CineSavant

Blu-ray Sayonara Back when interracial marriage was a shady topic (are those dark days coming back?) the U.S. military had some adjustment issues. Full integration of the ranks didn't remove the anti- Japanese bigotry. James Michener's novel has been transformed into a big-scale romance, with Marlon Brando coming to terms with a split in loyalty between the...

All-region Blu-ray + PAL DVD Ulzana’s Raid Blu-ray fans are now well aware that many great movies unavailable in the U.S., can be easily  found in Europe. One of the best westerns of the '70s is this jarringly realistic cavalry vs. Apaches drama from Robert Aldrich and Burt Lancaster, which used the 'R' rating to show savage details that Hollywood had once...

Blu-ray The Madness of King George It's great when a fancy costume picture really has something to say -- Alan Bennett's crazy tale of a king's episode of mental illness becomes a highly entertaining comedy of errors, but with serious personal and political ramifications. Nigel Hawthorne is exceptionally good as the sovereign whose brain has de-railed; Helen Mirren, Ian Holm, Rupert...

Blu-ray Attack of the Puppet People All hail Bert I. Gordon, who singlehandedly carved out his own niche in 'fifties monster folklore, and even won a battle or two against those sharpies at A.I.P.. His puppet people were originally just 'Fantastic,' but they had to be made into a menace with the "A" word usually reserved for icky poo Giant Leeches,...

Blu-ray The Sissi Collection Think, "I Was a Teenage Empress." A trio of movies tell an optimized version of the life of a 19th century Empress of Austria and Queen of Hungary. It's fuzzy history designed to prop up German morale, but the film is graced with the incredible presence of a teenaged Romy Schneider, whose beauty and personality...

Blu-ray The Miracle Worker Anybody that appreciates good theater and good moviemaking will be in awe of Arthur Penn's marvelous visualization of this tale of a determined woman achieving the impossible -- teaching a child that can neither see nor hear. The knock down, drag 'em out scenes between Anne Bancroft and Patty Duke are unique, to say the...

Blu-ray The Last Laugh The cream of German Expressionist filmmaking of the 1920s is increasingly accessible to modern audiences. The curated restoration of F.W. Murnau's expressionist masterpiece is a beauty -- we finally can experience the film in its full original form.

Blu-ray Cease Fire! — 3-D Here's an Army booster production that got way out of hand: it's a semi-docu using real soldiers, and filmed in Korea near the real combat zones – and filmed in full-scale 3-D. The soldiers, the equipment, everything is real -- even the ammunition used is live, not blanks.

Blu-ray Le Samouraï Jean-Pierre Melville's tale of an emotionless killer is distilled to a narrative minimum. Alain Delon stars as Jef Costello, an imperturbable, ultra- slick hit man who follows a strict personal code. When a contract goes bad, he's caught between irreconcilable compulsions. Following this Zen-like assassin through the mean streets of Paris never seems to get...

Region B Blu-ray Willard and Ben — Region B Guest Reviewer Lee Broughton is back, with a rodent roundup of horror, or more accurately, psychological suspense interrupted by a few salacious slayings. What would Mickey say? The brief synopses of Daniel Mann's Willard and Phil Karlson's Ben that appeared in the horror movie books and magazines that kids in the UK loved to pore...

Blu-ray Desert Hearts By 1985 Hollywood had still only dabbled in movies about the 'shame that cannot speak its name,' and in every case the verdict for the transgressors was regret and misery, if not death. Donna Deitch's brilliant drama achieves exactly what she wanted, to do make a movie about a lesbian relationship that doesn't end in...

Blu-ray He Walked by Night Do you think older crime thrillers weren't violent enough? This shocker from 1948 shook up America with its true story of a vicious killer who has a murderous solution to every problem, and uses special talents to evade police detection. Richard Basehart made his acting breakthrough as Roy Martin, a barely disguised version of the...

Blu-ray Battle Cry Move over James Jones -- Leon Uris clobbers the big screen with a sprawling adaptation of his WW2 combat novel, loaded down with roles for promising young actors. This is the one where twice as much time is spent on love affairs than fighting. War may be hell, but if Mona Freeman, Nancy Olson, Dorothy...

