April 09, 2005
Saturday April 9, 2005

Savant's new reviews today are

Li'l Abner  Paramount
Matango: Attack of the Mushroom People  Media Blasters
Panic in Year Zero! / The Last Man on Earth  MGM and
The Flower of My Secret  Sony Pictures

Fun reviews but not fun news; MGM ceases to be over this weekend. Savant has some associates who will be picked up by Sony and others who will not, and the surfeit of trained Hollywood staff looking for work will go up by a couple of thousand. Savant and Leo parted ways seven years ago, but there was no bitterness and I've kept up with many former friends with unsure futures. Advice to people coming to LA to get into the business: Check first to make sure you have a relative who's an influential industry name. The people who get the best jobs here are usually the ones who don't need to work in the first place.

MGM's unannounced release schedule may quickly evaporate - we have no idea if the MGM/UA/ORION library will be marketed in the same way. Savant even has some editorial work tied up in Special Editions that might be delayed or sidelined. But in Hollywood's way of doing things, the MGM lion will be coming back to the original MGM lot now owned by Sony, just as the old Warners titles once owned by Turner and tied up at MGM are now back at Warners. Confusing? I hope so, as I can't keep it straight half the time.

Just got in some hefty Criterion boxes that will be keeping Savant busy, including the Andrej Wajda war trilogy that I've never seen in good versions: A Generation, Kanal and Ashes and Diamonds.

I've actually been a bad boy with reviews this week by knowingly reviewing a double-feature disc that has been withdrawn and is presumably unavailable to most buyers ... but I couldn't help it, I liked the movies too much. Thanks for reading, Glenn Erickson

Posted by DVD Savant at April 09, 2005 11:09 AM