So I’m still maintaining this blog, but obviously haven’t posted on it too much. Like Dick Cheney vis a vis Vietnam, I have other priorities. There’s also the fact (not that I pay too much heed to it) that blogs really aren’t a thing anymore; they feel almost archaic. Yet here we are.
Some of the aforementioned priorities have diminished recently. I’m not going to get into detail but some of my readers at other publications may have noticed my contributions becoming lesser in number. This eventuality sees with it a diminishment in personal revenue, which led me to consider starting a newsletter, a subscription one even. So, I started gathering materials for such an undertaking, including notes for the Consumer Guide I’m publishing below. I made notes for other things, too, most hilariously an essay about a recent Van Der Graaf Generator box set, which would surely have rocketed my subscription base past Andrew Sullivan’s and Bari Weiss’s combined. All the while, a feeling gnawed at me. That feeling being: I don’t want to do this. Obviously conducting a newsletter hustle requires the hustler to go into it absolutely wholeheartedly and (in some respects, not necessarily the most obvious ones) cheerfully. Resentful hesitancy signals half-heartedness, and half-heartedness is no way to run a Substack or whatever it would have been.
And again, without going into detail, my anxieties concerning revenue are not what they were a few months ago. So there’s not going to be a Substack, not yet. And there’s probably not going to be an essay about the Van Der Graaf Generator box set either. (Sorry!) But there is, here, a Consumer Guide, now with some 4K UHD titles. And it is dedicated, for reasons he’ll understand, to the great Tim Lucas. Thanks for reading, as ever.
EQUIPMENT
My prediction in the last Guide, which was, “between now and next March I’ll get a goddamn PlayStation 5 and will try and knock out a 4K Ultra Disc Consumer Guide for variety and perversity’s sake,” proved highly laughable in the PS 5 department. Have you gotten yours yet? I just recently got a notice from B&H saying, “WE WILL NEVER HAVE THIS.” But anyway. At a certain point, specifically upon remembering that I hadn’t used my PS 4 for game playing in eleven years, I packed the thing up, sent it to a nephew who has four young boys, and got a Sony UBp-X800 multi-region 4K player and it’s pretty snazzy. Then there’s the Sony KD50X690E display and Yamaha RXV-385 A/V receiver. Which doesn’t have Dolby Atmos. For now, I’ll live.
The Damned (Criterion)
I recollect this picture being quite a scandal on its initial U.S. release — the distinguished maestro Luchino Visconti done gone and made an “X” rated movie. About Nazis! A couple of years later it would turn up at two in the morning on Channel 7 and I never bothered to stay up and watch because I figured it’d been cut to ribbons. When I finally got around to seeing it the first time what I was most struck by wasn’t the content but by how crazy Visconti decided to go with the zoom lens. Makes Jess Franco look like Carl Dreyer. Okay, not quite. But thank the creator that he curbed this tendency when he made Death In Venice soon after. Then again, the style here is suited to the movie’s almost hysterical account of Third Reich decadence/degradation/depravity and such. Maurice Jarre’s opening music inspires similar “what’s got into you?” thoughts. Bearing down hard on the anti-Communism of its Nazi characters in its first thirty minutes or so, it then sets in motion a relatively nuance-free account of fascist interpersonal dynamics. It’s kinda like Succession, but with actual Nazis! And with zero, or hardly any, likable characters. In many instances of laying it on with a trowel, it offers the sight of a naked Ingrid Thulin languishing in a bed rhapsodizing about power. The movie is possibly best considered as crazier cousin to Rossellini’s Germany Year Zero in its unrelenting depiction of not just Nazi, but German nihilism. In the end, Helmut Berger’s Martin wins out not because he’s wiliest in the batch, but because he’s the most depraved. The transfer of the sometimes handsome, sometimes Tinto-Brass-level-lurid imagery is terrific. — A
Dead and Buried (Blue Underground)
This 1981 oddity has a premise that would be acceptable in a fantastic black comedy, which apparently this was originally intended to be. But its New Direction, suggested in part by the excellent effects work by Stan Winston, casts it as a mostly intense, gritted-teeth grindhouse horror. In which the premise is pretty laughable. But never mind. The movie’s midsection is a series of compulsively watchable scare scenes set in the dark and fog and distinguished by go-for-broke sensational brutality. As it happened, Winston left the movie after the New Direction was determined, and wasn’t around for the shooting of one late-scenario death, and the crummy effects therein show. (You’ll definitely know it when you see it.) The 4K rendering has a subdued pallet, plenty of grain, and packs quite a punch, and Joe Renzetti’s score will give your subwoofer/woofers a bit of a workout. The voluminous extras feature four separate audio commentaries, to which I can only say “thanks, but come on.” Your mileage may vary of course. —A-
