact lenses — to go the Larry Talbot route. Unfortunately, his moon-howling nighttime life isn’t as interesting as the dog-eat-dog infighting in the publishing house where he works – where feral instincts and sharp lupine senses are a major…
Arthur Penn’s under-appreciated epic has everything a big-scale western could want — spectacle, interesting characters, good history and a sense of humor. Dustin Hoffman gets to play at least five characters in one as an ancient pioneer relating his career exploits — which are either outrageous tall tales or a concise history of the taking…
We’re on the road again with a pair of eccentric new-age hobos, the kind that just can’t hack it in polite society. Gene Hackman and Al Pacino’s conflicting acting styles get a workout in Jerry Schatzberg’s tale of drifters cursed with iffy goals; Vilmos Zsigmond’s Panavision cinematography helped it earn a big prize at Cannes….
Ready for some full- on Japanese sentimentality? Superlative tough guy Ken Takakura takes us deep into heartbreak territory in search of a happy ending. Yoji Yamada’s Hokkaido road epic throws together a trio of ‘drifters of the heart’ to see if they can solve each other’s romantic dilemmas. The Yellow Handkerchief Blu-ray Twilight Time 1978…
Hard-media home video is making a comeback, and Kino Lorber shows its faith in the medium with an extravagant collection of its entire silent holdings of the Fritz Lang library. Mythical heroes, sacrificing heroines, criminal madmen and uncontrolled super-science are his themes; it’s a paranoid’s view of the first half of the 20th Century, expressed…
Back when interracial marriage was a shady topic (are those dark days coming back?) the U.S. military had some adjustment issues. Full integration of the ranks didn’t remove the anti- Japanese bigotry. James Michener’s novel has been transformed into a big-scale romance, with Marlon Brando coming to terms with a split in loyalty between the…
Blu-ray fans are now well aware that many great movies unavailable in the U.S., can be easily found in Europe. One of the best westerns of the ’70s is this jarringly realistic cavalry vs. Apaches drama from Robert Aldrich and Burt Lancaster, which used the ‘R’ rating to show savage details that Hollywood had once…
It’s great when a fancy costume picture really has something to say — Alan Bennett’s crazy tale of a king’s episode of mental illness becomes a highly entertaining comedy of errors, but with serious personal and political ramifications. Nigel Hawthorne is exceptionally good as the sovereign whose brain has de-railed; Helen Mirren, Ian Holm, Rupert…
All hail Bert I. Gordon, who singlehandedly carved out his own niche in ‘fifties monster folklore, and even won a battle or two against those sharpies at A.I.P.. His puppet people were originally just ‘Fantastic,’ but they had to be made into a menace with the “A” word usually reserved for icky poo Giant Leeches,…
Think, “I Was a Teenage Empress.” A trio of movies tell an optimized version of the life of a 19th century Empress of Austria and Queen of Hungary. It’s fuzzy history designed to prop up German morale, but the film is graced with the incredible presence of a teenaged Romy Schneider, whose beauty and personality…
Anybody that appreciates good theater and good moviemaking will be in awe of Arthur Penn’s marvelous visualization of this tale of a determined woman achieving the impossible — teaching a child that can neither see nor hear. The knock down, drag ’em out scenes between Anne Bancroft and Patty Duke are unique, to say the…
The cream of German Expressionist filmmaking of the 1920s is increasingly accessible to modern audiences. The curated restoration of F.W. Murnau’s expressionist masterpiece is a beauty — we finally can experience the film in its full original form. The Last Laugh Blu-ray Kino Lorber Kino Classics 1924 / B&W / 1:37 flat full frame /…
Here’s an Army booster production that got way out of hand: it’s a semi-docu using real soldiers, and filmed in Korea near the real combat zones – and filmed in full-scale 3-D. The soldiers, the equipment, everything is real — even the ammunition used is live, not blanks. Cease Fire! Blu-ray KL Studio Classics…
Jean-Pierre Melville’s tale of an emotionless killer is distilled to a narrative minimum. Alain Delon stars as Jef Costello, an imperturbable, ultra- slick hit man who follows a strict personal code. When a contract goes bad, he’s caught between irreconcilable compulsions. Following this Zen-like assassin through the mean streets of Paris never seems to get…
By 1985 Hollywood had still only dabbled in movies about the ‘shame that cannot speak its name,’ and in every case the verdict for the transgressors was regret and misery, if not death. Donna Deitch’s brilliant drama achieves exactly what she wanted, to do make a movie about a lesbian relationship that doesn’t end in…
Do you think older crime thrillers weren’t violent enough? This shocker from 1948 shook up America with its true story of a vicious killer who has a murderous solution to every problem, and uses special talents to evade police detection. Richard Basehart made his acting breakthrough as Roy Martin, a barely disguised version of the…
Move over James Jones — Leon Uris clobbers the big screen with a sprawling adaptation of his WW2 combat novel, loaded down with roles for promising young actors. This is the one where twice as much time is spent on love affairs than fighting. War may be hell, but if Mona Freeman, Nancy Olson, Dorothy…
A middling entry in the genre of blow-it-up big action spectacles, Paul Wendkos’ Spain-filmed western gives us all the excitement promised by the poster, but with some cardboard characters and lumpy storytelling. George Peppard is on the job, however, and once again proves he can carry a big picture, flaws and all. Cannon for Cordoba…
Can a pirate be a substitute monster? Hammer Films gives yet another genre a spin with this box-office winner that launched a sideline in costume adventures. The Hammer crew makes it work: Christopher Lee, Marla Landi, Marie Devereaux, Michael Ripper, Oliver Reed and Andrew Keir, plus yank assistance from Kerwin Mathews and Glenn Corbett. The…
This unusually sensitive, overlooked WW2 romance skips the morale-boosting baloney of the day. Two people meet on a train, each with a personal shame they dare not speak of. Ginger Rogers and Joseph Cotten are excellent under William Dieterle’s direction, and Shirley Temple doesn’t do half the damage you’d think she might. I’ll Be…