|
|
|
May 30, 2011
Savant's new reviews today are: Blu-ray 
Michael Caine and Sean Connery are absolutely delightful in this spirited, adventuresome and touching adaptation of Rudyard Kipling's famous short story about soldiers of fortune bent on winning themselves a kingdom. Christopher Plummer plays Kipling, and they're all directed in fine form by John Huston. One of the brightest, most welcome discs of the year. In Blu-ray from Warner Home Video.
5/31/11
Blu-ray 
Sergio Leone did without Clint Eastwood but gets more than he needs with Charles Bronson, Henry Fonda and Jason Robards, with Claudia Cardinale in fine form as well. Gunslingers come to the aid of a widow sitting on prime railroad-adjacent property. Is this a western as fairy-tale, Opera, or movieland myth? With some of Ennio Morricone's best and most beautiful music. Filmed in Techniscope in Rome, Spain and on the Arizona-Utah border. In Blu-ray from Paramount.
5/31/11
Vincente Minnelli has Fred Astaire, promising newcomer Lucille Bremer and several acres of MGM soundstages art-directed to the maximum. What we get is dazzling Technicolor, several wonderful dances and a puzzle picture that doesn't quite come together. Fred plays a swinder posing as Lucille's guardian angel, in a bizarro South American oligarchy called Patria. With Frank Morgan and Mildred Natwick. From the Warner Archive Collection.
5/31/11
and 
The first Seven Arts production is an unnecessary retread of To Have and Have Not, starring everybody's favorite footsoldier Audie Murphy. Don Siegel puts as much oomph as he can into a tale too often told. With Eddie Albert, Patricia Owens, Everett Sloane and Gita Hall. The action is set in Cuba, the film was shot in Newport Beach. From the MGM Limited Edition Collection.
5/31/11 
Greetings! Memorial Day looks beautiful, after yesterday's winds ... so no complaints here in Los Angeles. I've been reading and answering pleasant notes (and helpful corrections) from Savant correspondents over the weekend, so that's been pleasant, too. Readers Mark Stevens, Bill Huelbig and Rory Monteith have sent in answers for the final Fox film in B&W 'Scope, and the last film to use the Fox C'Scope logo with the extra fanfare, the one appropriated by Star Wars for the "Lucasfilm Ltd." title. Nominees for final Fox B&W 'Scope film are 1965's Rapture, Up From the Beach, The Reward and Morituri. Everybody seems to think that the last Fox film with the full fanfare was 1967's Caprice, although In Like Flint is in the running as well. Unless other titles are involved, I see no need to get more specific than this.
I also raked in a number of emails about the new Twilight Time disc of Fate is the Hunter, from people who liked it as much as I did. There seems to be an enthusiastic crossover between aviation buffs and movie lovers. Hint to bargain hunters -- readers that rushed to Best Buy to see the latest MGM/Fox Blu-ray exclusives report that many have already sold out. The original The Taking of Pelham One Two Three reportedly looks terrific, and several readers and friends have remarked that the HD transfer of William Wyler's The Big Country is outstanding, a revelation. This is good news, as Big Country never looked great on previous Home Video versions. Finally, up in Seattle, correspondent and author Mark Bourne writes about his encounter with a special screening of the silent Thief of Bagdad, "Re-imagined by Shadoe Stevens with the music of E.L.O." Mark's blog Open the Pod Bay Doors, HAL is a favorite stop on my bi-weekly site circuit. Thanks for reading! -- Glenn Erickson
May 27, 2011
Savant's new reviews today are: 
Glenn Ford takes a jetliner up to reproduce the fatal conditions that killed 50 airline passengers, all to prove that a dead pilot (Rod Taylor) wasn't the cause of the crash. A good aviation drama, co-starring Suzanne Pleshette, Wally Cox and Nancy Kwan; with music by Jerry Goldsmith. From Twilight Time.
5/28/11
Blu-ray 
Crystal clear in HD, Stanley Kubrick's studiously ugly look at the future is designed to communicate to a desensitized, brutalized audience. A two-disc 40th Anniversary package with several very good documentaries. In Blu-ray from Warner Home Video.
