Competing for gift box attention this holiday is this impressive 4K Ultra HD anniversary release of Christopher Nolan’s intelligent answer to 2001, a cosmic journey literally to the other end of the universe. Matthew McConaughey and Anne Hathaway star in a warm ‘n’ human contemplation of human limits ‘beyond the infinite.’ Nolan gives it his…
The Return of Doctor X Blu-ray Warner Archive 1939 – 62 Min. Starring Humphrey Bogart, Wayne Morris, Dennis Morgan Cinematography by Sidney Hickox Written by Lee Katz Directed by William Sherman Directed by Vincent Sherman with a screenplay by Lee Katz, The Return of Doctor X stars Wayne Morris as Walter Garrett, a reporter investigating the…
Pairing wine with movies! See the trailers and hear the fascinating commentary for these movies and many more at Trailers From Hell. This week, we toast to a little Americana. A trio of great movies that feature the American West, in all its rip-roarin’, six-shootin’, horse ridin’ glory. When I was a kid, my mom…
This Winona Ryder version of Alcott’s venerated page-turner is the most satisfying to date, as adapted by Robin Swicord, directed by Gillian Armstrong and embodied by an ideal cast: Gabriel Byrne, Trini Alvarado, Christian Bale, Claire Danes, Susan Sarandon, Eric Stoltz, plus Kirsten Dunst and Samantha Mathis sharing a character between them. The show looks…
Never give up, never surrender! A comic spoof of Star Trek and Trekkie worship does not sound promising, but this bright and funny space adventure is enlivened by an able cast — Tim Allen, Sigourney Weaver, Alan Rickman, Tony Shalhoub, Sam Rockwell and Daryl Mitchell. Especially good are the goofy aliens that need help in…
Top Cat – The Complete Series Blu-ray Warner Archive 1961 Starring Arnold Stang, Maurice Gosfield, Allan Jenkins Written by Kin Platt, Barry Blitzer, Michael Maltese Directed by William Hanna, Joseph Barbera In 1960, cartoon powerhouses William Hanna and Joseph Barbera found remarkable success with The Flintstones, a stone-age parody of Jackie Gleason’s kitchen sink rom-com,…
Eli Roth’s Thanksgiving began as one of the parody trailers in Quentin Tarantino and Robert Rodriguez’s 2007 film, Grindhouse. Epitomizing the “grindhouse” vibe, the trailer looked and sounded low-budget and tasteless, all sex and garish kills, with a closing shot so shocking that it was literally only visible for seconds. In other words, it was…
Here I finally present It’s a Zabriskie, Zabriskie, Zabriskie, Zabriskie Point, a feature-length essay film that began as an editing mashup, a bit o’ fun with found footage, and ended as a pop meditation on American iconography and mythologies, a cine-exegesis of the American desert through the prism of both culture and counterculture, and a very…
Pairing wine with movies! See the trailers and hear the fascinating commentary for these movies and many more at Trailers From Hell. This week, a simian trio of films. Big screen apes, and the wines to make them more palatable. Monkey Business, the 1952 screwball comedy directed by Howard Hawks, is one of those hard-to-believe-yet-kinda-funny-in-a-way…