The Chairman (1969), an espionage/sci-fi thriller starring Gregory Peck and directed by J. Lee Thompson, was one of dozens of critical and financial flops that plagued 20th Century-Fox during the late-1960s. Critics hated it, and for a time it seemed to vanish. Years later I remember catching it on commercial television, beginning with a dialogue scene between Peck and an actor playing the Chairman of the title, Mao Zedong himself. Nonplussed, I continued watching this strange movie for a time, fascinated by scenes of Peck sneaking around China at the height of the Cultural Revolution.

Turns out the movie is most entertaining, if occasionally preposterous. Tautly edited, this relatively short (98-minute) feature is fast-paced and genuinely exciting. Peck, as he almost always was, is excellent, and the dialogue written for him by Ben Maddow (adapting Jay Richard Kennedy's novel) is witty and i...Read the entire review

An unusual, adult Western, Warlock (1959), like the recently-reviewed Bandolero!, is a kind of transitional film between classical Hollywood Westerns and the darker, revisionist ones that would take hold during the 1960s. Screenwriter Robert Alan Arthur, adapting Oakley Hall's 1958 novel, was at the time primarily associated with live television drama, and his script for Warlock is both innovative yet self-consciously arty, particularly in some of the stylized dialogue. It's an intriguing picture with much to recommend it, but certain aspects don't really work. Cinesavant's rave review makes a convincing case for Warlock as a first-rate Western; I'm less impressed by certain aspects of the film, while acknowledging that it has many fine moments and is nothing if not ambitious.

Read the entire review

]]> Blu-ray https://www.dvdtalk.com/reviews/review/73891 Mon, 01 Jul 2019 16:52:55 UTC Highly Recommended

Bandolero! (1968) never makes lists of the all-time great Westerns, but it is vastly underappreciated. A big, expensive studio film starring James Stewart, Dean Martin, and Raquel Welch, and directed by Andrew V. McLaglen, Bandolero! was the type of mainstream Western gradually falling out of favor as Spaghetti Westerns like Sergio Leone's The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly came into prominence, while the abandonment of the long out-of-date Production Code was giving way to a more permissive ratings system that would soon bring about revisionist Westerns like Sam Peckinpah's The Wild Bunch (1969).

The big studios didn't adjust to these changes well. For instance, when Clint Eastwood returned from Italy to star in Hang ‘Em High (also 1968), that film adopted a clumsy, pseudo-Spaghetti style that didn't work. Bandolero!, on the other hand, was a rare exception t...Read the entire review

]]> Blu-ray https://www.dvdtalk.com/reviews/review/73841 Wed, 05 Jun 2019 17:07:10 UTC DVD Talk Collector Series

Back in the days when I lived in "Hollywood," most of my neighbors were like Melvin Dummar, the protagonist of Melvin and Howard (1980). One had written a Gone with the Wind-type romantic epic set in Italy, but this first-time writer would only sell her script if the buyer also agreed she could play its Scarlett O'Hara-esque heroine. Another believed his pet project to direct a $100-million epic adaptation of a novel about druids was always on the verge of going into production, this despite the fact that he never acquired the screen rights. Or that his credits consisted mainly of driving a honeywagon (portable toilet truck) on a forged driver's license. Others, would-be movie stars, mostly hung around the swimming pool, waiting to be discovered, until their money ran out and they were forced back home to the Middle West and beyond.

Reminiscent of Michael Ritchie's criminally un...Read the entire review

]]> Blu-ray https://www.dvdtalk.com/reviews/review/73832 Mon, 03 Jun 2019 19:26:58 UTC Highly Recommended

Reviewed by Glenn Erickson

1966's The Quiller Memorandum is a low-key gem, a pared-down, existential spy caper that keeps the exoticism to a minimum. Michael Anderson directs a classy slice of '60s spy-dom. In West Berlin, George Segal's Quiller struggles through a near- existential battle with Neo-Nazi swine more soulless than his own cold-fish handlers. Harold Pinter supplies the circular dialogue, Alec Guinness the charming insincerity and Max von Sydow a devilish menace. Quiller is mesmerized by the seductive ambiguity of lovely Senta Berger. Does she love Quiller? Or is love dead in this brave world of deceit and subterfuge?

