News

I’m old enough to remember when Jacques Rivette films were the domain of dark-web networks and substandard DVD rips, a conspiratorial network worthy of his cinema. It’s still a little strange seeing that April will feature a 10-film, one-short Criterion Channel program that combines of his canonized masterpieces with decidedly lesser-seens––plus Va Savoir, which I really hope is the recently unearthed four-hour cut for which there’s no substitute. Penélope Cruz is also subject of a retrospective in April, which––more than making me pine for a Rivette collab that never was––will include both Abre Los Ojos and Vanilla Sky, some Almodóvar, and another in the Channel’s ongoing let’s-add-a-Woody-Allen-movie campaign, Vicky Cristina Barcelona.

For themed series, J. Hoberman has curated a series on the dangers of ’60s and ’70s New York that runs from Michael Roemer’s recently restored The Plot Against Harry and...

The American TV-movie has gained a bad rap over the years, but there was a time when folks looked forward to these flicks — and not in an ironic sense or a need to hate-watch.

That period of kinder and less cynical viewership was surely in the 1970s and ’80s when the made-for-television movie became more widespread. The “movie of the week” format took off in the former decade, with the major networks at the time devoting blocks in their schedules to these standalone, small-screen features. And one of the more revisited genres was horror. Duel, The Night Stalker and The Night Strangler, Don’t Be Afraid of the Dark, Trilogy of Terror, Are You in the House Alone?, The Initiation of Sarah. These are just a few of the classic telefilms that scared a whole generation of viewers.

There have been great strides to archive and restore these past horror TV-movies,...

If you saw "The Fabelmans" — and judging from the film's underwhelming box office, you probably didn't — you might think you know exactly how Steven Spielberg broke into show business. Snap Wexley hired him to work on the hit TV sitcom "Hogan's Heroes," he got great advice from an ornery John Ford, and the rest was history.

Except Steven Spielberg didn't really work on "Hogan's Heroes," and he didn't get advice from John Ford when he was actually starting out in the industry. Instead, he met the legendary director of "How Green Was My Valley" and "The Searchers" when he was only 15 years old. It turns out that Steven Spielberg isn't really above smudging the truth a bit in his movies, if he thinks the truth gets in the way of a good story.

And like all good stories, "The Fabelmans" had to end somewhere. It didn't take "Sammy Fabelman" into his actual,...

Rod Serling's horror anthology series "Night Gallery," a spiritual follow-up to his hit show "The Twilight Zone," began its life as a 1969 TV movie, consisting of three separate episodes directed by Boris Sagal, Barry Shear, and an up-and-coming novice named Steven Spielberg. Sagal and Shear were a long-term TV veterans at the time, having worked on "The Twilight Zone" and "The Man from U.N.C.L.E." between them. "Night Gallery" was Spielberg's very first professional directing job. Spielberg's segment, called "Eyes," starred Joan Crawford as a wealthy blind woman who pays a huge amount of money for an experimental eyeball transplant that will give her perfect vision for a mere 11 hours. As she removes her bandages following the surgery, there is a blackout in her apartment. Cue the disappointed "Price is Right" trombone.

The "Night Gallery" TV movie was a success, and it led to a full-blown...

Gritty inner city crime pix don’t get any rougher than this — I witnessed the walk-outs personally. Barry Shear and a crack crew filmed in Harlem for this downbeat crime pic that could be called ‘Every Thief For Himself.’ Paul Benjamin just wants to score some mob money and leave the mean streets behind — but a single slipup brings the worst of the Mafia and the black mob down on his neck. It’s neither a ‘stick it to whitey’ saga nor a plea for justice: it’s story 8 million and 1 in The Naked City. Stars Anthony Quinn, Anthony Franciosa and Yaphet Kotto provide more acting fireworks, with solid assistance from Gloria Henry, Antonio Fargas and Marlene Warfield.

Across 110th Street

Region-Free Blu-ray

Viavision [Imprint] 120

1972 / Color / 1:85 widescreen / 102 min. / Street Date April 27, 2022 / Available from / Aud 34.95

Starring: Anthony Quinn, Yaphet Kotto, Anthony Franciosa, Paul Benjamin, Ed Bernard, Antonio Fargas, Richard Ward,...

