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Karloff & Lugosi Horror Classics: Bela Lugosi Disc

Darby Jones, Bela Lugosi in Zombies on Broadway

Karloff & Lugosi Horror Classics: Boris Karloff Disc
Matters do not improve much over on Bela Lugosi’s disc.  Horror enthusiasts will likely experience a gargantuan case of buyer’s remorse during the first scenes of You’ll Find Out (1940).  What they’ll find out is that this movie is a vehicle not for Bela Lugosi, but for comedian/bandleader Kay Kyser and his Kollege of Musical Knowledge band, featuring Ginny Simms, Sully Mason and Ish Kabibble (who appears to have been the visual inspiration for Jim Carrey’s Lloyd character in Dumb and Dumber). 
Kyser and company’s style of comedy has, shall we say, not aged well, but this is [...]

FAMILIAR STRANGERS on DVD

Phase 4 Films will be releasing the comedy Familiar Strangers on DVD on November 10, 2009.
Written by John Bell and directed by Zackary Adler, Familiar Strangers, about changing relationships between parents and their growing children, features Nikki Reed (Twilight, Lords of Dog Town), Shawn Hatosy (Public Enemies), DJ Qualls (All About Steve) and Cameron Richardson (Alvin and the Chipmunks). The film won Best Ensemble Cast at Method Fest 2008.
Here’s the synopsis from the press release:
Brian Worthington (Shawn Hatosy) reluctantly returns home for the Thanksgiving holiday after a long estrangement, carrying the baggage of unresolved conflict with his father Frank (Tom Bower).  Frank has replaced his maturing children with his [...]

THE HUMAN CONDITION Review II

THE HUMAN CONDITION Review: Part I
The Human Condition is often referred to short-handily as an anti-war or anti-military film. That’s a fair characterization as far as it goes, but it doesn’t go far enough. What Kobayashi’s film does is deflate any and all of the ideologies bequeathed to us by the modern world, showing them up as pernicious myths. Kaji’s belief that labor can be managed humanely and rationally is swept away by his time in the work camps; his patriotism, by the conduct of the Japanese military; his sympathy for socialism, by his encounter with the tender mercies of the Red Army. Even his [...]

MADE IN U.S.A / 2 OR 3 THINGS I KNOW ABOUT HER d: Jean-Luc Godard

Made in U.S.A. (1966)
Direction: Jean-Luc Godard
Screenplay: Jean-Luc Godard; from Donald E. Westlake’s novel
Cast: Anna Karina, László Szabó, Jean-Pierre Léaud, Marianne Faithfull, Yves Afonso
 
2 ou 3 choses que je sais d’elle / 2 or 3 Things I Know About Her (1967)
Direction and screenplay: Jean-Luc Godard
Cast: Marina Vlady, Joseph Gehrard, Anny Duperey, Roger Montsoret, Raoul Lévy, Jean Narboni
 

 

When the young cinephiles who would later spawn the French New Wave attended screenings of Hollywood films at the Cinémathèque Française, they often found themselves watching prints lacking French subtitles.  Not all of these men understood English, but they stuck it out anyway.  After all, you can still learn from a film even if you can’t quite follow the dialogue; [...]

THE MAN FROM LONDON Review II

THE MAN FROM LONDON: Part I
From Satantango, Tarr does the almost inverse of what he did with the Damnation sequence, taking several great scenes of people at a bar, and invoking a similar scene in a pool hall in The Man from London. But unlike a similar single scene in Werckmeister Harmonies, which illuminates the lead character’s inner self, the sequence in The Man from London plays as a sort of grotesque bit, tossed in just for shock value.
In Satantango, the bar scenes play out much longer; one scene, in particular, is shown from two different perspectives at two different points in the film. This causes a parallax that is absent in the pool hall scene, which also fails [...]