To do his job, George Segal's hapless Quiller must set himself out as bait in the middle of a pressure play in West Berlin. It's quiet and civilized and a little artsy, and Harold Pinter's semi-stylized dialog...Read the entire review

]]> Blu-ray https://www.dvdtalk.com/reviews/review/73830 Tue, 28 May 2019 21:51:49 UTC Highly Recommended

Probably like many, I avoided the 1966 remake of John Ford's 1939 classic Stagecoach assuming any such undertaking was a fool's errand, if not downright sacrilegious. After all, Ford's film set a new standard for movie Westerns. It's still an exhilarating viewing experience, one that even, so he claimed, taught Orson Welles the basics of filmmaking before he embarked on his own landmark Citizen Kane.

The director of the remake, Gordon Douglas, was workmanlike but no great auteur. He started out at Hal Roach Studios, eventually supervising the last Roach years of the "Our Gang" shorts before graduating to program pictures, first at RKO and later at Columbia. The 1950s, when he was mostly ensconced at Warner Bros., was Douglas's best decade, with his work there including Them! (1954), Young at Heart (1955), and three low-budget but well-regarded Westerns starring Clint Walk...Read the entire review

]]> Blu-ray https://www.dvdtalk.com/reviews/review/73778 Thu, 11 Apr 2019 17:18:54 UTC Highly Recommended

Advertising for The Big Fix (1978), Jeremy Paul Kagan's film starring Richard Dreyfuss, suggests some kind of lighthearted neo-noir, but the movie turns out to have more in common with Lawrence Kasdan's The Big Chill (1983) or even Sidney Lumet's underrated Running On Empty (1988) than, say, Robert Altman's The Long Goodbye (1973). Dreyfuss plays an L.A.-based private investigator, but the movie is less a private eye movie than about a former liberal activist that coincidentally happens to be one. All the genre conventions are present, but its screenplay mainly explores post-radical ‘60s malaise and Dreyfuss's character trying to come to terms with a world that has, in less than a decade, shrugged off so much of what once was so important.

The film makes a few unfortunate compromises here and there, but it's also more directly political and personal than the overrated <...Read the entire review

]]> Blu-ray https://www.dvdtalk.com/reviews/review/73750 Tue, 02 Apr 2019 17:23:45 UTC Recommended

1988's Talk Radio showed that Oliver Stone could direct a smaller movie alongside "big important" productions like Platoon. Starring Eric Bogosian and based on his one-man stage show, it covers a subject that was of great interest to me at the time of its release. I'd discovered how interesting talk radio could be after pretty much giving up on hearing any good music on stations in my area- in fact a favorite joke back then was to say that the talk stations played better music than the music stations. I'd wanted to work in radio back then either behind the microphone or elsewhere behind the scenes, and while I'm glad I didn't end up doing that I still follow what's left of the medium today. Admittedly one of the biggest thrills I got out of most shows that took listener phone calls on the air was hearing people who were eithe...Read the entire review

]]> Blu-ray https://www.dvdtalk.com/reviews/review/73696 Fri, 08 Mar 2019 22:34:26 UTC Highly Recommended

Hey, I know things don't look great right now. Rockwell Hunter (Tony Randall) is, after all, the lowest man on the totem pole at La Salle Jr., Raskin, Pooley, & Crocket, and with a corporate name that obnoxious, you probably don't need me to tell you that this Madison Ave. firm is in advertising. The big man in the corner office (John Williams) barely knows he exists. Rock's having a tough enough time as it is scraping together the cash he needs to offer his fianc&#233;e Jenny (Betsy Drake) the life she deserves. And it's about to get a whole lot tougher, since the word around the water cooler &ndash; or, well, the harder stuff that Henry (Henry Jones) is prone to drinking &ndash; is that the firm is on the brink of going under.
...Read the entire review

]]> Blu-ray https://www.dvdtalk.com/reviews/review/73690 Tue, 05 Mar 2019 00:28:42 UTC Recommended

---

"Here, my ice lolly's melted. You really must be The Devil!"
"Incarnate. How do you do?"

---

Three wishes?! It's been quite a lot more than 1,001 Arabian nights since that was standard practice. Accounting for inflation, then converting to pounds sterling, your traditional soul divestment package circa 1967 stands at seven wishes strong.

