A look at the art photography of Bunny Yeager, starring Bettie Page? We can think of less pleasant ways to pass the time. Savant raises his standards to check out what’s happening in the disc section behind the gray curtain, and finds that the fringe product suppliers are up to their old tricks. …
A military coup in the U.S.? General Burt Lancaster’s scheme would be flawless if not for true blue Marine Kirk Douglas, who snitches to the White House. Now Burt’s whole expensive clandestine army might go to waste – Sad! John Frankenheimer and Rod Serling are behind this nifty paranoid conspiracy thriller. Seven Days in May Blu-ray…
William Wyler’s 1960s screwball heist comedy is a squeaky-clean high fashion vehicle for stars Audrey Hepburn and Peter O’Toole — who of course aren’t really crooks despite pulling off a major art theft. It’s lush, beautiful to look at and directed with verve by Wyler; with some funny jabs at the art world from screenwriter…
Kirk Douglas grits his teeth and goes full macho, wrasslin’ with that beautiful Sioux up in the high country — the Sioux miss in question being the Italian model Elsa Martinelli in her screen debut. Kirk can’t decide if he wants to stay with Elsa, or lead what must be the most shameful bunch of…
A welcome blast of clear thought, Raoul Peck’s documentary represents the point of view and philosophy of James Baldwin, the writer and artist known best as a social critic of the Civil Rights movement. Allowing Baldwin to ‘speak’ thirty years after his passing sheds light and wisdom on the issue that hasn’t gone away. I…
Is it a modern classic? I think so. Lawrence Kasdan’s best movie embraces characters often lampooned, dismissed, or stereotyped as kooks — introverts, extroverts, people trying to make personal connections and those trying to avoid them. William Hurt finds his best role and Geena Davis won an Oscar for hers; thirty years later the entire…
Perhaps motivated by the success of La La Land, Criterion has reissued two impressive Jacques Demy musicals as separate releases. This all-singing, all-dancing homage to candy-colored vintage Hollywood musicals is a captivating Franco-American hybrid that allows free rein to Demy’s marvelously positive romantic philosophy. The Young Girls of Rochefort Blu-ray The Criterion Collection 717 1967…
One of the best international thrillers ever has almost become an obscurity, for reasons unknown – this Blu-ray comes from Australia. Edward Fox’s wily assassin for hire goes up against the combined police and security establishments of three nations as he sets up the killing of a head of state – France’s president Charles de…
“Am I decent?” They said that Ginger Rogers gave Fred Astaire sex appeal, but the teaming of Astaire and Rita Hayworth is something else. Columbia’s 1941 release is a weak service comedy until the dancing starts, at which point it becomes one of the better musicals of the year – and the breakout vehicle for…
This remake of a pre-Code classic adds amazing European locations, glorious Technicolor and entire armies on the move, yet doesn’t improve on the original. Producer David O. Selznick secured Rock Hudson to play opposite Jennifer Jones, but the chemistry is lacking. Why did the man spend twenty years trying to top Gone With the Wind?…
This Iranian import made news when its director found himself on the wrong side of the recent travel ban. It’s well worth the bother. Asghar Farhadi’s suspense story can’t be topped for maturity, insight or honest emotions about social stress: after an assault in a new apartment, the strain affects everything that a wife and…
Many weird-world genre bending millennial epics have already dated badly, but not Richard Kelly’s sci-fi / horror / satirical mind-trip about a guy given a glimpse of time travel in another dimension. The wit hasn’t faded and the menace hasn’t cooled, and the cast seems hipper than ever: Jake Gyllenhaal, Jena Malone, Maggie Gyllenhaal, Mary…
New Wave director Claude Chabrol goes off in an odd direction with this Francophone adaptation of Hamlet. Convinced that his father was murdered, the heir to an estate behaves like a madman as he sets out to unmask the killers. The ‘castle’ is a country manse guarded by thugs as a precaution against the signeur’s…
