CineSavant

Blu-ray Dracula: Prince of Darkness How to shake up a mid-sixties slump at Hammer Films? It's back to basics time, with Christopher Lee returning in a most unusual way, because there wasn't much left of him at the finish of his first outing as the number one supernatural public enemy. Terence Fisher is also back, enlivening the third film in...

Blu-ray The True Story of Jesse James Nicholas Ray's CinemaScope detour into outlaw Americana is yet another sincere artistic effort muffled by studio interference. Ray sought to examine a legend in terms of folklore and celebrity. Fox just wanted a cheap remake of its 1939 hit and undermined the director all the way. It's a potentially great film marred by clumsy reshoots...

Blu-ray The Sea Hawk Grand action entertainment bursts forth on the high seas, showing us how much production value Golden Hollywood could lavish on an exciting, artful swashbuckler. Errol Flynn is at his glorious best, backed by greats like Flora Robson, Henry Daniell and Claude Rains in fine form. The special effects and full-sized ship sets impress in ways...

The Magnificent Ambersons Hollywood’s most tragic ‘mangled masterpiece’ gets a new lease on life with this special edition of what could have been Orson Welles’ greatest film, had RKO not intentionally destroyed it to sully the stature of the unlucky Boy Genius. The movie can’t be reconstructed but its reputation can be restored — the story of the...

Blu-ray The Atomic Cafe Duck and Cover!  And while you're down there, enjoy a Flaming Atomic Cocktail!  Loader, Rafferty & Rafferty's influential documentary-satire uses authentic '50s films and songs to illuminate the lies and myths about Cold War civil defense. You'll laugh, you'll cry, you'll be like children in the face of a horror being characterized as an inconvenience...

Blu-ray Dark of the Sun It's tendon-biting combat, with guns, trains, planes, chainsaws, and an indestructible all-terrain vehicle (that still couldn't stand the potholes in the street of Los Angeles)!  Rod Taylor, Jim Brown and Yvette Mimieux blast their way through one of the roughest of the '60s action spectacles, as mercenaries on a mission of mercy that's really a...

Blu-ray De Niro & De Palma The Early Films No 1960s film student had more on the ball than Brian De Palma, who enlisted a smart group of collaborators to pull together his voyeuristic student-filmmaking, Alfred Hitchcock-worshiping early experimental pictures. In these three early features we can feel the director being influenced in multiple directions -- do ensemble comedy and Godard-esque minimalism have a...

Blu-ray Sawdust and Tinsel Ingmar Bergman's 'sad comedy' finds desperation and adultery in his favorite milieu, the theater. He also gets to contrast the self-important thespians with those dubious circus nomads, even as both groups are shunned by civilian society.

Sunshine Sunshine Blu-ray Redwind Productions 1973 / Color / 1:33 flat / 124 min. / Street Date 2018 / Signature Release / 33.95 Starring: Cristina Raines, Cliff De Young, Meg Foster, Brenda Vaccaro, Bill Mumy, Alan Fudge, Corey Fischer, James Hong, Bill Stout, Noble Willingham. Cinematography: Bill Butler Film Editor: Buddy Small, Richard M. Sprague Original...

Blu-ray Horror of Dracula The best of all Hammer horror pictures finally comes to Region A Blu-ray, with a bright transfer made to look like original Technicolor prints. This is where Christopher Lee and Peter Cushing came into their own as international stars, as the undead Count Dracula and the no-nonsense vampire killer Van Helsing. It's the bridge between...

Blu-ray The Thing From Another World Intrepid soldiers and scientists battle a bloodsucking alien invader at the top of the world!  The Warner Archive Collection releases Howard Hawks' incomparable Science Fiction thriller, a long-desired favorite. Long handicapped by missing scenes, this RKO classic is intact once again, complete with its nerve-rattling bombastic Dimitri Tiomkin music score.

The Outer Limits, Season Two It’s here, the second half of the science fiction TV series from the 1960s, restored and remastered. It’s really only half a season and the creative team has been swapped out, but several gems are every bit as good as episodes from year one. Plus acting disc producer David J. Schow ladles on the extras...

Blu-ray The Puppet Masters Robert Heinlein's frighteningly brilliant sci-fi horror concept spawned an entire generation of biological invasions from outer space. Stuart Orme's faithful, authorized adaptation has a lot going for it, including sensationally good, gloppy special makeup effects, and a commanding performance from a dour, authoritative Donald Sutherland.