No two ways about it: April’s a great month for the Criterion Channel, which (among other things; more in a second) adds two recent favorites. We’re thrilled at the SVOD premiere of Hamaguchi’s entrancing Wheel of Fortune and Fantasy, our #3 of 2021, and Bruno Dumont’s lacerating France, featuring Léa Seydoux’s finest performance yet.

Ethan Hawke’s Adventures in Moviegoing runs the gamut from Eagle Pennell’s Last Night at the Alamo to 4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days, while a 14-film John Ford retro (mostly) skips westerns altogether. And no notes on the Delphine Seyrig retro—multiple by Akerman, Ulrike Ottinger, Duras, a smattering of Buñuel, and Seyrig’s own film Be Pretty and Shut Up! That of all things might be the crown jewl.

See the full list of April titles below and more on the Criterion Channel.

—

3 Bad Men, John Ford, 1926

Aar paar, Guru Dutt,...

Hello, dear readers! Before those of us in the States get ready to gobble down our Thanksgiving dinners later this week, we have a brand new batch of horror and sci-fi home entertainment releases to look forward to first. One of this writer’s favorite films of all time, Philip Kaufman’s Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1978) is getting the 4K treatment from Kino Lorber this Tuesday, and Arrow Video is resurrecting both The Snake Girl and the Silver Haired Witch and Phantom of the Mall: Eric’s Revenge on Blu-ray as well (this is also very exciting news in my world). Arrow is also re-releasing a handful of other titles—The Cat O’ Nine Tails, The Bird with the Crystal Plumage, and C.H.U.D.—and the first season of Rod Serling’s Night Gallery is headed to Blu-ray as well.

Other releases for November 23rd include Chupa, Lair,...

Shelley Winters, Christopher Jones and Diane Varsi star in American-International's most successful 'youth rebellion' epic -- a political sci-fi satire about a rock star whose opportunistic political movement overthrows the government and puts everyone over 35 into concentration camps... to be force-fed LSD. Wild in the Streets Blu-ray Olive Films 1968 / Color / 1:85 widescreen / 97 min. / Street Date August 16, 2016 / available through the Olive Films website / 29.98 Starring Shelley Winters, Christopher Jones, Diane Varsi, Hal Holbrook, Millie Perkins, Richard Pryor, Bert Freed, Kevin Coughlin, Larry Bishop, Michael Margotta, Ed Begley, May Ishihara. Cinematography Richard Moore Film Editor Fred Feitshans Jr., Eve Newman Original Music Les Baxter Written by Robert Thom from his short story "The Day it All Happened, Baby" Produced by Burt Topper Directed by Barry Shear

Reviewed by Glenn Erickson

Back around 1965 - 1966 we endured this stupid buzzword concept called The Generation Gap, a notion that there was a natural divide between old people and their kids.

Batgirl Yvonne Craig. Batgirl Yvonne Craig dead at 78: Also featured in 'Star Trek' episode, Elvis Presley movies Yvonne Craig, best known as Batgirl in the 1960s television series Batman, died of complications from breast cancer on Monday, Aug. 17, '15, at her home in Pacific Palisades, in the Los Angeles Westside. Craig (born May 16, 1937, in Taylorville, Illinois), who had been undergoing chemotherapy for two years, was 78. Beginning (and ending) in the final season of Batman (1967-1968), Yvonne Craig played both Commissioner Gordon's librarian daughter Barbara Gordon and her alter ego, the spunky Batgirl – armed with a laser-beaming electric make-up kit “which will destroy anything.” Unlike semi-villainess Catwoman (Julie Newmar), Batgirl was wholly on the side of Righteousness, infusing new blood into the series' increasingly anemic Dynamic Duo: Batman aka Bruce Wayne (Adam West) and Boy Wonder Robin aka Bruce Wayne's beloved pal Dick Grayson (Burt Ward). “They chose...

