CineSavant

Blu-ray Eureka Nicolas Roeg's bizarre blend of high drama, searing sex and over-the-top brutality waited a year, only to be given a tiny American release. It then dropped out of sight. We're now in a better position to appreciate the show's great actors - especially Theresa Russell, the boldest and bravest actress of the 1980s.

Blu-ray + Digital HD The VVitch This is not your garden-variety horror picture -- its scares stem from primal guilt and fear of supernatural demons and devils that we can't entirely dismiss because people still believe in them enough to do terrible things. Robert Eggers' first film is the best-reviewed horror picture of its year, and quite an achievement.

Blu-ray Wim Wenders: The Road Trilogy A major talent of the New German Cinema finds his footing out on the open highway, in a trio of intensely creative pictures that capture the pace and feel of living off the beaten path. All three star Rüdiger Vogler, an actor who could be director Wim Wenders' alter ego.

DVD-R Edge of Doom Remember Charlie Chaplin's 'The Killer with a Heart?' You too will be frustrated by this well-produced story of a slum kid who commits an unpardonable crime... except that a do-gooder priest wants to pardon him. Dana Andrews and Farley Granger star but the good work is in the smaller roles of this urban tragedy.

Blu-ray The Private Affairs of Bel Ami Cad, bounder, dastard... look those words up in an old casting directory and you'll probably find a picture of George Sanders. Albert Lewin's best movie is a class-act period piece with terrific acting from Sanders, Angela Lansbury, Ann Dvorak, John Carradine, Warren William and many more, and a powerful '40s picture that most people haven't...

Blu-ray Garden of Evil Bernard Herrmann music + weird landscapes = Nirvana. This big-star western tale has an unbreakable story but terrible dialogue and weak characters.  Yet for fans of adventure filmmaking it's a legend thanks to a thunderous Bernard Herrmann music score that transforms dozens of uncanny, real Mexican locations into something other-worldly.

That’s Sexploitation! Aside from the obvious appeal of this smörgásbord of dirty movie delights, cult director Frank Henenlotter hosts a good history of soft-core film smut in all its forms. Includes excellent clips and input from one of the ‘greats’ in this field, David F. Friedman. Remember, it’s for educational purposes only. That’s Sexploitation! Blu-ray Severin Films...

Blu-ray The Naked Island Don't let your boss see this movie, it'll give them ideas. Writer-director Kaneto Shindo reduces the human drama to its basics, as an isolated family endures a backbreaking existence of dawn 'til dusk toil to eke out a living. It's a beautiful but humbling ode to adaptability and human resolve. And the show has no...

Blu-ray A Married Woman Here's something special, a Godard movie about people as much as concepts, and the dialogue doesn't sound as if it belongs in cartoon bubbles. Jean-Luc Godard turns his intellect to the subject of relationships and reveals a lot about himself. It's a beautiful show too -- with the incredible Macha Méril visually cut up for...

DVD-R Cinema’s Exiles: From Hitler to Hollywood Banished by Josef Goebbels and threatened by the Reich, the creative core of the German film industry found itself in sunny Los Angeles, many not speaking English but determined to carry on as writers, directors and actors. More than simply surviving, they made a profound impact on Hollywood moviemaking.

Blu-ray Mustang This one will get to you. Director Deniz Gamze Ergüven takes on a difficult subject -- the terrible treatment of young girls by relatives enforcing conservative moral prerogatives. Sidestepping issues of religion, she makes a powerful case for the rights of women, with the help of five marvelous young actresses; her show is funny, scary...

Blu-ray The Chase (1946) An exercise in dizzy disorientation, this Cornell Woolrich crazy-house noir pulls the rug out from under the audience at least three times. You want delirium, you got it -- the secret words for today are "Obsessive" and "Perverse." Innocent Robert Cummings is no match for sicko psychos Peter Lorre and Steve Cochran.

Blu-ray What? What is this -- a naughty sex odyssey as absurdist art?  Or a non-PC slice of sleazy art film exploitation? Either way it's a (minor) Polanski masterpiece of direction, influenced by the Italian setting.  Is this what turns Polanski on?  The entire excercise is a Kafka comedy of erotic discomfort.

