This wasn’t supposed to happen. I was supposed to be shutting down the blog maybe, not writing for no money ever again definitely, and all sorts of stuff like that. And yet. Here it is. Some things refuse to be killed, and/or die a natural death.
Equipment: Playstation 3 for domestic discs, OPPO BDP 83 for import discs, Panasonic Viera TCP50S30 plasma display, Pioneer Elite VSX-817 AV amplifier/receiver.
Recommended without comment (because I got to them too late to really formulate readable capsules in time for my self-imposed deadline here): Belladonna of Sadness (Cinelicious Pics), Everybody Wants Some!! (Paramount), Hawks and Sparrows/Pigsty (Region B U.K. import, Eureka!/Masters of Cinema), Horse Money (Region B U.K. import, Second Run), The Last Command (Region B U.K. import, Eureka!/Masters of Cinema).
Appassionata (Twilight Time)
Twilight Time’s eclecticism is genuinely unpredictable; just when you think you’ve got the label’s tastes pegged (it loves strong music scores, CinemaScope, uber-competent studio directors like Henry Levin and…Ralph Nelson? Yeah, Ralph Nelson) than they release something wholly other. In this case, a 1974 Italian domestic drama with 100-proof psychosexual content, starring then-teen Ornella Muti and then-newly-turned-20 Eleonora Giorgi. Gabrielle Ferzetti, of L’Avventura jaded-stud fame, looks pretty tired of being a jaded stud, and is here Muti’s dad, a dentist whose wife is going bonkers and whose daughter’s best friend has the hots for him. The movie’s opening scene features young Ornella in schoolgirl white blouse and sweater, so you know the movie wants to make you feel dirty right off the bat. About 41 minutes in, do take note of the “what the hell is she doing with that dog scene.” Eventually all the sexual repression/expression—which really begins roiling once Ornella’s character starts inexplicably swaying her butt at daddy—builds to a, um, climax of staggering WTFness. Not since the “Knock it off, Vix” shower sequence in Russ Meyer’s Vixen has the male gaze had to contend with such seriously icky mixed feelings about being the male gaze. As for the disc, damn—the transfer has excellent color values and the image quality overall is spectacular for a 40-plus year old film. Not big on extras, but a highly memorable viewing experience. Inspirational dialogue: “All big, handsome cowards, all filthy pigs like you are.”
—B
Bad Influence (Shout! Factory)
Early David Koepp, sure, why not. Early Curtis Hanson, ditto. Relatively early Robert Elswit—WTFIU?! This 1990 movie still looks and feels a little‘80s, and some of that look and feel is a mite cheesy—the white walls of James Spader’s apartment, the overdetermined shadows of Venetian blind slats on Lowe’s face. On the other hand, the late afternoon job promotion scene with Spader and John DeLancie is pretty sweet and definitely suggests visual expressiveness to come from the Elswit camp. As does the discovery of the emptied-out apartment. And then there’s that great party scene where they’re projecting Alphaville on the wall of a house. Ace soundtrack too—Les Negresses Vert, Don Cherry and Nana Vasconcellos, Gavin Friday… and the movie holds up, for the most part. The sole extra of note is a 30-minute interview with, Koepp, which has lots of solid stuff. —B+
Candy (Kino Lorber)
Not a bad looking disc, but pace pal-of-mine Kim Morgan, who contributes an eloquent and impassioned defense on one of the discs extras, an almost unspeakably bad film. I think the only way a viable movie could have been made from Terry Southern and Mason Hoffenberg’s porn pastiche would have been to film it completely straight =-faced, in the mode of either Douglas Sirk or Zucker-Abrahams-Zucker. Renata Adler was terribly unkind to young Ewa Aulin in the former’s New York Times review of the movie but she also had a point—the poor young thing looks so puffy in the film’s opening scene that she’s almost unrecognizable in the following schoolroom scene. Which is where the film’s problems proper begin, with John Astin’s intolerable nonstop mugging. A fascinating curio though, what with the cameos (Brando’s is less mortifying than Burton’s) and the location stuff (is she actually walking over the Verrazano Bridge?) and so on. Good looking disc, too; the other extra is screenwriter Buck Henry offering a frank assessment of the film while unabashedly recalling what a great time he had with director Christian Marquand while making it. —B-
The Chase (Kino Lorber)
Of the 300 movies titled The Chase, this 1946 Arthur Ripley-directed number, from a Cornell Woolrich tale, definitely belongs in the top five at least. The thing about Woolrich, or one thing about Woolrich, is that like a lot of genre writers he was not allergic to using pretty hoary plot devices but was always smart enough to use them in completely insanely inspired ways. As you will see if you’re watching this very nicely restored and transferred thriller for the first time, in which Robert Cummings, as a down on his luck nice guy who turns chauffeur to bonkers gangster Steve Cochran and OF COURSE falls for his wife Michèle Morgan, is largely eclipsed by his co-stars, another one of whom is Peter Lorre. The pervasive atmosphere of the picture is such that it’s completely fitting that Guy Maddin does the commentary. (“A little sprocket wriggle…it’s still alive, in other words,” he notes of the UCLA restoration.) Other extras include two-count-‘em-two radio adaptations of the Woolrich story. —B+
