East Germany’s interplanetary Sci-fi epic is finally remastered to Blu-ray quality, with original stereophonic soundtracks. What we once knew as the re-edited First Spaceship on Venus is now 14 minutes longer and laden with ponderous anti-American sermonizing. The sleek spaceship Kosmokrator is a marvel of design, and technical tricks pioneered for Metropolis turn the blasted…
Claude Faraldo’s absurdist ode to anarchy indulges in some gleeful taboo-breaking. A working man finds relief from daily dehumanization by converting his apartment into a primitive cave and rejecting every social convention, starting with his relationship to his own sister. The film has no screenplay credit and no dialogue, just grunts, gibberish and screams of…
MGM’s ‘noir lite’ puts Farley Granger into a murderous bind involving blackmail and his own sticky fingers: an act of petty pilferage accidentally lands him with $30,000 connected to a killing. Director Anthony Mann and some eye-popping action direction on location in New York City make the show a must-see. The surprise is that the…
Charles Burnett’s most acclaimed film comes to 4K in a special edition that adds new interviews and documentaries to Milestone Films’ excellent restoration extras. The first chronicle of the Los Angeles Black experience creates an intimate portrait of how life is lived, how feelings are suppressed and how attitudes are passed on to the next…
Brazil’s Academy Award winner is the most emotionally affecting picture of 2024, the true story of a Rio de Janeiro household during the 20-year military dictatorship (1964 – 1985). Rubens Paiva thinks moving his family to the safety of London is unnecessary, until agents of the police state are at his door. Fernanda Torres’s performance…
Gary Cooper’s best oater for Warner Bros. may be this sharp action-espionage western directed with real verve by the dependable André De Toth. Coop must play traitor to get the lowdown on horse thieves in Civil War-era Colorado; the on-location action is exciting and the cast is capable — Phyllis Thaxter, David Brian, Paul Kelly,…
The COVID pandemic has given new relevance to an entire category of Science Fiction thrillers, and Robert Wise’s original tale of a ‘germ invasion’ from outer space is especially vivid. Michael Crichton’s novel tasks scientists Arthur Hill, David Wayne, James Olson and Kate Reid with cracking the secret of an alien life form — only…
Richard Lester’s superb epic succeeds in every way — with a glorious production, dazzling swordplay, witty comedy, and fidelity to the spirit of the Dumas novel. It’s a showcase for a wonderful cast, and is probably the best movie of both Oliver Reed and Raquel Welch. Criterion’s massive box includes a feature-length, 4-part making-of tale…
Jean Rollin takes a break from nude vampires à la française for a direct-from-the-crypt meditation on morbid romanticism. Inspired by a 19th century poet, he locks two impressionable young lovers in a cemetery, where an emotional response to the maze of crypts and tombstonestakes over. Françoise Pascal has a starring role as la femme seduced…
We just got finished praising a picture by the ace filmmaker Steven Soderbergh, but have little choice but to be honest with this 2006 homage to postwar intrigue movies set in divided European cities. It stars George Clooney, Cate Blanchett and Tobey Maguire, and we’re sad to report that it’s a real catastrophe. Expect brief,…
Volume 25 in Kino’s long-running noir series could be called ‘The John H. Auer Collection’ — its trio of thrillers include the almost-a-classic City that Never Sleeps, the odd Hawaii-set noir Hell’s Half Acre and the newly rediscovered ‘annihilating romance’ The Flame. The trio has no lack of interesting noir personalities: Marie Windsor, Gig Young,…
Once upon a time the reigning WW2 battle action movie was this rough & tumble Republic offering, that cemented John Wayne’s glowing image as THE movie star who won the war. The production scored plenty of defense department cooperation to become an efficient recruitment tool — its leathernecks are no-nonsense killers but also complete gentlemen…
This Steve Soderbergh true-life ‘comedy’ drove us nuts: the audience I saw it with wanted to leap up and kill Matt Damon’s insultingly fraudulent corporate Veepee. The ‘nice guy jerk’ poses as a whistleblower while betraying everyone who crosses his path. Yet he squeaks by with an ‘oh I’m so innocent’ act. It’s more a…
