Microwave Massacre

'Worst Movie Ever?'   No way. But neither is Wayne Berwick and comic Jackie Vernon's tacky cannibalism tale a piece of art.…

The Spiders (1919)

When Fritz Lang began in film he was a better writer than director. This lavish two-part thriller sees him concocting a multi-genre…

Ingrid Bergman In Her Own Words

Chandu the Magician

Hissable villain Bela Lugosi is in denial --- no, actually star Edmund Lowe is in the Nile, deep-sixed in a sunken sarcophagus.…

These Three

Radical changes were required to adapt Lillian Hellman's Broadway play for post-Code Hollywood, to eradicate a theme that in 1934 was entirely…

Woman in the Dunes

BLOOD SIMPLE, SWEET CHARLOTTE, SUICIDE SQUAD AND OTHER SCATTERED SHOTS AND SHORT ENDS

I’ve been back from my Oregon vacation for a couple of weeks now, and though the getaway was a good and necessary…

Destiny

Death doesn't take a holiday in this, the granddaddy of movies about the woeful duties of the Grim Reaper. Fritz Lang's heavy-duty…

Pioneers of African-American Cinema

It's arrived -- thanks in part to a successful Kickstarter campaign, this nearly comprehensive compendium of American 'Race Films' is here in…

Betrayed

Costa-Gavras sets his focus on right-wing political terror in the American heartland, where FBI agent Debra Winger finds farmer Tom Berenger at…

A Touch of Zen

A Taiwanese wuxia masterpiece from director King Hu: three hours of suspense, visual beauty and amazing action scenes. A beautiful mystery woman…

Cat on a Hot Tin Roof

Liz Taylor scorches the screen (as least as much as it could be scorched in 1958) in a watered-down yet still potent…

The Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai Across The 8th Dimension

The new branded line Shout Selects chooses Buckaroo for special-special edition treatment, with a long making-of docu just like the ones from…

The Gang’s All Here

Wonderful isn't a good enough word to describe this joyful, funny and visually intoxicating Alice Faye musical by Busby Berkeley. Decades later…

Muriel, or The Time of Return

Alain Resnais' deceptively conventional drama is really about interpersonal dynamics: lives lived in the here and now are really anchored in events…

Modesty Blaise

Joseph Losey didn't normally make trendy, lighthearted genre films, and in this SuperSpy epic we find out why -- the impressive production…

‘Neath Arizona Skies

This early John Wayne oater displays the natural star quality and winning personality that sustained him through the 1930s -- it's a…

Miss Sadie Thompson

Rita Hayworth in 3-D, in a hot story that was acceptable for 1925 and 1932, but too racy for repressed 1953. On…

Crimes of Passion

Flamboyant artist Ken Russell was eventually sidelined for what the industry calls 'excess,' but he was a genuine artist, as indicated by…

Mill of the Stone Women (German import)

Mad doctors! Mortiferous maidens! Horrifying hallucinations! A key early Euro-horror and one of the very first in color, this French-Italian production is…

Gun the Man Down

This almost completely forgotten '50s western couldn't compete with the big productions, but it has a good cast -- James Arness, Robert…

Silk Stockings

It's in glorious Technicolor Metrocolor, CinemaScope and StereoPhonic Sound! Fred Astaire's final MGM musical gives him Cyd Charisse and a Cole Porter…

3 Bad Men

What's this? John Ford's last silent western is as exciting and entertaining as his later classics. A trio of horse thieves turn…

Night and Fog

The first and most powerful Holocaust reassessment extends the horror with the assertion that, in 1955, its reality is already fading from…

Scott of the Antarctic

There's nothing more earnest than an English national epic. This one is about a valiant expedition that becomes a low-key disaster. Told straight and…