La Chienne (Criterion)
I’ve always been pretty nuts about Fritz Lang’s Scarlet Street, which was based on this 1931 Jean Renoir picture. A picture, I admit, that I had never seen until now. This is another reason Criterion is kind of the best. Street gets the kudos for bone-chilling sexual sadism and voluptuousness, and near-nihilist ending hijinks, while Renoir’s film is a remarkably fluid slice of sleazy life that displays a lot more sexual frankness and has a realism that’s as raw-nerve-provoking as Lang’s fevered stylization. (Check out the amazing hand-held camerawork in the arts-patron-courting scene here.) Hence, the films are as alike as Fritz Lang and Jean Renoir are alike, and as different as Edward G. Robinson is different from Michel Simon. The Criterion package also contains Renoir’s first sound feature, which looks as good as the main feature, another 97 minutes from Jacques Rivette’s made-for-television study of/tribute to Renoir, and more. An essential purchase. —A+
City Heat (Warner)
The picture quality on this is really something—more ‘80s cheese, this time ‘80s cheese doing period, so lots of red neon and such. So the disc is a pleasure to look at, always. And for about three or four minutes you get the feeling that this might hold for the movie itself—it can’t be as bad as the critics said it was, or as I remember it, can it? Oh yes it can— this is just a really terrible movie that gets worse as it goes on. I can forgive Clint Eastwood a lot but clearly his inclination to act upon his inability to get along with Blake Edwards was a major failing on his part. For Eastwood or Burt completists only. I may be both those things, as I still have the Blu-ray of At Long Last Love (don’t even get me started). —C+
Cuba (Kino Lorber)
In his book Getting Away With It, partially a series of interviews with Richard Lester, Steven Soderbergh classes this picture in the category of “fascinating films that get better with age.” Interestingly, when he made Che with Hispanic actors in Hispanic roles and shot the whole thing (almost) in Spanish, he added, within the cinematic canon, to the aggregate of movies that actually make Cuba, with its casting of the likes of Martin Balsam and Chris Sarandon in roles as Cuban natives, seem that much more anachronistic. Nevertheless, this remains fascinating, particularly for Lester nuts (and why wouldn’t you be one) and those who enjoy watching Sean Connery deconstruct his screen persona (which, as Lester revealed to Soderbergh, was something that in this particular case he was actually rather reluctant to do). This disc provides a very handsome version of the film, which, as it happens, twists around the standard-issue Casablanca scenario in a way that Soderbergh would later attempt with The Good German, a movie that, it so happens, I have found to have gotten better with age. Circles within circles. But back to Cuba: Evocative and trenchant visuals, low-key characterizations, and the tragic-comedy of errors in the climactic battle scene really sells the whole thing. The unstable dynamic between Connery and female lead Brooke Adams is fantastic and rare. The only extras are trailers, but that’s okay. —B+
Death By Hanging (Criterion)
Nagisa Oshima’s 1968 anti-death penalty movie is part absurdist theater, part parable, possibly not wholly artistically successful in the way that, say Cruel Story Of Youth is, but most certainly more that a curio. Its claustrophobic setting, unshowy black and white cinematography, and standard 1.85 frame combine to yield, well, not one of Oshima’s most visually distinctive films. But the animating impulse behind it gathers a power that increases the way decibels do, and yields a movie whose hatred of injustice is potent, vicious. —A
Dillinger (Arrow)
Watching this excellent release a while back, thoughts along the lines of “John Milius is so much better on paper than in reality” kept bouncing through my head. But the movie’s snuck up on me since; little bits in which Warren Oates, Ben Johnson, Harry Dean Stanton et. al. do all sorts of their characteristic stuff, and the brutality of the shootout scenes, and lots more, keep popping up and resonating. So, you know. A picture that can displace the 1945 Lawrence Tierney Dillinger from my consciousness is worth reckoning with. Excellent transfer, fantastically persistent use of “Red River Valley,” and the customary passel of engaged extras. My favorite has producer Lawrence Gordon waxing sort-of nostalgic for his time in no-budget filmmaking and expressing an affection for and belief in Milius that you wish every producer had for a good director. —A
Dr. Strangelove (Criterion)
