CineSavant
Ikiru
Akira Kurosawa goes full tilt humanist with this emotionally wrenching, vastly insightful look at human nature. A faceless bureaucrat, alone and empty,…
Articles by Glenn Erickson
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Sense and Sensibility
Emma Thompson both wrote and stars in this latter-day Jane Austen adaptation, blessed with fine locations and costumes, a congenial cast and…
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Ken Burns’ The Civil War
Ken Burns and Co. made a big splash with this historical docu miniseries that in 1990 gripped the imagination of the whole…
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The Brain that Wouldn’t Die
Forget your 'Jan in the Pan' jokes and all those 'thing in the closet' remarks about gay subtext. This loopy, kooky and kinky…
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Queen of Blood
Curtis Harrington took an assignment nobody else would and fashioned a gem of low-budget Sci-Fi. A Russian space epic provides expensive-looking special…
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The Hurricane
John Ford and Samuel Goldwyn's South Seas disaster picture can boast spectacular action and compelling romance. The unjustly imprisoned Jon Hall crosses half…
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Forbidden Hollywood Volume 9
Depraved convicts ! Crazy Manhattan gin parties! Society dames poaching other women's husbands! A flimflam artist scamming the uptown sophisticates! All these…
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Don’t Look Back
D.A. Pennebaker puts cinema verité on the map with his terrific up-close docu portrait of Bob Dylan as he runs from concert…
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Black Widow
Forget film art for a minute. Bob Rafelson and Ronald Bass's smart and sexy murder thriller throws Debra Winger and Theresa Russell…
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No Man’s Woman
Shall we sing the praises of actress Marie Windsor? A self--assessed Queen of the Cheapies, she was anything but cheap, gracing some…
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In Cold Blood
More than one feature film looks at the making of this picture, focusing on its author, Truman Capote. Criterion's disc returns the discussion to…
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Terror At the Mall
Is this exploitation, or is it needed documentation of a modern horror that's become all too frequent? It's a Terrorist assault on…
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Pitfall
This is a GREAT film noir. A straying husband's 'innocent' dalliance wrecks lives and puts his marriage in jeopardy. Been there, done…
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Come Fly With Me
Dolores Hart, Pamela Tiffin and Lois Nettleton are flight attendants aiming to snag three attractive, wealthy husbands right out of the air…
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Phase IV
I have the full rundown on the notorious spacey alternate ending to this sci-fi winner by design specialist Saul Bass. The ants…
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The Fireman’s Ball
Milos Forman was the prince of the Prague Spring with this Czech New Wave classic, a hilarious black comedy about the cheerful…
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Mr. Holmes
This one's a keeper, a film that generates a meaningful emotional charge. Ian McKellen and director Bill Condon re-team for an intensely…
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Dr. Terror’s House of Horrors
Christopher Lee and Peter Cushing costar in a worthwhile horror attraction -- and for once even share some scenes. Amicus gives us…
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Broken Lance
Edward Dmytryk's big-scale cattle empire saga sees paterfamilias Spencer Tracy drive away his sons and bull his way into a modern civil…
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Passage to Marseille
Michael Curtiz's wartime tale of Devil's Island convict Humphrey Bogart fighting to get back and defend France has a still-controversial scene of…
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Devil in a Blue Dress
Carl Franklin scored with this exciting adapation of Walter Mosley's first 'Easy' Rawlins detective tale, starring a terrific Denzel Washington as the…
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Croupier
A classy crime thriller, with edgy suspense and twists that can't be predicted. Mike Hodges directs Paul Mayersberg's script about a frustrated…
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Run of the Arrow
Sam Fuller's superior western classic stars Rod Steiger, Brian Keith, Charles Bronson and Sarita Montiel, and takes on a tall stack of…
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Living in Oblivion
Tom DiCillo's satire about the pitfalls of low budget filmmaking is less farce than it is a loving valentine to the difficult…
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Mulholland Dr.
Ambiguous Ave.? Bizarro Blvd.? David Lynch's major mystery movie is back looking better than ever in a 4K transfer. Criterion's presentation accompanies…
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Tenderness of the Wolves
The catalyst behind Ulli Lommel's perverse horror masterpiece might be writer-actor-art director Kurt Raab. He's almost too convincing as Fritz Haarmann, an…