Under Full Sail – Silent Cinema on the High Seas

Flicker Alley in association with the Blackhawk Film Collection has announced the release of "Under Full Sail – Silent Cinema on the High Seas," a new DVD release featuring, as per its press release, "five breathtaking films that preserve the romance, grandeur and allure of windjammers sailing open waters, exquisitely photographed in the style of the time."
The following information is from the Flicker Alley release:
The Yankee Clipper (1927), produced by Cecil B. DeMille and directed by Rupert Julian, restored to the most complete version available since the film’s release, is a feature-length melodrama recreating the real-life race from Foo Chow to Boston for the China tea trade. The gorgeous production filmed at sea for six weeks aboard the 1856 [...]

DAYS OF ‘36 d: Theo Angelopoulos

Meres tou ‘36 / Days of ‘36 (1972)
Direction: Theo Angelopoulos
Screenplay: Theo Angelopoulos, Petros Markaris, Thanassis Valtinos and Stratis Karras
Cast: Giorgos Kiritsis, Christoforos Chimaras, Takis Doukakos, Kostas Pavlou, Petros Zarkadis, Christophoros Nezer
 

 
By Dan Schneider of Cosmoetica:
Greek film director Theo Angelopoulos‘ 1972 effort Meres Tou ‘36 / Days of ‘36, winner of the International Film Critics Association award at the Berlin Film Festival, is the least of the several films of his that I’ve seen. It is also, by over a decade and a half, the earliest one I’ve seen so far, and at one hour and 45 minutes it is by a good margin the shortest as well. [...]

CASABLANCA V d: Michael Curtiz

CASABLANCA IV – Ingrid Bergman
Casablanca is part of a two-disc DVD package, put out by Warner Bros. Disc one has the film in a transfer (1.33:1 aspect ratio) stunningly free of blemishes. The disc also has two theatrical trailers (the original and re-release trailers); an introduction by Bogart’s widow, Lauren Bacall; and two commentaries. The lesser one is by film historian Rudy Behlmer. It’s loaded with information on the making of the film, but Behlmer is just reading from a script of Warner Bros. inter-office memos about the film, and few of the facts are scene-specific. Behlmer’s monotone is also rather off-putting, and he rarely ventures an idea or [...]

Griffith Masterworks 2: ABRAHAM LINCOLN, THE STRUGGLE

Walter Huston in Abraham Lincoln

Griffith Masterworks 2: WAY DOWN EAST, THE AVENGING CONSCIENCE
The most anticipated (by me anyway) part of this set is the twofer disc of Abraham Lincoln and The Struggle. Long overshadowed by Griffith’s earlier work, these have the distinction of being his final two films (from 1930 and 1931, respectively), and his only attempts at talkies. By this point, Griffith’s career had been in decline for several years, as newer and, frankly, greater talents eclipsed his trailblazing innovations of a decade earlier. These two films were his last shots at securing a place in the emerging film industry.
For the son of a Confederate soldier, Griffith was surprisingly [...]

William Friedkin Remembers THE BOYS IN THE BAND

In the Chicago Sun-Times, Thomas Conner interviews William Friedkin upon the DVD release of the 1970 drama The Boys in the Band, which was adapted by Mart Crowley from his own 1968 off-Broadway play about a group of some very sad and very bitter gay men — and one token (self-proclaimed) straight guy — who get together for a birthday celebration. "I knew a lot of people like those people," Crowley later said of his whiny characters. "The self-deprecating humor was born out of a low self-esteem, from a sense of what the times told you about yourself."
I saw the film years ago and I actually liked it. Not sure if I’d [...]

Buster Keaton’s THE GENERAL – Ultimate 2 Disc Edition

Considered by many Buster Keaton’s masterpiece and one of the greatest movies ever made, the 1927 silent comedy The General — co-directed by Keaton and Clyde Bruckman — has received a classy DVD treatment courtesy of Kino International: "The General – Ultimate 2 Disc Edition." Whether or not you’re a Keaton admirer — and I’m no fan of gag-based comedies — I find it impossible not to be thrilled that this cinematic landmark is now available on DVD in a version newly mastered in HD from a 35mm archive print struck from the original camera negative.
As with just about every Buster Keaton vehicle, The General doesn’t offer much in terms of plot. After being rejected by the [...]

