CineSavant
The Valachi Papers
Charles Bronson plays a real-life Mafiosi in a period picture with a fine script, some good performances and a production so sloppy…
Articles by Glenn Erickson
CineSavant
Obsessions
What a great sales hook -- a feature film with a Bernard Herrmann music score that we hadn't heard of. And one…
CineSavant
The Angry Red Planet
Hey, Ib Melchoir's Opus Mars-us is back, in a not-bad new scan and color-grading job. If the nostalgia bug has bitten you…
CineSavant
The Lost City of Z
They don't make 'em like this any more, and the original TV spots for James Gray's accurate retelling of history almost didn't…
CineSavant
Blood Alley
Now a successful producer, John Wayne tries a big budget action picture with an anti-Communist theme. It's The Alamo on a ferryboat,…
CineSavant
Ikarie XB 1
For the discerning science fiction fan, this is the best of the Eastern-bloc Cold War Sci-fi epics, a genuinely brilliant and warmly…
CineSavant
Varieté
At last, an expressionist silent classic that takes full advantage of cinematic principles. The legendary E.A. Dupont goes in for subjective-emotional effects…
CineSavant
Free Fire
Have an itch to see a movie about a gunfight, the whole gunfight and nothing but the gunfight? Search no more, for…
CineSavant
The Bridge at Remagen
What's the best true-story WW2 combat film for pure-grit, no-nonsense tanks 'n' bombs 'n' crazy mayhem action on a giant scale? This…
CineSavant
L’argent (Money)
Welcome to the final film of the aesthetically precise, rigorously austere Robert Bresson, an adaptation of a fateful tale by Leo Tolstoy…
CineSavant
The Savage Innocents
The original Quinn the Eskimo (no kidding) is another life-loving rough portrait from Anthony Quinn, in Nicholas Ray's rather successful final spin…
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Hell and High Water
Samuel Fuller sure knows how to wind up the geopolitical tension, especially in a rip-roaring provocative atom threat adventure. This show might…
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Hell in the Pacific
Class-act John Boorman continues to mix genre grit with European-flavored art cinema, and the result is another winner. Toshiro Mifune and Lee…
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They Live by Night
Don't look to this noir for hardboiled cynicism – for his first feature Nicholas Ray instead gives us a dose of fatalist…
CineSavant
Running on Empty
These fugitives on the run aren't innocent young lovers. Still wanted for anti-war violence from years before, an ex-radical couple struggles to…
CineSavant
Comfort and Joy
You never heard of the Great Glasgow Ice Cream Wars? They weren't exactly Armageddon. The gentle director Bill Forsyth makes a radio…
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Brother Can You Spare a Dime
It's 1930s America as seen in the movies, through music, and the evasions of newsreels. Franklin Delano Roosevelt preaches prosperity while James…
CineSavant
Roberto Rossellini’s War Trilogy
Rome Open City, Paisan, Germany Year Zero: Filmed mostly on the streets in newly-liberated territory, Roberto Rossellini's gripping war-related shows are blessed…
CineSavant
The Bird with the Crystal Plumage
This time they may have gotten it right! If a knife or a straight razor won't do, how about killing a victim…
CineSavant
The Man from Planet X
The first visitor from outer space in the '50s sci-fi boom is one very curious guy, dropping to Earth in a ship…
CineSavant
Marcel Pagnol’s The Marseille Trilogy
No longer out of reach, Marcel Pagnol's stunning 3-feature saga of love and honor in a French seaport is one of the…
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8 Million Ways to Die
Tonight on 'movies we really want to like' we have Hal Ashby's final feature, an L.A.- based crime saga with a great…
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Death Line aka Raw Meat
This early gore-horror picture has a remarkable emphasis on human values, believe it or not, with a 'monster' that nevertheless is a…
CineSavant
The Lodger (1927)
Hitchcock's first self-professed 'Hitch' picture is still a winner. Many of his recurring themes are present, and some of his visual fluidity…
CineSavant
Good Morning (ohayo)
It's Yasujiro Ozu in light mode, except that his insights into the human social mechanism make this cheerful neighborhood comedy as meaningful…
CineSavant
The Man in the Moon (1991)
Robert Mulligan's late career gem is a beautiful, fad-free tale of teenage romance with universal appeal, famed for introducing Reese Witherspoon to…