Deep Blues (Film Movement)
Dave Stewart, or to be more precise, David A. Stewart, commissioned, co-produced, and appears in this 1991 documentary shot largely in North Mississippi, about blues music as a still-vital and everyday practice in those parts. And yes, it’s that Stewart, the Eurythmics fellow, who’s first seen in black t-shirt and wire-rimmed dark glasses looking at a couple of busking blues men in a Beale Street park on a hot sunny day. But don’t balk — further inspection reveals Stewart’s got both head and heart in the right place, and in the supplemental outtakes he jams pretty credibly with R.L. Burnside on “Big Boss Man.” On Beale, Stewart is soon joined by Robert Palmer — the music critic, not the “Addicted to Love” fellow — who acts as docent. Palmer was from the south and relocated there after doing time in New York City as, among other things, a music critic for the New York Times. He also made some pretty fantastic music, in part with the great boho band The Insect Trust. A little less than a decade older than Stewart, the friendly, scholarly Palmer here looks older than that still — he would die of liver disease in 1997. A bad loss in a lot of ways. The movie is simple: Palmer, sometimes with Stewart, sometimes without, travels to the homes of musicians whose roots go all the way back to Robert Johnson — among these figures Johnson is a lot less of a mystery than he is in the larger culture — and lets them talk. And play. And director Robert Mugge keeps his camera unobtrusive. Shot on 35 in a rough and ready style, the Blu-ray looks fantastic in its way, and the plain old stereo soundtrack is vivid and crisp. Along the way you’ll learn who or what “Johnny Cockaroo” is. You’ll also spend a lot of time with Big Jack Johnson, a helluva guitar player, whose nickname “The Oil Man” derives from the fact that he made his main living driving an oil delivery truck. An interesting oddity: the white rhythm section guys in these Black-led bands all look like George Costanza, or some variant thereof. Mugge’s commentary is a dry but informative production account, in which he relates, among other things, why the pre-cult-stardom Burnside is seen here playing a cherry Telecaster. Inspirational dialogue: “The musician, he’s usually down on his luck.” Inspirational commentary line: “One of the traditions when filming or recording rural blues artists is to bring along a fifth of whiskey as a show of respect, but in our experience many southern blues artists preferred Crown Royal.” —A+
Deep Red 4K (Arrow)
The friend who introduced me to Argento way back in 1978 at a screening of Suspiria at the legendary Paterson Plaza Theater — where the projectionist omitted an entire reel of the picture, and it made no difference to the narrative coherence —long ago abjured the director’s work, repelled by its trucking in what he called “the pornography of violence.” Watching this 1975 landmark, wherein Argento shucked most of his Hitchcock influence in favor of something relatively new and entirely garish, I felt my pal’s point in a more pronounced way than I have in a long while. The bathtub-scalding murder, and the camera’s lingering on the victim’s awful burns, really squinched me out. The images seemed completely unnecessary, like that shot of the knife plunging into a beating organ in Suspiria. (On the commentary track from Troy Haworth and Nathaniel Thompson, one of them notes that in the aftermath of the breakup between Argento and Daria Nicolodi, the female lead here, Nicolodi actually accused Argento of being a notorious, at-large serial killer.) By the same token, going too far is one of the perquisites of guignol, arguably. And while Argento’s image-making instincts take him, and you, places where no one ought to tread, it also inspires some truly fantastic, elegantly disturbing picture. The quick cut to Macha Meril’s mouth as she takes a drink of water and can’t keep it in is oddly beautiful, practically Magritte-worthy. This too is the sort of thing that wouldn’t occur to most filmmakers and shows why Argento was special in the first place. In any event: this magnificent 4K rendering doesn’t present anything like a subdued color pallet, nosirree Bob. The mono soundtrack acceptable, but man, the 5.1 is a kick in the head with the incredible Goblin score and such. Story still doesn’t make any damn sense though, and who cares. —A+