MAN BITES DOG d: Benoît Poelvoorde, Rémy Belvaux, André Bonzel

C’est arrivé près de chez vous / Man Bites Dog aka It Happened in Your Neighborhood (1992)
Direction: Benoît Poelvoorde, Rémy Belvaux, André Bonzel. Screenplay: Benoît Poelvoorde, Rémy Belvaux, André Bonzel, Vincent Tavier. Cast: Benoît Poelvoorde, Rémy Belvaux, André Bonzel, Jean-Marc Chenut, Alain Oppexxi, Vincent Tavier
 

 
By Dan Schneider of Cosmoetica:
The 1992 Belgian mockumentary C’est arrivé près de chez vous / Man Bites Dog (or, somewhat literally, It Happened in Your Neighborhood) is one of those films that is neither bad nor good, and not really its own "thing," either. By that I mean that it is manifestly influenced by works that came before it, so it is nothing original, while also displaying techniques that [...]

Douglas Fairbanks: A Modern Musketeer DVD Set

Flicker Alley, described as "a specialty supplier of fine silent films and classic cinema programming," in association with the Blackhawk Film Collection, has announced the December 2, 2008, release of "Douglas Fairbanks: A Modern Musketeer," a five-disc DVD collection featuring eleven early Douglas Fairbanks‘ vehicles. Fairbanks, one of the founders of United Artists and at one point the husband of superstar Mary Pickford, was one of the biggest film attractions in the world from the mid-1910s to the late 1920s.
The Flicker Alley set includes digitally mastered editions from 35mm or original-negative prints of the following films, most of which were made prior to Fairbanks’ swashbuckling phase: His Picture in the Papers, Flirting with Fate, [...]

FIRE d: Deepa Mehta

Fire (1996)
Direction and screenplay: Deepa Mehta. Cast: Shabana Azmi, Nandita Das, Jaaved Jaaferi, Kulbhushan Kharbanda, Ranjit Chowdhry, Kushal Rekhi, Alice Poon
 
By Dan Schneider of Cosmoetica:
I watched the 1996 Canadian film Fire by Indian filmmaker Deepa Mehta after having long heard of its taboo nature based mainly on its depiction of lesbianism. And while not a silly film — such as the softcore When Night Is Falling or the horrid Hollywood ‘Hook’em’ Brokeback Mountain — Fire is nowhere near a great film, either.
As for the lesbianism, there is very little skin and the ‘love story’ is rather demure. On the other hand, there is far too much radical Feminist (capital F) ideology that lowers the intellectual argument of Mehta’s film — [...]

BATMAN: GOTHAM KNIGHT

Batman: Gotham Knight (2008)
Direction: Shoijiro Nishimi, Futoshi Higashide, Hiroshi Morioka, Yasuhiro Aoki, Toshiyuki Kubooka, Jong-Sik Nam. Screenplay: Brian Azzarello, Alan Burnett, Jordan Goldberg, David S. Goyer, Josh Olson, Greg Rucka; based on Bob Kane’s character. Voices: Kevin Conroy, David McCallum, Gary Dourdan, Corey Burton, Jason Marsden, Jim Meskimen, Kevin Michael Richardson, George Newbern
 

 
Batman: Gotham Knight is a direct-to-DVD animated film in six segments, each directed by a different East Asian filmmaker. The animation quality, both in terms of character and environment detail, exceeds that of the animation found in all the Batman: The Animated Series, Batman: Mask of the Phantasm, and all the other Batman animated films. The fore and backgrounds aren’t after thoughts; they have as much care [...]

THE PASSION OF JOAN OF ARC d: Carl Theodor Dreyer

La Passion de Jeanne d’Arc / The Passion of Joan of Arc (1928)
Direction: Carl Theodor Dreyer. Screenplay: Carl Theodor Dreyer and Joseph Delteil. Cast: Maria Falconetti, Eugene Silvain, André Berley, Maurice Schutz, Antonin Artaud, Michel Simon, Jean d’Yd
 

 
Carl Theodor Dreyer’s late silent film La Passion de Jeanne d’Arc / The Passion of Joan of Arc separates the weak from the strong. You either love it — as I do — or hate it.
The film has an interesting background — it was censored, it was lost, and it was rediscovered inside a closet in a lunatic asylum in Norway. The Criterion Collection’s DVD restoration is beautiful; the picture is crisp and clear, though the "unflattering" camera angles take a while to [...]