DVD A Coffin for the Sheriff & Blood at Sundown Guest reviewer Lee Broughton returns with more vintage Spaghetti Westerns. Prolific Italo western star Anthony Steffen shoots first in Alberto Cardone's gothic vengeance drama Blood at Sundown, and plays the revenge game straight up in Mario Caiano's A Coffin for the Sheriff. The double bill disc also features appearances by genre stalwarts Gianni Garko, Erika...

Blu-ray Hallelujah the Hills Adolfas Mekas made his mark in American independent filmmaking with this avant-garde comedy that shook up film festivals circa 1963. Although it is said to have inspired Andy Warhol, it's its own animal entirely, eighty minutes of cinematic frivolity that's too sincere to be a parody of the filmic conventions it so happily celebrates.

Blu-ray Gosford Park At least twenty fine actors and stars make Robert Altman's period piece about a party in a big English country house into a gala occasion. The show is also a fascinating entree into a classed world of masters and servants. The drama of manners could also be described as a mystery who-dunnit. Either way, we're...

Blu-ray Age of Consent A dreamy tropic idyll ... or a dirty old man's movie? Our verdict chooses the first option for Michael Powell's retelling of the old tale of the artist's innocent yet sensual creative adventure with his young model. Producer James Mason eases nicely into the part, but then-newcomer Helen Mirren takes the prize as the most...

Blu-ray A Man Alone Ray Milland directs a fine western drama, strong on character and tension; it garnered enough praise to set him on a second, minor career behind the camera. Milland also stars as a gunman in the wrong place at the wrong time -- framed for a mass murder in an unforgiving frontier town. Who ya gonna...

Clouzot The Early Works A master of suspense admired even by Hitchcock, Henri-Georges Clouzot is famous for acid-tinged thrillers about cold-blooded murder and ugly politics, whether in a French town or a Latin American oil field. But his early writing career was quite different: he provided the scenarios and dialogue for ten years’ worth of clever farces and affecting...

Blu-ray Brewster McCloud Robert Altman's first opportunity to cut loose with an entirely personal film is this scattershot comedy that satirizes the American scene, taking pokes at patriotism, greed, and silly police movies. To his favorite eccentrics from M*AS*H Bud Cort and Sally Kellerman he adds the new discovery Shelley Duvall; the movie's like a bag of absurdist...

Blu-ray + DVD Crazy Rich Asians A surprise hit? This ultra-glamorous rom-com about life among the Singapore 1% would be a fantasy, if everything we see weren't real. Constance Wu and Michelle Yeoh head an all-Asian cast in a celebration of ostentatious excess -- yep, some folks aren't hurting at all. As an expression of Asian ascendency and female power, the...

Blu-ray Georgy Girl Lynn Redgrave burst to stardom with this fine study of romance vs. reality in swinging London circa 1966. Georgy thinks of herself as a plain Jane next to her popular roommate, played by Charlotte Rampling. Alan Bates is the flighty boyfriend and James Mason the old millionaire making indecent proposals. How can a good girl...

DVD Scotty and the Secret History of Hollywood Matt Tynauer's frank, unrated documentary about the wild times of gay and straight hustler-procurer Scotty Bowers is built around his 2012 tell-all book about the Hollywood sex underground of the late '40s and '50s. Scotty tells his own story in a way that compels belief. It's a fine docu but not for all audiences, as...

Blu-ray Nothing Sacred Whaddaya know, this new disc of the Carole Lombard / Fredric March comedy hit looks great, besting by far all previous videos and prints I've seen of the early (1937) Technicolor production. Hazel Flagg's Madcap Manhattan Weekend now pops with brilliant hues. And a little digging tells us that Ben Hecht's morbid premise is based...

Blu-ray The Princess Bride William Goldman and Rob Reiner's unchallenged modern classic captures the magic of fairy tales about noble lovers, loyal warriors and low-down villains. Everybody's terrific, all the characters are hilariously magical and Goldman's writing glows with love for happy storytelling leavened further by sly wit. Criterion presents the Blu-ray in a lush storybook package with a...

Blu-ray Gas, Food Lodging Welcome to the West, long after the frontier has closed. Allison Anders' marvelous drama of a three-girl family is a big step for indie cinema, a highly entertaining examination of women's aspirations and frustrations out on the non-glamorous working class fringe. Writer-director Anders wastes no time with a terrific cast -- Brooke Adams, Ione Skye...