Dune 4K (Arrow)
Having sat through the Villeneuve Dune not once but twice (crazy, right? Second time was mainly a cousin date though, honest), and having long held a complicated admiration for this vexed Lynch effort, I approached a re-review of this movie in any format with some trepidation. What if it felt more cheesy than Lynchian? This splendid presentation assured me the unrealized vision here was more 60/40, or even 70/30 in favor of Lynch. A trifle overlit in the way of ‘80s Hollywood pictures at the time, it’s still packed with sinister weirdnesses (Robin Wood, a stalwart Lynch hater, came down hard on the homophobia of that Harkonnen scene, and I can’t say he didn’t have a point). The dialogue between Jose Ferrer and that “Navigator” is almost Eraserhead-worthy in its way, as is the sight of Alicia Witt with that dagger. As far as that pesky narrative is concerned, hell, this lays out the whole plot in the first ten minutes! Pas de problem! But as we get further in, the awkward condensation of scenes (dissolves and such, which are very Lynchian, but not entirely well-judged) becomes highly noticeable. The wonky Star Wars touches are a little blush worthy — “activate a fighter,” you betcha. In other news, Kyle MacLachlan’s Paul has an iPad, and in this version, they actually DO say “jihad.” So there. The disc is beautiful, and the only way you should ever watch this at home. —A-
The Emperor Waltz (Kino Lorber)
Moderately fascinating Wilder. Released the same year (1948) as A Foreign Affair, this would have been a valentine to Old Europe, countering Affair’s poison-pen letter to post WW II Germany. The director envisioned a Lubitsch homage but felt he didn’t pull it off. Producer and co-writer Charles Brackett pronounced it “in no way outstanding” in his journal. Still there’s Technicolor, which is reproduced handsomely here save for the odd out-of-register-looking shot. And there’s Bing Crosby. Where McCarey used Crosby’s insouciant, irreverent persona to buttress piety, here Wilder has him swing into Old Vienna like Stanwyck’s Sugarpuss O’Shea rocked the academic hermitage in Ball of Fire. Here Crosby’s character extols the virtues of the newly-invented phonograph and its accompanying devil music. Joseph McBride’s exemplary commentary touches on Wilder’s affinity for jazz, first articulated back when Wilder was a German journalist. It also explores Wilder’s reasons for enlisting Der Bingle, and the conflicts between leading lady Joan Fontaine and her costar. — B+
The Guns of Navarone 4K (Paramount)
At its best, this UHD disc makes you feel like you’re looking at a miniaturized version of seeing Real CinemaScope, and for the first time. Those Greek columns and varied geologic formations have a genuine tactile quality. When Quinn’s sniping at the white-clad Germans from the mountaintop, I was like, “Wow! Look at that ROCK!” Nevertheless Robert Harris, in his post at Home Theater Forum, is right (well of course he is) about the weaknesses sporadically inherent in the image overall. The sometimes dupey look is built into the original camera negative. These are most glaringly noticeable almost right away, with the optical effects of newsreel insets over the static shot of the title guns. My ultimate takeaway was: when it’s great, it’s great and when it’s not it makes you appreciate the great parts. As for the movie’s content, I was slightly surprised all over again by some of it. You gotta hand it to screenwriter/producer Carl Foreman for keeping the narrative in the mire of it’s-a-helluva-thing-to-kill-a-man pessimism, countering the standard Hollywood heroics. Not that those aren’t there, of course, and “fan service” is certainly evident in the final death tally of the characters. For all that, when Peck says “You’re up to your neck,” it really does register. And the movie most credibly demonstrates a venerable World War II picture truism: When you’ve got a really tough job, leave it to the partisans. — A
Halloween 4K (Shout Factory)
Inspirational commentary line: “John Carpenter was so committed to realism, we actually killed that dog.” — A+
The Incredible Shrinking Man (Criterion)