Not much to say about this one. Lately I’ve been seeing a few Feisty Young People weighing in on how they “don’t like” this movie, and I don’t know what to tell them except “Bless you hearts” and/or “Good luck.” (I know the Self Styled Siren doesn’t consider it her cup of tea either, but she gets a dispensation because, well, Self-Styled Siren.) It’s a genuinely canonical film and The Culture is stuck with it, although you’re of course under no obligation, say, to buy this Blu-ray. But if you are a sensible person and you like this movie you definitely should. On this new transfer derived from new a 4K scan—made from the same source as the prior excellent Sony BR—there’s an overall barely detectable uptick…but an uptick nonetheless. A good point of comparison—the low angle close-ups of Sterling Hayden and his cigar, where there’s definitely more facial-crease detail, for instance. So until 4K discs, players, and displays are common, this is the definitive home version for the movie alone. The extras manage to say a few newish things about the movie, which you might not have thought possible. —A+
Eureka (Twilight Time)
A very odd movie that’s been very difficult to see decently in a proper state for some time, this is the object of near-simultaneous Blu-ray releases by Twilight Time in the U.S. and Eureka!/Masters of Cinema in the U.K. In the spirit of international cooperation I hoped to foster in my New York Times piece about differing U.K. and U.S. Blu-rays of The Fury, the two releases share the on-disc extras, my favorite of which is the nearly hour-long chat with screenwriter Paul Mayersberg in which he lays out the movie’s complex symbology, and discusses how it does and does not riff on Citizen Kane. The region-free TT disc gets an edge for its region-freeness, while the Eureka gets an edge for having more Nicolas Roeg stuff (including an excerpt from his forthcoming autobiography) in the printed extras. The movie looks stunning on both.—A+
Father Of The Bride (Warner Archive)
Wow. When Elizabeth Taylor comes bounding down the stairs to greet Spencer Tracy in her first scene, I almost cried. I wonder how this film will play for people who don’t have the same associations of Tracy and Taylor that I others of my and prior generations do. But I insist they had something numinous that transcends that, and that anyone who can watch the aforementioned bit and not have their heart melt just a little might not be a movie person, or a person. Anyway. When Scorsese had Vicki spending an afternoon at this movie in Raging Bull he knew whereof he spoke, that is, who MGM and Vincente Minnelli made this movie for. This 1950 delight presents a vision of middle class America that must look now to be 500 times more of a fantasy than it might have then, but I know it was the America that my children of immigrant grandparents bought into (that is, desired) big time. The movie version was as seductive as Lubitsch’s Paris, Hollywood. Minnelli’s meticulous assuredness is evident in every shot of this movie. This, of course it one of his parables of normalcy, which through the ‘50s and into the ‘60s would kind of alternate with his parables of neurosis (The Cobweb, Two Weeks In Another Town). He was so absolutely at home with both. But also very knowing about “normalcy:” note the woozy dissolves after the Dunston patriarch breaks out the martinis at the first in-laws summit. The high angle shots from church ceiling of the wedding rehearsal and its attendant choreography are also spectacular. Every frame of this Archive Blu-ray is worship-worthy. Just perfect. And you can also see why Truffaut kinda hated Minnelli—he’s so spectacularly adept at reifying values Truffaut probably considered utterly sham at the time. Very few extras, which would normally deprive it of an A+ but I’m still giving it an —A+
Garden of Evil (Twilight Time)
When the Fox DVD came out, I thought it was one of the most visually beautiful discs I’d ever seen…this Blu-ray is almost maybe too gorgeous: those matte paintings in the first cantina scene look an awful lot like, well, matte paintings. But you can still drown in the blues if you like. This better than decent 1954 double-cross Western is also supplied with, among other spiffy supps, a commentary from TT honcho Nick Redman and three film music guys: Stephen C. Smith (a Bernard Herrmann biographer), John Morgan, William T. Stromberg. They talk about a lot more than the music though: other topics include the studio system, optical vs. magnetic tracks, how and why they don’t make ‘em like these anymore, etc. A terrific package overall. Which leads to my question for Twilight Time: How about Warlock, pretty please?—A
Gold (Kino Lorber)
“No more mischief with the high voltage!” one character says in this 1934 Ufa production, presented by Kino Lorber from a handsome Murnau Foundation restoration. This sci-fi melodrama about modern-day alchemists and the corporate scum who seek to steal their secrets could have used a little more mischief with the high voltage, frankly. The electrical arcs redolent of Metropolis are a little more fun than the overheated machinations of the characters. Although it is interesting to contemplate this picture’s circumscribed world, in which an alluring vamp like Brigitte Helm could fall big time for a puffed up dude who looks like Charles Dance’s stuffier grandfather. I’m glad this disc exists, but I still more-eagerly await a Blu-ray of one of those fucked up Alraune movies I read about in the Overlook sci-fi encyclopedia. —B+
