Powerhouse Indicator moves forward to their fourth fancy box of noirs from the studio of Harry Cohn, six pictures stretching from the postwar boom to the end of the original classic noir era. This time around we have some notable directors, and a nice selection of stars — Dennis O’Keefe, George Murphy, Fred MacMurray, Kim…
Yes, sometimes a producer could earn ‘auteur’ status making B pictures. A name that’s never going to be uttered in the same breath as Val Lewton is Sam Katzman, who for the 1950s settled into a profitable tenure making Columbia program pictures. They pretty much stayed in the category of ‘obvious junk’ yet include a…
Any WW2 action adventure involving the Norwegian resistance is OK in my book, and this big-star saga about sabotage efforts to stop the Nazis’ atom research is a natural — much of what happens in the story is true. The show can boast marvelous locations and excellent action scenes but the script and characters aren’t…
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 get three movies we can listen to as well as watch. We’ll have appropriate wine pairings for these Jazzed Up films. Round Midnight is the 1986 film about a musician…
The Little Rascals Volume 2 Blu ray – The ClassicFlix Restorations ClassicFlix 1930 / 1.37:1 / 225 Min. Starring Jackie Cooper, June Marlowe, Margaret Mann Written by H.W. Walker Directed by Robert F. McGowan Religion may be the opiate of the masses but nostalgia runs it a close second. And there’s no narcotic more soothing…
Every once in a while a movie makes me think, ‘this one’s too good to review, just tell them to see it and they’ll understand.’ John Cusack is a penny-ante small stakes cheat, his girlfriend Annette Bening hooks on the side while seeking a partner for ‘long cons,’ and his mother is an operative for…
It’s yet another masterpiece from the Italian director Francesco Rosi, adapting a fiction novel about a political murder conspiracy that is altogether too much of a good fit for the troubled Italy of 1975. Crime star Lino Ventura is the incorruptible detective investigating a series of killings of high-level judges, who begins to intuit that…
It’s low-rent Noir A Go-Go: Angela Lansbury is a double-crossing femme fatale in this independent cheapie with modest charms. You can’t trust anyone these days, especially real estate developers with plans to collect YOUR life insurance. Lansbury is the seductive ‘motivator’ with a preference for late-night rendezvous in the high mountains, where everything is a…
Pairing wine with movies! See the trailers and hear the fascinating commentary for these movies, and many more, at Trailers From Hell. This week’s trio of films takes its name from the 1949 movie, Train of Events, which tells various stories as a train hurtles toward an explosive end. Let’s get to watching and drinking…
Pairing wine with movies! See the trailers and hear the fascinating commentary for these movies, and many more, at Trailers From Hell. This week’s selections are films which offer different views of dysfunction and the corresponding unction, without compunction. And, we’ll try to find some laughs along the way. The 2017 Russian movie, Loveless, actually…
Ignored, maligned and hammered out into an ‘Alan Smithee’ extended cut for TV, David Lynch’s outstanding Sci-fi epic arrives on 4K Ultra HD, finally achieving the visual opulence on home video that it had in 70mm prints at the end of 1984. The fractured, de-Lynched storyline can be argued over, but the amazing design and…
Surreal delirium in cinema! Gary Cooper and Ann Harding are a tragic romantic pair, but even when separated by space, time and the law they manage to live a full life together as virtual dream lovers. The odd art film out in Henry Hathaway’s career, this unabashed spiritualist fantasy was adopted by French surrealists as…
Hammer Horror: Four Gothic Horror Films Blu ray – All Region Imprint 1971-72 Starring Ingrid Pitt, Peter Cushing, Eric Porter Cinematography by Kenneth Talbot, Dick Bush Directed by Peter Sasdy, John Hough, Robert Young In December of 1959, Hammer Studios released a bit of Yuletide cheer called The Stranglers from Bombay, a censor-baiting melodrama highlighted…
Foreseeing a relaxation of censorship on the horizon, England’s Titan Films filmed this mad surgery opus with far more gore and cruelty than was the norm in 1967-68, and their gambit paid off. Horror favorite Peter Cushing stars with Sue Lloyd, a pair nobody expected to show up in a shocker with such a high…
Pairing wine with movies! See the trailers and hear the fascinating commentary for these movies, and many more, at Trailers From Hell. For this week’s movies, look no farther than the end of your arm. Let’s give the TFH gurus a hand for coming up with these choices. If you ever sat around a campfire…
Cecil B. DeMille delivers a satisfying western epic starring Barbara Stanwyck, Joel McCrea, Robert Preston, Brian Donlevy & Akim Tamiroff; the story of the building of a railroad is historically bogus but highly entertaining and action-filled. Joel McCrea is our favorite ethical frontier lawman; here he’s a troubleshooter keeping crooks, Indians and proto-Bolsheviks from delaying…
Another unexpected comic treasure from the mid ’70s! Jeff Bridges and Sam Waterston make an irresistible pair of would-be outlaws in a tale of the modern West — high-country Montana, actually — where a gentleman rancher from New Jersey owns all the land and making an honest living is just too boring. Thomas McGuane’s hilariously…
Yasuzo Masumura takes horror into kinky territory in an Edogawa Ranpo shocker about obsession, namely, mixing sex and death. Michio is the tactile-fixated blind sculptor who imprisons model Aki to serve as an ultimate objectified ‘body’ — but she eventually joins him, taking the lead on a delirious suicidal journey of discovery. Probably once considered…
When appraised in the cold light of day, The Wild Life (1984) stands as a fairly minor ’80s teen comedy, lacking the flash of broader, more risqué fare like Porky’s (1982) or the great characters that populated instant classics of the genre like 1982’s Fast Times At Ridgemont High (more on that in a second),…
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 a salute to three feline references in the movies. I belong to an online group of people in my neighborhood, which puts forth a daily email blast of my…
It’s a collection of 6 — count ’em Six — horror and sci-fi curiosities from the ’40s and ’50s, aimed straight at covetous fantasy film addicts. Wacky scripts, strange characterizations and poverty row production values are on view, but the fine transfers reveal professional cinematography and occasional impressive direction. The films are definitely of their…
Guest reviewer Lee Broughton returns with an assessment of Sammo Hung’s groundbreaking Hong Kong hit wherein comedy, horror and martial arts elements are brought together in a wholly successful way. This show has it all: kung fu action, duelling mystics, hopping vampires, hungry zombies, haunted mirrors and a sympathetic everyman whose danger-fraught narrative trajectory is…
The Daimajin Trilogy Blu ray – All Region Arrow Films 1966 Starring Miwa Takada, Kojiro Hongo, Hideki Ninomiya Cinematography by Fujio Morita, Shozo Tanaka, Hiroshi Imai Directed by Kimiyoshi Yasuda, Kenji Misumi, Kazuo Mori Japanese monsters seem to bring out the best in home video companies—Arrow Films’ The Daimajin Trilogy is the most beautifully wrought…
Andrzej Wajda’s most celebrated film in the West is a serious thriller about doubt and corruption in a Poland ‘liberated’ by the Soviet Union. It has a cerebral script and a hero with a hipster attitude befitting a window of relative freedom briefly given to Polish filmmakers. Touted as the James Dean of the Eastern…
The Last Man on Earth Blu ray Kino Lorber 1964 Starring Vincent Price Cinematography by Franco Delli Colli Directed by Sidney Salkow, Ubaldo Ragona The Last Man on Earth is the very definition of a one-man show—Vincent Price stars as a lonesome medico who isn’t lacking for company—it’s just the wrong kind: each night he’s…