And seven wishes ought to be plenty for painfully shy fry cook Stanley (Dudley Moore) to at long last win the heart of Margaret (Eleanor Bron) &ndash; the apple of his eye, the white cheddar to his quarter-pound hamburger patty, the Peter Cook to his Dudley Moore. But as the saying goes, the devil's in the details, especially when your wishes are being granted by the...Read the entire review

]]> Blu-ray https://www.dvdtalk.com/reviews/review/73687 Sun, 03 Mar 2019 18:02:18 UTC Highly Recommended

---

"Surely you don't object to meeting me as man to man. Haven't I always treated you as a human being?"
"Most certainly not, my lord! Your treatment of me has always been as it should be."
"Well, that's enough. This afternoon at 4 o'clock, you will be my equal. I'll soon show you whether you're my equal or not!"
"Almighty..."
"You do as you're told!"

---

Lord Henry Loam (Cecil Parker) has long argued in favor of the equality of men &ndash; of stripping away the social strata that separate us, because at the end of the day, we're all in this together. And when I say "long argued", I guess I mean "since half past seven this morning". Always one to put his (quite a lot of) money where his (quite a lot of)Read the entire review

]]> Blu-ray https://www.dvdtalk.com/reviews/review/73488 Mon, 03 Dec 2018 16:46:20 UTC Recommended

The word giallo likely inspires a very specific set of images in the minds of most horror fans: black gloves, beautiful naked women, and bloody violence (often inflicted with straight razor blades). 1971's Short Night of Glass Dolls eschews those trademarks for something more subtly surreal and unique, so much so that many fans debate whether or not the film actually fits in the genre. Directed by Aldo Lado and starring the handsome Jean Sobel, this oddball mystery offers a great hook, gorgeous visuals, and an extremely slow-burn approach to horror that add up to a pretty memorable and singular suspense picture.

American reporter Gregory Moore (Sorel) has a mystery to solve. A few days ago, Gregory's beautiful girlfriend Mira Svoboda (Barbara Bach) arrived in Prague to see him, much to the chagrin of his previous girlfriend, fellow journalist Jessica (Ingrid Thulin). Then, followin...Read the entire review

]]> Blu-ray https://www.dvdtalk.com/reviews/review/73485 Mon, 03 Dec 2018 16:33:06 UTC Recommended

Peter Denver (Van Heflin) has nothing to complain about, really: the star of his latest play, Carlotta "Lottie" Marin (Ginger Rogers) creates drama and gossip, which can be frustrating when Peter and his wife Iris (Gene Tierney) live directly beneath them, but Peter enjoys the friendship of her husband Brian Mullen (Reginald Gardiner). So when Iris, before flying off to see her mother, asks Peter to make an appearance at Lottie's latest party, he begrudgingly agrees. There, he runs into Nancy "Nanny" Ordway (Peggy Ann Garner), an aspiring writer struggling to figure out what famous author to imitate and harboring a nearly insatiable appetite. A platonic dinner gets Peter out of his party obligations, and they become friends, with Peter eventually offering to let Peggy write in his apartment while he's at work so she can enjoy the view of New York City from his living room. There's nothing illicit about...Read the entire review

]]> Blu-ray https://www.dvdtalk.com/reviews/review/73456 Tue, 20 Nov 2018 19:29:57 UTC Recommended

As part of their multi-picture deal with Hollywood's Columbia Pictures, Britain's Hammer Films cannily co-produced Sword of Sherwood Forest (1960), with actor Richard Greene (also a producer here) reprising the career-defining starring in The Adventures of Robin Hood (1955-59), the British TV series popular in the U.S. and Canada as well as in Britain. By all accounts, the film was a minor success.

Hammer had already made one Robin Hood movie, Val Guest's The Men of Sherwood Forest (1954), in color but otherwise cheaply done; actor and later director Don Taylor starred in that. Hammer also had a long history of adapting television properties to film: the Nigel Kneale "Quatermass" shows, for instance, and in the 1970s their most successful releases were actually film versions of popular British sitcoms. This was a no-brainer.

