a few words about

From WB's Allied Artists library comes the 1958 grade c+ horror "classic," Frankenstein 1970. In CinemaScope. While not a particularly good film, it will be of importance to horror completists and Karloff fans - and both of those groups will be quite pleased by Warner Archive's new offering...

Glass is the third part of a presumed trilogy from M. Knight Shyamalan. Coming from Universal seems fitting in some ways, as it harkens back to the Universal horror golden years, in it's similarity to their 1943 Frankenstein Meets the Wolfman. A gathering of characters, occasionally for no...

This must be Anya Taylor-Joy's year. Two 4k Blu-ray arriving concurrently, representing her work. The other is Glass. The Witch is the purpose of these few words, and is the better of the two, as a film. Written and directed by Robert Eggers, it's a beautiful film, having arrived on Blu-ray...

Kino's new Blu-ray of Anthony Mann's 1952, 3-strip Technicolor, Bend of the River, takes on a bit of a beauty and the beast affair, when compared to Becky Sharp. Presumably produced from a master delivered by Universal that may have been made for the DVD market, the film almost appears to have...

I would bet that most cinephiles will know of Rouben Mamoulian's 1935 Becky Sharp by reputation only. A couple of decades ago, UCLA's Master of Restoration, Robert Gitt, performed yeoman-like work to gather the extant film elements and restore the film as well as possible, within the analogue...

Credit where credit is due. Had my old friend, Roy Frumkes, not introduced me to cartoonist extraordinaire, Al Kilgore back in the late '60s, I doubt that I would have ever grown to appreciate "The Boys" as they deserve. It's probably a safe bet that very few who visit HTF are aware of the...

Robert Harris submitted a new blog post A few words about...™ Nancy Drew and the Hidden Staircase (2019) - in Blu-ray Continue reading the Original Blog Post.

I've always loved this film, but have never seen it in the quality offered by Twilight Time, from Columbia's latest video master. To my mind, it's always seemed to be film by Frank Capra, as channeled through John Ford. It has so many attributes of both filmmakers, that it's difficult to see...

Pet Sematary is a difficult film to review, as auto-correct continuously attempts to have its way with the title. The 1989 original, directed by Mary Lambert, isn't the kind of film I would normally watch. Therefore my comments will not apply to the masses who probably love it. To me, it...

Stanley Kramer's Oklahoma Crude is a difficult film to categorize. Possibly a dramedy, but not precisely. It occurs in 1913, the year of the filmmaker's birth, and concerns a young woman set on success toward her own oil rig. But big business arrives, and it isn't a good situation. We have...

John Andeas Andersen's The Quake has many things in common with Roar Uthaug's, The Wave. Both are from Norwegian filmmakers, and both are far more elegant versions of Irwin Allen's 1960s-'70s brand of huge, heavily cast, disaster thrillers. The main difference being, that the Norwegian...

WB's new 4k UHD Blu-ray of Aquaman is a magnificent affair, with brilliant colors, and a superb, all-encompassing Dolby Atmos track. Very loud, with superb channel separation. Did I mention really pretty colors? Image - 5 Audio - 5 4k - 4 Pass / Fail - Pass RAH

I'm a huge Val Lewton fan. There's never been anyone quite like him for intelligent, atmospheric horror. Scream Factory's new Blu-ray of Robert Wise's (his second film in the series, after The Curse of the Cat People) 1945 The Body Snatcher, has everything going for it. Boris Karloff Bela...

I had no idea what I was getting in to with Andrew Niccol's Lord of War, and came away impressed. It's a film that' s more than the sum of its parts, leading to a commentary regarding the levels and intricacies of the sale of arms on more than a simplistic level. Shot on film (S35), and...

Takashi Miike's Audition may not be for all tastes, but for those who revel in the genre, Arrow's new Blu-ray will find many a home. I've only been aware of the film on DVD domestically, and the difference between that older DVD release and Arrow's new incarnation is nothing less than...