SALÒ, OR THE 120 DAYS OF SODOM d: Pier Paolo Pasolini

Salò o le 120 giornate di Sodoma / Salò, or the 120 Days of Sodom (1975)
Direction: Pier Paolo Pasolini. Screenplay: Pier Paolo Pasolini and Sergio Citti; inspired by the Marquis de Sade’s book. Cast: Paolo Bonacelli, Giorgio Cataldi, Umberto Paolo Quintavalle, Aldo Valletti, Caterina Boratto, Elsa De Giorgi, Hélène Surgère, Sergio Fascetti, Bruno Musso, Antonio Orlando
 

 
By Dan Schneider of Cosmoetica:
Why is it that bad artists always try to justify their garbage by claiming to be experimental, political, or any other label that does not pertain to the quality of the artwork itself? Well, it’s simple — they cannot justify it in any other way. Naturally, when the film or novel or painting has been banned in many places, it [...]

Abel Gance’s LA ROUE on DVD

"There is cinema before and after La Roue as there is painting before and after Picasso."
That’s none other than Jean Cocteau, referring to the mammoth 1923 drama (original running time: nearly 8 hours) directed and written by Abel Gance — he of Napoleon.
Gance worked for three years on La Roue / The Wheel, which revolves around a locomotive engineer (Séverin-Mars, who died in 1921, two years before the film’s official release), his obsession with his adopted daughter (Ivy Close, mother of director Ronald Neame), and her (romantic) love for the engineer’s son (Gabriel de Gravone), who also happens to have fallen in love with her.
The director and his cinematographers (Gaston Brun, Marc Bujard, Léonce-Henri Burel, and Maurice Duverger) worked [...]

THE IDIOTS d: Lars von Trier

Idioterne / The Idiots (1998)
Direction and Screenplay: Lars von Trier. Cast: Bodil Jørgensen, Jens Albinus, Anne Louise Hassing, Troels Lyby, Nikolaj Lie Kaas, Louise Mieritz, Henrik Prip, Luis Mesonero, Knud Romer Jørgensen
 

 
The tenth and final "Vow of Chastity" from the Dogme ‘95 manifesto states that "the director must not be credited." That is because the films are made in a collective fashion and the manifesto recognizes how important each hand is to the birth of one film. That being said, Lars von Trier is the "director" of Idioterne / The Idiots, even if the credits maintain that it was made by a group.
The DVD I viewed didn’t have many features (Region 2, Tartan Video, 1.66:1). It includes a text [...]

CAREFUL d: Guy Maddin

Careful (1992)
Direction: Guy Maddin. Screenplay: Guy Maddin and George Toles; from a story by Toles. Cast: Kyle McCulloch, Gosia Dobrowolska, Sarah Neville, Paul Cox, Brent Neale
 

In 1992, Winnipeg’s Guy Maddin and crew assembled for their third feature film — Careful, co-written by George Toles (and Maddin) and starring Kyle McCulloch, Gosia Dobrowolska, Sarah Neville, Paul Cox, and Brent Neale. The film takes place in the mountain-surrounded village of Tolzbad where the whispering villagers are always aware of a chance avalanche.
Careful opens using a chilling Wagnerian score of a moaning choir and a man’s voice-over warning, "Careful Otto. Don’t spill it. Hold your horses. Children, heed the warnings of your parents. Peril awaits the incautious wayfarer." From the first frame [...]