'The Man From U.N.C.L.E.' with Henry Cavill and Armie Hammer. 'The Man from U.N.C.L.E.' box office: Bigger domestic flop than expected? Before I address the box office debacle of Warner Bros.' The Man from U.N.C.L.E., I'd like remark upon the fact that 2015 has been a notable year at the North American box office. That's when the dinosaurs of Jurassic World smashed Hulk and his fellow Halloween-costumed Marvel superheroes of Avengers: Age of Ultron. And smashed them good: $636.73 million vs. $457.52 million. (See also: 'Jurassic World' beating 'The Avengers' worldwide and domestically?) At least in part for sentimental (or just downright morbid) reasons – Paul Walker's death in a car accident in late 2013 – Furious 7 has become by far the highest-grossing The Fast and the Furious movie in the U.S. and Canada: $351.03 million. (Shades of Heath Ledger's unexpected death...

Blu-ray & DVD Release Date: Sept. 9, 2014

Price: DVD $19.95, Blu-ray $29.95

Studio: Kino Lorber

Anthony Quinn and Yaphet Kotto (r.) head uptown in Across 110th Street.

The gritty, action-filled 1972 crime drama Across 110th Street stars Anthony Quinn (The Secret of Santa Vittoria) and Yaphet Kotto (Live and Let Die) as two hard-hitting New York City police detectives.

When a crew of gun-totin’ gangstas knocks over a mafia racket in Harlem, their plan gets blown to hell and the crib gets blown to bits! But as the bullets start flyin’ and cops start dyin’, a pair of New York’s finest, Mattelli and Pope, are forced to work together to bring justice to the streets before the Mafia brings the ghetto to its knees! Now, wanted by the Man and hunted by the Mob, there ain’t no way these homicidal homeboys are getting across 110th Street except in a body bag!

Directed with...

‘Ryan’s Daughter’ actor Christopher Jones dead at 72: Quit acting following nervous breakdown after Sharon Tate murder, in later years turned down Quentin Tarantino movie offer Christopher Jones, who had a key role in David Lean’s 1970 romantic epic Ryan’s Daughter, died of complications from gallbladder cancer last Friday, January 31, 2014, at Los Alamitos Medical Center, approximately 35 km southwest of downtown Los Angeles. Christopher Jones (born William Franklin Jones on August 18, 1941, in Jackson, Tennessee) was 72. After growing up in a children’s home, joining the army at 16 and then going Awol, being handpicked by Tennessee Williams for a small role in the playwright’s The Night of the Iguana in 1961, and starring in the television series The Legend of Jesse James (1965-1966), Christopher Jones began getting film roles. His first was the title role in Allen H. Miner’s 1967 clash-of-generations drama Chubasco, in which Jones plays a misunderstood youth...

Produced and distributed by Mvd Entertainment Group, in association with Ediad Productions,"Here's Edie: The Edie Adams Television Collection", available November 19, 2013, is a new four DVD box set, featuring 12 Hours of the early 1960's TV series "Here's Edie" and "The Edie Adams Show".

Performances include classic Duke Ellington, Count Basie, Stan Getz, Andre Previn, Sammy Davis, Jr., Bobby Darin, Johnny Mathis, Nancy Wilson, Buddy Hackett, Bob Hope, Dick Shawn, Rowan & Martin, Peter Falk, Sir Michael Redgrave, Zsa Zsa Gabor and a whole lot more :

"...more than 50 years after it premiered on the ABC network, the variety shows 'Here's Edie' and 'The Edie Adams Show' are set for release on DVD and digital formats, the first time either series has been seen in any format since its original broadcast more than a half century ago.

"The 'wow' factor of this box set resides in the eclectic guest stars Edie Adams...

Recent hot cinema topics such as the portrayal of the Mandarin character in Shane Black’s Iron Man 3 and speculations about what classic Star Trek villain Benedict Cumberbatch’s character in J.J Abrams’ Star Trek: Into Darkness was modeled after leading up to the film’s release, among others, underline the importance of great villains in genre cinema.