5/28/11
Mervyn LeRoy's scorching 1937 film is a full-on indictment of lawlessness and injustice in the South, where a business school instructor is railroaded to a conviction, and then a lynching, by a 'traditional' system with no regard for the rights of the accused. With Claude Rains and Gloria Dickson. We don't expect the film's tone of level-headed fairness. From Warner Archive Collection.
5/28/11
and Blu-ray 
From just before JFK and Dallas, John Frankenheimer's paranoid classic seems to predict a decade of assassinations and the climate of conspiracy theories. Laurence Harvey, Frank Sinatra and Angela Lansbury each turn in their career-best performance. Looks great in B&W Blu-ray, from MGM / Fox.
5/28/11 
Greetings! Some impressive news from Olive Films today. Contradicting an earlier report about their August 12 DVD of The Colossus of New York, I've had a confirmation from an Olive spokesman that it will indeed be enhanced in 1:78 widescreen. So that's a disappointment neatly dodged. And how about that list of upcoming Olive releases ... some of which will be Blu-rays. Alongside pictures like Twilight's Last Gleaming, The Hellstrom Chronicles, The Atomic City and Dead Pigeon on Beethoven Street, they claim to have a pile of interesting foreign films in the works: Elvira Madigan, The Adalen Riots, and films by Henri Verneuil, Claude Chabrol, Maurice Pialat, Francesco Rosi, Joseph Losey, Robert Bresson and Rainer Werner Fassbinder PLUS Abel Gance's 1937 sound version of J'Accuse. The list is really promising. Last Monday, Trailers from Hell announced the start of a new blog called From Hell it Came! As advertised, it's 'news and notes from Trailers from Hell' and features the participation of TFH's group of director contributors known as the "Grindhouse Gurus". I of course immediately fixated on the opportunity to check out a clip from the legendary The Movie Orgy. Finally, the wildest bit of video I've seen in a long time is this excellent link, "You will never guess what this Ad is About". Terrifying clip! Watch at your own risk!!! Thanks for reading, Glenn Erickson
May 23, 2011
Savant's new reviews today are: Blu-ray 
George Lucas takes the prize for this marvelous modern classic, a nostalgic ode to teen, car & crusing culture from the early 1960s. The picture introduced a bumper crop of great new actors: Richard Dreyfuss, Ron Howard, Paul Le Mat, Charles Martin Smith, Cindy Williams, Candy Clark, Mackenzie Phillips, Harrison Ford, Kathleen Quinlan, Kay Lenz, Joe Spano, Suzanne Somers. On Blu-ray from Universal.
5/24/11
Blu-ray 
Billy Wilder's cross-dressing period gangster movie / sex farce is one of the funniest comedies ever made, and the stuff of movie legend. Marilyn Monroe, Tony Curtis and Jack Lemmon are brilliant; Joe E. Brown & Joan Shawlee are great too. No man is worth it, Sugar... In glorious Black and White, in Blu-ray from MGM/Fox.
5/24/11
Blu-ray 
Dario Argento's genre-changing horror-suspense thriller created a new commericial genre in Italian filmmaking that was only fully discovered in America with the advent of DVD. This new release contains some great extras, but is somewhat compromised by transfer revisions made by its legendary cinematographer, Vittorio Storaro. On Blu-ray from Arrow Films UK.
5/24/11
Blu-ray 
A flawless 1980s romp that mixes kinky sex, world music, high school reunion Americana and a crazy detour into a radical, completely unexpected final act. Jonathan Demme's cast is ideal: Jeff Daniels, Melanie Griffith, Ray Liotta. With a great director interview / making-of documentary. On Blu-ray from Criterion.
5/24/11
and Blu-ray 
It's Vroom Vroom VROOM time in DTS or 5.1 in your choice of languages. John Frankenheimer's 70mm roadshow Formula One racing epic ranges all over Europe, filming on real racetracks and fooling us into thinking it's all completely real -- some of the actor-drivers even do their own racing. With James Garner, Eva Marie Saint, Yves Montand, Brian Bedford, Jessica Walter, Toshirô Mifune, Antonio Sabàto, and Françoise Hardy. On Blu-ray from Warner Home Video.
