Do you love movies about cute animals? The original pet-lion-in-Africa romp is actually a well balanced nature film about the separation between wild animals and those raised by humans. Virginia McKenna and Bill Travers winningly play the Adamsons, game wardens that dedicate themselves to the well-being of Elsa, the lioness they raise from infancy. Born…
The latest restoration of a German silent classic is F.W. Murnau’s lavishly mounted version of the Goethe tale, starring Emil Jannings as Mephisto. It’s an impressive drama but also has a sense of (Teutonic) humor here and there. Most every shot is a fantastic visuals, and the bigger scenes use visual designs worthy of fine…
RKO’s final in-house production is a good end-of-an-era film, a spirited and well-made musical comedy. Bright-eyed Jane Powell can’t stop accepting marriage proposals, from nerdy Tommy Noonan, dreamboat kisser Cliff Robertson and zillionare Keith Andes. She imagines her future with each man in musical terms, through production numbers staged by Gower Champion. The Girl Most…
It’s sweet, all right, not to mention sentimental and corny — as Adeline Schmidt, Irene Dunne leaves her father’s beer garden to sing in New York, where she falls prey to a predatory playboy. Set in nostalgic 1898, this Jerome Kern-Oscar Hammerstein II musical features several unfamiliar but marvelous songs. Dunne shows the film world the…
Frank Sinatra shines in a story of police corruption that tries to say it like it is — or like it was in 1968, just before the ratings system came in. The well-intentioned, suspenseful story is burdened by odd censor choices, Sinatra’s conservative self-image, and rudely retrograde attitudes toward gays. In a sparkling new transfer…
Germany’s Explosive Media company has a serious itch for American westerns, and they have a trio of new releases. One is a minor Hollywood classic with major graces, from the late 1950s. A second sees an American producer based in England filming in Italy with a rising international star, and for the third an established American star…
The latest Marvel franchise hero is an incredible shrinking secret agent with powers wholly unlike his fellow Avengers. Ex-con Scott Lang (Paul Rudd) is motivated by sentimental family connection issues, and so is everyone else. The Sci-fi ideas come off very well via imaginative CGI effects and the 3-D is great, too. Ant-Man 3-D Blu-ray…
Bloody havoc reigns! Kinji Fukasaku’s no-holds-barred vision of ugly violence and uglier politics on the streets of Hiroshima is a five-film Yakuza epic that spans generations. The film amounts to an alternate history of postwar Japan, that puts an end to the glorification of the Yakuza code. The enormous cast includes Bunta Sugawara, Tetsuro Tanba,…
Meet Rita Tushingham, the cutest comic (and dramatic) actress of swinging London. This ’60s masterpiece applies director Richard Lester’s talent for comedy to a new kind of quirky, youthful sex farce. Shy boy Michael Crawford takes lessons on how to dominate women from Ray Brooks, when all he has to do to win cute Rita…
Douglas Sirk’s first American movie came out so well that PRC sold it to MGM, earning Sirk a promotion out of the Poverty Row studios. John Carradine is excellent — and underplays! — as the Hangman of Prague who moonlights as a depraved sex criminal. But the context in this wartime propaganda movie is serious…
Crime, lust and vigilante lynchings in the wide-open city on the bay, back in the gold rush days. Miriam Hopkins, Edward G. Robinson and Joel McCrea form a spirited triangle as a sharp roulette dealer strings one man along and can’t prevent another from throwing away a fortune. Sam Goldwyn’s impressive production shows Howard Hawks…
Minimalist ‘Z’ monster movies really took off in the 1950s, earning good money on tiny outlays of time, money, and sometimes talent. Dan Milner’s directing is competent, to be kind, but the ‘nothing happens’ script is a sure-fire soporific — Roger Corman surely didn’t worry about the competition. The good news is Richard Harland Smith’s…
Curt McDowell and George Kuchar’s comedy epic of oversexed sensationalists running amuck while trapped in a storm-battered house goes beyond strange. It’s a legit experimental film but — gasp! — also 2.5 hours of hardcore porn and other forms of giddy depravity. A movie guaranteed to make conservative heads explode — read with caution, please!…
