He sings, he fixes cars, and he takes punches better than De Niro’s Raging Bull. Elvis Presley excels in one of his few ’60s pictures that shows an interest in being a ‘real movie.’ It’s a remake of a boxing saga with entertaining characters and fine direction from noir specialist Phil Karlson. Plus Charles Bronson,…
It’s finally here in all its glory, the Howard Hawks movie nobody loves. The epitome of clueless ’60s filmmaking by an auteur who left his thinking cap back with Bogie and Bacall, this show is a PC quagmire lacking the usual compensation of exploitative thrills. But hey, it has a hypnotic appeal all its own:…
We thought all the great vintage music documentaries were accounted for, but Murray Lerner’s look at the Newport Folk Festival in the mid-‘sixties is a terrific time machine to a kindler, gentler musical era. The mix of talent is broad and deep, and we get to see excellent vintage coverage of some real legends, before…
Is this the new feminist minimalism? Director Kelly Reichart doesn’t like labels, and to her credit as a woman director, her amalgam of three tangential short stories transcends the format in a studious, low-key way. Four interesting actresses present interesting portraits that illuminate the realities of life in the great Middle America. Certain Women Blu-ray…
Even lesser Abbott & Costello movies are still comedy gravy to the avid fans of the fast-talking duo. Their first film deal away from Universal yields a so-so production graced with a string of their patented old-time comedy routines. And the transfer beats anything we’ve yet seen. The Noose Hangs High Blu-ray ClassicFlix 1948 /…
Edward G. Robinson uncovers another killer, but this time he’s after a Nazi mass murderer, not an insurance salesman. Orson Welles’ most conventional thriller is a masterpiece of style and judgment, with a good sense of time and place – and a lot of expressive shadows. How does this new Blu-ray shape up in comparison…
Barns are a-burning, Paul Newman is recommended to Joanne Woodward as ‘a big stud horse’ and Lee Remick oozes sexuality all over Martin Ritt’s CinemaScope screen. William Faulkner may be the literary source, but this tale of ambition in the family of yet another southern Big Daddy is given the faux Tennessee Williams treatment —…
Sylvester Groth shines in this East German movie about a luckless private in a Polish prison, thrown in with a group of defeated Nazi war criminals. For a country that usually paints the ideological divide in black and white red, Frank Beyer’s film of Hermann Kant’s semi-autobiographical story is surprisingly even-handed. An excellent addition to…
Richard Condon and John Huston’s show is like a gangland version of Moonstruck, bouncing effortlessly between earnest romanticism and cynical satire. Hit man Jack Nicholson is a brass-knuckle Romeo, and Kathleen Turner’s mysterious bicoastal Juliet has nothing but surprises for him. Near the end of his career, Huston’s direction is as assured as can be….
Andrei Tarkovsky’s bizarre philosophical science fiction epic may be his most successful picture overall — every image and word makes its precise desired effect. Three daring men defy the law to penetrate ‘the Zone’ and learn the truth behind the notion that a place exists called The Room, where all wishes are granted. Plenty of…
Steve Martin brings down the house with this adoring, hilarious pastiche of mad doctor and disembodied brain motifs — surely the epitome of cultured comedy. Under Carl Reiner’s direction Martin is marvelous, and he’s aided and abetted by the daring sexpot-turned comedienne Kathleen Turner — who has a better handle on outrageous sexy comedy than…
Robot roll call! This also-ran robotic fantasy from the 1950s is precisely the kind of movie one would expect from Republic, a two-fisted anti-Commie tract for juveniles. The studio comes up with an impressive robo-hero, but short-changes us when it come time for action thrills. Still, as pointed out in Richard Harland Smith’s new commentary,…
Arthur Penn’s detective movie is one of the best ever in the genre, one that rewards repeat viewings particularly well. Gumshoe Harry Moseby compartmentalizes his marriage, his job, his past and the greedy Hollywood has-beens he meets, not realizing that everything is interconnected, and fully capable of assembling a world-class conspiracy. Gene Hackman tops a…
