Savant's new reviews today are:

Hello once again. I just thought I'd offer this image of the Cacagne bird from that seminal, intellectual classic of World Cinema The Giant Claw, to put us all in a high-toned frame of mind. Savant's review of the Icons of Horror: Sam Katzman disc set appears a full two weeks after street date. Despite its late delivery, I decided to act my age and give it the coverage it deserves.

I also just returned from a Trailers from Hell reception held a couple of hours ago at Cinespace on glorious Hollywood Boulevard. To celebrate the site's final unfoldment (and its acquisition of a major sponsor, Scion) Joe Dante invited his fellow director-commentators to meet and greet various fans like yours truly. I asked producer-director David Gregory to accompany me, and thanks to David's refined social skills we ended up talking with director Jack Hill for about an hour, discussing the TFH site, the state of filmmaking in general and the recent, excellent Dark Sky disc of his classic horror comedy Spider Baby. The accompanying picture of the gracious Mr. Hill with David will serve as a memento.

The rooms were too dark to make out many familiar faces, but Dante helpfully brought his fellow director-commentators on stage for introductions: Mick Garris, Allison Anders, Edgar Wright, Mary Lambert and Larry Cohen. I thought I spotted Allan Arkush and, no kidding, Volker Schlöndorff as well. Hope I wasn't fooling myself. Penelope Spheeris was billed to appear but I don't think she made it. As Ms. Spheeris was my T.A. for a few weeks at UCLA quite a few years ago I might have worked up the nerve to talk to her too. Anyway, an interesting evening it was. Savant doesn't get many opportunities to indulge in blatant name dropping.

Also received today: Anchor Bay's Erik the Conqueror and Milan Concerts' Maurice Jarre, a Tribute to David Lean DVD-CD combo. I'll move them forward on the 'to review' queue. Thanks for reading, Glenn Erickson.

Savant's new reviews today are

Hello! I was out of town for two days and just drove back ... the skies are solid ash from Indio all the way to Ontario, just east of Los Angeles. Those fires are still burning, and although they're spread out over half a state the winds are just circulating the smoke -- even windy places that are always clear look 'smoggy.'

I have just the two reviews today but will get back on the case. While I was gone the Katzman box came in, along with Warners' Kubrick box, Battleship Potemkin, Berlin Alexanderplatz, No End in Sight, Pixar Short Films and a new edition of Chinatown, hopefully looking better than the old one. Savant soldiers on. Thanks, Glenn Erickson

Savant's new reviews today are

Hello -- Thanks for the Emails of concern about the big fires in and around Los Angeles. Savant Central is nowhere near the areas being threatened, but a haze of ashes can be seen obscuring the Hollywood sign today!

Gary Teetzel, avid soundtrack fan that he is, reports that John Morgan and William Stromberg have finished their CDs of Mysterious Island and Fahrenheit 451, and have set up a MySpace page for their new label, Tribute Film Classics. We wish them and their label the best of good fortune. Links to the discs, including audio clip samples, are here and here. The tentative release date is November 18.

I'd prepared a longer paragraph about the no-show status of some highly anticipated DVDs but am waiting to make some inquiries before complaining online without sufficient information. I do want to apologize for missing desired reviews; I'm proud and gratified when people write in to ask me to cover a particular new release. Thanks, Glenn Erickson

Greetings! Savant's new reviews today are

Savant's special friend Stuart Galbraith IV interviews Tim Lucas on his new Mario Bava book and various other topics, from managing multiple writing responsibilities to the future of home video. Well done, Stuart!

Correspondent Will Pfeifer is running a 31 Days of Horror Movies feature on his blog; it's pretty amusing and recommended.

As pointed out by Mark Hodgson on the Classic Horror Film Board, a U-Tube clip is up showing home movies taken on the Sierra Madre set of the 1956 Invasion of the Body Snatchers. See Kevin McCarthy and Dana Wynter cross the street! And watch a propmaster carry giant seed pods -- they look heavy, and they're GREEN!

Thanks for reading, Glenn Erickson

Savant's new reviews today are

Hiya once again. While hoping for better delivery of screeners, I stumbled across the news that a disc of The Great Northfield Minnesota Raid had been released by looking on a Westerns web board. So I put the show at the head of the list and wrote a review. It's a law of physics: what Savant reviews is a function of what he is sent. Sometimes discs come so late that I just skip them; in a medium where immediate news is the norm, 'rushing' out with a review three weeks after a disc has hit the street is dispiriting.

Enough grousing. Savant's vendors have in general been very accommodating, not to mention tolerant. I'll endeavor to maintain a mix of titles that interests me --- even if only a few hundred readers appreciate my enthusiasm for arcane Science Fiction movies. Hey, I believe in amazing forgotten wonders like Abel Gance's La fin du monde (The End of the World ; I feel privileged to 'discover' them. Giving thanks to my tolerant readership, Glenn Erickson

Filming Sin Fin in 1975; use 'open in new window' to see fully-sized.

Greetings! Savant's new reviews today are

October made itself felt in Los Angeles today with a change to cooler temperatures; hopefully those hot spells back east have broken by now. Savant and DVDTalk have been doing our best to get in the review discs; Fox Home Video thoughtfully overnighted the Laird Cregar / John Brahm box the other day. I'm working on getting the Sony Icons of Horror: Sam Katzman box a little closer to street date (next Tuesday). Thanks for the corrections and the criticisms this week; my team of crack proofreaders were due in 1998 and should get here any day now. Take care, Glenn Erickson.

Savant's new reviews today are

Hello again. Just a fun reference today to another web page: Bill Warren tipped me off to a really good (and amazingly well annotated) page about 1950's 3-D movies, especially Hondo: Birth of a Myth: The Restoration of Hondo by Bob Furmanek and Jack Theakston. The page links to an old article detailing planned Warners movies to be made in 3-D, a list that includes Them! That should put to rest the teapot controversy about the movie being originally intended to be in 3-D and color ... we now know 3-D was the plan at some point. Thanks, Bill!

Greetings! Savant's new reviews today are

Savant correspondent Gregory Nicoll sent me this interesting link: a new Roger Ebert review of Into the Wild that shows one of our best critics back in top form. Good reading!

Not a lot to report, except that there'll be several Criterion reviews coming soon ... thanks for reading! Glenn Erickson.

Savant's new reviews today are

Hello again ... I have another interesting book to mention. A couple of months back I met author Alan K. Rode at a Cinematheque screening; he's on the board of the Film Noir Foundation. Rode's newest book Charles McGraw: Biography of a Film Noir Tough Guy tells the story of a very interesting actor with a great noir resumé as well as pictures like Spartacus. I'm told that McGraw's career is so connected with Film Noir that the book amounts to an informal history of the style, related from the point of view of its participants. I'm looking forward to reading it. Thanks! Glenn Erickson