Savant's new reviews today are

Savant's friend Dick Dinman of the DVD Classics Corner has a radio show devoted to (what else?) Major Dundee, with input from Michael Anderson Jr. and new composer Christopher Caliendo, along with Savant. It's worth listening to, mainly for Anderson's funny memories and Caliendo's intelligent description of the challenge of re-scoring an old movie with an existing score. It's at DVD Classics Corner Radio.

Did you hear the news (or rumor) that Steven Spielberg is producing (and maybe directing) a remake of When Worlds Collide for Paramount? As the original movie is a great idea searching for a better script, this could be great news. Savant hopes. As long as it doesn't turn the end of the world into a backdrop for an ordinary Joe getting his dysfunctional family back together. "Keep working! Only Ten more hours until Zyra!"

Thanks, Glenn Erickson

Savant's new reviews today are

Savant starts out with a plug today. I got a look last week at the first couple of issues of a large, glossy magazine called Cinema Retro. It's the first big film fan magazine that's caught my eye in some time. Published in England, it's the brainchild of Lee Pfeiffer, a well-known James Bond expert and contributor-organizer of several of the Bond special editions from a few years back.

The photo-heavy magazine is dedicated to action-adventure crowd-pleasers of the 60s and 70s, apparently the years that Pfeiffer and his partner Dave Worrall know best, and have the best resources to illustrate. The illustrations and layout overflow with colorful and rare photos and poster reproductions. The text overall takes a celebratory rather than analytical view of the films, concentrating on things like Eastwood Spaghetti westerns, fan actors like Christopher Lee and less well-known directors and producers. There's also an interest in sexy cheesecake coverage of the time, with articles on knockout blondes like Bond Girl Margaret Nolan. More on the magazine can be seen at The Cinema Retro website.

Savant reported a few weeks ago that Billy Wilder's Ace in the Hole was supposedly coming from Paramount, but it didn't show up on their November schedule with Detective Story and The Strange Love of Martha Ivers. Hopefully it didn't get confused with a docu with the same title about Saddam Hussain ... and is on the way anyway ... someday.

Meanwhile, I'm watching the mailbox for gems like The Miracle of Morgan's Creek, The Deer Hunter and The Innocents to show up, and will be eagerly writing them up when they do. Thanks for reading, Glenn Erickson

Savant's new reviews today are

The week is going well, with some nice letters coming in about the Major Dundee - The Extended Version, which warms a self-centered writer's heart. I've even heard from Mike Siegel, the producer-director of the excellent unreleased Peckinpah documentary excerpted on the Dundee disc - I hope we get to see the whole thing soon. This may be the last time that we see more missing material from Dundee, and it's good to be a part of it. There's always a future Hi-Def release.

Summer's trailing off and everyone's thinking about school again ... Savant's going to celebrate the end of the season at the Cinematheque on Thursday. The Aero location is showing Billy Wilder's Ace in the Hole, which was strongly rumored for November from Paramount but didn't show up on their schedule. I hope it's not far off.

Thanks as ever for reading, Glenn Erickson

Savant's new reviews today are

Hello ... well, Savant has finally finished his 2nd review of his favorite movie, Major Dundee, which is of course an intense analysis of details of versions and interpretations. Readers not interested in digging so deep will get a preview of the disc's extras, however, some of which reveal the content of even more missing scenes, if one knows how to read them. Up until a couple of weeks ago the street date was August 30 but Amazon now lists it as September 20. I hope all my attention ups the interest for this one a few degrees.

I'm cleaning up the review stack while I have a chance - the onslaught of September and October genre product should be hitting soon, like an expected storm front. Going through my well-thumbed Hardy encyclopedia of Horror Movies it's easy to see that after this fall, the majority of the Horror genre is going to be on DVD. May it all keep coming.

I'm also curious to see what becomes of HD. I don't get the touted genre HD cable pix in my area and I have to say that the rumored format war will put a severe damper on the rollout of a new HD disc format. I like to 'adopt' earlier than some but I have zero inclination to invest in anything that might fade in a year or two. The greedy studios and hardware manufacturers (who have already deeply compromised what HD might be) need to realize that the market is already happy with the standard DVD quality. Make HD problematic, and it will sit there as an upscale toy for rich people, in the Hollywood circuit niche that kept laserdiscs down. So there.

