Greetings! Savant's new reviews today are

A few interesting notes. Reader Gavin Salkeld got my attention last week by offering an update to an old (1997!) Savant article about the jump cut at the end of the 2nd James Bond film From Russia With Love. Gavin shares access to some revealing British Board of Film Classification documents that more or less close the door on the mystery of the missing dialogue line as well as the jump cut itself. Please check it out, and perhaps you might want to take a look at some of the other old Savant articles. A few have dated but several are still very popular.

Savant is traveling this week, which means that the DVD Savant site will more likely than not remain unchanged until next week, Wednesday or Thursday. I'll have new reviews then, and if I get the opportunity I'll update this column from from the road. I'm normally a confirmed homebody, so we'll see how I take to this adventure ... we'll talk when I get back. Thanks for reading! Glenn Erickson

Greetings! Savant's new reviews today are

Savant will be taking a little break soon so I'm trying to get in some hard-content reviews while I can. The pipeline always seems to have enough genre goodies to keep me interested, but today's grouping has a couple of documentaries and some antique curiosities as well. Pal Gary Teetzel has been sending me news from the Comic-Con in San Diego, which he'll be covering in part for TCM. He's picked up a a Sony pictures postcard that promises new Karloff releases for Halloween. I should think that would pretty much clean out the Columbia horror library with the exception of Hammer holdout gotta-haves and arcana like The Face Behind the Mask with Peter Lorre. Thanks for reading -- Glenn Erickson

Hello! Savant's new reviews today are

Well, we're halfway through July and not much more is on Savant's mind but the heat. My go-to-work car is forty years old and never had any air conditioning; I drive to the San Fernando Valley to edit so twice last week I found myself wearing driving gloves just to be able to hold the part-metal steering wheel and gearshift lever. It reminds me of when my kids were small and I practically roasted one by putting them thoughtlessly into a too-hot car seat: The crimes of parenting that come back to haunt you at 4 a.m. ...

I'd complain more but I know a lot of readers live in much less pleasant locales -- back east is just as hot and drenchingly muggy to boot. I've never experienced that personally. I do know what it's like in the low Arizona desert, where some of my family live ... in most years they routinely put up with several weeks of 115-125 degree heat. I've only been there a couple of times when it's that hot, and I tell you that one's eyes dry out and you get light-headed just trying to walk to your car. And the Arizonans dote on black asphalt as much as anywhere. I was once told over the phone that the official temperature was 129 Fahrenheit, and shot back that one End-of-the-World movie's idea of a horrible, intolerable temp was 135 degrees (Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea). I understand it actually gets that hot in the Sahara and Saudi Arabia. We're told in pictures like The Day the Earth Caught Fire that human life just can't be sustained higher than 145, unless we all find a way to move into caves.

With those words of infinite wisdom (?) Savant points your attention to today's reviews. A Canterbury Tale is a personal favorite, one of those unusual movies one can read all about and still not have a clue as to what to expect. It's not for all tastes, but those who go for it, really fall hard. The War Game & Culloden I feel strongly for as well, mainly because I identify with brave filmmakers like Peter Watkins who put their politics on the line every time the go to bat, and in his case, persevere for 40 years against an indifferent entertainment industry.

I received a couple of polite but combative letters about my enthusiasm for Masters of Horror: Homecoming and realize just how difficult it must be to do any show with a real opinion about the real world: I was taken to task for applying my (quote) amateur political ideas (unquote) when my 'job' was to be a movie reviewer and stay clear of such issues. I eventually decided to take the letter as a compliment: Heck, the writer's presumption is that I am a qualified movie reviewer, something that I don't think is necessarily a settled fact! Thanks for reading, Glenn Erickson

Greetings! Savant's new reviews today are

Hello all ... not a whole lot happening. Disney is reacting to its gigantic success with the Pirates of the Caribbean by doing a mass studio layoff, and other studios are following suit, or so says an article in Thursday's L.A. Times ... the studio home video departments were already all chiefs and no indians, so now we can expect the personnel left over to be even more overworked and less experienced. Nope, the film business is no place to expect career longevity ... studio-job life expectancy for all but a few key employees now tends to be only a couple of years.

Savant enjoyed the Film Noir 3 collection immensely and hopes that the Warners staff doesn't drop dead or revolt with their breakneck production schedule; I know their authoring facility has been going around the clock and expanding to figure out the vagaries of making HD discs that will play!