This particular release of Leone's 1965 For a Few Dollars More, is finally, a revelation. I have no idea why it's taken this long to get it correct. Whether the hands, the budgets, or intimately, the post facilities and their hard and software. I've not seen a quality representation of this...

The Admirable Crichton, released in the Colonies in 1957 as Paradise Lagoon is a class comedy. Think Upstairs, Downstairs meets Lord of the Flies, the original Blue Lagoon and Gilligan's Island. It's a sweet British production that I'd only seen once before, and it looked nothing like Twilight...

I'm presuming that some may not be aware of the history behind Arrow's new Blu-ray release of Phantom Lady, courtesy of Universal. For those who will be picking up a copy, many will take note of certain characteristics in story, cutting, etc., which happen to take on a quite Hitchcockian aura...

Between 1940 and 1962 (with a quiet period between 1953 and 1962), Bing Crosby and Bob Hope, a dream team pairing by Paramount, were featured as a team in seven productions. The films have been available on DVD for aeons, but the earliest are just now making their way to Blu-ray, courtesy of...

Will the real Douglas Sirk please stand up! One can never be totally certain if Todd Haynes put in his time thoroughly studying the work of Mr. Sirk, or if he is Sirk incarnate. Here is authentic Sirk. The 1957 Universal black & white melodrama, Tarnished Angels, with Sirk stalwarts Hudson...

My initial thoughts about hearing about this release were... "It's about time." The 2002 Focus Features (Universal) release has been available on DVD only domestically. Especially because of the beautiful cinematography by Edward Lachman, who more than caught the look and textures of the...

If there was any doubt about Brad Pitt's ability to control a persona on screen, it ended with Kalifornia, Dominic Sera's 1992 effort, released here by Shout Factory as number 68 in their numbered series. I'm not certain when the numbering actually began? Has it been ongoing since number 1? A...

SEE The baddest Russian boxer in the fight of his life against the man he hates because Brigitte Nielsen moved out when he was a child to take up with someone with proper funding! SEE Michael B. Jordan get the crap beat out of him by aforementioned Russian boxer, because he doesn't have Rocky...

While Schindler's List may not be one of those films that has the audience walking down the road afterwards, smiling, while they recall the lyrics of their favorite songs, it's a film for which Steven Spielberg will always be considered at the top of his craft. It was magnificently photographed...

For those seeking to corner the market and collect every vampire film, or at least every vampire production featuring Bela Lugosi, Scream Factory has made the task easier, with their release of the 1943 Columbia film, The Return of the Vampire. In typically Columbia fashion, it's a quality...

It is neither through disrespect, nor negligence, that I combine the comments on two of the major 4k Blu-ray releases from the 2018 season. Each in its own way, defines a specific style, both cinematographically as well as aurally, and both are reproduced on tiny CD-sized discs with immense...

Aside from a quite extraordinary Dolby Atmos track, the question that ran through my mind while viewing the latest in the Cloverfield series, was " why?" The film seems a bit of a mashup of Alien, The Big Sleep and Beat the Devil. One superb outer space opera. A superb noir, with an extremely...

While Fritz Lang's 1940 Technicolor production, The Return of Frank James, may not fill the boots of its 1939 predecessor, those who take a shot a this new Twilight Time Blu-ray, will be pleasantly surprised that as a representation of the 3-strip era, it's near the top of the pile of Fox's...

I'm certain that the Allied Artists' production, The Giant Behemoth has a slew of fans, and rightfully so, as it harkens back to the best of stop motion animation. But to me, the story isn't about the film, but rather, the filmmaker. I met Gene Lourie in 1981, as he lived on the same street in...

Sidney Lumet's The Group, is a 1966 production, based upon the bestseller by Mary McCarthy. The novel won millions of fans, as well as naysayers, and still does: https://www.vanityfair.com/culture/2013/07/vassar-sex-single-girl-ivy-league-mary-mccarthy I've not seen The Group in decades...