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 go all noir on you, with three dark streets to walk down. Just keep looking over your shoulder. They are still after you. The Burglar is a 1957 film noir…
Michael Curtiz’s flashy and splashy wartime morale booster began as a pre-Pearl Harbor show of support of our Canadian friends’ contribution to the war effort. A vehicle for James Cagney, its script is a trifle about bush pilots competing for a woman and then showing The Right Stuff when it comes time to join up…
The lasting horror of war is the blight it leaves on the lives of those left behind. Early sound pictures tried to deal with the guilt and pain of WW1, and the great Ernst Lubitsch took time out from romantic comedies and musicals for this very grim rumination on lies and responsibility. A French soldier…
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 go a-hunting for wines to pair with three filmfuls of countercultural appropriations. The Trial of Billy Jack was one of 1974’s worst films, to hear the critics tell it. Movie…
This celebrated dysfunctional family story won four Oscars, the most deserved easily being Alvin Sargent’s superb adapted screenplay. The viewer buzz initially centered on the surprise of Mary Tyler Moore’s unexpected casting against type, but even more alarming was author Judith Guest’s scary message that ‘perfect’ families are an illusion. We found the drama absorbing…
Jean-Pierre Melville in 4K? That’s an inviting idea. All of Melville crime pictures are memorable, and this is one of his best-remembered, a traditional caper drama with a wordless heist scene that lasts almost half an hour. The color production stars three big French actors and one Italian. Alain Delon and Gian Maria Volonté are…
The Academy Awards are rarely a popularity contest these days. This year, outside of Dune, none of the big-budgeted blockbuster hits of 2021 have been nominated in any major categories. Dune stands as something of an anomaly among the 2021 nominee crop: a $165 million-budgeted epic that grossed $400.6 million worldwide. Seemingly gone (at least…
There’s always somebody new in the rat race trenches whose motto is ‘how to make friends and deceive people.’ Howard Duff’s photographer uses his camera to extort money from criminals while polishing his image as a grabber of Pulitzer-worthy news photos. But how long can he maintain his charade with mobsters Brian Donlevy and Lawrence…
Arrow Video bumps yet another of its top special edition titles up to 4K Ultra HD, just for home theater enthusiasts after the best and brightest of big screen experiences. The movie looks better than ever, and although the unrated version still packs too much gore overkill for average viewers, we respect the Horror-Comic vibe…
The only woman director to work in Hollywood in the 1950s, Ida Lupino earned full marks as a creative innovator and a positive force in the industry. It was a restrictive time for the movies: politically, socially, every which way. But Lupino’s independent film about a rape victim passed through the censorship gauntlet — as…
Now up for grabs in Region A, it’s the Robert Aldrich movie that wins over all that see it. The epitome of Men In Peril adventures, the tale of 14 random oil men marooned in the Sahara is brutal yet optimistic about human cooperation — please, the world needs more of that right now. James…
They’ve hit us with three remakes of this one, one about another actress and two about music stars — maybe the next will be about a TikTok star. Thanks to an unexpected full digital restoration from original Technicolor elements, this 1937 original once again plays like a winner. Silent legend Janet Gaynor is Esther Blodgett,…
The most prestigious franchise in the Paramount corral hasn’t dimmed in esteem or popularity despite its somewhat lesser third installment. The whole trilogy was given an impressive restoration by Robert A. Harris, and this new remastered 4K set retains that very good work. Francis Coppola can’t be faulted for not wanting to revive the old…
The folks behind the Academy Awards are aware that the Oscars have a popularity problem. Hollywood’s biggest award show has been grappling with declining viewership for decades, and has tackled that in a variety of ways. Last year’s Academy Awards, broadcast in the midst of the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic in a makeshift location and featuring…
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 come up with bottles to go with three movies written by Paddy Chayefsky. The Hospital got Chayefsky another Oscar, for Best Original Screenplay. The 1971 satire stars George C. Scott…
Amidst the ongoing battle for eyeballs between the litany of big streaming platforms, a fight we have called the “Streaming Wars” in past blog entries, several new and persistent entities have emerged. Paramount+, formerly CBS All Access, is making a concerted push for a good chunk of the market, having yanked some of its biggest…
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 three films star the vivacious Tuesday Weld. Weld starred in A Safe Place in 1971, alongside Orson Welles and Jack Nicholson. She played a New York City “hippie chick” who…
The big-scale Cinerama fantasy once thought unrecoverable is back — a terrific restoration brings us George Pal’s ode to fairy tales, filmed on Bavarian locations with an international cast. Laurence Harvey and Karl Boehm are the brothers that compiled the famed tales of princesses, witches, magic spells and fiery dragons. Their idealized biography is interspersed…
There’s nothing so good as being able to consult people who know more than we do, who deal in facts and can back up their assertions with proof. The excellent new Blu-ray for Monster from Green Hell has a nifty color sequence at the end which raised a lot of questions and wrong guesses. Thanks…
It’s the most impressive ‘new’ movie we’ve seen this year: Robert Siodmak’s 1957 political thriller fictionalizes a true mass murder case in 1943 Berlin — one that a high-ranking Nazi wants to justify the extermination of ‘undesirables’ for the furtherance of Aryan white supremacy. The snapshot of home-front Berlin is fascinating, and also the depiction…
The Little Rascals Volume 4 Blu ray – The ClassicFlix Restorations ClassicFlix 1933, ’34, ’35,/ 1.37:1 / 218 Min. Starring George McFarland, Dorothy DeBorba, Dickie Moore Written by H.W. Walker Directed by Robert F. McGowan, Gus Meins Often dismissed for their old-fashioned ways, classic films should be applauded for those very qualities. For better—and sometimes…
Though the title of our article may read as being particularly appetizing, unfortunately we will not be discussing a movie about, say, an abode made entirely of cheese, bread and tomato sauce. When that day does finally dawn, though, we will certainly be ready to type. If you’re wondering what movies were on the minds…
Claude Chabrol was the most prolific of the New Wave directors. He didn’t only do murder thrillers; this fine selection of Chabrols from the ten year period 1985-1994 begins with a pair of detective tales but moves on to a masterful adaptation of a great book and two engrossing experiments, one of them picking up…
Fondly remembered as a permanent resident on all-night movie channels, this patchwork concoction has just enough ‘good stuff’ to qualify as a fun monster show. Jim Davis’s stock-footage safari arrives just in time to be irrelevant to the fate of the title monsters; some good actors are along for what amounts to a picnic in…
Showbiz in Soho is artificial, gaudy and vulgar, but Laurence Harvey’s slick promoter-con man thinks he can cheat at the pop music game. Cliff Richard is his new discovery, a teen crooner who digs the bongo drums. Wolf Mankowitz’s portrait of talent, glitz, and double-dealing in music and TV showbiz also stars Sylvia Syms as…