Sword of Sherwood Forest is mild, pleasant en...Read the entire review

]]> Blu-ray https://www.dvdtalk.com/reviews/review/73453 Thu, 15 Nov 2018 20:25:25 UTC Recommended

Ah, early CinemaScope. The widescreen format, having debuted with The Robe in September 1953, radically altered the movie-making landscape. The enormous box-office success of that and other initial CinemaScope titles resulted in a glut of spectacles during 1954-'55, movies intended to showcase the format's ultra-wide (initially 2.55:1) screen and four-track magnetic stereophonic sound. For a time, even a picture as profoundly silly as The Adventures of Hajji Baba (1954) was all but guaranteed to make money.

Recalling producer Walter Wanger's earlier success for Universal, Arabian Nights (1942), The Adventures of Hajji Baba similarly presents a fairy tale Middle Eastern adventure, minus elements of fantasy found in that and in Universal's subsequent follow-ups (Cobra Woman, Ali Baba and His Forty Thieves, etc.). It's not a good movie by any measure, but it's ...Read the entire review

]]> Blu-ray https://www.dvdtalk.com/reviews/review/73435 Mon, 05 Nov 2018 18:39:55 UTC Highly Recommended

The Last Hurrah (1958) is at once an atypical and emblematic film from director John Ford. Celebrated for his work in the Western genre particularly, the vast majority of his movies from the mid-1950s until his death were in that genre, and beyond that Ford generally did period films (The Long Gray Line, The Wings of Eagles). But The Last Hurrah is set in the present, even anticipating the future of American politics while waxing nostalgic about a soon-to-be extinct form of politicking. At the same time, the picture embraces much that was deeply personal to Ford, especially Irish-Americanism, and it nearly bursts its seams with old-time Ford regulars, Irish-American character actors, Ford's relatives, and even some of Ford's associates going back to the silent days. The look, the story are entirely different, but in spirit it may be closest to Ford's beloved The Quiet Man...Read the entire review

]]> Blu-ray https://www.dvdtalk.com/reviews/review/73433 Mon, 05 Nov 2018 18:39:55 UTC DVD Talk Collector Series

Star Gregory Peck and director Henry King return to the Western genre for the second and last time in The Bravados (1958), an excellent revenge tale. Peck and King had made The Gunfighter eight years earlier - that had been and remains one of the all-time great Westerns - and this is a worthy follow-up, though it's not nearly as famous. Perhaps the film's downbeat story, religious overtones, and ambiguous characters have prevented it from being embraced as widely as other near-great Westerns, or maybe it's because the full-frame Gunfighter didn't suffer too badly on TV and videotape the way the filmed-in-CinemaScope Bravados did. In any case it's a film ripe for rediscovery.

Jim Douglass (Peck), a tightlipped stranger, rides into a locked-dow...Read the entire review

]]> Blu-ray https://www.dvdtalk.com/reviews/review/73412 Tue, 30 Oct 2018 16:02:15 UTC Rent It

TheChildren of Huang Shi is a 2008 drama which is based upon arealhistorical context surrounding actual events which occurred followingthe Japanese occupation within China during the 1930's. Set during atime in which China was in a state of turmoil, the film explores animportant story about heroic acts. From executive producers LillianBirn...Read the entire review

]]> Blu-ray https://www.dvdtalk.com/reviews/review/73360 Thu, 04 Oct 2018 19:49:15 UTC Highly Recommended

A lighthearted caper film, The Hot Rock (1972) was, curiously, not a hit when it was new, this despite the popularity at the time of stars Robert Redford and George Segal, the clever wit of William Goldman's screenplay, and Peter Yates's assured direction. The $5 million production earned $3.5 million in rentals.

The story was adapted from the same-named novel by Donald E. Westlake (Point Blank, The Grifters), the first to feature the character John Dortmunder, the protagonist of various novels and seven movies to date, the most recent being What's the Worst That Could Happen? (2001) with Martin Lawrence. Soon after The Hot Rock producers tried again with the character in the over-emphatically eccentric Bank Shot (1974), starring George C. Scott, which Scott disowned.