And I like HD. A post house I worked at last week was playing a broadcast of Ride the High Country. The quality was phenomenal - it looked better and had far better color and detail than any 35mm print I'd ever seen, and I've seen the film projected at least fifteen times. HD will a pleasure to watch if the industry doesn't completely blow it.

Happy Saturday .... Glenn Erickson

Savant's new reviews today are

The UKA Press is doing something Savant thinks is special. They've reissued Kevin Brownlow's How it Happened Here, the story of the making of one of Savant's favorite films (and one of the first reviewed at DVD Savant), It Happened Here. It's an intensely good read, especially for those interested in making their own independent movies. If you remember, Kevin Brownlow and Andrew Mollo made this amazing wartime recreation on weekends as a quasi amateur endeavor. It ended up looking more real than most big-budget films on WW2. This new edition has a droll update chapter from Brownlow on the eventual fate of the 1964 UA release.

Am still expecting the full disc of Major Dundee, and the First Run DEFA sci-fi films ... hopefully one of these will be represented in the next batch of reviews ... Glenn Erickson

Savant's new reviews today are

Hello from LA ... Savant gets a real weekend this go-round, and intends to enjoy it. The plan - pull out the old record collection and listen to something on vinyl. Should be fun. I don't think my grown children ever learned the skill of dropping a phonograph needle on am LP.

Helpful reader Dewey Webb has spotted a telling detail in Hush ... Hush, Sweet Charlotte, and I've made it into a new footnote on the review. Very observant!

How come they keep putting the fun toys just out of reach? Gary Teetzel sent me this tempting webpage. It was like staring at an expensive toy in the Sears & Roebuck catalog, from when I was a little kid. But then again, it is a little too big to float in the bathtub.

I spent several hours this week reading old Savant reviews. It's almost painful seeing the constant flow of typos and just plain mistakes of spelling and agreement. Reading at leisure, they jump out like black eyes. So I'm forced to conclude that when proofing things before uploading, the part of my mind that wants to get the job done and move on, overrides the part of the mind that picks up on mistakes ... they become invisible. It's the only excuse. The right way to do this is in tandem with another writer, so each can scrutinize the other's basic grammar. But then we'd probably start arguing content ....

Thanks for reading, Glenn Erickson

Savant's new reviews today are

Greetings! Tonight it's classic 30s musicals and retro 30s gangland violence transplanted to France. I've totally missed the boat on the Thin Man Movies and will be getting a review out perhaps in a week or so ... you know, two weeks behind street date, like all the best Savant reviews. I don't read other reviews to do those, honest.

Dick Dinman has a web radio show up, an interview with the star of Danger Diabolik, John Philip Law. The link is here, at the aptly titled DVD Classics Corner John Philip Law interview. Dinman's pro radio stylings have been top quality since his first pieces earlier this year for the Warners Film Noir Box 2 set.

Thanks for reading! Glenn Erickson

Savant's new reviews today are

Hello once again ... it's a hot Saturday in Los Angeles after a long week's work. I've been sent this informative report on Warners' upcoming King Kong special edition, which makes no mention of a rediscovered spider pit sequence:

In other news, Amazon has pushed back the release of Major Dundee once again, to September 20. I've seen a check disc of the release, but eight weeks seems far too early to write a review ...

Thanks, Glenn Erickson

Savant's new reviews today are

Greetings for a new summer month. Savant is inundated with Thin Men and the dancing splendor of Astaire and Rogers and will be doling out reviews of both boxed sets for at least a couple of weeks. Am also back to work on a new genre of editing ... this time it's music videos.

As for the Sergio Leone exhibit at the Autry Museum, NPR radio had a news item on it a couple of days ago that you might be still able to hear Here. Besides hearing Alessandro Alessandroni sing and whistle the theme to The Good, The Bad and The Ugly, you can hear Savant correspondent Gregory Nicoll interviewed regarding the exhibit!

Thanks for all the notes and corrections! Glenn Erickson