It creeps and leaps and slides and glides along the wall… and then it eats your face, dude. Mario Bava and Riccardo Freda’s ultimate monster mastication epic now looks sensationally gory thanks to a full restoration. Arrow’s disc has pretty much everything including two transfers and two audio commentaries. And Savant has a guilty admission…
Director Steve Sekely’s hardboiled film noir leans heavily on the talents of star-producer Paul Henreid and camera ace John Alton — the three of them whip up the best gimmick-driven noir thriller of the late ‘forties. Strained coincidences and unlikely events mean nothing when this much talent is concentrated in one movie. It’s also a…
The laid-back, plot challenged non-violent western gets a boost in this folksy comedy about two aging cowboys with less sense than the horses they tame. Glenn Ford and Henry Fonda star together for the first time, leaving behind their older images… they’re too tender-hearted for their own good. If the sex comedy wasn’t quite so…
Cuba has just been opened up to Americans, but twenty years ago musician Ry Cooder saw to it that a vanishing music tradition was preserved for posterity. Wim Wenders followed up with this rough & ready documentary that became almost as popular as the best selling album of mambos, boleros and cha-chas. Buena Vista Social…
“Here is the screen’s most shocking exposé, of the ‘Baby-Facers’ just taking their first stumbling steps down Sin Street U.S.A.!” Robert Altman’s first feature film is far too good to be described as anything but an expert step toward an impressive career. But he had to deal with a young actor who drove him up…
François Truffaut’s adaptation of Ray Bradbury’s dystopian, illiterate future looks better than ever, and the scary part is that some of its oddest sci-fi extrapolations seem to be coming true. It’s a movie that truly grows on one. The Bernard Herrmann music score is one of the composer’s very best. Fahrenheit 451 Blu-ray Universal Studios…
Jacques Demy’s international breakthrough musical gives us Catherine Deneuve and wall-to-wall Michel Legrand pop-jazz — it’s a different animal than La La Land but they’re being compared anyway. The story of a romance without a happily-ever-after is doggedly naturalistic, despite visuals as bright and buoyant as an old MGM show. The Umbrellas of Cherbourg Blu-ray…
This charming Roy Rogers oater could reboot interest in vintage ‘series’ westerns. Basically a film for little kids, it’s earnestly played by all concerned and director William Witney’s direction sparkles. The added filip that makes the difference is the beautifully restored Trucolor image — Roy’s wonder horse Trigger is indeed magnificent. I listened carefully, but…
You Axed for it, as Forry would say: the grade Z horror movie that launched a thousand bad puns is also an unbeatable party favorite. Idiotic island natives clash with condescending Anglo scientists, and a death curse initiates the hell-spawning of a horrifying, vengeance-seeking pagan demon-monster. Sounds great — but what we get is Tabonga,…
Long before movies routinely created ‘worlds’ with their own twisted fantasy logic, only a few paranoid thrillers, usually odd genre items, tried out twisted stories of deceptive ‘hidden realities.’ Like an extended Twilight Zone entry, this lively James Garner war pic morphs into a bizarre conspiracy worthy of Philip K. Dick. If only it weren’t…
Take one fiercely individual auteur fed up with the Hollywood game, put him in Kyoto with a full Japanese film company, and the result is a picture critics have been trying to figure out ever since. It’s a realistic story told in a highly artificial visual style, in un-subtitled Japanese. And its writer-director intended it…
Sometimes a movie is simply too good for just one special edition… Savant reached out to nab a British Region B import of Georges Franju’s horror masterpiece, to sample its enticing extras. And this also gives me the chance to ramble on with more thoughts about this 1959 show that inspired a score of copycats….
Director and documentarian Mark Hartley scores both a film history and comedy success with this ‘wild, untold’ account of the 1980s film studio that was both revered and despised by everyone who had contact with it. The ‘cast list’ of interviewees is encyclopedic, everybody has a strong opinion, and some of them don’t need four-letter…