The Hot Rock is more slickly made and generally fun, if a little bit too calculati...Read the entire review

]]> Blu-ray https://www.dvdtalk.com/reviews/review/73337 Thu, 27 Sep 2018 14:09:11 UTC Recommended

The Movie:

Released in 1980, Gloria is an unexpected entry in the filmography of writer-director John Cassavetes. One of the most idiosyncratic voices in American independent filmmaking, Cassavetes was known to act in Hollywood product to help bankroll his passion projects. The script for Gloria, with its genre trappings and relatively straightforward storytelling, was similarly written as a potboiler to help keep the lights on; Cassavetes never intended to direct it himself. But once the studio offered the lead role to Gena Rowlands, Cassavetes's wife and longtime collaborator, she brought John in as a package deal.

Like a less flashy version of Luc Besson's later flick, Read the entire review

]]> Blu-ray https://www.dvdtalk.com/reviews/review/73294 Wed, 05 Sep 2018 21:21:25 UTC Recommended

Brandon Lee's penultimate film appearance before his untimely 1993 death, Dwight H. Little's Rapid Fire (1992) offers the most well-rounded and enjoyable showcase of his considerable talent. It's a well above-average action film whose story is more than just an excuse to string together fight scenes (imagine that!), while the lead role was written specifically with Lee in mind. And though the impressive, cleanly shot brawls still manage to outshine everything else by a comfortable margin, there's still more than enough substance to make Rapid Fire more "pleasure" than "guilty". Our story follows st...Read the entire review ]]> Blu-ray https://www.dvdtalk.com/reviews/review/73260 Tue, 21 Aug 2018 12:02:38 UTC Highly Recommended The Movie: John Baggs, Jr., is a sailor who claims he doesn't like to curse. Mostly, this seems to mean he says "Gosh darn," instead of the blasphemous original, as other expletives pass his lips more than a few select times throughout Cinderella Liberty. This claim might also be an inside joke by the film's screenwriter Darryl Ponicsan (adapting his own novel), as another Ponicsan sailor story, the infamously F-bomb-littered The Last Detail, hit American screens roughly a week before Cinderella Liberty. The Last Detail has found its place in the canon of '70s American classics, while Cinderella Liberty is a relative obscurit...Read the entire review ]]> Blu-ray https://www.dvdtalk.com/reviews/review/73252 Wed, 15 Aug 2018 12:41:43 UTC Recommended Director Fred Zinnemann's film of James Jones's novel From Here to Eternity (1953) had been one of the biggest commercial and critical hits of the 1950s. Made for a modest $2 million, the picture earned 15 times its cost in the U.S. and Canada alone. The Revolt of Mamie Stover (1956) is an obvious attempt to duplicate that success, telling a similar story using the same setting: Hawaii in the months before and after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor. From Here to Eternity focused on U.S. Army soldiers stationed there, one of whom (played by Montgomery Clift) falls in love with Lorene (Donna Reed), dancer at a "gentleman's club," who yearns for a respectable life. In the novel but not the film, Lorene was a prostitute at a brothel, something Hollywood's Production Code wouldn't allow. Likewise, in The Revolt of Mamie Stover, the title character, played by Jane Russell, is o...Read the entire review ]]> Blu-ray https://www.dvdtalk.com/reviews/review/73248 Tue, 14 Aug 2018 12:58:23 UTC Recommended Jenny Bunn (Hayley Mills) has only barely arrived in her South England boarding house when she first encounters Patrick Standish (Oliver Reed). Although he is ostensibly there to meet a different resident, Anna (Geraldine Sherman), he immediately starts in on charming Jenny, who responds more or less politely to his advances but doesn't seem quite convinced. It isn't until Patrick's got her in his apartment and finds her rebuffing his attempts to move his hand up her leg that she confesses her "secret": she's a virgin, and she's planning on saving herself for marriage. No matter how many of his "ladies man" tricks he employs to try and convince her to sleep with him, she rebuffs his advances -- and with each rejection, Patrick becomes more and more infatuated. Take a Girl Like You is fascinating to watch in 2018, almost 50 years after it was released. Although there were certainly films bein...Read the entire review ]]> Blu-ray https://www.dvdtalk.com/reviews/review/73245 Mon, 13 Aug 2018 15:05:38 UTC Recommended One might have