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Well, 2008 slipped away like a fox with greased paws; a few more years like this and I'll be saying, "Hey, it was a nice life!" My sort-of DVD Savant Best of 2008 list is up, and I hope to have the ever-fabulous and frequently accurate 2008 Savant Wish List in shape for New Years'.

It was good to have the kids (adults, actually) home for the holiday, as they filled me in on all the background and lore for Serenity, which I missed entirely. Universal has graciously begun sending DVD Savant screeners directly, so I have a better chance of reviewing their product now.

Heck of a year, ya think? Thanks for reading! Glenn Erickson

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Howdy ... I'm still in holiday mode here, but skipping last Tuesday's post (gasp!) just sounds like a terrible thing to do anyway! Everyone survived the big day at my house. I'm happy to report that my new computer keyboard makes typing much more of a pleasure -- I've been dealing with sticky keys for at least two years, for no sane reason whatsoever.

Here are some typically incredible, brilliant Savant links stolen (COUGH) from other sites. Over at his marvelous Trailers from Hell emporium of great coming attractions, Joe Dante has posted a rare holiday treat, Paul Julian and Les Goldman's creepy animated version of Maurice Ogden's poem The Hangman. I remember being traumatized by this short subject in high school ... my teachers may not have realized what they were showing us!

Savant didn't review the fancy, expensive Murnau, Borzage and Fox Collection, a monster DVD set that's become this year's coffee table status symbol. But the genial Dick Dinman of DVD Classics Corner On The Air covers it in a web radio show interview with music producer Nick Redman and composer/conductor Christopher Caliendo, who composed the scores for two of the silent films in the set. A second radio show with Nick Redman covers Fox's isolated score tracks that have graced a number of great Fox discs, such as Captain from Castile and Garden of Evil.

I think that's about it for now -- thanks for reading! Glenn Erickson

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Hello ... time is short, so I'll get right to the brief news blips. Figuring out this year's DVD Savant Top Ten was a big effort this year, with so many titles of near-equal appeal. Weirdly, almost half of my picks are westerns!

Over at Film.com Savant has a new review up of the Coen brothers' Burn After Reading. I was highly entertained by this funny, cruel comedy. I just saw the film again last night, and wish I could keep writing on it.

Guest reviewer Lee Broughton reminds me that the latest downloadable issue of the web 'zine Westerns All'Italiana is available over at the Westerns All'Italiana Home Page.

Correspondent Shaun Change also tips me off to Code Red's website which announces an upcoming disc of Gloria Katz and Willard Hyuck's ultra-rare Messiah of Evil. I remember waiting through two terrible Mexican movies in a downtown L.A. grindhouse to see this in 1974, only to find out that the theater decided to skip its afternoon showing!

Thanks for reading -- and back to the holiday preparations! Thanks, Glenn Erickson

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Uh Oh -- the audiovisual brain-tap technology envisioned in Wim Wenders' Until the End of the World may be becoming a reality. Japanese scientists report that they've "succeeded in processing and displaying images directly from the human brain", a technology that, they say, might permit them to pull our dreams out of our heads, as Max von Sydow does in Wenders story. The factual scientific announcement is up at Yahoo news. The implications of the concept were suggested in the 1991 movie: if one's thoughts can be extracted this way, they can be stolen against one's will: involuntary testimony. A future government could regulate not only our actions and our speech, but our thoughts as well. The logical next step would be mind-control, brainwashing and "virtual torture". It's very, very scary, a Science Fiction nightmare.

We're sliding quickly into the Holiday business blackout, although Universal has come through with some Blu-ray screeners for Savant. The January 27 Blu-ray of The Pink Panther lists as an extra an interview with a real jewel thief. An unnamed Savant contributor asks if this will become a new added-value trend. The upcoming Blu-ray of Silence of the Lambs might include a diverting chat with an authentic serial killer! Perhaps a fancy BD Live feature can give the killer a rundown of our video-watching habits, and access to our home addresses!^*

^* Just kidding. No lawyers or subpoenas, please.

Next, an amazing find, courtesy of reader Keith West -- a hitherto unremarked-upon German silent Science Fiction film about a galactic journey in a space ship .... that reportedly convinced UFA that making Metropolis is a good idea!

The film is called Wunder Der Schöpfung, which is also known as "In the World of the Stars" and "Our Heavenly Bodies". A page in German about it is here; and a description in English is here. It will be available on R2 video early in 2009. Who would have thunk it? Everyone thought this sort of movie begain with Fritz Lang's Frau im Mond, in 1929!

Finally, writing pal Stuart Galbraith clues us to a great montage viewable online: Turner Classic Movies's year's end obituary piece, TCM Remembers. I like TCM's pieces far more than the Academy's yearly obit montage, a politically skewed selection that now includes tributes to executives and agents. TCM's is far more eclectic.

Out to, ugh, go Christmas shopping ... Thanks for reading! Glenn Erickson

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Hello!

White Dog! Vicious Dog! Sam Fuller's last Hollywood film shows him a filmmaker who still goes for the jugular! I watched this movie again last night and just wanted to put in another plug for it.

Savant has an article about the Cold War politics of the 1951 The Day the Earth Stood Still up over at Film.com.

From the reliable Jeffrey Rosen, on the color issue brought up last time about Sony's upcoming A MATTER OF LIFE AND DEATH (STAIRWAY TO HEAVEN). Jeffrey was once a projectionist:

So maybe reviewers of the past who claim that the B&W sections were bluish saw normal Eastmancolor prints that may have added a color tone to the B&W sections. They may have only seen TV broadcasts. Old NTSC color TVs had a difficult time not assigning a tone to B&W footage, when broadcast as a color signal. Still a mystery?

