William Inge’s intense drama of teenage angst comes to HD with rich Technicolor hues. Elia Kazan’s film has only improved, with performances that couldn’t be bettered. For Natalie Wood and Warren Beatty’s Deanie and Bud, sexual suppression leads to emotional hysteria, all against a 1929 backdrop of prohibition and a stock market boom. Pat Hingle,…
Is he a feisty French everyman or a selfish jerk?  :Are we talking about the fictional character Antoine Doinel, or the actor Jean-Pierre Léaud? François Truffaut hit on a genuine New Wave breakthrough, combining drama with ‘interview’ material, but soon proceeded to thrillers and dramas in a standard no-nouvelle vague format. Criterion assembled DVDs of…
Resuming his career after WW2, George Stevens assumed the mantle of Hollywood’s most serious producer-director. His ‘super-western’ is a beautiful piece of filmmaking with an optimistic view of American virtues in conflict. It’s a visual delight, and a genre throwback to unrealistic fights and a hero who may as well be the god of Pioneer…
Howard Hughes’ meddling fingerprints are all over this resort-set noir thriller. Even with RKO’s dynamite stars Robert Mitchum and Jane Russell above the title, the mogul’s endless rewrites and re-shoots guaranteed that it couldn’t earn a profit. Vincent Price, Tim Holt, Charles McGraw and Raymond Burr toil in a show split between light comedy and…
Pairing wine with movies! See the trailers and hear the fascinating commentary for these movies and many more at Trailers From Hell. This week, we have wine pairings for three films starring an actor who is aging like a fine wine himself. My favorite JB movie is The Big Lebowski, but that’s just, like, my…
The Tale of Oiwa’s Ghost 2.35:1 – 1961 – 94 Min. Radiance Films – Blu-ray Starring Yoshiko Fujishiro, Tomisaburô Wakayama Written by Tai Katô Directed by Tai Katô No silent film star ever suffered quite so much as Yoshiko Fujishiro, the star-crossed heroine of The Tale of Oiwa’s Ghost. Fujishiro plays Oiwa, a prototypically obedient…
When the big boss croaks, veepees maneuver to take the top slot in a furniture company. Ernest Lehman’s first big screenplay was brought to the screen by Robert Wise and a cast of All Stars: William Holden, June Allyson, Barbara Stanwyck, Fredric March, Walter Pidgeon, Shelley Winters, Paul Douglas, Louis Calhern, Dean Jagger and Nina…
Crime fighting gets personal in Fritz Lang’s progressive police vengeance saga. It’s Glenn Ford as an ex-cop against the mob, and his only assists come from a doomed bargirl, a handicapped woman, and the moll of mobster Lee Marvin. Every scene has tension or implied violence, much of it directed toward women. It was a…
Last September I wrote a short review of writer/director Damian Mc Carthy’s (he prefers his last name spelled with a space between the “Mc” and “Carthy”) 2024 film, Oddity (here’s a link). I praised his distinctive and off-kilter sensibility and wrote that he was a welcome new talent to the horror field. That’s all true,…
Since the dawn of the age of cinema, one film stands out from all the others as having mastered the art of storytelling as much as it does explore the depths of the human condition. That film is Citizen Kane. At its beating heart lies the most mysterious of symbolic objects: the Rosebud sled. In…
Pairing wine with movies! See the trailers and hear the fascinating commentary for these movies and many more at Trailers From Hell. This week, our wine pairings are paired with one of Hollywood’s finest pairings, Bogie and Bacall. To Have and Have Not is based on Ernest Hemingway’s book of the same title, although the…
Mario Bava’s big-scale fumetti adaptation hits 4K, an event of major interest in the fantasy fan-scape. John Phillip Law, Marisa Mell and Terry-Thomas are as brilliant as ever, and Ultra HD makes the picture even brighter and sharper. Ennio Morricone’s music is still a delight — the movie doubles as a psychedelic concert. Paramount or…
Let’s clear up a common misconception. Unlike The Blob, ‘The Stuff’ doesn’t eat you. You Eat It … and then it eats you! Larry Cohen takes a page from Professor Quatermass for this satirical slap at blind consumerism and unregulated commerce, in a thriller packed with ooky glob-monsters and people hollowed out like Halloween pumpkins….