5/24/11 Greetings! A quick hello today ... I think I've dug myself out of the review hole, and will be able to honor street date on a slew of Blu-rays that came in last week: Once Upon a Time in the West, The Man Who Would Be King, Revenge, The Stunt Man. Today's five reviews are all Blu-rays as well. A nice nonsense link comes from correspondent Rob --- a goofy little number called Dance With Daleks. Rob was right -- you don't see that every day... After getting all excited about the prospects for a longer cut of Cloudburst, faithful correspondent Stefan Anderson led me to the BBFC's page on the movie which clearly states that the movie was released at the same length in England as well ... if there was a longer but, the Brit censors made short work of it. Fudge. 
A thank-you also to the redoubtable Arbogast of Arbogast on Film, who sent along a packet of frame comparisons for The Bird with the Crystal Plumage, helping me to compare the new Blu-ray and older transfers. And finally, Jason Comerford informs me that Robert Aldrich's still shockingly violent Ulzana's Raid is being streamed on Netflix, until August 1. It's supposed to be a new HD transfer, although Jason hasn't seen it yet; although released last month on DVD, I've only seen the film in crummy flat transfers. (Correction thanks to Charles Hoyt).
Thanks
May 20, 2011
Savant's new reviews today are: 
Buster Keaton's first full-length comedy with one storyline is a gem of movie construction and a comedic innovation -- Buster builds his laughs on a realistic, serious narrative foundation, with a full period reconstruction from the 1830s! Featuring wonderful gags with an antique train and a dramatic river - waterfall rescue, partly accomplished through brilliant set engineering. Available in Blu-ray but reviewed from a DVD. From Kino International.
5/21/11
Jacques Tourneur scores another perceptive, warmly human mini-classic, this one a churchgoer's idyll about a conscientious preacher in Tennessee after the Civil War, who must contend with race violence and a young doctor with no patience for hillbilly Bible-toters. A favorite movie of many, and the personal favorite of the charismatic star Joel McCrea. With Ellen Drew, Dean Stockwell, James Mitchell, Juano Hernandez. From the Warner Archive Collection.
5/21/11
For ordinary viewers, this a murky mystery-thriller from England in 1951, starring future Music Man Robert Preston. For fans of Hammer Films, legendary codebreaker Leo Marks and Peeping Tom this tale of an ex- espionage agent on a murderous vengeance mission is solid gold. See! Savant go nuts over a movie that pushes exactly the right buttons for him. Thrill! as Savant tries to sell the Savant reader a bill of cinematic goods. From the MGM Limited Edition Collection.
5/21/11
and Blu-ray 
John Ford's last great cavalry saga is now out in a brilliant Blu-ray transfer, restoring the 'bigness' to Ford's old-fashioned style of direction. John Wayne leads a guerrilla raid into the Confederacy, evading rebels while feuding with his company surgeon (William Holden) and a Southern-belle hostage (Constance Towers). Many classic scenes amid the marching songs and broad humor. From MGM/Fox.
5/21/11 
Greetings! Some interesting news this Saturday. Reader Scott Henderson passes on the news from Blu-ray.com that Universal will be releasing the Sci-Fi classic The Incredible Shrinking Man to Blu-ray on August 30. But not so fast, Savant -- I've been informed by Gary Teetzel that Universal's August 30 disc will only be a stand-alone DVD of that title ... as reported on the Home Theater Forum. What's the correct call? Criterion has a characteristically slick promo montage up for their June 21 Blu-ray release of Robert Aldrich's Kiss Me Deadly. They've picked some clever clips, and the montage gives us a nice look at the new HD widescreen transfer for the film. "Kiss me Mike. The liar's kiss that says I love you but means something else." Criterion's August lineup is a knockout, with BDs planned for Kubrick's The Killing (with Killer's Kiss as an extra), Polanski's elusive Cul-de-sac, Cocteau's Orpheus, Gillo Pontecorvo's Battle of Algiers and a trio of Jean Vigo films: À Propos de Nice, L'Atalante and Zéro de conduite. 