Another fine Sci-fi overachiever bounces back in a new encoding, much improved. Andrew Marton’s daring adventure / disaster / eco-apocalypse sees scientists attempting to exploit the heat at the Earth’s core — and almost splitting the planet in two. It’s high jeopardy for Dana Andrews, Janette Scott, Kieron Moore and Alexander Knox; Eugène Lourié’s designs…
Claudia Cardinale’s first major starring role was a big success in Europe, even if our New York critics seemed primed for more ‘intellectual’ film art. She’s a sensation as Aida, a showgirl ditched by a dishonest lover … whose more gentlemanly but acutely underage brother comes to her rescue. It’s a hard lesson in survival…
What does one call a film this original? It’s a poetic documentary-investigation of Los Angeles culture circa 1958; it’s also a powerful proto-feminist essay. Ben Maddow, Sidney Meyers & Joseph Strick collaborated on this rare attraction. Barbara Baxley stars as a disaffected divorceé who sees the city as layers of Hell. She and Gary Merrill…
Fred Zinnemann’s superb thriller has suspense, fine characterizations and a potent anti-fascist theme. Gregory Peck is excellent as an embittered lost-cause warrior who takes on one last mission into Franco territory to kill an old enemy, Anthony Quinn. Emeric Pressburger’s very modern story benefits from Zinnemann’s precise direction and impressive production design by Alexandre Trauner;…
What can you expect when the hero of a story is a Special Collections librarian? Audrey Niffenegger’s scrambled-time romantic fantasy shouldn’t work, but it squeaks by — fashioning a ‘life metaphor’ that doesn’t get tangled up in its own sci-fi plot complexities. The picture-perfect cast, especially Rachel McAdams and Eric Bana, sell the illusion 100%….
A wronged beauty commits suicide, and Dennis O’Keefe’s hero solicits a killing-for-hire to avenge her. Director Burt Balaban’s murder tale has a twisty surprise or two but not much else going for it. Star O’Keefe looks unhappy and Ann Sears is just a beautiful observer, which gives Anton Diffring’s sneering, slimy villain the opportunity to…
It’s a top-rank war movie, the best of its kind. The Ealing Studios, writer Eric Ambler and director Charles Frend transpose Nicholas Monserrat’s best seller to the screen with honesty and realism. Little-known now, the show was a hit in America, too. It made a star of Jack Hawkins and raised the profiles of Donald…
Having an LSD flashback? Can you really remember every controlled substance you regularly imbibed in your wild days? Freaky homicides figure in Jeff Lieberman’s horror thriller, but the uneasiness builds on everyday fears we all understand: why is my hair suddenly falling out? Am I losing my mind? Zalman King, Deborah Winters, Mark Goddard and…
John Ford and John Wayne’s best ‘old man’s movie’ is deceptive — on the outside it’s as square as can be, an easy-chair comedy vacation for all concerned. But Ford imbues the proceedings with poetic formalism, and a nostalgia for a generation in retirement. John Wayne was never so at-ease charming, Lee Marvin does some…
Glamorous Joan’s screen image is now fully defined, and her improved acting carries her pictures with grace and assurance. Director Clarence Brown makes a soapy story play like high drama. It’s rags to riches again, as one woman captivates the three men in her life. Sexy Sadie elopes with one man, marries another and resents…
Known to Tarzan fans and almost nobody else is this four-hour serial filmed parallel with MGM’s series, and officially produced by Tarzan creator Edgar Rice Burroughs himself. The one-movie Tarzan is Herman Brix, later known as Bruce Bennett; his interpretation of the role is solid and his physical presence is excellent. Filmed in Guatemala, it’s…
It’s the best detective movie of the 1970s, now on 4K. Arthur Penn and Alan Sharp give us a ‘Southern California Sordid’ tale of a sleuth doing his best to return a missing girl, not knowing that her delinquency touches on larger crimes and vices by Hollywood fringe folk. It’s a superb performance from Gene…
A heist caper classic just got a new lease on life — after languishing in so-so encodings for 50 years, Jules Dassin and Melina Mercouri’s colorful escapist thriller dazzles once more. Peter Ustinov, Maximillian Schell, Robert Morley and Akim Tamiroff help Melina knock off the Topkapi museum in Istanbul, in a breathtaking midnight raid involving…