CineSavant
Held for Questioning (Der Aufenthalt)
Sylvester Groth shines in this East German movie about a luckless private in a Polish prison, thrown in with a group of…
Articles by Glenn Erickson
CineSavant
Prizzi’s Honor
Richard Condon and John Huston's show is like a gangland version of Moonstruck, bouncing effortlessly between earnest romanticism and cynical satire. Hit…
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Stalker
Andrei Tarkovsky's bizarre philosophical science fiction epic may be his most successful picture overall -- every image and word makes its precise…
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The Man with Two Brains
Steve Martin brings down the house with this adoring, hilarious pastiche of mad doctor and disembodied brain motifs -- surely the epitome…
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Tobor the Great
Robot roll call! This also-ran robotic fantasy from the 1950s is precisely the kind of movie one would expect from Republic, a…
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Night Moves
Arthur Penn's detective movie is one of the best ever in the genre, one that rewards repeat viewings particularly well. Gumshoe Harry…
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Ronin
Robert De Niro picks up a gun once again as a highly paid spy-mercenary-thief hired for a bit of international larceny, the…
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Duel in the Sun
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…
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The Good, The Bad and The Ugly 50th Anniversary
Sergio Leone's Civil War gunslinger epic is everybody's favorite western, and most everybody has a bone to pick regarding problems with the…
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Meantime
Nobody stands up for Britons in the lower class trenches like the fierce, opinionated and outright brilliant Mike Leigh; his unusual writing…
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The Crimson Kimono
Another great Samuel Fuller film on Blu-ray -- this one is a crime tale set in downtown Los Angeles' Little Tokyo, that…
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Beggars of Life
A happy discovery! This is a major late- silent-era gem on the order of Von Sternberg's Docks of New York -- a…
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Freebie and the Bean
Here's how one pushed the limits of good taste in 1974. James Caan and Alan Arkin run the gamut of racist, raunchy,…
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The Dinner
How far will the new American aristocracy go to protect its privileges? Oren Moverman's intense four-way war of wills is sourced from…
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Hopscotch
A generic spy story becomes an inspired light comedy with the application of great talent led by the star-power of Walter Matthau.…
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Silkwood
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…
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Night People
Nunnally Johnson hands us a well-written spy & hostage drama set in Cold War Berlin, with plenty of intrigue and good humor…
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You Only Live Once
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…
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Terror in a Texas Town
On paper it's a western with everything -- a major star, decent supporting players, a cult director and sideways references to the…
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Where the Boys Are
Heading for Spring Break somewhere? Long before Girls Gone Wild, kids of the Kennedy years found their own paths to the desired…
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The Breaking Point
You can tell it's film noir -- even the cabin cruiser has Venetian blinds. Ernest Hemingway's favorite film adaptation of his work…
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Kong: Skull Island 3-D
Kong is back, transformed into a 'MonsteVerse' colossus suitable for combat with Kaiju-sized foes. The key inspiration is video games but the…
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The Battle of the River Plate
Powell & Pressburger's big-scale historical epic is perhaps the best film ever about an old-school naval encounter between battleships. The first half…
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The Sea Chase
John Wayne plays a German sea captain in a film that goes out of its way to create a favorable image of…
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Shalako
It's 007 in the saddle! Sean Connery didn't become a career cowboy but his one stint as a Louis L'Amour hero is…
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The Quiet American (1958)
There appear to be no rules governing tricky politics in movies -- Joseph L. Mankiewicz's adaptation of Graham Greene's novel about terrorism…