Hound of the Baskervilles (Twilight Time)
Haven’t seen the U.K. version from Arrow, but this version of the 1959 Hammer picture, with Peter Cushing as Holmes, Christopher Lee as Sir Henry, and André Morrell as the most competent, least goofy Watson ever, is really beautiful. Scanned from spotless materials, it seems, with great color. A really fun, effective movie; Cushing’s Holmes is a thing of beauty to the extent I sometimes consider it better than Rathbone’s. The wide-ranging extras here include two equally diverting commentaries. —A+
I Saw What You Did (Scream Factory)
William Castle’s 1965 hybrid of Psycho and The World Of Henry Orient certainly does not lack for novelty value, premise-wise. Capitalizing on what it presents as the new fad with the kids, it shows a couple of charming teens (and little sis too!) calling random folks and asking stupid questions. The married couple who get a call and react with grins that say “Prank calls are such good fun!” Unfortunately the girls call John Ireland and say “I know who you are and I saw what you did” right after he’s pulled his estranged wife into the shower with him to stab her to death. No really. And Ireland just gets tetchier. He develops the conviction that he can just solve all his problems by killing everyone who irritates him, not realizing this is in fact only likely to increase his troubles. Not a rational thinker. Joan Crawford, as Ireland’s inexplicable next-door neighbor AND girlfriend, is here in her second and final collaboration with Castle, and she stomps through the proceedings with real “who do I have to fuck to get off this picture” zeal. The movie is pretty crisp looking in this as-usual conscientious Shout/Scream presentation. But it is one odd picture: tonally all over the place, sometimes consciously, sometimes maybe not, and saddled with a music scores that’s part ‘60s sitcom and part…Big Valley? I’d say this could be profitably remade but contemporary phone culture doesn’t really support the idea. (A trailer in the scant supplements actually posits the phone book itself as something to be terrified of.) —B
Journey To The Seventh Planet (Kino Lorber)
How can one not have affection for this cheesy/earnest/ambitious 1962 picture whose premise presaged Stanislaw Lem’s Solaris and by extension the two movies made from that book? As Michael Weldon summarized/rhapsodized in The Psychotronic Encyclopedia Of Film: “Five astronauts on Uranus have their brains picked by a giant eye creature. Their fears, desires, and memories appear as realistic hallucinations. One of the weird monsters is a Cyclops-dinosaur-rat animated by Jim Danforth. One of the dream women found lounging in a bikini is Greta Thyssen, seen in many of the final Three Stooges shorts. One of the astronauts is John Agar! What a movie!” Indeed. This is plainly one of the rocks upon which the church of Psychotronic/fantastic cinema is built. Carrying the torch, Video Watchdog’s Tim Lucas provides an informative and astute commentary, noting of the picture that it’s “the last of the naïve films about space travel.” As for the movie itself, I’ve never seen it looking so good. Healthy color, rich detail, clean picture throughout. —A
The King and Four Queens (Olive)
The film materials used to make this high-def version, one can see from the opening craggy vistas, were ever so slightly on the pink side. But this is something that will only be really noticeably if you’re looking at it with a color corrector’s eye, not a movie-watchers. That aside, this is a handsome looking presentation of Raoul Walsh’s 1956 chamber Western, in which Clark Gable settles in at a ghost town to play footsie with the four daughters-in-law of an outlaw matriarch. All the girls are waiting for their outlaw fellas—them that’s survived, if any—to come back to the ranch with a fortune in gold. Pretty entertaining stuff. Poor Jo Van Fleet has to endure the indignity of playing mom-in-law to four actresses who are only between thirteen and seven years younger than her, and Eleanor Parker is the wiliest of the beauties. As the movie’s story is a bit of a waiting game, nobody really goes anywhere, which keeps its vistas limited. Gable plays the melodeon and sings (badly) “In The Sweet Bye And Bye.” Composer Alex North plays with some Copeland voicings during a bizarre dance sequence. The movie’s laid-back vibe may account somewhat for the filmmakers getting the definitely morally unacceptable denouement past the Breen office. Not much in the extras department, but it’s Clark Gable and Raoul Walsh. Come on. —B+
Million Eyes of Sumuru/Girl From Rio (Blue Underground)