Once you’ve sat through this 1957 classic in its entirety, you’ll have one question, that being “So just where did Scott Carey record the narration?” Possibly the same place where Toby Dammit recorded his, I reckon. Anyway. A Universal picture, directed by Jack Arnold and produced by Albert Zugsmith, it of course features William Schallert in a key supporting role, that of a doctor. The one who has to ponder the statement: “People don’t get shorter…they just don’t get shorter.” And yet Scott Carey does, and at each stage of his shrinkage deals with it in different ways, like almost having an affair with a carnival employee. Eventually he gets into a doll house and there has his first face off with the cat. As housecats go, it’s pretty mangy looking. And a real biter too. Lead actor Grant Williams looks a tad like Aaron Sorkin, really. The transfer shows off the movie’s admirable effects ingenuity. But also underscores the optical effects that tend to look dupey. It’s kind of staggering this hasn’t been remade — not that I’m recommending it — given what effects supervisors could do with LCD backdrops and such. In any event, the overall presentation of this Existential Nightmare Redeemed (remember, as Scott notes in his recorded-God-knows-where narration, his reduction to near-atom size is in fact the Beginning Of A Great Adventure, maybe) is exemplary Criterion — respectful and thorough. In supplements, Richard Matheson’s son talks Eisenhower era anxiety; there’s a pleasing, coherent effects breakdown; and comedian Dana Gould and cinematic maestro Joe Dante discuss the movie in amiable, diverting, often amusing style. — A
Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom 4K (Paramount)
Good news! My post-teen misogyny seems to have substantially waned, because I did not bristle with loathing over Kate Capshaw’s performance the way I did when I first saw the picture at the not-all-that tender age of 24. For whatever reason her characterization of a character who’s supposed to be mostly endearingly exasperating in a screwball comedy way made me just plain exasperated. Watching the movie now I was more inclined to notice that the Willie Scott role is actually anti-screwball in its conception: while the exasperating females in Bringing Up Baby and The Awful Truth and what have you are almost uniformly smarter and more resourceful than their male counterparts/foils, the nightclub singer along for the ride with Indy and Short Round is just an imposition and burden, albeit a physically attractive one. Now, as to Short Round…oh never mind. This is one of four films included in Paramount’s 4K UHD set of Jones movies, and it’s the only one I’ve watched so far and I was very taken by its look and sound. And I was largely taken by the movie itself, in spite of all its very manifest flaws and objectionable bits (not mutually exclusive, these) because the action set pieces are such a kick. I lay blame for the faults (all of them) on screenwriters Willard Huyck and Gloria Katz. Not to gang up on the team behind Howard the Duck — and hey, I think Messiah of Evil is a too-unheralded chef d’oeuvre of sorts — but the binding material they concoct is complete plaster compared to the story structure that held Raiders together. Of course it’s ultimately Spielberg’s mistake in accepting this flimsy contrivance but I surmise he was too excited about putting together the set pieces to really notice or care. Maybe. Anyway, the set pieces: great.— A
Invasion of the Body Snatchers 4K (Kino Lorber)
It’s kind of weird, and certainly against all odds, that (up until Ferrara's 1993 Body Snatchers, at least) this story has been made into a moving picture three times and all three of the moving pictures are in their way exceptional. (At the time I first posted this, I had forgotten that the 2007 The Invasion had broken the streak...and why wouldn't I forget that?) This one, directed by Phillip Kaufman in 1978 from a script by the too-undervalued W.D. Richter, is oft lauded for its satirical bent (the pods come to San Francisco, then the mecca of self-help and self-realization cult-like processes, get it?) and that factors into its effectiveness to be sure — Chicago-born Kaufman had been a Frisco resident since 1960, gets the environment with an offhanded mastery. But the movie is also steeped in an atmospheric unease that goes far beyond satire. It’s a film of genuinely eccentric, unnerving choices. From the opening in which the pods leave an alien planet and journey to earth with truly overbearing music (Denny Zeitlin) accompanying the action onward. Brooke Adams and Art Hindle are introduced by a voyeuristic camera, moving implacably down corridors to home in on the reflections of their characters rather than the characters themselves. The scenario makes an already unhappy marriage the fulcrum on which the discovery is first hinged. Cinematographer Michael Chapman, only a couple of pictures ahead of Taxi Driver, almost repeats the famed lateral dolly from the excruciating Bickle-on-the-pay-phone scene in a shot in which Adams and Donald Sutherland clinch by an elevator, about 24 minutes in. Dig, too, the distorted reflection of Jeff Goldblum in the bookstore mirror, and the fact that Sutherland never repairs the shattered windshield he suffers at the beginning of the movie. The 4K image on this edition is fabulous added value to the overall cinematic richness. — A+