thought after the disastrous The Conqueror (1956), the ill-advised epic starring John Wayne as Mongolian warlord Genghis Khan, producers would have been reluctant to dip into that poisoned well a second time. But, no, producer Irving Allen, having recently separated from producing partner Albert R. "Cubby" Broccoli and having some success on his own with another historical adventure, Jack Cardiff's The Long Ships (1964), decided an epic biopic of Genghis Khan was just the thing. The curious film that resulted, a British-Yugoslavian-West German-American co-production, is not unlike the hundreds of sword-and-sandal films cheaply made by European (especially Italian) companies riding the Hollywood vogue for historical epics. Its screenplay is depressingly familiar with no depth at all, and yet the picture is stuffed with important stars associated with recent epics: Omar Sh...Read the entire review ]]> Blu-ray https://www.dvdtalk.com/reviews/review/73191 Sun, 22 Jul 2018 01:07:33 UTC Recommended Captain fromCastile is one ofthe most ambitious Hollywood productions of its time. The film wasmade with a massive production budget. Featuring immaculate sets,lavish costumes, and an enormous number of extras, CaptainfromCastile both looks and feels expensive at every turn. It wasanearly example of a big-budget Hollywood spectacle before the dawn ofCGI effects and the rise of the modern blockbuster. Executiveproduced by Darryl F. Zanuck (The Longest Day), thisis anexcellent example of Hollywood spectacle through-and-through. The film stars Tyrone Poweras Pedro deVar...Read the entire review ]]> Blu-ray https://www.dvdtalk.com/reviews/review/73176 Wed, 18 Jul 2018 11:59:47 UTC Highly Recommended The Movie: NOTE: The images included here are taken from various online sources and do not reflect the quality of the Blu-ray under review There is one anecdote which comes to mind whenever I think of D.W. Griffith's 1915 magnum opus, The Birth of a Nation. I don't remember the documentary from which I heard it, but it was a doc I saw in my Intro to Film Studies class in college, the week after the professor had instructed the projectionist to roll Birth of a Nation without being present herself. She wanted us to soak in the film for seven days before offering discussion, context, or even an outlet for reaction. Anyhow, the anecdote. Griffith had an African-American servant who was so fond of him that she nam...Read the entire review ]]> Blu-ray https://www.dvdtalk.com/reviews/review/73169 Sun, 15 Jul 2018 12:35:32 UTC Recommended Marilyn Monroe's penultimate (completed) feature, Let's Make Love (1960) isn't as good as it might have been but it's also better than one might have expected. The basis for its musical-comedy-romantic plot began when writer Norman Krasna was amused watching actor and non-dancer Burt Lancaster perform a dance at a Writers Guild Award ceremony. (Years later, Lancaster sang and danced "Thank You Very Much" from the musical Scrooge at the Oscars, and that was quite hilarious.) From that Krasna built a story around a billionaire who, after initially concerned about a theater company satirizing his playboy ways, pays the company a visit only to be mistaken for a lookalike actor auditioning to portray him. As he's instantly enamored of the leading lady (Monroe), he allows himself to be cast in the part. The problem is Clement has absolutely no talent as an actor, a singer, or a dancer, hence...Read the entire review ]]> Blu-ray https://www.dvdtalk.com/reviews/review/73157 Wed, 11 Jul 2018 12:31:46 UTC Highly Recommended The Movie: NOTE: The photos accompanying this review were taken from various online sources and do not reflect the quality of the Blu-ray under review. For anyone who has ever fancied themselves an artist -- for reasons justified or otherwise -- Paul Mazursky's semi-autobiographical film Next Stop, Greenwich Village (1976) is sure to strike a chord. With its fond but not always flattering look back at la vie bohème in Beat-era New York, Mazursky has made one of the great grown-up coming-of-age films. Stage actor Lenny Baker appears in his only film lead (he died in 1982) as Mazursky's 1953 stand-in, Larry Lapinski, a nice Jewish boy who takes the long subway ride from Brownsville, Brooklyn, to Manhattan's Gr...Read the entire review ]]> Blu-ray https://www.dvdtalk.com/reviews/review/73134 Sun, 01 Jul 2018 21:04:19 UTC Skip It The Film: This may seem like common sense, but it occasionally deserves a reminder: the nature of the performances in a film can change the entire fabric of the