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Maigret Sets a Trap & Maigret and the St. Fiacre Case
Welcome to a pair of vintage mysteries with George Simenon's popular Inspector Jules Maigret, a gumshoe who gets the tough cases. Top…
Articles by Glenn Erickson
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A New Leaf – Olive Signature
Filtered through her experience as an unequalled comic performer, writer-director Elaine May scores a bulls-eye with this grossly underappreciated gem, fashioned in…
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The Complete Monterey Pop Festival
Criterion lavishes a major upgrade to its older box set celebrating the first major rock concert event, the 'California Dreamin' idyll that…
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Deathdream
Average fans of A Christmas Story likely don't know that director Bob Clark had once made creepy horror pictures with Alan Ormsby,…
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General Idi Amin Dada: A Self-Portrait
Ladies and Gentlemen, we have a precedent! Barbet Schroeder's documentary gets up close and personal with a narcissistic dictator consumed by his…
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Election
We've all met Tracy Flick -- the eager-beaver student that charms the right teachers, wins all the awards and corners the big…
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Stay Hungry
Are '70s auteur pictures liberated and loose, or flaky and undisciplined? Bob Rafelson's Alabama escapade places Jeff Bridges amid a wide range…
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Operation Petticoat
Tony Curtis grew up idolizing the suave and funny Cary Grant, emulated his romantic moves as an actor and then performed a…
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Hangover Square
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…
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Wolf (All-Region)
Aooowww --- Woo! Jack Nicholson summons his inner dog -- and dons the makeup and scary contact lenses -- to go the…
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Little Big Man (Region B)
Arthur Penn's under-appreciated epic has everything a big-scale western could want -- spectacle, interesting characters, good history and a sense of humor.…
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Scarecrow
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.…
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The Yellow Handkerchief
Ready for some full- on Japanese sentimentality? Superlative tough guy Ken Takakura takes us deep into heartbreak territory in search of a…
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Fritz Lang: The Silent Films
Hard-media home video is making a comeback, and Kino Lorber shows its faith in the medium with an extravagant collection of its…
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Sayonara
Back when interracial marriage was a shady topic (are those dark days coming back?) the U.S. military had some adjustment issues. Full…
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Ulzana’s Raid
Blu-ray fans are now well aware that many great movies unavailable in the U.S., can be easily found in Europe. One of…
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The Madness of King George
It's great when a fancy costume picture really has something to say -- Alan Bennett's crazy tale of a king's episode of…
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Attack of the Puppet People
All hail Bert I. Gordon, who singlehandedly carved out his own niche in 'fifties monster folklore, and even won a battle or…
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The Sissi Collection
Think, "I Was a Teenage Empress." A trio of movies tell an optimized version of the life of a 19th century Empress…
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The Miracle Worker
Anybody that appreciates good theater and good moviemaking will be in awe of Arthur Penn's marvelous visualization of this tale of a…
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The Last Laugh
The cream of German Expressionist filmmaking of the 1920s is increasingly accessible to modern audiences. The curated restoration of F.W. Murnau's expressionist…
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Cease Fire! — 3-D
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…
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Le Samouraï
Jean-Pierre Melville's tale of an emotionless killer is distilled to a narrative minimum. Alain Delon stars as Jef Costello, an imperturbable, ultra-…
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Desert Hearts
By 1985 Hollywood had still only dabbled in movies about the 'shame that cannot speak its name,' and in every case the…
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He Walked by Night
Do you think older crime thrillers weren't violent enough? This shocker from 1948 shook up America with its true story of a…
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Battle Cry
Move over James Jones -- Leon Uris clobbers the big screen with a sprawling adaptation of his WW2 combat novel, loaded down…