And now for something completely different — an art-film creation that’s a surreal delight. Jean-François Laguionie’s allegorical animated fable extends what conventional, ‘organic’ animation could do in 1985. The still images alone fire the imagination. It’s an art-house short subject writ large, that we’re grateful to have seen, especially so handsomely remastered in 4K Ultra…
Reissued for the delight of ’80s horror fans is Tibor Takács’ and Randall William Cook’s ode to bibliophile terror, subcategory facial mutilation. David Chakin’s screenplay allows a demented anti-hero from a scary book to invade our reality: Malcolm Brand gives himself a surgical mix-match appearance by straight-razoring features from the faces of his victims. The…
Pairing wine with movies! See the trailers and hear the fascinating commentary for these movies and many more at Trailers From Hell. This week, we pay tribute to one of Hollywood’s most memorable music men, Lalo Schifrin. 1967’s Cool Hand Luke features an Oscar-nominated original score by Schifrin. He channeled Aaron Copeland for this masterpiece…
We didn’t know that this seven-season success had racked up so many ‘TV firsts’ on its scoreboard. Clint Walker clicked with America as a roving cowboy do-gooder, solving problems and perforating bad guys on a tri-weekly basis. The series is now more impressive in this deluxe remaster; Warners entreé into broadcast TV emphasized quality in…
Take a cinematic trip 2,500 miles into the depths of the Earth, courtesy of a Cold War- era retelling of Jules Verne. Seven scientists search for a haven from the coming nuclear holocaust ‘deep deep down’ by traveling in a drilling submarine-tank they call a Cyclotram. Produced by effects specialists Jack Rabin and Irving Block,…
Brazil 1.85:1 – 1985 – 143 Min. Criterion – 4K Ultra HD + Blu-ray Starring Jonathan Pryce, Michael Palin, Robert De Niro, Kathleen Helmond Written byTerry Gilliam, Tom Stoppard, Charles McKeown Directed by Terry Gilliam It’s Christmastime in what appears to be wartime Britain yet the only sign of a blitz is the rampant kidnapping…
A second 4K release for the Billy Wilder-I.A.L. Diamond classic? Yes, but the advantage goes to the extras, which include unique input from the stars and especially the director. It’s a career best show for Marilyn Monroe, and Jack Lemmon and Tony Curtis give everything they’ve got to a pair of cross-dressing musicians, roles that…
Although 28 Days Later isn’t technically a zombie movie (the monsters aren’t revivified corpses, but people infected with the “Rage Virus”), it’s safe to say that after George Romero’s Night of the Living Dead series, it’s likely the second most influential zombie movie. Purists decried it for the inclusion of “fast zombies,” but overall, the…
Pairing wine with movies! See the trailers and hear the fascinating commentary for these movies and many more at Trailers From Hell. This week, a look at the work of Ronald Reagan, from before he lived on Pennsylvania Avenue. The Girl from Jones Beach is a 1949 comedy starring Reagan, alongside Virginia Mayo and Eddie…
What a terrible title … but it does describe a playwright’s effort to solve the ‘Ireland problem’ with a single cheerful thriller about anti-English terrorism during World War 2. Basil Dearden’s direction is mostly good, and we love the cast: John Mills, Dirk Bogarde, Elizabeth Sellars, Robert Beatty, Barbara Mullen, Eddie Byrne, Joseph Tomelty, Liam…
This gem is too charming to ever become old or creaky; a new viewing confirms it as a pleasing confection for Audrey Hepburn and Humphrey Bogart, a fairy tale with a slightly caustic edge. Filmmaker Billy Wilder caught a lot of flak for ‘brutalizing’ his actresses, when he’s really a romantic softie … with a…
Steven Soderbergh fashions a thinking-fan’s spy picture about the hunt for a traitor among a group of agents that socialize together. Married agents Cate Blanchett and Michael Fassbender are a warm couple in a ‘cool’ business, with a domestic arrangement that allows for ‘professional mistrust’ … neither can be expected to trust anyone on faith…