storytelling. Under better circumstances, My Cousin Rachel should play out as a clever glimpse into the machinations of a widow with unclear motivations, whose interactions with her deceased husband's family could lead her either toward malicious intents or toward her being misjudged by those around her. Conversely, the viewpoint of the young heir to this estate would benefit from more consistent skepticism, since the story's tone leans into that doubting atmosphere. This adaptation of a 1951 novel by Daphne du Maurier loses those intentions, though, despite the efforts of Oscar-recogniz...Read the entire review ]]> Blu-ray https://www.dvdtalk.com/reviews/review/73085 Tue, 12 Jun 2018 19:49:49 UTC Rent It Not to be confused with the made-for-TV movie that debuted five days before its theatrical release, Walter Hill's Geronimo: An American Legend (1993) offers a reasonably accurate dramatization of the Native American icon's life and times. Or at least part of it: like The Last of the Mohicans and last year's Hostiles (both of which feature veteran actor Wes Studi, who portrays the title character here), ...Read the entire review ]]> Blu-ray https://www.dvdtalk.com/reviews/review/73055 Sun, 27 May 2018 00:23:12 UTC Recommended Blue Denim is a drama produced by CharlesBrackett (SunsetBoulevard, The Lost Weekend) and based on a play written byJamesLeo Herlihy and William Noble. It is an early example of Americancinema exploringteen pregnancy. Before the dawn of reality television featuring serieslike"16 and Pregnant" being common, Blue Denim is a early dramaexploring the topic. Janet Willard (Carol Lynley) and Arthur Bartley(Brandon DeWilde) are two average American teenagers. They hang out together inthebasement along with their close friend Ernie (Warren Berlinger) andcrack jokeswhile playing games together and getting into conversations. Thefriendshipbetween the duo turns into something else when Janet a...Read the entire review ]]> Blu-ray https://www.dvdtalk.com/reviews/review/73054 Sun, 27 May 2018 00:23:12 UTC Highly Recommended No Down Payment is an ahead-of-it's-time biting social commentary drama which explores a community built around a marketing pitch of "better living" for the community. Taking place inside of a California suburbia during the 1960's, the film centers around the lives of several couples and families living inside of a new housing market which might look perfect on the outside but has more trouble on the inside. The film sharply tackles the American dream of prosperity with sharp satire and drama. The characters in the film are looking for perfect homes and livelihoods which will present "better living" (as advertised to them in their own community's marketing) but those homes come with too-high-a-cos...Read the entire review ]]> Blu-ray https://www.dvdtalk.com/reviews/review/73041 Mon, 21 May 2018 10:39:28 UTC Highly Recommended A slight but beguiling Hollywood production made by French filmmaker Jacques Demy, Model Shop (1969) fascinates mainly as a portrait of painfully aimless slackery in Vietnam War-era Los Angeles, viewed through a French prism. Gary Lockwood ("that guy from 2001" said the inapt ads) and Anouk Aimée ("the woman from A Man and a Woman") star, but the City of Los Angeles deserves equal billing, and Demy shoots it in a manner subtly different from any director before or since. Demy established his reputation in a series of films simultaneously lushly romantic and harshly realistic about love and the desire for lasting relationships. After Lola (1960) and Bay of Angels (1962), Demy began to interest Hollywood with The Umbrellas of Cherbourg (1964) and The Young Girls of Rochefort (1967), big commercial successes in Europe and, Umbrellas particularly,...Read the entire review ]]> Blu-ray https://www.dvdtalk.com/reviews/review/73037 Sat, 19 May 2018 17:44:42 UTC Recommended The Film: Those who viewed Woody Allen's recent work Wonder Wheel might have been met with dissatisfaction at the director's cumbersome, yet lackadaisical handling of its ideas, spanning from crumbling marriages and secret affairs to a domestic woman's desire for more rewarding activities in her life. While many of these are themes touched upon in several of Allen's other works, one can find a much more reputable and engaging distillment of ‘em in one of his earlier, often overlooked pieces of work from the ‘90s, Alice. While viewers who are sensitive magical powers being implemented in convenient ways might be a little put off by this whimsical drama, those who aren't...Read the entire review ]]>