Blu-ray Cannon for Cordoba A middling entry in the genre of blow-it-up big action spectacles, Paul Wendkos' Spain-filmed western gives us all the excitement promised by the poster, but with some cardboard characters and lumpy storytelling. George Peppard is on the job, however, and once again proves he can carry a big picture, flaws and all.

Blu-ray The Pirates of Blood River Can a pirate be a substitute monster? Hammer Films gives yet another genre a spin with this box-office winner that launched a sideline in costume adventures. The Hammer crew makes it work: Christopher Lee, Marla Landi, Marie Devereaux, Michael Ripper, Oliver Reed and Andrew Keir, plus yank assistance from Kerwin Mathews and Glenn Corbett.

Blu-ray I’ll Be Seeing You This unusually sensitive, overlooked WW2 romance skips the morale-boosting baloney of the day. Two people meet on a train, each with a personal shame they dare not speak of. Ginger Rogers and Joseph Cotten are excellent under William Dieterle's direction, and Shirley Temple doesn't do half the damage you'd think she might.

Blu-ray The Green Slime Look out! Gamma Gamma Hey! It's the attack of screaming, arm-waving green goober monsters from a rogue planetoid, here to bring joy to the hearts of bad-movie fans everywhere. Just make sure your partner is agreeably inclined before you make it a date movie -- this show has ended many a good relationship, even before...

Blu-ray The Vampire’s Ghost Is it a classic? Well, not exactly, but it's also not a typical disappointing '40s Z-picture. Screenwriter Leigh Brackett pens a nice twist on the Dracula motif, and actor John Abbott is genuinely impressive as what is surely the most low-key vampire on the books. Plus a sexy dance from Adele Mara!

Blu-ray S.O.S. Tidal Wave Republic raids an early RKO talkie for a fantastic special effects sequence, and you won't believe how it's repurposed -- in a story about a TV personality (in 1939!) taking on a corrupt political mob. New York crumbles and is then washed away -- sort of. It's yet another resurfacing of a title that not...

Hypnotic Chill! Monster Thrill! This short article is in the spirit of the crowded ad-mat advertising blurbs that, once upon a time, would show up in the newspaper for horror- related features. The particular composite just below is a fantasy, but since all films back then were for General Audiences, a stack like it is entirely credible. Here, it’s...

Blu-ray Dawson City: Frozen Time This Blu is a fascinating hybrid of experimental film and historical documentary by Bill Morrison of Decasia fame. Lost film history and the vanished era of the Dawson Gold Rush blend into one story -- all touched off by the discovery of tons of rare silent film, buried in the cold ground of the Canadian...

Blu-ray Captain from Castile One of the best Hollywood historical epics takes Technicolor to Mexico for a Production Code version of La conquista: the Inquisition is still bad, but the Church is exonerated. Likewise with the invasion -- Cesar Romero embodies a marvelous Hernán Cortés, substantially less murderous than the one we now know from accurate history books. Tyrone...

Blu-ray + DVD In this Corner of the World Away from Hollywood's stifling commercial limits, Fumiyo Kouno's manga about a young bride in wartime Japan has no illusions regarding the human price of war. Young Suzu takes in a new family, endures the hardships of a militarized country and wartime privations, but nobody is ready for what's coming. Sunao Katabuchi's historical drama makes stunning...

Blu-ray The Killer is Loose Psycho killers long ago lost their novelty, but in 1956 Budd Boetticher and Wendell Corey gave us Leon 'Foggy' Poole, a screen original with limitless appeal. Imagine a time when 'normalcy' was so taken for granted that any weird behavior was enough to give us the chills? Foggy carries this crime potboiler with a refreshing...

Blu-ray Play Dirty In a war film, what's the difference between nasty exploitation and just plain honest reportage? André De Toth made tough-minded action films with the best of them, and this nail-biting commando mission with Michael Caine and Nigel Davenport is simply superb, one of those great action pictures that's not widely screened. It's not 'feel good'...

City of Industry City of Industry Blu-ray KL Studio Classics 1997 / Color / 1:85 widescreen / 97 min. / Street Date October 3, 2017 / available through Kino Lorber / 29.95 Starring: Harvey Keitel, Stephen Dorff, Timothy Hutton, Famke Janssen, Wade Dominguez, Michael Jai White, Lucy Alexis Liu, Reno Wilson, Dana Barron, Tamara Clatterbuck, Elliott Gould. Cinematography:...