Robert De Niro picks up a gun once again as a highly paid spy-mercenary-thief hired for a bit of international larceny, the robbing of a courier of some undisclosed secrets of one kind or another. Juicing up a Melville- like stoic crime fantasy with superb car stunt work puts director John Frankenheimer back in the…
David O. Selznick’s absurdly over-cooked western epic is a great picture, even if much of it induces a kind of hypnotic, mouth-hanging-open disbelief. Is this monument to the sex appeal of Jennifer Jones an example of Kitsch in terrible taste, or have Selznick and his army of Hollywood talents found a new level of hyped…
Sergio Leone’s Civil War gunslinger epic is everybody’s favorite western, and most everybody has a bone to pick regarding problems with the previous DVDs and Blu-rays. The good news is that Kino’s 50th Anniversary Special Edition takes giant leaps in correcting older audio issues . . . but the bad news . . . The…
Nobody stands up for Britons in the lower class trenches like the fierce, opinionated and outright brilliant Mike Leigh; his unusual writing and directing method yields terrific results in his first feature made for TV. And the early performances of Tim Roth, Phil Daniels and Gary Oldman should be the stuff of acting legend, ’80s…
Another great Samuel Fuller film on Blu-ray — this one is a crime tale set in downtown Los Angeles’ Little Tokyo, that forms an interracial romantic triangle. It’s risky for its year because of the sexual dynamics — a Japanese-American man falls in love with a Caucasian woman. Fuller’s approach is years ahead of its…
A happy discovery! This is a major late- silent-era gem on the order of Von Sternberg’s Docks of New York — a special treat that will please fans of director William Wellman — he revisited parts of it in a later talkie. It’s also a key movie in our education/adoration of the maverick actress Louise…
Here’s how one pushed the limits of good taste in 1974. James Caan and Alan Arkin run the gamut of racist, raunchy, sexist and homophobic jokes as bad boy cops breaking the rules, and director Richard Rush delivers some impressive, expensive action stunts on location in San Francisco. Does it get a pass because it’s…
How far will the new American aristocracy go to protect its privileges? Oren Moverman’s intense four-way war of wills is sourced from a novel but shapes up as an intense stage piece in a chi-chi restaurant interrupted by flashbacks and other stylistic flourishes. The acting foursome is excellent, with Steve Coogan a standout as a…
A generic spy story becomes an inspired light comedy with the application of great talent led by the star-power of Walter Matthau. Matthau’s CIA spook hooks up with old flame Glenda Jackson to retaliate against his insufferable CIA boss (Ned Beatty) with a humiliating tell-all book about the agency’s dirty tricks history. Matthau’s sloppy, slouchy…
It’s a quality true-life mystery-exposé that doesn’t come off as tabloid trash or Oliver Stone hysteria — the true story of Karen Silkwood is told without cooking the books. The all-superstar cast is something too — Meryl Streep, Cher and Kurt Russell. Only a fine director like Mike Nichols could steer this one into good…
Nunnally Johnson hands us a well-written spy & hostage drama set in Cold War Berlin, with plenty of intrigue and good humor to boot. Gregory Peck is the troubled negotiator and Broderick Crawford a Yankee galoot sticking his nose where it isn’t wanted. This one has been out of reach for quite a while —…
Fritz Lang continues his take-no-prisoners indictment of America’s curious relationship with crime, this time with the thesis that an innocent man can become a pawn in cosmic game of injustice. Three-time loser Henry Fonda, the glummest actor in ’30s films, doesn’t mean to rob or kill. But gosh darn it, They Made Him a Criminal….
On paper it’s a western with everything — a major star, decent supporting players, a cult director and sideways references to the blacklisting years. But even with its ya-gotta-see-it-to-believe-it high noon showdown scene, Joseph H. Lewis’s last feature film is still a lower-tier United Artists effort. Sterling Hayden goes up against Sebastian Cabot and Nedrick…