SANSHO THE BAILIFF d: Kenji Mizoguchi

Sanshô Dayû / Sansho the Bailiff (1954)
Direction: Kenji Mizoguchi. Screenplay: Fuji Yahiro; from the old legend and Ogai Mori’s 1915 short story “Sansho the Steward.” Cast: Shindô Eitarô, Kyoko Kagawa, Yoshiaki Hanayagi
 
By Dan Schneider of Cosmoetica:
One of the nostra about Japanese film director Kenji Mizoguchi is that he is ‘the most Japanese of all filmmakers.’ Another is that, compared to his two titanic contemporaries, Yasujiro Ozu and Akira Kurosawa, Mizoguchi was the hardest to pin down in a style or genre. Having just watched Sanshô Dayû / Sansho the Bailiff (1954) I can agree with both of the above sentiments.
First, Mizoguchi excels at the jidai-geki (historical drama) genre. Second, whereas Ugetsu Monogatari (the only other Mizoguchi film I’ve seen) [...]

Bette Davis Collection Volume 3 DVD Set

The Bette Davis Collection Vol. 3, a DVD box set consisting of six Davis vehicles, will be released on April 1.
The six films are The Old Maid (1939), All This, and Heaven Too (1940), The Great Lie (1941), In This Our Life (1942), Watch on the Rhine (1943), and Deception (1946). A couple of those are remarkably good films, and all of them offer solid production values and various good-to-great performances — though Davis’ own work ranges from passable to awful.
The two best films in the lot are The Old Maid and The Great Lie, two unabashed weepies directed by Edmund Goulding. (Who’s the subject of an upcoming Q&A at the Alternative Film Guide.) Miriam Hopkins steals the show [...]

Forbidden Hollywood: Pre-Code Movies on TCM

The new documentary Thou Shalt Not: Sex, Sin and Censorship in Pre-Code Hollywood and five Pre-Code films will be shown on Turner Classic Movies on Monday, March 3 (more details below).
The five racy Pre-Coders are: The Divorcee (1930), A Free Soul (1931), Night Nurse (right, 1931), Three on a Match (1932), and Female (1933). Those are films made before religious zealots, abetted by frightened studio heads (it was the Depression, after all), put Hollywood movies in a chastity straitjacket that would last about three decades. (See also Pre-Code Paramount and Pre-Code Fox.)
The following day, Warner Video will release the three-disc set TCM Archives: Forbidden Hollywood Volume 2, featuring the five films and the documentary (more details below).
I couldn’t find [...]

ULYSSES’ GAZE by Theo Angelopoulos

To Vlemma tou Odyssea / Ulysses’ Gaze (1995)
Direction: Theo Angelopoulos. Screenplay: Theo Angelopoulos, Tonino Guerra, Petros Markaris, Giorgio Silvagni. Cast: Harvey Keitel, Erland Josephson, Maia Morgenstern
 
By Dan Schneider of Cosmoetica:
Greek filmmaker Theo Angelopoulos‘ 1995 effort To Vlemma tou Odyssea / Ulysses’ Gaze is the first of that director’s four films that I have seen that is not unequivocally a great work of art. Although there are arguments that can be made in favor of that claim, the film’s 173-minute running time is much too long, especially considering that Ulysses’ Gaze is the least poetic of those four films. (For the record, the others are Landscape in the Mist, Eternity and a D ay, and Trilogy: The Weeping Meadow.)
I’m not [...]

MAJOR DUNDEE by Sam Peckinpah

Major Dundee (1965)
Direction: Sam Peckinpah. Screenplay: Harry Julian Fink, Oscar Saul, Sam Peckinpah; from a story by Fink. Cast: Charlton Heston, Richard Harris, Jim Hutton, Senta Berger, James Coburn, Michael Anderson Jr., Mario Adorf, Brock Peters, Warren Oates, Ben Johnson, Slim Pickens, R.G. Armstrong, L. Q. Jones
 
By Dan Schneider of Cosmoetica:
Sam Peckinpah’s 1965 Western Major Dundee is a near-great film that has a checkered history. The tale of its mangling by its studio, Columbia, which took it out of Peckinpah’s hands is as well known as the butchery that accompanied Erich von Stroheim’s Greed, and Orson Welles‘ The Magnificent Ambersons and Touch of Evil. That said, Columbia’s restored 136-minute DVD version really shines — even though some critics have still [...]

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