I always stop for a Harry Alan Towers double feature. 1967’s Million Eyes, shot in expedient Techniscope, looks mighty fine here, and the movie itself promises at first to be a bikini clad feature-length catfight, which is great, but then Frankie Avalon shows up. (Uninspirational dialogue from Avalon: “I wonder if this is where I’m supposed to sing.”) The movie nonetheless maintains a certain voluptuous goofiness, thanks in part to Goldfinger girl Shirley Eaton, withstanding several not-great hair days in the title role. The movie also features George Nader reaching a kind of apotheosis, and Klaus Kinski wearing makeup that vaguely recalls that of Daniel Gelin in The Man Who Knew Too Much. You’re sold, right? But wait, there’s more: the Jess Franco directed sequel Girl From Rio, boasting wacky Rio and Brasilia locations. It’s a fun movie but a little repetitive with the mild torture scenes, which is a complaint I never thought I’d make. A very Francoesque touch is the use of what looks like a dental X-ray machine to represent a deadly heat-ray generator. In the supplements Ms. Eaton waxes slightly priggish about Mr. Franco, which made me sad, and I thought ever so slightly less of her as a result.—A-
Panic In The Year Zero (Kino Lorber)
Ray Milland’s directorial debut is a terrifically downbeat look at the disintegration of an American family as it escapes what it believes to have been a nuke attack on Los Angeles. It should make great Election Night viewing. Milland cast himself as the stolid patriarch, a Good Liberal who has to make some Tough Choices, while Jean Hagen tamps down her comedic skills to play the world’s now most stressed-out 1950s white housewife. Mary Mitchell is good as the daughter…and Frankie Avalon, as the son, evokes the deathless question “Where the hell is Ricky Nelson when you need him?” Hell, even David Nelson would do. This is nevertheless a tough and tense picture, and it looks super crisp here. Richard Harland Smith of Movie Morlocks gives one of the most informative and well-organized audio commentaries I’ve ever heard. Discussing the movie’s locales, he starts off talking about the Republic Pictures back lot, mentions a particular house on its street set, and says “I’ll tell you about that in about 75 minutes,” and sure enough, 75 minutes later, he does. —A-
The Private Affairs of Bel Ami (Olive)
A remarkably solid-looking presentation of an idiotically under seen film. George Sanders is genius, in the title role of the Maupassant-derived cad. Angela Lansbury is great and gorgeous. The script is magnificently highfalutin—the actors CLEARLY love the dialogue. Darius Milhaud did the score, and the movie is also Warren William’s last stand. Pictures of determined, even willful, refinement were director Albert Lewin’s stock-in-trade, and their aspirational qualities turned off critics like Andrew Sarris. But there are several scenes here that provide solid evidence that Lewin truly was a director of the first rank. Look at the sequence in which Sanders counts off twenty-five paces prior to a duel and tell me that’s not filmmaking. As for the refinement, maybe it seemed pretentious in 1947 but in 2016 it strikes me as rather tonic. A good and memorable film.—A-
Rollercoaster (Shout! Factory)
This 1977 movie, the first really memorable egg laid in the ‘70s disaster genre, looks really good here. Timothy Bottoms’ skin tones are a little red, but he IS playing the villain, a psycho who’s planting bombs on roller coasters at America’s amusement parks. Like Dr. Evil, he wants “one million dollars.” There’s what I like to think of as a nice in-joke here when George Segal says to Richard Widmark “You remind me of the man I work for—I don’t like him either.” “He seemed nice enough to me,” Widmark responds. The man Segal’s character works for is played by Henry Fonda, so laugh it up, Madigan people. Phoning in his demands, Bottoms talks like Douglas Rains, and Segal keeps saying “Screw you” to him. And it’s like maybe 45 minutes straight of this sort of thing. So clearly, this movie’s trouncing by the likes of Star Wars was not unearned. The Sensurround gimmick, here rendered in a mutation of three-channel stereo, is not entirely compelling either. In the disc’s sole substantial supplement, one-time child actor Tommy Cook, who came up with the story idea and the scenario, waxes so enthusiastic about his dream project you feel kinda bad that it turned out so meh. Things only really heat up about an hour and 25 minutes in, when both Sparks and a wild-eyed long-haired Craig Wasson show up. —B-
She Wore A Yellow Ribbon
They Were Expendable (Warner Archive)
“Custer is dead,” now that is one heck of an opening line. It’s the opening line of the cavalry movie, not the World War II movie, obviously. Yellow Ribbon doesn’t immediately seem to possess the gravitas of Fort Apache or even Liberty Valance, but it’s entertaining as all getout and in terms of the heavy stuff it’s a grower. The key is Ford’s use of Technicolor, which is as determinedly anti-realistic as it is in any Powell-Pressburger. We get to practically expressionist levels, particularly in the scene where Wayne’s character is at his wife’s grave site—a beautiful echo of Young Mr. Lincoln but also much more. 