Jet Pilot (Kino Lorber)
Howard Hughes wanted a movie about aviation and hotness. Josef Von Sternberg wanted…work. The hijinks began in 1949, pairing a 22-year-old (but looking 18) Janet Leigh with a 42-year-old (but looking 55) John Wayne. The cast also features J.C. Flippen at his most suave. No really, he’s very polished here, as befits his ARMY BRASS role. The result, not unleashed on a drooling public until 1957) was one of the most exhilarating movies about nothing, or maybe about star charisma, ever made. Leigh, as a not-quite-defecting Soviet flyer (oh those egalitarian commies), doesn’t even try an accent, and I’d bet that Sternberg didn’t even ask her to. A typical Hughes touch is the obnoxious leering jet sound effects as Leigh removes each individual piece of her flight suit after landing. The Kino disc does not advertise as a new scan, but it looks plenty sharp and we’re offered a choice between 1.37 and 1.85 aspect ratios — given when its principal photography began, you know which one to watch. The movie’s depictions of American Plenty are properly vulgar, what with the half-foot-thick steaks, which actually trigger Leigh’s ultimate abandonment of the USSR. Where there are zero steaks and the barracks are in such a poor area they can’t even afford real scenery — the backdrops are remarkably obvious paintings. Its utter, blissful triviality is so scrupulously hewed to that it becomes transcendent, and hence Essential Cinema. There’s no commentary. Make up your own. Andrew Sarris: “an ecstatic flight of speed, grace and color.” Jean-Luc Godard: “Chaplin said […] tragedy is life in close-up, and comedy, life in long shot. I said to myself, I’m going to make a comedy in close-up: the film will be tragi-comic. Sternberg’s Jet Pilot is also a close-up comedy. That’s why it didn’t go down well.” Inspirational dialogue, as Wayne shows Leigh some U.S.-made lingerie: “That’s one thing we have in common with the Soviets.” “What’s that?” “We both believe in uplifting the masses.” And from Leigh, solo: “The water is so hot.” — A
John Carpenter’s The Thing 4K (Universal)
After watching this in 4K for the first time, I looked up the contemporary reviews of the movie and came to the conclusion that film critics, as a class, were then almost as dumb as film actors. Maybe dumber. And the situation is, revisionism on this particular movie notwithstanding, even worse today. I will not be taking any questions at this time. Anyhow. Image wise, I found this superb; what audiophiles call reference quality. The actual audio has elicited some dissatisfaction in certain corners but to my ears the lossless DTX soundtrack gets the job done. Carpenter’s mastery of film language is strongly present throughout, and it’s instructive to keep track of when he and cinematographer Dean Cundey keep their anamorphic frame in full focus and when and how they go shallow. In the latter instances they keep the backgrounds distinct but not too distinct. A nice kind of head-fake in the “don’t look behind you” suspense column. — A+
The Misadventures of Biffle and Shooster (Kino)
So this is neither a Blu-ray or a 4K release — indeed, with 4K especially you might say super-high-resolution would, given the nature of the material, “defeat its own purpose” — and it’s not brand spanking new and the filmmaker is an old friend which is a crucial reason I’ve not covered this disc. The friend is Michael Schlesinger, a venerable and passionate film scholar and enthusiast who did a lot of hard time managing rep for a mega-corporation that often didn’t know its assets from its elbow. You’ve likely heard his commentaries on fare such as It’s A Mad Mad Mad Mad World and The Producers and other not-dissimilar titles, in which case you know the kind of madcap stuff he likes. The fictional comedy team of Biffle and Shooster is a concept that could only have sprung from his mind, and I do mean that as a compliment. The five picture collected here are made-in-the-21st-century fake comedy shorts from the ‘30s, featuring the above-named and titular fictional comedy team. Played of course by real actors, Nick Santa Maria and Will Ryan, who shared Mike’s vision to the extent that they’re credited as co-creators of their characters. Santa Maria’s Biffle is the goofy super-nervous one and Ryan is the dyspeptic and relatively straight-mannish Shooster. On this collection they Stooge and Niagara Falls their way through five “missions of mayhem” including a private-eye spoof guest-starring Robert Forster and an unapologetically Borscht-Belt Bride of Frankenstein send up. Much of the humor is as apt to elicit groans as laughs. I don’t think that’s accidental — the nudging is the point. I was sad to learn last month of the death of Will Ryan, half of the duo of amiable zanies. It reminded me that one thing about the Biffle and Shooster shorts that was wholly unmitigated was its absolute movie love. And that makes this object worth buying, and cherishing. —A
