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Ralph Nelson's Lilies of the Field is a film that just seems to work. Sidney Poitier, around whom everything hinges, received a Best Actor statuette for his role of Homer Smith, five years after his nomination for The Defiant Ones. Produced on a tiny budget, and photographed in gorgeous black...

matt-hough has published a new article. Murders in the Rue Morgue (1971)/The Dunwich Horror Blu-ray Review Edgar Allan Poe and H.P. Lovecraft both excelled in penning stories of psychological horror, but the movies often took a too literal and gruesome... Continue reading the original article.

matt-hough has published a new article. The Vikings Blu-ray Review The rough and rowdy world of the ancient Norsemen comes to life both vividly and brutally in Richard Fleischer’s The Vikings. [review] Continue reading the original article.

Matt Hough Gog 3D Blu-ray Review Rampaging robots and a sinister saboteur keep things hopping in the Golden Age 3D adventure Gog. Produced by the renowned Ivan Tors and brought back from near-oblivion by the 3-D Film Archive, Gog may not be tops in drama or action, but it’s a fun sci-fi...

matt-hough has published a new article. Support Your Local Sheriff/Gunfighter Blu-ray Review Between the years of his various television series (Maverick, Nichols, The Rockford Files, Bret Maverick), James Garner had a very respectable... Continue reading the original article.

matt-hough has published a new article. The Hawaiians Blu-ray Review James Michener’s mammoth novel Hawaii generated a moderately entertaining 1966 roadshow epic starring Julie Andrews, Max von Sydow, and Richard... Continue reading the original article.

matt-hough has published a new article. Black Sabbath DVD Review One of a number of horror anthologies cranked out for cinemas in the 1960s, Mario Bava’s Black Sabbath is among the better ones. [review] Continue reading the original article.

matt-hough has published a new article. Land of Doom DVD Review A future world turns deadly for a man and woman searching for safety in Peter Maris’ Land of Doom. [review] Continue reading the original article.

As a sequel to Hawaii, recently also released by Twilight Time on Blu-ray, Tom Gries The Hawaiians holds it own. While never a great film, it's a very good one. Culled from a center cut of James Michener's novel, one must wonder when (or if) we'll see the finale. As a Blu-ray, it's head and...

Twilight Time has released two films backed by James Garner's Cherokee Productions. Support Your Local Sheriff was released in 1969, and Gunfighter, two years hence. They're both delightfully strange, lighthearted, feature films, that have their roots in TV land. They appear to both have...

The Vikings, directed by Richard Fleischer, and starring Kirk Douglas, Tony Curtis, Ernest Borgnine and Janet Leigh, is a 1958 production, shot early in the Technirama era. With MGM's reputation for "good enough" transfers, it was with a bit of trepidation, that I popped this one into my Oppo...

Pressure Point, is a gorgeously presented black & white production, produced by Stanley Kramer, and directed by Hubert Cornfield. I've never been a fan of Mr. Cornfield's work, and have only found a single film, his The Night of the Following Day, of interest. That noted, there are several...

Ron Underwood's Speechless has been released by Olive Films, in perfect sync with the latest election news. It's a film about two people falling for one another, and only afterward finding out that, well... While it's never been a great film, it is a fun way to spend 99 minutes, and the new...

Shout Factory has given us Roger Donaldson's No Way Out, a superb thriller with a terrific cast (Kevin Costner, Gene Hackman, Sean Young). I'm pleased to see it make its way to Blu-ray in top form. Keep up with the complexities of the plot, and you'll find a treasure. The film was...

Herbert Strock, the director of Gog, moved around the industry for seven decades or so, working initially as an assistant editor, director, writer, post supervisor, and producer in both the theatrical arena as well as TV, where he directed episodes of everything from Dragnet to Sky King to 77...

There are probably as many concepts of what a "true" Bond film should be as there are people viewing them. And while storylines may have become excessive, and action sequences doing their best to one-up the previous, the Bond films remain very much their own breed. Whether one prefers Mr...

matt-hough has published a new article. Spectre Blu-ray Review The twenty-fourth James Bond entry, Sam Mendes’ Spectre, has all of the tropes one has come to expect from the 007 series: chases, fights,... Continue reading the original article.

matt-hough has published a new article. Hawaii Blu-ray Review James A. Michener’s expansive novel Hawaii contained enough plots and characters for about five films, so George Roy Hill’s 1966 film... Continue reading the original article.

matt-hough has published a new article. Bound for Glory Blu-ray Review Hal Ashby’s depiction of depression-era America in the 1930s combined with a vivid if subdued biographical portrait of the turning point in the life of... Continue reading the original article.

matt-hough has published a new article. The Happy Ending Blu-ray Review [review] Continue reading the original article.

Hal Ashby's Bound for Glory, a bio-pic about the legendary musician and activist, Woody Guthrie, is a superb film. As photographed by the late Haskell Wexler, it was also a gorgeous example of can be done with a motion picture camera. Unfortunately, the master that MGM has chosen to deliver...

With a screenplay by Dalton Trumbo and Daniel Taradash, George Roy Hill's Hawaii, may find interest from multiple arenas. Based upon the monumental novel by James A. Michener, Hawaii was a roadshow production, blown up to 70mm for some venues. The film used to have scenes of beauty...

<b>Valentino (1977) Blu-ray Review</b><p><p>Like all of his feature film historical biographies, Ken Russell's <em class='bbc'>Valentino</em> contains kernels of truth amid the excessive cinematic hyperbole that is the director's stock-in-trade. Strikingly shot with the stunt casting of one of...

<b>Two for the Seesaw Blu-ray Review</b><p><p>A bittersweet comedy of ill-matched souls fated to assist one another through transitions in each of their lives, Robert Wise’s <em class='bbc'>Two for the Seesaw</em> can’t do much with what is a very talky play with two sometimes irritating...

<b>Hitler&#39;s Madman DVD review</b><p><p><em class='bbc'> </em><br /><br /><em class='bbc'>Hitler's Madman</em> is a fascinating semi-fictional account of the assassination of Reinhard Heydrich, one of the most notorious Nazis in the German Army. He was the Deputy/Acting...

<b>Larger Than Life Blu-ray Review</b><p><p>W.C Fields’ most famous quote was to “never work with animals or children.” Bill Murray’s 1996 attempt at a family comedy, <em class='bbc'>Larger Than Life</em>, in which his character must get his recently inherited circus elephant from Baltimore to...

<b>The Devil&#39;s Disciple Blu-ray Review</b><p><p><em class='bbc'> </em></p><p>&nbsp;</p><p> <em class='bbc'>The Devil's Disciple</em> is an amusing and generally faithful adaptation of the famous George Bernard Shaw play about the American Revolution. Among the film's many...

Filmmaker, Robert Wise, a cinephile favorite for many films, inclusive of The Haunting, The Sound of Music and West Side Story, began his career as an apprentice sound effects editor in 1934, on Of Human Bondage. In 1939 he moved to editor, with The Hunchback of Notre Dame, and by 1941 was...

Delmer Daves's 1958 Kings Go Forth, is a beautiful black & white production, photographed by Daniel Fapp, and starring Frank Sinatra, Tony Curtis and Natalie Wood. It takes place toward the end of WWII somewhere around the French riviera. It really doesn't have too much to do with the war, bit...

<b>Nineteen Eighty-Four Blu-ray Review</b><p><p>A mood of futility and despondency is, as it should be, quite overpowering in Michael Radford’s <em class='bbc'>Nineteen Eighty-Four</em>, the second and better film version of the famous political satire penned by George Orwell in 1949. Though...