A link of importance to Savant-style MOD fans, who buy the new mail order-only DVD-R discs from the Warner Archive and similar outfits at Sony and MGM: over in another corner of DVDtalk, Stuart Galbraith IV has a new article up about the MGM Limited Edition Collection. So far I've been lucky with discs from these new outfits -- none exhibit these gross problems and the couple that wouldn't play were quickly replaced. I appreciate Stuart's critical view. Finally, the Hollywood Reporter online has reviewed the Cannes premiere of Pedro Almodóvar's new movie, which happens to be a re-think of Georges Franju's Les yeux sans visage (Eyes without a Face). It stars Antonio Banderas as a 'mad' plastic surgeon; the title is La piel que habíto (The Skin I Live In). I certainly hope it's good! Thanks for reading, and for your corrections --- Glenn Erickson
May 16, 2011
Savant's new reviews today are: Blu-ray 
Henri-Georges Clouzot's original murder chiller packs a solid impact for viewers with the patience to fall into its icy spell. Cold blooded homicide is the business of the day at a miserable French boarding school. With Simone Signoret, Vera Clouzot, Paul Meurisse and Charles Vanel. Look out for that wicker basket, the filthy swimming pool and the fatal bathtub! With some great extras, including an entertaing video essay with Kim Newman. From Criterion.
5/17/11
Otto Preminger's last good film stars Dyan Cannon in what should have been a star-making role. With her husband in a coma, an affluent New Yorker embarks on a week of revelations and erotic discoveries. We expect a satiric put-down, but the characters sketched by unbilled Joan Didion and Elaine May are given their due respect. With Ken Howard, Jennifer O'Neal and James Coco; and a brief but notorious appearance by Burgess Meredith. Much better than its relative obscurity would suggest. From Olive Films.
5/17/11
Blu-ray 
This superb working-class drama kick started a new British film subgenre. Young David Bradley plays a neglected and abused village kid who finds his self-identity by catching, taming and training a wild kestrel bird of prey. Ranked number seven on the list of the best British films of all time. From Criterion.
5/17/11
and 
Ed Wood has nothing on Ken Hughes' atrocious musical comedy comeback for the 87 year-old Mae West, a movie that proclaims itself B-A-D in every shot, in every frame, in every sprocket hole. A jaw-dropping, star studded rotting corpse of a movie, and therefore high on the list of desirable camp titles. With future Bond Timothy Dalton, Tony Curtis, Dom DeLuise, Ringo Starr, Keith Moon, George Hamilton and Alice Cooper. From Scorpion Releasing.
5/17/11 
Greetings! I survived the weekend in one piece and am making a big dent (I think) in my reviews ... most are fairly current. The MGM HD cable channel finally re-ran The Wonderful Country, a superior Robert Mitchum western that was stunning in Technicolor on a big screen. It looked pretty good on HD cable too, after forty years of crummy TV prints. TURNER CLASSIC MOVIES HD is now showing more of its lineup from 1080i masters, which look terrific as well. I'll dial in on something I've seen many times before, just to see how much better it looks. This situation brings up an odd problem. I can't record from HD cable except onto my DVR box, but I don't feel much like viewing an older DVD of something, knowing that it's out there in a better format. What's a spoiled rotten video collector to do? I guess I have visions of a monster array of hard discs, holding a personal horde of video .... No super links today, but I will update the Wish List a bit later. Coming up for review are MGM's Blu-rays of The Horse Soldiers, The Misfits, The Manchurian Candidate and Some Like it Hot. I've taken peeks and they look great. The John Frankenheimer disc has retained the docus I edited back in 2004. Also immediately pending are the Warner Archive Collection's discs of Stars in My Crown, They Won't Forget and Yolanda and the Thief. I've never seen the Vicente Minnelli musical and am looking forward to a pleasant Technicolor experience. Arrow Films from the UK has sent along a Blu-ray screener of Dario Argento's Bird with the Crystal Plumage that will also be up very soon in review form; I've also received Warners Screeners of Papillon and Grand Prix (Blu-ray) and an SD of their docu miniseries about the history of Hollywood. And finishing up the recent new arrivals is A Clockwork Orange 40th, accompanied by Malcolm McDowell's new docu on director Lindsay Anderson. Already reviewed over at TCM Online are Kino's Our Hospitality and Criterion's Something Wild; they'll be posted here in about a week. I've recommended Milestone's terrific disc of Araya to DVDtalk reviewer Stuart Gabraith IV and am looking forward to reading his take on it. Thanks for reading! -- Glenn Erickson
May 13, 2011
Savant's new reviews today are: 
A major rediscovery and restoration, this poetic documentary from Venezuela in 1957 discovers a near- primitive culture around a seaside salt-gathering industry, run almost exclusively by backbreaking human labor. Margot Benacerraf's exquisite B&W images and Guy Bernard's dreamlike image make an indelible impression. With several docu extras including Ms. Benaceraf's short subject Reverón. An excellent DVD from The Milestone Cinematheque.
