Savant's new reviews today are

Dr. Strangelove 40th Anniversary Special Edition Columbia TriStar
Conquest of Space Paramount
Thriller - a cruel picture Synapse and
Betty Blue (unrated Director's cut) Columbia TriStar

Hello from Savant, who survived another week of real work ("Work!") and come quitting time on Friday, didn't even feel like an idiot ("You Rang?"). This will probably be a quiet Halloween - after 9/11 people are too insecure to open their doors or send their kids out, even if accompanied by adults.

I'll be in cartoonarooney land for a few nights as I'm getting the Warners Golden Animation volume two set to review - and have been told to make it a priority ... hm, I'd be wise to take that as a hint to knuckle down and get my review queue in gear.

Good luck to us all in the election this tuesday ... may everyone's candidate win. Gee, if we have civil war in America, does that mean we can all join partisan militia? Cool.

Thanks for reading, Glenn Erickson

Savant's new reviews today are

Damn Yankees Warners
Animal Farm Home Vision and
Dawn of the Dead The Ultimate Edition Anchor Bay

With Castle Keep now being released in Widescreen in response to the outrage engendered by a Pan-Scan disc last July, I'm informed that Universal may be pulling the same thing with at least two new releases under their 'Studio Selections' banner (like, somebody else would do the choosing?). Colossus: The Forbin Project is a Panavision film that looks crummy Pan-Scanned, and Charley Varrick: The Last of the Independents a very wide 1:85 film that also needs to be letterboxed and enhanced. If my information is correct, both discs due out next month will be flat-adapted to 'fit' outmoded 4x3 television screens. One's a superior science fiction movie and the other a terrific Don Siegel thriller, but neither have a high-profile talent like Sydney Pollack to cause a ruckus and get some changes made. Universal's been very good about aspect ratios and the like in the last couple of years, and we hope they don't intend to start dumping cruddy flat transfers on the market as a common practice.

I have to stress that my information is from a reader and isn't verified by Universal, so this alarm possibly qualifies as uninformed web gossip. Just figured it was in our own best interests to pass this info along ... and I hope it's incorrect!

Three exceptional titles reviewed today; hope to have more by Saturday ... thanks again, Glenn Erickson

Savant's new reviews today are

Castle Keep (Widescreen Version) Columbia TriStar
Deadline Home Vision and
Garden of Allah MGM

So here are three more reviews ... hopefully I'll have a couple more on Tuesday. Since we've missed newsletters two weeks in a row, this Wednesdays emailing will have a tall stack of titles. Thanks! Glenn Erickson

Savant's new reviews today are

Easy Rider 35th Columbia TriStar
The Trojan Women Kino
Suspicion Warners and
Sword and Sandal Double Feature: Giants of Thessaly / Sins of Rome VCI

Savant's finally able to reconnect to the internet, so the spice of Arrakis, make that the reviews with all the fat opinions will continue to flow. I may be trying to launch several more tomorrow to play catch-up, and I apologize to readers who tune in because of the regularity of my reportage. If ya can't be good, at least be on time, mom said.

Helpful hands have slipped me some queasy gore pictures with claim to merit, so I'll be issuing some content warnings on a couple of reviews next week. There are also several great musicals to cover so I'll be plenty busy. Thanks for sticking with Der Savant and his capricious internet providers.

Anybody seen Eyes Without a Face for the first time this week? I'm curious to know how it plays new viewers. Glenn Erickson

Savant's new reviews today are

The Fearless Vampire Killers Warners
Tanner '88 Criterion
The Man from Nowhere / Johnny Yuma & Between God, The Devil and a Winchester Wild East and
Sada Home Vision

I'm in a dead heat to finish some work this weekend and on into Monday and Tuesday, so I don't know if I'll be able to post Tuesday evening but I'll do my best.

Slightly distressing news - soon after receiving my screener of Home Visions Battles Without Honor and Humanity, I got an email telling me that the release date had been postponed and is now in the to-be-determined category. I hope the problem gets straightened out soon, for all those awaiting the boxed set of these Yakuza Papers movies.

Back to work ... thanks, Glenn Erickson

Savant's new reviews today are

Murder on the Orient Express Paramount
Mask Universal
Tess Columbia TriStar
Stage Fright Warners and
The Rose Tattoo Paramount

While waiting for October's crop of genre titles to arrive I'm stepping up the reviews to make room for them; and there are some good surprises for fans of top-notch acting this week.

