Fear of the Velvet Curtain
HEIST FOR THE HOLIDAYS: CASH ON DEMAND (1962)
One could be forgiven for not suspecting that Hammer Films, known for their comparatively lurid and bloody, sometimes pointedly lusty, and otherwise…
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CineSavant
The Scarecrow of Romney Marsh
One part Walt Disney, one part Patrick McGoohan – a bittersweet recipe if ever there was one. The notoriously brusque Irishman was…
CineSavant
Brother Can You Spare a Dime?
Back in the early 1970s I was crazy about Depression-Era Warner Bros. movies, that weren't being shown on TV or anywhere else.…
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Beetlejuice
There never has been (nor will there ever be) anything quite like Beetlejuice, that inimitable horror comedy concoction hailing from the demented…
CineSavant
Trapped (1949)
Noir Nirvana isn't found amid literary swells and hoity-toity art connoisseurs -- but in the trenches of humble Eagle-Lion Films, where Richard…
CineSavant
The Pumpkin Eater
In the fall of ‘64, while Hollywood was gently satirizing the battle of the sexes with Send Me No Flowers and What…
CineSavant
The Anne Bancroft Collection
Remember those DVD collections organized by star, that combined favorite actors' big movies with good titles you might not have seen? Shout…
Fear of the Velvet Curtain
SAD/GLAD TIDINGS: BILL FORSYTH’S COMFORT AND JOY (1984)
Scottish director Bill Forsyth has a strange way, one for which audiences should be eternally grateful, of delivering a symphony of melancholy…
CineSavant
Major Dundee (import)
Sam Peckinpah's 'Mangled Masterpiece' gets a new lease on life with this Austrian import, which corrects all the things that bugged me…
CineSavant
Downton Abbey
Ah yes, we have a winner for the best 'Comfort Food Movie' of them all. When a trailer for this show popped…
CineSavant
Christmas in July
At least the title SOUNDS Christmas-themed! Preston Sturges' sweet trifle is as simple as a sit-com mix-up, but the charm is in…
CineSavant
The Story of Temple Drake
The most notorious pre-Code shocker comes to Criterion -- and proves to be a superior drama with a mature outlook on the…
CineSavant
Abbott & Costello – The Complete Universal Pictures Collection
Two footloose Jersey boys with no particular place to go, Bud Abbott and Lou Costello finally found themselves – literally and figuratively…
CineSavant
The Beast with a Million Eyes
Once again CineSavant becomes intrigued by a minor genre opus normally dismissed in a sentence or two; this Roger Corman production may…
CineSavant
Fritz Lang’s Indian Epic
At the end of his career, Fritz Lang returned to Germany and a producer who gave him a big budget to remake…
CineSavant
Slaughterhouse-Five
Kurt Vonnegut's quirky sci-fi novels didn't always adapt well to film, but George Roy Hill's 1972 effort is a faithful winner. The…
CineSavant
Until the End of the World
An amazing Blu-ray year is now capped by a genuine favorite, rescued by its filmmaker and set aside for almost twenty years.…
CineSavant
The Strange Case of Until the End of the World: CineSavant Archive Articles
I wrote the pair of articles here in 1998 after seeing the long ‘Die Trilogie’ version of Until the End of the…
CineSavant
The Magic Sword
Fresh off producing and directing Tormented, a mildly lurid psychological shocker released in 1960, Bert I. Gordon pointed his next film in…
CineSavant
The Bells of St. Mary’s
One of America's favorite holiday movies plays strangely today, and despite being one of the most popular pictures of its year, really…
Fear of the Velvet Curtain
CINEMATIC GRATITUDE v. 2019
During a year in which the world finds itself increasingly in the throes of totalitarianism and corruption, when institutions, traditions and good…
CineSavant
Now, Voyager
This must be an official Bette Davis month... Criterion has two vintage Davis pictures on offer, and TCM is devoted to a…
CineSavant
Thunderbolt and Lightfoot
Michael Cimino could have done worse for his first directing gig -- a big Clint Eastwood-Jeff Bridges buddy picture with guaranteed major…
CineSavant
RoboCop
Extra-special extras adorn this stunning reissue of a modern sci-fi action classic. Paul Verhoeven's sledgehammer of graphic-novel brutality and wicked political satire…
CineSavant
The Bad and the Beautiful
One of Vincente Minnelli's best is this glamorous 'Hollywood Looks At Hollywood' exposé of sin and conniving among the actors, directors and…