5/14/11
The headstrong Betsy Drake makes a strong debut as a shopgirl with a take-no-prisoners attitude about snagging the man of her dreams -- a pediatrician played by Cary Grant (the actress's soon husband-to-be). The comedy is funny but the picture also has a lot to say about women in the postwar world. Drake defies the blatantly unfair double standard that says a man can aggressively pursue a mate, but a woman can't. From The Warner Archive Collection.
5/14/11/11
and (Separate Releases) 
VCI Entertainment offers separate releases of four exciting war themed pictures for Father's Day: The Way to the Stars, Malta Story, Above Us the Waves and Sea of Sand -- uncut "how I won the war" movies starring Alec Guinness, Michael Redgrave, Jack Hawkins, John Mills, John Gregson and Richard Attenborough. Quote: "There's a lot to be said for giving someone big and powerful a kick up the ass!" And it's a pleasant change of pace to see the war from a Brit POV.
5/14/11/11 
Greetings! I hope you survived Friday the 13th and didn't have to spend it in flood waters or cleaning up after a storm. Here are six new reviews for you with many more on the way. I usually don't do plugs for new movies, but Savant correspondent David Rutsala forwards this link to a trailer for Days of Grace, a new Spanish language film on which he has a writing credit. David says it will be screening this month at Cannes as part of the midnight screening series. And Roger Ebert's review for Forks over Knives makes the best case for a vegetarian diet I've read so far. Really ... I've even forwarded the link to my vegetarian son, who got the message years ago. So ... Citizen Kane and The Magnificent Ambersons are coming back to home video ... but they haven't given a street date yet so it's too early to list them in the Savant Wish List. Gary Teetzel reminds that there is nothing you can't build when you have an Allen wrench and some little wooden pegs. He forwards a College Humor link to a cute construction by posters Caldwell Tanner, Susanna Wolf and Conor McKeon, Sci-Fi Ikea Manuals. Very clever. Another announcement from Olive Films: they'll be releasing a disc of Eugene Lourie's Colossus of New York on August 16. Thanks for reading! Glenn Erickson
May 09, 2011
Savant's new reviews today are: of the Apocalypse 
Troublesome casting prevents Vincente Minnelli from pulling this extravagant epic together. The impressive assemblage includes Glenn Ford, Ingrid Thulin, Charles Boyer, Paul Henreid, Yvette Mimieux and Karl Boehm, but a lack of romantic heat and an overall cheapness prevails, despite location filming in Paris. A beautiful CinemaScope remake of the 1921 Rudolph Valentino classic, from the Warner Archive Collection.
5/10/11
We rabid classic horror fans (gooble-gobble) couldn't wait to catch up with this All Star monster rally -- Lon Chaney Jr.!, John Carradine!, Bela Lugosi!, Basil Rathbone!, Tor Johnson! -- only to discover that the story was limp and our favorite ghouls woefully underused. Akim Tamiroff's in there pitching but the direction and production are just not up to snuff. It's considered a must-see picture, just the same. From the MGM Limited Edition Collection.