New York Ninja (Vinegar Syndrome)
Vinegar Syndrome’s devotion to the Grindhouse Dream in all its manifestations is 100 percent admirable even if not every title upon which it expends such exemplary care gives me the buzz I’m seeking. (Volume one of its Forgotten Giallo box had me muttering “there are reasons these were forgotten” more than once.) I was at least mildly skeptical about this special project for the company, an unfinished 1984 picture with a self-explanatory title. Abandoned by director/star John Liu before any editing process began, with no dialogue or music nor any script to consult, it was assembled into a whole by Kurtis Spieler, who provides an informative commentary. A company of classic exploitation movie actors — Leon Isaac Kennedy, Linnea Quigley, Michael Berryman, Cynthia Rothrock, and Ginger Lynn Allen — dubbed in newly-written dialogue, some of it apparently extrapolated via lip-reading. I know what you might be thinking and I thought it too: “Uh-huh.” It was only after a recommendation from my buddy the writer and artist Bob Fingerman that I sought took the plunge, and I’m rather glad I did. Ninja really does approximate the True Grindhouse Experience in the Comfort Of Your Own Home (which is a big plus when you get to be my age). The likely wholly unlicensed NYC lensing is big on period interest (although a little on the narrow side — Liu never wastes a chance to get the Twin Towers in his lens), the plotline (initially concerned with a personal revenge story set in a milieu in which “drugged out scum” are roaming wild in the city doing horrible crimes) dips into some weird sci-fi shit about a half-hour in, the fake newspaper headlines are so bad they’re almost poignant (“Another Lady Vanishes Abductions Continue”) and so on. The music and dubbing are so apropos you’d swear this thing is a fully realized 1984 film. And the image quality is shockingly good, like straight-from-the-lab good. A unique entertainment. Inspirational dialogue: “Looks like we got ourselves a hero!” — A
A Night at the Opera (Warner Archive)
As a Marxist sourpuss, I used to hew to the party line that Irving Thalberg ruined the brothers for film by imposing tighter structures and such on their anarchic antics. My memories of Allan Jones in this were particularly cringe. I don’t know if it’s age or Scott Walker who softened me up to the guy, but now I find him entirely tolerable and hell, if Zeppo wanted to retire why not. And I also very much enjoy the movie itself, and not just because Harpo doesn’t get to chase any gamines around. It’s a focused light comedy that goes down easy and has a lot of marvelous highlights. The musical interlude shipboard is awfully sweet too — Harpo and Chico Among The Children, acting like they should. Also: “Boogity boogity boogity.” The image here has a wonderful brisk clarity. Yes, the picture was/is at the top of a long downward slope for the fellas but nothing in the actual film necessarily indicates this. Give it a shot, you may be pleasantly surprised. — A
Operation Burma/Santa Fe Trail (Warner Archive)
I remember reading, way back in the day, in some Andrew Sarris volume or other, Sarris averring that the Raoul Walsh/Errol Flynn pictures were better than the Michael Curtiz/Errol Flynn pictures, so when these came from the Warner Archives at roughly the same time I figured it might be fun to use them to put the idea to the test. Burma is one of the made-during-World-War-II movies (first screened January 1945) in which the Japanese forces are referred to in the racist terms they were likely referred to as by actual Allied soldiers in that was and is additionally one of the “Give America all the credit” WW II movies. This is the Walsh movie, with a Franz Waxman score, and both craftpersons are pulling out all the stops here. This transfer is from original materials so there’s no “Sorry, Great Britain for snubbing you” disclaimer in the opening — this was put on prints after Great Britain raised holy hell about it. Way after Great Britain raised holy hell about it — 1952. Despite all the fictionalization this is a very wonky picture that’s consistently confident in putting across the illusion that it’s giving you the real story fair and square. That of “Merrill’s Marauders,” such as they are, slicing through a “Jap-infested jungle,” yeow. Looks clean as a whistle, with lots of what you could call “good” grain. Contains many lingering shots of reconnaissance plane equipment and such. Featuring Samuel Beckett lookalike Erville Alderson and the future Doberman. Now. As for Santa Fe Trail. 