Expendable, along with The Best Years Of Our Lives one of the Hollywood pinnacles of immediately-post WWII filmmaking, is in black and white, and visually “plainer” because it wants/needs to be. Both discs look pretty spectacular (yes, there are one or two “soft” shots in Ribbon, and here and there in Expendable the process shots are more process-y than you might remember them) and both films are library items. —A
Summer Lovers (Twilight Time)
Director Randall Kleiser contributes an informative, thorough, albeit stiffly delivered commentary to this high-def version of his shot-in-the-Greek-islands 1982 youths-experiment-in-polyamory sex drama. The scenery is pretty and the people—a very buff Peter Gallagher, a very lithe Daryl Hannah, and a very continental Valerie Quennessen—equally so. The look is sun-dappled, so it’s aged less drastically than many other 1980s pictures. Cinematographer Timothy Galfas was no Nestor Almendros, but he was no slouch either. While in several respects the movie is fluff, on a base level it’s still a smarter and more engaging movie about being a young adult in the ‘80s than fucking St. Elmo’s Fire was. And for what it’s worth, all the way down to extras casting, Kleiser really knows how to appeal to the heterosexual male gaze. —A-
Susan Slept Here (Warner Archive)
Yes, the whole setup of this not-quite-bedroom farce is potentially infuriating. (If you don’t know the setup, think of the Steve Coogan/Rob Brydon dueling-Michael-Caine bit in the first Trip movie.) But the movie’s energy and spectacular visuals create a cartoon vulgarity that transcends cartoon vulgarity. Even the most relatively sedate frames of this early Frank Tashlin live action feature are pop-art insane. He makes Ann Francis look like a real-life version of his colleague Tex Avery’s Swing Shift Cinderella or some such lust object. The Blu-ray gets every last bit of visual tinsel, from the light glinting off the Christmas presents when Dick Powell steps off the elevator to the sheen of a cop’s hat band. Spectacular, and a clear influence on Godard’s Une femme est une femme if you want to get highbrow about it. —A
Suspicion (Warner Archive)
One of the most frustrating Hitchcock pictures, due to his inability to get an actually convincing ending past either the censors or the studio or whoever ultimately put the kibosh on the letter-mailing twist that should have been the final shot. Nevertheless, like every Hitchcock picture, it is of considerable interest for students of film language and other living things. The Blu-ray looks good and slick—check out Cary Grant’s pomaded coif in the “kissed in a car” scene, you can count each particular hair. Other moments jump out: the movie’s opening in the dark, Grant “breaking” the fourth wall when clowning in wretched antique chairs. The character played by Carol Curtis-Brown ought to be catnip for today’s cultural studies undergrads. There’s a certain deliciousness in Grant’s character is so abysmal, but on rewatching one gets an intense reminder of how insufferable Nigel Bruce’s best friend is as well. It’s kind of excruciating—and Hitchcock’s sympathies are with Joan Fontaine throughout: he portrays the character not as a fool but a genuinely lonely and vulnerable There’s an acute awareness of just how Grant’s character is textbook abusive, particularly in the depiction of the “give us a smile” torture he inflicts. Finally, Hitchcock and Fontaine and Grant are so great they sell the stupid ending anyway. —A
Too Late For Tears
Woman On The Run (Flicker Alley)
Two “rediscovered” and restored noirs from the always-impeccable Flicker Alley, and they are both revelatory and enjoyable. Tears features Lisabeth Scott falling in love with a suitcase full of money, and Arthur Kennedy and Dan Duryea paying the cost of that love. Byron Haskin directs with apt vinegar and movement. Woman stars poor Ann Sheridan, only 35 but aged by booze bloat, in the middle of a killer-wants-to-off-a-murder-witness plot that ends with nightmare imagery of the same horrible amusement park mascot that figures so prominently at the climax of Lew Landers’ Man In The Dark. Inspirational dialogue from the latter: “What are you worried about mister, he missed.” Both discs feature lively engaged commentaries from Alan Rode and Eddie Muller respectively, and extensive video supplements on the restoration. Noir nuts will be very satisfied. —A
Under The Sun Of Satan (Cohen)
A two-BR set, part of the label’s Pialat collection, and it’s a beautiful rendering of one of the Great Films of the 20th century, so what do you want? The second disc of extras replicates much of the Eureka/MOC standard def set, including an interview with a very thoughtful Gerard Depardieu from 2003 in which he makes the immortal observation “acteurs son des…des…des animaux malade.” But the package does NOT contain the two Pialat shorts from the early ‘50s, and so as much as I don’t seek title redundancy in my DVD library I’m hanging on to both. But when I want to watch Satan itself, this is the version I’m watching. —A
The Vikings (Kino Lorber)
I understand that the casting of this 1958 picture (alternate title: Kirk Douglas Presents “My Life As A Blond”) imbues it with unintentional camp or kitsch value, but if you can get past that, this is a surprisingly credible period action picture and yes, Ernest Borgnine actually pulls of his role as a patriarch/warrior. This Blu-ray of the movie is very nice; the renderings of the exteriors in daylight are particularly beautiful. Some of the content is what some call “rapey” these days, with dialogue exchanges like: “She said she’d kill herself…if I touched her.” “They all say that. What they really mean is that they’ll kill themselves if you don’t!” But the story is reasonably eventful: by the end, poor Kirk has only one eye, and poor Tony Curtis only one arm: it’s hard out there for an early Common Era warrior. A career high for director Richard Fleischer, and, in a sense, for cinematographer Jack Cardiff.. —A-
Where’s Poppa? (Kino Lorber)
I have a confession to make. While this 1970 movie looms large in my childhood memory, largely due to its reputation as an object so outrageous as to be practically taboo—despite its being the product of Hollywood rather than of young John Waters—I’ve never actually seen it until a couple of weeks ago. When it first came out on DVD, I was running the DVD reviews section at Premiere, and I assigned the disc—MGM/UA, if I recall correctly—to the woman who I would eventually marry. I don’t remember why I did that. “Was it to punish you?” I asked her the other day. “I think it was more that I drew the short straw,” she said. Because now that I’ve seen the movie I’m a little mixed up about it. Despite the participation of very talented people, from director Carl Reiner on down, the movie is creepily unpleasant in a way that goes beyond the standard level of discomfort aspired to by black comedies. It’s unremittingly ugly and racist, and not all that funny either. I had not been aware, not having seen it, that the whole thing, a miserable scenario in which George Segal contends with a mother whose dementia has rendered her, well, demented, takes place over a fraught maybe 30-hour period. The movie’s extended rape, um, joke, is curious. In a sense it’s too ridiculous/idiotic to be taken in earnest, but it still makes you want to take a long shower. The climactic scene at a senior “home” run by Paul Sorvino is, on the other hand, pointedly and purposefully horrific—one of the aspects of the movie that give it a “you won’t believe it unless you see it” reputation. Which is not a recommendation. The transfer is good looking—ever dingy moldy tile of Segal’s shower looks dingy and moldy. —B-
God I've missed your blu-ray guide - how long has it been? Really appreciated and many thanks for your sterling effort. Thanks alone doesn't feed your habit so I hope the $50 I just sent to your tip jar will go towards something suitably obscure. I've been buying Warner's Clint Eastwood films that used to be shitty but aren't so shitty anymore, like True Crime and was wondering whether City Heat was still the steaming turd it was when I was going through puberty. It obviously is. But I'm now ready for a reappraisal of Eureka.