5/10/11
and Blu-ray 
Best actress nominee Michelle Williams and Ryan Gosling are great together in this absorbing, intense drama of marital problems petty and profound. Director Derek Cianfrance splits the narrative into two time frames, allowing a heartbreaking comparison-contrast between the relationship's ugly present and its joyful beginning. From Anchor Bay and the Weinstein Company.
5/10/11 
Hi again -- What do we have today? Reader Jim Donahue sends a link to the first of several Ingmar Bergman Bris Soap commercials made in Sweden in the early 1950s. The Swedes pushed household products just like we do, only with a perhaps more stage-oriented approach -- this one has an almost puppet-theater appeal. Some English-language commentary on the spots is up at this Bergmanorama link. Dick Dinman's DVD Classics Corner On the Air radio offerings this week cover the recent Spencer Tracy & Katharine Hepburn DVD set from Warner Home Video. Dick's shows feature input from producer John Dayton and actors John Ericson and the late Anne Francis, as well as archival comments from Katharine Hepburn, Elizabeth Taylor, Frank Sinatra, Richard Widmark, Angela Lansbury, Mickey Rooney, Robert Wagner, Lee Marvin and Sidney Poitier. The two Tracy & Hepburn are Together Again shows are Part 1 and Part 2. I just got in Scorpion Releasing's new DVD of the Mae West comedy Sextette and will soon find out what that's all about ... and after last week's weird spectacle of Hurry Sundown, I've just seen Olive Films' DVD of Otto Preminger's Such Good Friends and thought it was pretty good! Reviews of both are coming up soon. Thanks for reading! Glenn Erickson
May 05, 2011
Savant's new reviews today are: Blu-ray 
Christian Carion's true-life espionage tale L'affaire Farewell is reportedly banned in Russia -- where the government still doesn't acknowledge the Cold War 1980s spy case on which it is based. A French engineer becomes an ad hoc courier for secrets that will help bring down the Soviet Bloc -- an altruistic effort that this movie claims was betrayed by Ronald Reagan and the C.I.A.. A superior, realistic thriller released just last year and very positively reviewed. On Blu-ray and DVD from NeoClassics Films.
5/07/11
Foolishly promoted as a torrid romance, this is actually a moody spy story from Graham Greene about a desperate trade mission during the Spanish Civil War. Charles Boyer is the unhappy envoy-agent, and Lauren Bacall the British society girl who gives him aid. Also with Peter Lorre, Katina Paxinou, Victor Francen, Wanda Hendrix and George Coulouris. From the Warner Archive Collection.
5/07/11
Otto Preminger's grossly miscalculated Civil Rights potboiler is one of the biggest camp hoots of the 1960s. Nasty Southern social climbers Michael Caine (?) and Jane Fonda aim to cheat dirt farmers Robert Hooks and John Phillip Law out of their land holdings; Faye Dunaway, Burgess Meredith and Diahann Carroll take part in an unending carousel of cheap schemes, racist deceit, and overheated bedroom games -- including a couple of surprisingly suggestive sex hijinks for 1967, before the ratings system came in. All this and color, Panavision and a Hugo Montenegro soundtrack, from Olive Films.
5/07/11
and Blu-ray 
Roger Corman's under-the-counter horror effort ran an end run around the Hollywood guilds by dispatching four aspiring filmmakers on stealth second unit shoots: Francis Coppola, Jack Hill, Monte Hellman and the film's star Jack Nicholson. Boris Karloff toplines the picture even though he only worked for a few days left over on his contract for The Raven. The good news -- it's a modest but quite accomplished horror effort! HD Cinema Classics' new Blu-ray finally presents it in an attractive home video presentation.
5/07/11 Greetings! I have a number of links and announcements for you tonight (a day early, too!) 
I've received a bushel of reminders that Olive Films is finally releasing Cy Enfield's Sands of the Kalahari on August 2, on both DVD and Blu-ray ... it has a reputation as a violent and ruthless picture. Starting on June 7, Milestone Films will have its own Milestone-On-Demand video line. The first three films will be A Day on the Grand Canal with the Emperor of China by David Hockney and Philip Haas, Dziga and His Brothers: A Film Family on the Cutting Edge by Yevgeni Tsymbal and And Now, Miguel by Joseph Krumgold. I'll have more info on these later. Hello film collectors -- anybody out there have a good 35mm film copy of the elusive "D-13 Test" seen with theatrical presentations of Dementia 13 back in 1963? I'm trying to help get it restored to the film and have been told that it was never included on 16mm prints. It was reportedly filmed by Jack Hill. 
