CineSavant
Murders in the Rue Morgue / The Dunwich Horror
Look out! Here come two A.I.P. horror pix from the soggy end of the Poe cycle: the first features Jason Robards, an…
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Fear of the Velvet Curtain
MURIELS ROUNDUP
Spotlight more or less ran the table at the Independent Spirit Awards last Saturday night in Santa Monica, picking up honors for…
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Bad Boy
This proto- juvenile delinquent epic launched celebrated WW2 warrior Audie Murphy on the road to Hollywood fame, fortune and more troubled times. Audie commits…
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The Decline of Western Civilization, + Part II The Metal Years
The formidable Penelope Spheeris penetrates L.A.'s punk and glam rock scenes, connecting with surly malcontents that would greet a normal docu with flipped fingers…
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Contagion
Savant goes back five years to praise Steven Soderbergh's superb pandemic thriller, the one that warns us to never, ever shake hands…
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Donovan’s Brain
Blinded by science! And no, it's not a sequel to Donovan's Reef. Lew Ayres yanks the living brain out of a dying…
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The Hawaiians
The sequel to the epic Julie Andrews road show picture wasn't a hit, but it tells a good story of its own.…
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Revolt of the Slaves
Let's give a cheer for the lowly sword 'n' sandal epic. This persecution and torture spectacle also takes in the martyrdom of…
Fear of the Velvet Curtain
MY LAST-MINUTE OSCAR PREDICTIONS
It’s been such a good year at the movies that I’m a little bit surprised by the degree to which I’m approaching…
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The Vincent Price Collection III
Shout Factory opens the crypt once more, for the last remaining UA and AIP fright movies starring our favorite gentleman of horror.…
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Cowboy
Delmer Daves' easygoing cattle drive western can't make an action hero out of Jack Lemmon, but with fine work from co-star Glenn…
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The Graduate
What can you say to such success? Mike Nichols and Buck Henry's sex satire defined 'the generation gap' for the sixties. Dustin…
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Key Largo
Bogie and Bacall are back, but with Edward G. Robinson's oily gangster breathing down their necks -- "Nyah!" Excellent direction (John Huston)…
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Childhood’s End
After 63 years somebody has taken a crack at Arthur C. Clarke's monumental sci-fi novel. This interpretation throws the emphasis way out…
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The Black Sleep
It's an All Star monster rally -- Lon Chaney Jr.! John Carradine! Bela Lugosi! Basil Rathbone! Tor Johnson!…
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5 Dolls for an August Moon
A "lesser" Mario Bava is still a fountain of great filmmaking; and this annihilating melodrama sees a score of greedy folk wiped…
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Oh! What a Lovely War
A pure-gold Savant favorite, Sir Richard Attenborough's first feature as director is a stylized pacifist epic of the insane tragedy of WW1,…
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Spotlight
One of the best pictures of 2015 is an accurate and relevant movie about a truly difficult subject. Mark Ruffalo, Michael Keaton,…
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Where the Sidewalk Ends
Otto Preminger looks at police corruption and comes up with a classy noir starring Dana Andrews as a rogue cop and Gene…
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Millennium / R.O.T.O.R.
Two 1980's science fiction efforts from the 'eighties: Millennium is an expensive book adaptation with Kris Kristofferson and Cheryl Ladd navigating a…
Fear of the Velvet Curtain
THE STRANGE CASE OF BILLY WILDER’S BUDDY BUDDY
Billy Wilder’s Buddy Buddy (1981) might be one of the most obvious go-to examples in the annals of conventional wisdom when it…
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All Things Must Pass: The Rise and Fall of Tower Records
Remember Tower Records? The saga of the massive brick & mortar music retailer is a great story with marvelous characters. When you…
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Inside Llewyn Davis
Joel and Ethan Coen drop most of the sarcasm for their deeply felt character study. Everything's a big problem for Llewyn: a…
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The Vikings
Richard Fleischer's Viking saga is a great star showcase for the grinning one-eyed Kirk Douglas, sullen one-handed Tony Curtis and the heavy-breathing,…
CineSavant
The Big Sleep
We've waited long enough: Bogart's take on Raymond Chandler's tough guy Philip Marlowe is finally on Blu-ray, with Lauren Bacall hyped as…