a few words about

Mary Harron's American Psycho is a wonderful, and interesting tribute to what is percevied as the male psyche, hormonal or otherwise. The great Mr. Ebert hit the nail on the head with his 2000 review: "It's just as well a woman directed "American Psycho." She's transformed a novel about...

This should be the Halloween that fans have been waiting for since CED and VHS days, and it's higher in quality than either. John Carpenter's original 1978, low-budget horror masterpiece, has arrived on 4k, courtesy of Lionsgate's program of newly harvesting images of their catalog titles...

Warner Archive has, once again, dug into their Allied Artists library for another genre favorite, Bert Gordon's 1957, The Cyclops. Although it stars James Craig and Gloria Talbott* , the film features a fan favorite -- Lon Chaney, Jr., here being billed simply as Lon Chaney. The film was shot...

The late 1970s was an interesting time for major stars of the 1930s and beyond, as while they were all still fine actors, they were no longer considered lead attractions. And so was born the star-studded natural disaster thriller. Irwin Allen may have done it better than anyone. Think...

Being unfamiliar with Marvel's The Punisher, which was released in 2004, I expected some sort of super-hero, crime genre, thriller. Nope. While it makes for a pretty 4k UHD Blu-ray, the film is a relentlessly dark, unappealing, revenge film, which I can only presume had it's routes as a...

Solo: A Star Wars Story, reminds me of any series of young teen or YA books that keep on coming, as there's a perceived audience for them, but with evermore tired storylines, and little imagination. Disney's latest Star Wars project, Solo, directed by Ron Howard is a gorgeously mounted...

Gary Ross delivers a fun couple of hours of entertainment (in color), with this distaff take on the Ocean's caper films, which go back to the original Ocean's 11 in 1960. Featuring a notable cast for the leads, and accessing older talent for bits, which I love -- keep an eye peeled, and you'll...

In many ways, the latest Jurassic production is more of the same. Good guys. Bad guys. Money / Greed. Dinosaurs -- many on the loose. Some chasing the good guys. Some chasing the bad guys. Some both. What the viewer receives is an enormous amount of CGI, along with a very loud and...

Richard Rush's Color of Night was a problematic, albeit stylish film, when it arrived in 1994. And while I'm not certain how much more positive the 18-minute longer Director's Cut makes it today, it remains an interesting production. The theatrical cut is offered on a second disc. Quirky...

Had it not been for a supposed error in renewing the copyright for My Man Godfrey in 1964 (one can't blame it on the 1957 Henry Koster re-make) we might have seen a restoration of this brilliant screwball comedy earlier. It's only been in the past few years that the studios have seen fit to...

H.C. Potter's 1947, The Farmer's Daughter is a quintessential Selznick production, released via RKO. It's part of Kino Lorber's agreement with Disney to make available the Selznick productions, previously held by ABC, and is a nice step above some of the others in the series in terms of...

How can anyone not fall in love with this woman? Acknowledged as a mother and grandmother, who, while not very adept in the kitchen, made her way through college and law school in an era when women were considered second class citizens, RBG now holds a most interesting job. It's an extremely...

Francis Coppola's Tucker: A Man and His Dream (1988), surprised me upon its original release with a superb performance by an un-billed actor, Lloyd Bridges. A nice touch. Father and son would appear together again in 1994, in Blown Away. Tucker is less a filmed biography, and more a...

As Michael Bay's initial directorial feature effort, Bad Boys wasn't a bad place to begin. Stylish, fast-paced, beautifully photographed (in Toronto dressed as Miami). The initial tale is led by two comic actors, who wise-crack their way through a couple of hours of violence and mayhem...

Robert Harris submitted a new blog post A few words about...™ Christine -- in 4k UHD Blu-ray Continue reading the Original Blog Post.

Not certain how to precisely categorize Robert Wiene's Hereditary. It's rather placid for the first hour. Certainly no horror. A bit of "huh, what's going on..." That slowly builds as absolute dread begins to set in around the 90 minute mark, as Toni Collette and Alex Wolff begin to move to...

Paramount has done Republic proud, with their restoration (from original elements) of Trigger, Jr. the 16th of 19 TruColor westerns from Republic with Roy Rogers in the leads, made between 1947 and 1950. It's a far more interesting film than I might have surmised. At 66 minutes (one record has...

Any cinephile worth his or her salt, readily knows when they're viewing a film created by someone with an unbridled, knowledge of the cinema. Of the technical attributes of film. And how to best use them. Paul Schrader knows his cinema. He's been at it for a few years. For those who may not...

The fact that there is an upcoming Jack Ryan Amazon series, premiering on August 31, makes a perfect time for Paramount to release the feature films - all five of them - on 4k. The films arrived over a 24-year span, beginning in 1990 with The Hunt for Red October, followed in 1992 with Patriot...

Presumably, as part of their deal with WB, Scream Factory is releasing the 1988 Lorimar, Return of the Living Dead: Part II. I actually had to check to see if there was a Part I, and yes there is. There's also a Part III. Whether later releases have anything to do with this one, I've no idea...

One of the all-time fan favorites, made it to Starz in 2015, and the third season is arriving on Blu-ray. Always great fun, and over the top, the series continues to be shot via Arri Alexa, which means that what you're seeing on Blu-ray has minimal loss, as compressed, from the original files...

Sony has a new line of Blu-rays, about to be made available, and they're being represented as MOD product. The first is George Schaefer's Pendulum (1969), with George Peppard, Jean Seberg and Richard Kiley, in the leads. MOD releases have gotten a bad rep, as early on, some were problematic...

Although Olive's new Signature Edition of Bound is derived from a "New High-Definition digital restoration," whatever that is, it looks much similar to Olive's original Blu-ray, for which there were no apologies necessary. It was, and remains, a beautiful Blu-ray. Like the earlier Olive...

For transparency's sake, let it be known, as I write these few words, that I'm a huge fan of Dan Simmons, and find it odd that nowhere in the packaging of this 3-disc set is there any mention of his novel as the basis of the series. If you've not read the book, now is your chance. That noted...

Three of the finest films to ever grace the silver sheet have had a running time of 222 minutes. Gone with the Wind, Lawrence of Arabia, and now... The Super Duper Cut of Deadpool 2, one of those extremely rare Marvel productions. While it plays a bit long - the short cut runs only 119 - it...

David Mamet's Oleanna, which he originally created as a play, stared William Macy and Mr. Mamet's wife, Rebecca Pidgeon -- who composed the music for the film. The film, which was released in 1994, has Mr. Macy in the role he created on stage, along with Debra Eisenstadt, who was a stand-in...

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Assistant Right-hand Man Amanuensis Casting representative Note taker Colorist Acting coach Film Worker Leon Vitali is all of those things, and although he's been hiding in the background for decades... More. The word Boswellian comes to mind. After getting an acting gig in Stanley...

Scream Factory is releasing two beautiful black & white William Castle productions, released by Columbia in 1959 (Tingler) and 1964 (S-J). While neither are films to which I'd normally gravitate, each have a myriad of fans, and thus, their quality needs to be reported here. Let's begin with...

Wildling, directed by newcomer, Fritz Bohm, is a New York made horror film about a seemingly normal young teen, named Anna, who (apparently things may go a bit differently in New York), is going through the things that young teen girls do, as they begin to physically mature. In this case, Anna...