My producer/director/writer friend Peter Fitzgerald, with whom I began editing documentaries for Laserdiscs back in 1994, has a new special being broadcast on TCM several times this month, starting this Sunday (December 14). It's called The Age of Believing: The Disney Live Action Classics. It's about "Walt Disney's journey as a live action filmmaker".

Friendly correspondent and special collections archivist Jaci Spuhler has alerted me to a curious new website called Nitrate Film Interest Group, where archivists-librarians post clips from unidentified ancient movies so that the general public can help put titles to some rare films -- or at least appreciate how difficult it when faced with hundreds of reels or fragments of film. I have to think that a lot of these are going to stay in the uncertain category -- although more of them, including a movie image with Lon Chaney, are being identified every day. All they know about the color image of the flapper on the left is that it's from a 1928 Two-Color Technicolor movie (How many Two-Strip pictures did they make that year? -- all I know is that the background looks like my general neighborhood!). A great game, especially if you don't mind losing! After opening the page, click the little word "Photostream" under the main title ... and you'll be taken to the gallery of Lost Celluloid mysteries! Thanks for reading, Glenn Erickson

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First things first ... we'll miss Nina Foch, of My Name is Julia Ross and Spartacus among many other roles. Always a class act, an actress who didn't fall into easy categories or play Hollywood games.

Over at Film.com, Eric Snyder has an article I liked on 1941 in his Eric's Time Capsule column. I haven't seen very much writing on the movie, so I was interested in what he had to say. If you want to read about my personal experiences on the massive, old-style spectacular (dozens of stars, mass crowd scenes, grandiose real special effects) you can also check out my old 1941 Savant making-of article. And hey, it's a Christmas movie!

Author and film tech expert Bob Furmanek has responded to my review of Sabrina with proof of its original aspect ratio: 1.75:1. You can see it Here. Also, for those of us waiting for Sony's disc of A Matter of Life and Death (Stairway to Heaven), correspondent Gene Schiller reminds us that in original Technicolor prints, "heaven" wasn't in strict B&W but instead a silvery blue. I'll be curious to see what we get on January 6.

Savant correspondent Daniel Griffith is promoting an upcoming documentary, The Wonder World of K. Gordon Murray, and steered me to his old-fashioned faux-instructional film he wrote and directed about the holiday season: Holidays with Your Family. Hey, who says we haven't got the Christmas spirit?

Kramer vs. Kramer has been announced for February 17 on Blu-ray. I'm hoping they'll include the docu I edited six or seven years ago, as it's some of my better work. And it will also be good to see how the Nestor Almendros cinematography looks in HD. Once again, thanks for reading! Glenn Erickson

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Greetings! A busy weekend here prepping for Christmas. I've so many review discs to assay that I've not gotten to any Academy screeners yet, and the OFCS will want my vote fairly soon. The Day the Earth Stood Still Blu-ray arrived today, and I bought my own copy of the Thunderball Blu-ray yesterday, so things are shaping up.

I'm still hoping to get to some retro- reviews of discs that got squeezed out of the review lineup earlier in the year. I most want to look back at Anthony Mann's Cimarron and Lionsgate's World War Collection, which includes David Lean's The Sound Barrier, but a few others have stacked up as well.

Looking for more reviews? I've just turned in coverage on Werner Herzog's fascinating Encounters At the End of the World over at Film.com .

And finally, word comes that Forrest J. Ackerman, the publisher-editor of Famous Monsters of Filmland has passed away. With him goes a big chapter of childhood. He certainly was an active presence. I remember making friends in the third grade over the fact that we all were Monster movie fans; being a newbie, my pals had to explain to me the various "rules" about Dracula, the Mummy, etc. The magazine FM was their Bible and I was soon hooked. When I was a teenager "4E" would show up on daytime TV interviews during afternoon movies, waving his Dracula ring and expressing interest in old movies. When I came to Los Angeles, he was one of the first celebrities I spotted, at a FILMEX screening. Unlike anybody else even remotely notable, I had no problem walking right up and saying "Hi, you're Forrest Ackerman, aren't you?" He gave me a warm greeting and showed me - of course -- the Dracula ring! Unlike other die-hard Sci-Fi fans I only visited the Ackermansion once about ten years ago. I guess I saw it just in time.

Thanks for reading! Glenn Erickson

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Greetings! We're off and running on the Christmas holiday season. Correspondent "Rob" has tipped me off to the Universal Horror Blog site, which has an excerpt from an ancient episode of the You Asked for It show in which Bela Lugosi makes an appearance -- announcing that his next movie will be "Dr. Acula". The direction and camera work is not bad at all!

New DVDs are up at the 2008 Savant Wish List -- which I am indeed updating -- Sony is continuing their Martini Movies line in early February with hotly-desired titles like Five (an Arch Oboler End-of-the-World tale) and Our Man in Havana (Alec Guinness, directed by Carol Reed).

New Criterion policies and an 'orientation video' to their refurbished Criterion.com page are viewable at this link.

Correspondent Dean Blake reminds me about an almost secret DVD offering. Turner Classic Movies' Lost and Found RKO Collection is a group of recovered and restored pre-code RKO pix that premiered on the channel last year: A Man to Remember, Double Harness, Living on Love, Rafter Romance, Stingaree and One Man's Journey. They're available as singles or in a six-disc collection. Thanks for reading! Glenn Erickson