or, Savant picks The Most Impressive Discs of 2015 This is the actual view from Savant Central, looking due North. What a year! I was able to take one very nice trip back East to see Washington D.C. for the first time, or at least as much as two days’ walking in the hot…
Silent comedy rules! Harold Lloyd epitomizes ‘twenties optimism while serving up the fun. Even better, he filmed this on the streets of New York, so we feel as if we stepped into a time machine. The great disc extras include input from New Yorker extraordinaire Bruce Goldstein. It’s a great show for holiday viewing —…
Gian Maria Volonté has a big part in this prime quality Italo crime thriller blessed with a great score by Ennio Morricone. But the movie belongs to Robert Hoffman as the real-life public enemy who earned the alias ‘The Machine Gun Soloist.’ Director Carlo Lizzani’s realistic treatment glamorizes nothing and implicates the police in shady…
Frank Capra won his third Best Directing Oscar for this Kaufman and Hart adaptation. Star Jean Arthur is radiant, and relative newcomer James Stewart seems to have lifted his ‘aw shucks’ nice-guy persona intact from this role. With Lionel Barrymore, Ann Miller, Dub Taylor, Spring Byington and a terrific Edward Arnold. You Can’t Take It with…
It’s back and better than ever — the makers of Pee-Wee’s Playhouse capped their Saturday morning show with a Christmas Special to end all Christmas Specials. All the show’s regular characters, special treats and creative extravagances are enhanced with a tall stack of celebrity guests, performers and walk-ons — it’s a 1988 time capsule. Pee-Wee’s…
The stylistics of documentary filmmaking helped wipe out the old Hollywood way of doing things, and this sharp look at Olympic skiing is a prime example. Michael Ritchie became a director to be watched filming a killer competitor (Robert Redford), a blaze on the ski slopes and an SOB in every other aspect of his…
Trey Parker and Matt Stone’s ‘outrageous, irreverent’ comedy is a gusher of pointless profanity and smut that will cheer the myriad fans of South Park. The ultimate message of this cringe-worthy spectacle is that liberals are dupes and traitors, foreigners are either evil or morons, and kicking ass around the world is our national birthright. Go…
Dalton Trumbo and Nathanael West contributed to the screenplay for John Farrow’s suspense adventure about a plane crash in the Amazon jungle — who will survive? Lucille Ball is the ranking castaway in a glossy RKO thriller that’s been restored to a fine polish. Five Came Back DVD-R The Warner Archive Collection 1939 / B&W…
Alan Rudolph goes all mushy on us, but in a good way. This loose, somewhat cartoonish comedy pits detectives Tom Berenger and Elizabeth Perkins on opposite sides of a hot case. All they uncover is one illicit love affair after another… while getting personally involved too. A quirky romantic favorite. Love at Large Blu-ray KL…
Make room for Mota, the man from Mars! Mota enlists a scientist and two thugs to lay the groundwork for a full-scale invasion from space. Only the heroes of Fowler Aerial Patrol can save us! Republic’s serial adventure ought to carry an “80% Recycled” label — even the flying disc craft is second-hand, bearing a…
Akira Kurosawa goes full tilt humanist with this emotionally wrenching, vastly insightful look at human nature. A faceless bureaucrat, alone and empty, is diagnosed with stomach cancer. He rebels and breaks down, but then finds a way to give meaning to his life even as he’s losing it. Kurosawa one-ups the Italian Neorealists by seeing…
Emma Thompson both wrote and stars in this latter-day Jane Austen adaptation, blessed with fine locations and costumes, a congenial cast and attentive direction by Ang Lee. Kate Winslet consolidates her newfound stardom as a second Austen husband-seeker, lost in a maze of family intrigues and betrayals. But none are so severe as to prevent…
Ken Burns and Co. made a big splash with this historical docu miniseries that in 1990 gripped the imagination of the whole country. Eleven hours of history are a breeze when presented in what was then a new form: authentic photos and paintings accompanied by actorly recitals of letters and documents from the era. It…