Posted by: titch | June 30, 2016 at 11:26 PM
Thank you thank you thank you! Definitely for the "Where's Poppa" roast, which pretty much captures what I felt when I saw it about 25 years ago. Maybe the creepiest part of the rape scene was that while Liebman's speed at which he gets into the rape and how that ignites his "masculinity" is played for dark satire, it feels like it's also cheering for him a little.
I think the thing about Woolrich's usage of tropes was that on some level he connected with them on a deep level. I'm probably remembering wrong, but did he have some degree of mental issues? Especially in one that he used more than once - the extremely sudden disappearance of a loved one, and the maddened search - he brings it alive because the tale really doesfascinate him at a very deep level.
Posted by: Grant L | July 01, 2016 at 09:13 PM
Stupidly posted without proofing completely, sorry about the repetitiveness in the second paragraph..
Posted by: Grant L | July 01, 2016 at 09:21 PM
Thanks for the kind words, and thanks for the tip jar contributions—funds will be put toward some Blu-ray shopping, including some of the Tarkovsky stuff coming from Artificial Eye in the UK and a few of the Universal horror classics from Elephant in France. Hopefully I'll include those in a CG for Labor Day!
Posted by: Glenn Kenny | July 01, 2016 at 10:06 PM
"Until 4K discs, players, and displays are common..."
By the time 4K discs, players, and displays are common in the US, *8K* discs, players, and displays will be common (or at least available) in Japan.
Posted by: Oliver_C | July 02, 2016 at 03:21 AM
This is another great compendium of reviews and it's a damn shame that you *aren't* able to monetize this particular aspect of your writing. Fascinating seeing the same stuff I've been buying getting the Consumer Guide treatment.
Posted by: Pete Apruzzese | July 02, 2016 at 04:39 PM
Now Kiarostami has left us. We are losing great men and women of cinema now at such an accelerated rate that there isn't even time to mourn and immerse ourselves in each person's work.
There had been reports a year or two ago of his starting a new feature, possibly with Binoche again. Since later updates were scarce, one must assume it didn't proceed very far before he fell ill.
"Through the Olive Trees" is one I'd very much like to see - that's the one Weinstein shelved, right? Perhaps Criterion can some day wrangle it away. Many others yet to discover for us latecomers, though. RIP.
Posted by: Chris L. | July 04, 2016 at 07:34 PM
'Lately I’ve been seeing a few Feisty Young People weighing in on how they “don’t like” this movie, and I don’t know what to tell them except “Bless you hearts” and/or “Good luck.”'
It's funny you bring this up because in the past few years we've had ongoing contact with a mid-20s relative and her mid-20s boyfriend, and I've wondered how much their ability to enjoy films I admire comes down to their personal connection to the contexts of the films. Dr. Strangelove is the perfect illustration of this because people their age just cannot identify with the fear/dread/anxiety caused by the Cold War threat of nuclear annihilation and the very serious people in and around the US government and the military who were very serious about it. I grew up at the tail end of the Cold War era and "get" what Kubrick is driving at, but if you don't have a personal connection then most of the humor probably falls flat, not least because it's referencing the absurdity of some of the people and their thinking from those times. Not to excuse Feisty Young People who "don't like" the movie, but I think they're dealing with a handicap that they may not even be aware of.
Posted by: Kurzleg | July 05, 2016 at 01:55 PM
All I can do is second every compliment you've ever gotten about the guide, Glenn--it gets my eyeballs' full attention whenever I encounter it. (And yeah, "Warlock" would be wonderful.)
