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 trio of film classics starring the great Gregory Peck. I have always thought – hoped – that Gregory Peck took his Hollywood name after looking up while standing on the…
High-quality chopsocky mayhem! Guest reviewer Lee Broughton returns with an assessment of Jimmy Wang Yu’s action-packed martial arts flick. The combat comes thick and fast when a team of deadly mercenaries are employed to wipe out the honourable pupils of the Zhengde School. Writer-director Jimmy Wang Yu is placed front and centre in most of…
It’s smooth noir sailing with this polished noir from Universal-International and its choice cast of pros — Edmond O’Brien, Ella Raines and William Bendix, plus Vincent Price doing an excellent turn as a Machiavellian businessman, a ‘frame’ expert with a side specialty in double-dealing. Director Michael Gordon earns an early credit at Universal-International with a…
Sam Fuller turns from combat in Korea to cat ‘n mouse games in New York City, with America’s stand-up defenders being exactly one low-life pickpocket and one saucy woman of the sidewalks. Richard Widmark is a charming chiseler with a wicked grin, Jean Peters is the hot number who takes a knockdown as a love…
It’s a new deluxe Limited Edition of Sam Peckinpah’s mangled masterpiece, the third fancy boxed set in as many years. Arrow’s presentation certainly has the edge in graphic elegance. They’ve also strived to include as many earlier extras as possible, plus new analytical-critical takes on the picture, and an excellent (and wickedly funny) visual essay…
Viavision’s second deluxe Film Noir boxed finds real variety in the film style, with entries that range from low-budget efforts to a picture filmed on location in Mexico. Richard Conte solves a notorious movie studio murder in Hollywood Story, Gig Young is a cop who considers going crooked in City that Never Sleeps, Glenn Ford…
Masaki Kobayashi’s six-part adaptation of the book by Jumpei Gomikawa may be the most ambitious, most truthful film about the big-picture reality of war. Idealist Tatsuya Nakadai thinks he can avoid complicity in human evil by volunteering as a civilian to manage a work camp in occupied Manchuria, only to find that he’s expected to…
Favorite director Don Siegel is in fine form in this 1967 TV movie, a keeper with qualities not seen in Hollywood’s mega-westerns of the day. Henry Fonda’s ragged drifter is hunted by a gang of railroad deputies, and chief deputy Michael Parks doesn’t intercede because he can’t control his own men. A great screenplay, Siegel’s…
Alias Nick Beal Blu ray Kino Lorber 1949 / 1.33:1 / 93 Min. Starring Ray Milland, Audrey Totter Cinematography by Lionel Lindon Directed by John Farrow The most sinister light comedian in Hollywood, Ray Milland was never more charming than when he was fixing to cut your throat. In John Farrow’s Alias Nick Beal, 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 “very special” Blood of the Vines for the celebration of the USA’s birthday. The special that’s not really special concerns movies that aren’t really movies. Pass the popcorn. The 1974…
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 examine three films which deal with the atomic age, in one way or another. When I did a Google search for 2017’s Atomic Blonde – just to make sure I…
This unheralded story of the French retreat in 1954 Vietnam is one of the best films ever about guerilla combat. The professional French soldiers do what they can to avoid capture, but the new Lieutenant won’t abandon their wounded. The Alsatian top sergeant fought with the Germans ten years before, yet is the best and…
It’s a big international action epic, filmed in Mexico with a French director. Anthony Quinn is an 18th-century bandit who liberates a Mexican hamlet from marauding Yaqui Indians and a villainous Charles Bronson. Quinn is good, and all the necessary elements are present: fights, handsome scenery and a big battle… but it’s fairly tepid stuff,…
Move over, Angry Young Men: Alfie Elkins leverages class resentment and killer good looks to become a ladies’ man extraordinaire… in his own eyes. Michael Caine was born to play Bill Naughton’s smooth-talking, responsibility-dodging cad’s cad. Alfie mistreats a glorious lineup of actresses — Julia Foster, Jane Asher, Vivien Merchant — and Shelley Winters is…
The Little Rascals Volume 1 Blu ray – The ClassicFlix Restorations ClassicFlix 1929-30 / 1.37:1 / 3 Hr. 43 Min. Starring Allen Hoskins, Jackie Cooper, Mary Ann Jackson Cinematography by Art Lloyd, F. E. Hershey Directed by Robert F. McGowan, Anthony Mack, James W. Horne An epic celebration of the American melting pot, E. L….
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 remember three movies which featured Ned Beatty, who passed away recently. One of the most successful films of 1972 was Deliverance, directed by John Boorman. Ned Beatty played one of…
Marriage, social pressure, professional disappointment — and if you want to be really unhappy, add alcohol to that mix. Fredric March and Sylvia Sidney are convincing sophisticates but also vulnerable people negotiating fragile lives. What can be done when one’s mate is dissolving in booze and drawn to the arms of another? Dorothy Arzner’s best…
It happens every time: we want to cruelly betray somebody, but LOVE keeps getting in the way. When evil Dan Duryea sics con-man louse John Payne on the saintly war widow Joan Caulfield, three other women come tagging along as well, ’cause Payne is just too attractive. The swindle in George Sherman’s unsure noir gets…
Is this a horror classic? I’d certainly say yes, just for the shrewd and sympathetic performance of Peter Lorre as an unlucky immigrant whose disfigurement in a fire turns him to life of crime and vengeance. An impossibly young Evelyn Keyes shines as the sweet love interest but the performances and Robert Florey’s good direction…
It’s still one of the most popular movies ever, and fans are proving that by shelling out for an umpteenth home video release, this time on the 4K Ultra HD format. Everybody knows exactly what to expect from Clint Eastwood, Lee Van Cleef and Eli Wallach, but what about the transfer quality and encoding —…
Once an upstart and now a company to contend with, Britain’s Indicator continues their series of Hammer Studio releases with Hammer Volume Six: Night Shadows, a purely generic subtitle fit for any horror film, Hammer or otherwise. What isn’t generic is Indicator’s winning formula—top notch image quality and boatloads of extra materials including documentaries, commentaries,…
Here’s a GREAT picture whose time has come — Theodore J. Flicker’s spy spoof is one of the smartest, funniest political satires ever, and probably James Coburn’s finest hour as an actor-producer. A high-class shrink knows too many Presidential secrets, making him an international espionage target in a giddy spy chase. Everything leads to an…
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 look at the dark side of the fair sex in a trio of Femme Noir films. The one-sheet for 1947’s Nora Prentiss says “Loving her once is once too often,”…
One of Joe Dante’s finest pictures speaks heart-to-heart to gee-whiz space fans — transporting us from our backyard to the far reaches of the galaxy. With a boost from aliens unknown, Ethan Hawke, River Phoenix and Jason Presson are the intrepid space cadets that construct a fantastic vehicle from mysterious dream-signals, no Interociter required. Their…
Still the fiercest and most cinematic of the first wave of gangster classics, Howards Hughes and Hawks’s pre-Code rule-breaker was the one that brought down the ban on ‘glamorous’ gangster movies. In this case classic hardly means dated: the cars and clothes are vintage but the sex and violence are sizzling hot. Paul Muni is…