Curtiz in 1940, on a pretty good run as you may recall. You know you’re in for some “fun” when an explanatory opening text speaks of West Point’s “brilliant commandant” Robert E. Lee. But it gets worse. This phantasmagorical slop bucket of racist rationalization and Confederate-coddling is objectionable from start to finish but you almost have to hand it to the ideologically blinkered Curtiz — he would have made a great used car salesman. Curtiz’s fluid, impassioned camera never misses a trick, the staging is masterful, Sol Polito cinematography has that good Expressionist redolence. The movie also, one has to say, underscores Curtiz’s weaknesses as a director — his people are a lot shallower than those of Hawks and Ford. But the leads are great eye candy — Flynn grows and keeps a mustache, Olivia de Havilland is absolutely charming. Reagan is Reagan, and he’s playing George Custer, so you can happily imagine his ultimate fate. Raymond Massey’s John Brown is introduced about 25 minutes in. The actor displays utter conviction playing an utter nutjob but he refuses to project villainy, a salutary choice. Must have chapped Ward Bond’s ass to play an abolitionist, you think? Anti-inspirational dialogue, from Flynn’s J.E.B. Stuart: “It isn’t our job to decide who’s right and who’s wrong about slavery. Any more than it is John Brown’s.” Oh get stuffed. — A- to both.
The Outsiders: The Complete Novel 4K (Warner)
S.E. Hinton’s novel was foisted upon me when I was in my early teens as something I “ought to” read (as opposed to A Clockwork Orange or Funeral Rites, both of which I’d perhaps too-enthusiastically consumed by this time) and it did nothing for me. Not just because its terse, plain prose style didn’t appeal to me at all, but because as a Jersey suburbanite I couldn’t get with these relentlessly sentimental post-greaser mid-Western kids. And despite my devotion to Coppola, my 23-year-old self couldn’t relate to them onscreen, either. (Rumble Fish is a wholly other story, for reasons I explored here.) Watching this new rendition of the film it still speaks to me loudest as a curio of high visual interest, especially with respect to the stuff homaging Gone With The Wind. I also dig those GIANT closeups of Ponyboy as he goes into his reverie. Helluva cast, too: Tom Waits! William Smith! Melanie Meyrink! Coppola’s new, and rather moving, ten-minute intro to the film reminds you that he is the only director in recorded history who made a film at the request of middle school student petition. — A+
The Servant 4K (Canal)
Some movies reveal themselves to you more and more on repeated viewings, and why wouldn’t they. The uncanny thing about The Servant is that it just gets more naggingly mysterious and disturbing. This spotless presentation conveys the film’s frostiness almost too well. You can choose between watching in 1.66 and 1.77 aspect ratios. Given that the compositions are such you’d swear that the movie emerged from Zeus’s (Losey’s, that is) brow in 1.66, I can’t imagine why you’d watch in 1.77. Because you can, I guess. — A+
Sex World 4K (Vinegar Syndrome)
Certainly some of you out there must be wondering: what does porn look like in 4K? Specifically, what does vintage porn, which for a brief span of time was actually shot on 35mm film, look like in 4K? Well. Let me tell you. The colors in this 1978 quasi-futuristic yarn of the troubled souls looking for satisfaction/catharsis at the title resort are often remarkable vivid. So, too, are the pimples and ingrown hairs on the intimate body parts of several performers. While directed by Anthony Spinelli, the movie suffers from Gerard Damiano Disease, that is, a compulsion to get almost sick-makingly self-serious about the dysfunctions its motley characters suffer from. Also it really skimps on the Annette Haven content. I absolutely credit Vinegar Syndrome for being format pioneers here, while wishing they’d have given the 4K treatment to something more funsy, like Mary Mary. I’m sure they have their reasons.. — B
Some Came Running (Warner Archive)
What can I say? I named this damn blog after the movie, which I went into some detail on here. And a few years later, for Decider, I wrote on it some more. So hell yes, I have been wishing and hoping that this would make it to Blu-ray for some time. Now it has, and It looks remarkably fine, crisp and clear with excellent color values. Director Vincente Minnelli’s mise-en-scene is as on point as ever and his camera ever so slightly more noticeably mobile than usual. The proscenium is less prominent than in such other landmark melodramas as 1955’s The Cobweb or 1960’s Home From The Hill. The final shot, a graceful funeral scene that closes with the very significant gesture of Dean Martin’s Alabama taking his hat off to a character he had previously rather grossly disparaged, is an all time. And watching it, I was hit with the nauseating realization that the Russo brothers were likely paying their own form of homage to it in the ghastly closing shot of Endgame. Anyway, this shot is way better than the one in Endgame. — A+
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