Now we know how serious it was that Janet Leigh wasn't available for a Manchurian Candidate interview earlier in the year, and Christopher Reeve's passing is a sad day. Truly courageous people are rare enough, but to have one carry the image of Superman so gracefully is very moving. I was just commenting on the nature of throat-grabbing sincerity last week in my review of Fred Rogers' memorial disc, and comparing him to Reeve as Superman. They may find some Men of Steel in the future, but Reeve was it for me.

Am hoping for a box or two of those good Universal monsters, and am also hungry to review DAMN YANKEES, ED WOOD, EXPLORERS ... and will keep my ear peeled for sounds from the mailbox.

Thanks, Glenn Erickson

Savant's new reviews today are

John Cassavetes Five Films Criterion
The Battle of Algiers Criterion
THX 1138 Warners
Fred Rogers: American's Favorite Neighbor Family Communications
and
The Island at the Top of the World Disney

It's a high-powered Saturday at Savant with five titles that actually span 9 reviewed films in one go: the Cassavetes boxed set consists of SHADOWS, FACES, A WOMAN UNDER THE INFLUENCE, THE KILLING OF A CHINESE BOOKIE and OPENING NIGHT. If you've been waiting since Thursday to find out if a bus ran me over, I've been making a serious effort to refresh the column every Saturday and Tuesday, so that my weekly Wednesday Newsletter won't appear to be three or four days late.

The DVD Savant count will soon pass the 1400 mark, which means I've written about 1250 DVD reviews, with I don't know how many contributed from the PAL Region 2 world of Lee Broughton and other more occasional contributors. So far I'm ready to keep it up indefinitely, as the freedom to review mostly what I want has personally been very rewarding. As of August, I've also been writing for the TCM website, an agreeable arrangement that by no means threatens my relationship with DVD Talk. At the worst, a disc like THX 1138 has to wait before being posted here, because it came from TCM. Then again, I can only do so many reviews anyway.

I've been told that a screener of Warners' THE FEARLESS VAMPIRE KILLERS is flapping its bat-wings on its way to the Savant mailbox. That title will be easy to write about, mainly because one of my more successful early articles (1998) investigated the two versions of this classic horror picture. If you already have the disc and want to read about the film now, the essay is Here. Don't worry, I'll have plenty new to write about Polanski's movie when it comes in.

Oh, the very political film THE BATTLE OF ALGIERS has a very political review, so if politics and DVDs don't mix for you, don't read it. Notice respectfully given.

Note ... anybody else been receiving mass emailings of spurious CITIBANK requests for account passwords and other information? I don't even have a Citibank account and I get a minimum of two emails to this effect a day. I wonder how many unsuspecting senior citizens are being robbed by these people, and why we don't sic Homeland Security on them. Let the offenders spend a few days in the Ministry of Fear, sayest I. Vigilante committee meets at seven for cookies and coffee. Thanks for reading! Glenn Erickson

Savant's new reviews today are

Eyes Without a Face Criterion
Hardcore Columbia TriStar
The Wackiest Ship in the Army Columbia TriStar and
Graveyard of Honor Home Vision

Well, it's not every year that one of my all-time favorites comes to DVD, and this week it's EYES WITHOUT A FACE, a chiller that I spent most of the 1970s trying to see after glimpsing its redubbed American retread version THE HORROR CHAMBER OF DR FAUSTUS. I hope a lot of quality-deprived horror fans get to sample this austere masterpiece, it's a real breakthrough for Eurohorror, a truly unique piece of cinefantastique.

You'll notice my reviews are late this week, due to an annoying break in internet service; I might be shifting posting nights to try and coincide with the Wednesday newsletter schedule worked out with Savant's generous hosts at DVDTalk ... people getting web notice of reviews at Savant are half the time missing out on already-posted new material. I think I'll be moving my posting days from Sunday to Tuesday and from Thursday to Saturday. We'll see how it goes.

Thanks for all the help, and especially this week to writer-pal Avie Hern, whose lessons on how to spell common words are a big help. Spending a lifetime thinking I was an infallible speller was an ignorant delusion that came to an end with DVD Savant! And, by the way, I've rewritten my review for The Wrong Man ... it had the kind of typos that only Gremlins can explain. Thanks, Glenn Erickson

Hello, no, Savant hasn't been kidnapped by enemy agents, his web provider has been 'doing maintenance' for three days running. I have a queue of reviews ready to go and hope to be back up immediately or sooner, but ya never know. You know how it is, the limitless readership of DVD Savant is a fickle crowd ... I'm losing readers by the minute ... but does my internet provider care? Nooooo .... Thanks, Glenn Erickson