Between now and September we have the following on order for review: Amazing Stories Season 1, Some Like it Hot sp. ed., A Canterbury Tale, Koko the Talking Gorilla, Hail Hail Rock 'n Roll, Yi Yi (really good), V for Vendetta, Putney Swope, boxed sets for Eric Rohmer, Jayne Mansfield, James Stewart and Ronald Reagan, Seduced and Abandoned, Heart Like a Wheel, Double Indemnity, Fourteen Hours and This Island Earth. And of course on September 5 comes the Godzilla Classic Collector's Edition - The Official U.S. & Japanese film Versions. Thanks for reading! Glenn Erickson

Greetings! Savant's new reviews today are

I guess it's Pirate Tuesday here. The Johnny Depp pic sucked up the nation's entire disposable income for the weekend, so perhaps it's appropriate.

Gary Teetzel has directed my attention to a big fan show in San Diego, where the 'extended version' of Peter Jackson's King Kong is to be sneaked, or previewed or otherwise promoted. So, ah, I guess they're going through with a more monsteriffic cut. Glad they didn't try that in theaters -- I think if the picture had been a couple of reels shorter, it might have been a much bigger hit.

Savant reader Jordan Benedict offers a link to a rebroadcast of of a 2005 Terri Gross interview with Thelma Schoonmaker on NPR. She talks about Martin Scorsese and her late husband Michael Powell, and Jordan advises us that the interview is loaded with goodies about filmmaking.

From friend and associate Stuart Galbraith IV comes this oddball link to an indescribable Japanese video clip: Zuiiken Gals on You Tube. Readers who get all the way through it might want to explain it to Savant ... is it an exercise video? Does it sell summer fashions? Tennis shoes? I haven't heard back from Stuart yet!

Thanks for reading, Glenn Erickson

Greetings! Savant's new reviews today are

Hi! A close Savant associate forwarded this terrific website about the man we're all going to want for President in 2008 ... I'm enthused and will look forward to getting a lawn sign: All Kneel!

Something odd to report from the review quote file: ADV's 16 x 9 single disc reissue of Return of Daimajin has a review quote on the back credited to DVD Talk. Sure enough, it's from my older review of an earlier release: "Beautifully photographed and lavishly produced, the story plays like a classic fairy tale." Of course, that was me referring to the FIRST film, not the third. So not only was Savant not credited, my remarks were taken out of context! -- not that that constitutes any kind of tragedy. ADV apparently used the exact same quotes on all of the single-disc reissues.

Anyway, that's the Savant scoop this weekend: A gripe about a sneaky disc company and a 100% dead-on righteous choice for President in 2008. Another important public service from the Savant Applied Perfection (SAP for short) advisory council. Thanks for reading, Glenn Erickson

Greetings on Uncle Sam Day! Savant's new reviews today are

Hello again ... happy 4th of July. Took it easy this weekend and only have two reviews, but also turned a couple in to TCM as well. City for Conquest is a mystery that bugged me for 30 years, so it's nice to see it partially solved now -- with Warners' new uncut disc we at least know what the excised scenes were. Next time up I'll have a review for Grand Prix, which works very well on the new DVD. The Film Noir 3 and Tough Guy sets are on the way, but I'm hoping to hit a lot of independent and oddball titles in the next month as well.

Looking ahead, we have a Special Ed of Some Like it Hot, Koko: A Talking Gorilla, V for Vendetta, Putney Swope, Blade Runner and boxes for James Stewart, Jayne Mansfield, Ronald Reagan, Clark Gable and Eric Rohmer. And August winds up with Double Indemnity and This Island Earth. Thanks for reading! Glenn Erickson

Greetings! Savant's new reviews today are

I have a message for consumer importers of R2 discs, perhaps some of the folks who keep telling me that movies I whine about like Garden of Evil, Man of the West, Bigger than Life and Wild River are available in region 2. I normally prefer to hold out for R1 releases because so many of the European discs have a 25 fps PAL speed-up built in to the transfer. On Garden of Evil I'd notice the change in the music right away. However, for those in the R1 area who are thinking of going for R2 of the Albert Lewin film The Picture of Dorian Gray, reader Jordan Benedict has another reason for holding off: The new R2 doesn't have the color insert of the scary Ivan Albright painting, and also lacks the final coup-de-grace shot of the dead Dorian's pus-oozing skull face.

I've seen the new Criterion disc of A Canterbury Tale and it's terrific; am digging into the extras tonight. Have also seen most of the Film Noir 3 and Tough Guy pictures so those reviews might start trickling in on Tuesday, Uncle Sam Day. Thanks for reading! Glenn Erickson