>if you don't have a personal connection then most of the humor probably falls flat,
Kurzleg makes a good point. A lot of Strangelove's satire is built not just on the reality of the Cold War but the artistic reactions to the mentality that created it, and it's entirely reasonable those things have fallen too far back into the mists of time for kids today to know that no matter how obvious it seems to us. To a young person who grew up decades after Vietnam and who never had a high-school gym coach who resembled Officer Obie from "Alice's Restaurant", or who didn't come of age when Southern's brand of burlesque was so visible in our culture, it probably *has* to look a little forced.
Posted by: Tom Block | July 05, 2016 at 02:53 PM
Thing of it is, with North Korea just one example, the possibility of nuclear war is definitely still with us, and calls up Kubrick's remarks in his (still great) Playboy interview, about how the bomb grows more dangerous the more time goes by without its being used, as people grow more used to its existence and a (pretty unfounded) belief that it never will be used slowly grows.
Posted by: Grant L | July 07, 2016 at 04:54 PM
I confess to being one of the ones who's never loved STRANGELOVE. It has a lot of great moments, and of course, the themes are great, but for my money, the airplane shots were done better in 2001, and LOLITA is funnier.
Curious to see WHERE'S POPPA again, though. I caught it years ago, while I was pretty goddamn high, but I remember it as being one of the nastiest– and therefore, most intriguing– comedies I'd ever seen. I took the rape scene as the movie making clear its utter contempt for its protagonist, lest anyone start to sympathize with the put-upon schlemiel.
We're never going to get a good Region A blu of Tarkovsky's STALKER, are we? Sigh.
Posted by: That Fuzzy Bastard | July 09, 2016 at 09:51 AM
Dear Glenn, please DO NOT QUIT THE BLOG!
Thank you.
Posted by: Phil | July 10, 2016 at 08:22 AM
I am the squeamish type, which has never stopped me from seeking out ultra-violent films. You have included two films which contain murder scenes that shook me to the core and made me woozy and sick. As a 9 year old I somehow found myself at a screening of I Saw What You Did and that knife murder really did me in. And the final murder in Eureka had me seeing black spots 30 years later. Definitely one of the most brutal killings in cinema history orchestrated by a man who knows a little something about screen violence. Thanks for this fantastic guide, Glenn, and, Eureka!
Posted by: Unkle Russty | July 13, 2016 at 03:27 PM
As to another recent Blu-ray release, I watched "Only Yesterday" this weekend and am already looking forward to seeing it again. I echo the comment by the leader of the US dubbing team about what a waste that we haven't had an edition of this beautiful film over here until now. I'm sure there's a tangled backstory, but the only details we're given in the extras is that for many years it was considered "undubbable." OK...
Posted by: Grant L | July 17, 2016 at 04:23 PM
Got my Criterion Muriel and Strangelove in the mail yesterday. Love the Strangelove packaging - the Plan R packet replica, with the Blu-ray credits in the teeny Bible/phrasebook.
Posted by: Grant L. | July 19, 2016 at 11:04 AM
Grant L - Not that I really needed it, but you sold me on the Strangelove disc. Plan R AND phrasebook? Awesome!
Posted by: Kurzleg | July 27, 2016 at 11:39 AM
1. Thank you for this edition of your Blu-Ray Guide. I tend to nibble at them, I'll read one review and then go off in search of other reviews/info...an education of sorts even if I don't actually get to see each film. Although I do catch up to many of them.
2. I still think Cory McAbee's "American Astronaut" is, while not nec. a capital-G Great Film, is something special, and I don't get how Hollywood could see it and not say, let's give this guy a shot. Fun, beautiful high contrast B&W, deeply weird. Did I mention fun? Still curious what you'd think. I will send you a copy in return for your thoughts. Deal?
3. I've had Andrei Rublev on my DVR for almost a year now from a TCM showing. Why can't I get myself to watch it? (A: long, B&W, foreign, short attention span.) Will I hold it in my heart like I do Stalker? Gimme a push, dude.
Posted by: Noam Sane | July 28, 2016 at 04:16 PM
"Yellow Ribbon doesn’t immediately seem to possess the gravitas of Fort Apache or even Liberty Valance..."
Or even!
Posted by: Asher | August 08, 2016 at 12:43 PM
Why no mention of who directed "Rollercoaster"?
Posted by: Richard | August 18, 2016 at 04:36 PM
I didn't mention the directors of "Appassionata" or "City Heat," either. Or the director of "Dr. Strangelove" now that I look at it. I just didn't feel like it. Since you ask, James Goldstone. There you go.
Posted by: Glenn Kenny | August 18, 2016 at 10:17 PM
Looks like a Breitbart troll has invaded the comments sections over at ebert.com. Wonder if they're being paid.
Posted by: Grant L | August 28, 2016 at 10:45 PM
While anticipating a possible Labor Day posting.......those Artificial Eye Tarkovskys are getting mixed reviews over at DVDBeaver. Nostalghia and Stalker have been given the thumbs-down quality-wise, while Mirror, Solaris, Andrei Rublev and Ivan's Childhood have been given the thumbs up.
Posted by: titch | September 07, 2016 at 01:30 PM