The long-awaited Trailers From Hell! Volume 2 disc is now booked to appear from Shout! Factory on July 5 .... and the promotions say that it will also contain an encoding of Roger Corman's funniest comedy Little Shop of Horrors in an enhanced widescreen transfer. The all-new lineup of trailers & alternate commentaries is excellent. The link just above also makes mention of a special order-through-Shout! Factory giveaway deal. On a steer from Brad Arrington, which I think is by way of Scott McQueen, we have this interesting 7-minute featurette on the original Big Bear locations from the old Columbia horror film The Werewolf. Hey, the water level in Big Bear Lake looks better now than it ever was in the 1960s! Last Fall I was a lucky recipient of a review copy of an excellent Arrow Academy Films English Blu-ray of Spirits of the Dead. They've since sent me three more Blu-ray discs that I'd like to review, but two of them were given restricted encoding for Region B only, and I can't play them: Bicycle Thieves and Rififi. The handsome Arrow Blu-ray for H.G. Clouzot's Les Diaboliques does play on standard U.S.- sold machines, and has a couple of very good extras to recommend it. English readers (I have a few) take note! I hope that Arrow Academy Films sends me more Region-Free Blu-rays to review... But I don't see myself getting an All-Region player anytime soon, and I try not to promote too many discs that most of my readers cannot play. And here's something else totally weird: a Twitchfilm trailer for an as-yet completed movie called Frankenstein's Army. Who knows what the feature will be -- this promo trailer looks like a cross between the notorious Nazi flashback footage from The Flesh Eaters and something by Guy Maddin. Watch if you dare! You know, I think that's it for now. I just got Blu-ray screeners of Papillon, Grand Prix and Blue Valentine and am working on DVD reviews for The Black Sleep, The 4 Horsemen of the Apocalypse and the Japanese swordplay thriller Revenge. Thanks and I'll see you on Monday ... Glenn Erickson
May 02, 2011
Savant's new reviews today are: Blu-ray 
Francis Coppola's first full feature as a director is a surprisingly accomplished, if minor, horror offering with a couple of impressive shock scenes. HD Cinema Classics' new Blu-ray +DVD combo may not be from original printing elements, but it looks and sounds darn good. And as they say in my part of the woods, the price is right, too.
5/02/11
and Blu-ray 
Brian De Palma's paranoid conspiracy thriller is one of his most visually polished productions, but its story and situations are still come off as a collection of borrowings from other more original movies. John Travolta delivers a solid star turn as a movie sound designer who accidentally records the audio of a political assassination. Criterion's deluxe Blu-ray puts forward the case for Blow Out as an important modern classic.
5/02/11 
I said I'd be checking in sooner than this but the four days spent at the 2nd TCM Classic Film Festival ended up being a blogging steeplechase that barely left room for sleeping. As it was last year, the Fest was split between two venues on Hollywood Blvd.: the original Grauman's Chinese Theater and its multiplex annex and the Egyptian Theater down the street. The Grauman's location is already overrun with tourists, street people, movie tour hucksters and entertainers dressed as everyone from Spiderman to Marilyn Monroe. On Sunday I caught two different Michael Jacksons taking a break at a table; I wondered if one was telling the other to Get Out of Dodge Or Else. Throwing hundreds and hundreds of eager festival-goers into the mix just made the streets pandemonium. It was very relaxing to get into a nice cozy screening room with only 250 people. I think the out of towners found the whole setup exciting. The perfect weather helped, too. 
Back to the review mill now ... working under pressure all weekend has really been an excellent writing workout. I have two reviews on tap now and will try to whittle down the (short) backlog in the next few days. Thanks for reading! -- Glenn Erickson
Review Staff
| About DVD Talk
| Newsletter Subscribe
| Join DVD Talk Forum
|
|
| |||||||||