Blu-ray A Kiss Before Dying Robert Wagner as a social climbing psycho killer?  I knew it!  'Mr. CinemaScope Smile' grins only once or twice in this movie, and then only to fool an unsuspecting woman. A great cast brings tension to Ira Levin's outrageous tale of murder. Joanne Woodward has a powerful role, but this time out my heart throbs...

Blu-ray Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? Stand back, watch the fur fly and don't forget to duck -- this is surely the most psychologically toxic play ever adapted for film. The legends Liz and Dick are terrific, and Mike Nichols conquers the screen in his first job of direction.

Blu-ray Phoenix What's contemporary Europe got that we ain't got? Powerful, serious filmmaking like that by Christian Petzold, starring the impressive Nina Hoss. Their sixth collaboration is a loaded narrative that takes some pretty wild narrative themes -- plastic surgery, hidden identities -- and spins them in a suspenseful new direction.

Blu-ray Candy The dirty book of the '60s became an all-star dirty movie with Brando, Burton, Starr, Coburn, Matthau, Astin, Aznavour and Huston all wanting a taste of the Swedish nymphet Ewa Aulin. Camerawork by Rotunno, designs by Dean Tavoularis, effects by Doug Trumbull -- and the best material is Marlon Brando making goofy faces as a...

Blu-ray In a Lonely Place It's a different Bogart -- a character performance in a Nicholas Ray noir about distrust anxiety in romance. Gloria Grahame is the independent woman who must withhold her commitment... until a murder can be sorted out. Which will crack first, the murder case or the relationship?

DVD Janis: Little Girl Blue An amazing talent gone way too soon, Janis Joplin is more than her boozy, brash public image. This bio docu has the personal background and the insights of those her knew, plus the Texas and San Francisco context in the Rock breakout of the late 1960s.

Blu-ray Where to Invade Next America's favorite gadfly has made something worth watching -- a European tour of Great Ideas that American would do well to steal outright -- even if many of those ideas originated here. Not that anyone will listen, but Hail the Conquering Hero just the same.

Blu-ray Julia One of the best-remembered dramas of the '70s gives us controversial actresses, a lavish production and a story by the even more controversial Lillian Hellman. Director Fred Zinnemann makes it into a suspenseful, deeply affecting experience.

Blu-ray Theory of Obscurity: A Film About The Residents These are the Eyes that Satirize! Everybody's seen their imagery but few know the story of these anonymous performance artists and their avant-garde music. Their highly creative songs and videos satirize the commercialization of art and music, and they've chosen a real 'you'll never get rich' way to stay clear of the commercial undertow.

Blu-ray Dead Pigeon on Beethoven Street The irrepressible Sam Fuller fashions a crime thriller for German TV with his expected eccentricity: old-fashioned hardboiled scripting, freeform direction and bits of graffiti from the French New Wave. Christa Lang is the femme fatale and Glenn Corbett is the twofisted American hero, whose name is NOT Griff. And yes, a pigeon does bite the...

DVD When You’re Older, Dear Adam & Berlin Around the Corner Film directors trying to express themselves in East Germany had a tough row to hoe, yet quite a few of them dared to stray beyond the confines of social realism. The DEFA Film Library has two new releases from 1966 that were banned and shelved before they could be finished -- and weren't seen until...

Blu-ray In the French Style It's a genuine forgotten gem: American student Jean Seberg's five-year adventure in Paris is mostly a period of romantic frustration. Irwin Shaw and Robert Parrish's look at the problems of an independent woman is remarkably insightful; the chronically miscast and underused Ms. Seberg is luminous.

Region B Blu-ray + PAL DVD Three Brothers (Tre fratelli) Franceso Rosi's warm, thoughtful tale sees a family gathering observe grievous modern problems -- after so much violence in Italian politics people are still looking for humanistic solutions. Philippe Noiret heads a great cast (with Charles Vanel) in this mellow reflection on 'the things of life.'