Pairing wine with movies! See the trailers and hear the fascinating commentary for these movies, and many more, at Trailers From Hell. This week, the Music Matters in three films that gave us a record of three seminal concert experiences. What better reason to crack open a bottle or two? Or three? The 1973 documentary,…
The Yearling Blu ray Warner Archive 1946 / 1.33:1 / 128 min. Starring Gregory Peck, Jane Wyman, Claude Jarman Jr. Cinematography by Charles Rosher, Leonard Smith Directed by Clarence Brown Based on Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings’s 1938 novel, The Yearling revels in the solitary adventures of Jody Baxter, a boy whose untamed nature is reflected in…
Douglas Sirk proves his mettle as a consummate romantic storyteller in these part-musical melodramas from the peak of his career in Germany. They cemented stardom for Zarah Leander, a beauty who could have been an international success had the timing and politics been different. Both pictures send their heroines on far-flung adventures. In To New…
“Learn it. Know it. Live it!” The best-remembered teen comedy of the ’80s is also an insightful and unabashed look at real attitudes, behaviors and motivations of young people learning to deal with adult issues. Beyond the hilarious Sean Penn and the luscious Phoebe Cates lies a talented squad of notables and stars-to-be like Jennifer…
“Two smoldering women made all the danger worthwhile!”… heck, we didn’t even see ’em catch fire. John Wayne is charismatic and Andrew V. McLaglen’s direction is decent for once in this formulaic ‘easy listening’ pot-boiler from the Wayne school of laid-back ’60s entertainment. After winning the Vietnam War, our intrepid action man extinguishes 101 out-of-control…
The man with eyebrows that can kill! Not really, but that’s the impression given by the poster illustration. The Baker/Berman producing team gave their Hammer/Terence Fisher imitation a decent production — good color, autopsy-grade gore, female victims in low-cut gowns — but neither Jimmy Sangster’s script nor the flat direction bring it to life. Donald…
Brilliant filmmaking from Japan: Yasuzô Masumura’s film all but screams in protest, that unfettered consumer capitalism is cannibalism, plain and simple. In the radical director’s scathing, savage satire, Tokyo’s desperate advertising ‘Mad Men’ create a fresh new star celebrity to promote their product, only for the warfare of cutthroat competition to shatter careers, fortunes and…
It’s Marlene Dietrich, before Josef von Sternberg and The Blue Angel — and much of her mystique is already present. This sophisticated German silent observes a precarious, dangerous love triangle. Two men are entranced by the same woman: one deserts his bride on their wedding night and the other may have killed to possess her….
It Happened Tomorrow Blu ray Kino Lorber 1944 / 1.33:1 / 85 min. Starring Dick Powell, Linda Darnell, Jack Oakie Cinematography by Archie Stout, Eugen Schüfftan Directed by René Clair René Clair takes a trip through The Twilight Zone in It Happened Tomorrow, the story of a reporter’s perilous adventure with a different kind of…
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 take the express train, with three stops along the way for a quick drink. The 1994 Hong Kong crime/dramedy/romance Chungking Express has so many genres attached to it, you can…
The Producers Blu ray Kino Lorber 1967 / 1.85:1 / 88 min. Starring Zero Mostel, Gene Wilder Cinematography by Joseph Coffey Directed by Mel Brooks At his most unrestrained, Mel Brooks would have made Voltaire blush. Would such uninhibited comedy survive under the gaze of today’s self-appointed blacklisters? The answer can be found in the…
‘Unabashed, unfettered romanticism’ runs wild in Frank Borzage’s golden-age masterpiece of a runaway wife and the crazy Frenchman who pursues her. Long lost to awful, ragged 16mm prints, the newly restored gem will dazzle fans of delirious love stories, where the right people get together despite distance, time, and the interference of jealous husbands, misunderstandings,…
It’s another CineSavant Revival Screening Review of a show not presently available on disc: not an old favorite, but something we admittedly never heard of … a marvelous 1951 film that’s seemingly been hiding under the carpet for sixty years, despite being directed by Robert Siodmak and starring Lloyd Bridges, Dorothy Gish, Carleton Carpenter, Murray…
John Sturges’ first color western is a tightly organized and unpretentious winner about a stern Union prison warden and a Confederate prisoner teaming up to fight an Apache enemy … wait, that sounds familiar. William Holden and Eleanor Parker strike sparks out on the ruddy mesas, while Sturges has a field day with the amazing…
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 celebrate producer/director Charles Band. Charles Band started making movies in the 1970s and has created a number of films through the decades, many of them in the horror/comedy vein. He…
It’s the granddaddy of British cop dramas of the modern era. The most popular English picture of 1950 introduced PC George Dixon, a warm-hearted constable who would become a staple on BBC TV for 21 years. T.E.B. Clarke’s screenplay of a murder manhunt is stocked with actors American fans know well — Dirk Bogarde, Bernard…
One of the most glamorous / unsavory films noir ever, this creepy tale of a master con-man undone by warped ambition was planned as a career-altering role for the big star Tyrone Power. Power plumbs the depths of personal degradation in terms that even today skew to the squeamish side of human experience. Almost as…
The 4K Ultra HD crowd has a treat in store, for Donnie Boy is back for theatrical quality home screenings. Richard Kelly’s dreamy/morbid teen fantasy has gained in stature in the twenty years (gasp) since the nasty bunny-man ‘Frank’ raised his ugly chrome head… and young Donald’s psychic sci-fi ordeal seems more relevant than ever….
So we went to the movies last Sunday night. 422 days previous, to celebrate Emma’s 20th birthday, we saw our last movie in a theater. And on Sunday night, May 2, the longest drought of theatrical moviegoing I’ve ever been through came to an end with a made-to-order experience for Daddy and child. Back in…
Near the pinnacle of director-driven ’70s cinema is this marvelous comedy about a ‘American Miss’ contest, and the swirl of personalities that come to support, promote and ogle the teen beauties just learning the ropes of the good old U.S. hype machine. Bruce Dern, Barbara Feldon and Michael Kidd are just wonderful as the adults…
Vintage high-end Film Noir from the classic year 1947! Low Mileage too — this long cut hasn’t been seen since the early laserdisc days. I didn’t know it needed restoring until George Feltenstein talked about it a couple of years ago. It’s a domestic noir crossed with Double Indemnity with a little An American…
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 movies are about monsters and kids. How are we to tell them apart? For fans of movies, nothing stirs them quite like a movie about movie fans. Ask anyone…
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 trio of films directed by Lewis Milestone, with pairings to match. Lewis Milestone was a Russian-American director who barely escaped a career in engineering. That’s what his parents…
The Dungeon of Andy Milligan Collection Blu ray Severin Films 1965-1984 / 1.33:1, 1:85.1. Starring Neil Flanagan, Berwick Kaler, Maggie Rogers Cinematography by Andy Milligan Directed by Andy Milligan “I should have killed Andy.” – Jimmy McDonough In 1987 Andy Milligan was working on his latest film, a bloody revenge saga with a Frankenstein theme…
Witness six noir heroes, doing what noir heroes do: one crooked gambler, one psycho, another psycho with access to a gun, a dope railroaded into a prison sentence, and an even bigger dope who doesn’t realize he’s poisoning himself. That’s only five, but the sixth is a cop, and not a particularly compromised one, the…