Creating a great cinematic villain is a difficult goal that makes for an incredibly rewarding and memorable viewer experience when it is achieved.

We’ll now take a look at the greatest film villains. Other writing on this subject tends to be a bit unfocused, as “greatest villain” articles tend to mix live-action human villains with animated characters and even animals. Many of these articles also lack a cohesive quality as they attempt to cover too much ground at once by spanning all of film history.

This article focuses on the 1970’s,...

Gary Oldman as Jackie Flannery in State Of Grace (Phil Joanou, 1990, USA):

Long considered one of the most talented actors in cinema, it’s very strange that his outstanding acting as the younger brother of Ed Harris’ local crime boss in this underrated film doesn’t get talked about nearly enough when discussing Oldman’s body of work. This is a must-see performance for all Oldman fans. For the record, State Of Grace is a far better Irish mob film than The Departed (Martin Scorsese, 2006, USA), primarily because it contains much better acting across the board. Oldman was nominated for a Best Actor Oscar for Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy (Tomas Alfredson, 2011, UK/France).

Other notable Gary Oldman performances: Prick Up Your Ears (Stephen Frears, 1987, USA), Dracula (Francis Ford Coppola, 1992, USA), True Romance (Tony Scott, 1993, USA), Leon: The Professional (Luc Besson, 1994, France), Air Force One (Wolfgang Petersen, 1997, USA), The Contender (Rod Lurie,...

Amy Monaghan, first known to most of us as the cinetrix, is high-tailing it from Boston, where she presented a paper at Scms, to New York for this afternoon's launch of the new issue of Black Clock, the literary journal edited by novelist Steve Erickson. You've got to love the promo blurb they've written for themselves:

In a movie issue like no other, Black Clock 15 features Geoff Nicholson's meeting of two film pioneers in "Buster Keaton: The Warhol Years," David Thomson's journey up the Amazon with Warren Beatty, and Anthony Miller's history of the cinema — from Dw Griffith's adaptation of Hemingway's The Sun Also Rises (presenting Louise Brooks as Lady Brett) to Don Siegel's 60s cult B-movie Bonnie and Clyde with Tuesday Weld and Clint Eastwood, to the 2010 Academy Award-winning portrayal by Chris Farley of silent comedic actor Fatty Arbuckle in Milos Forman's The Life of the Party.

As happened for so many other genres, the 1960s/1970s saw a tremendous creative expansion in crime and cop thrillers. The old Hollywood moguls had died off or retired, most of the major studios were bleeding red ink, attendance had gone off a cliff since the end of Ww II, and a new breed of young, creatively adventurous production executives had been tasked with trying to save their business by coming up with movies which could hook a new, young, cinema-literate audience.

It also happened to be one of the most socially turbulent times in American history. Even before the American public grew restive over the growing disaster in Vietnam, the social fabric was unraveling with self-examination and doubt. The Cold War; a certain inner emptiness that went with a period of great material prosperity; once invisible fault lines on matters of race and gender discrimination beginning to crack – all...

Netflix has revolutionized the home movie experience for fans of film with its instant streaming technology. Netflix Nuggets is my way of spreading the word about independent, classic and foreign films made available by Netflix for instant streaming.

This Week’s New Instant Releases…

Promised Lands (1974)

Streaming Available: 04/19/2011

Cast: Documentary

Director: Susan Sontag

Synopsis: Set in Israel during the final days of the 1973 Yom Kippur War, this powerful documentary — initially barred by Israel authorities — from writer-director Susan Sontag examines divergent perceptions of the enduring Arab-Israeli clash. Weighing in on matters related to socialism, anti-Semitism, nation sovereignty and American materialism are The Last Jew writer Yoram Kaniuk and military physicist Yuval Ne’eman.

Vision: From the Life of Hildegard von Bingen (2009)

Streaming Available: 04/19/2011

Cast: Barbara Sukowa, Heino Ferch, Hannah Herzsprung, Gerald Alexander Held, Lena Stolze, Sunnyi Melles

Synopsis: Directed by longtime star of independent German cinema Margarethe von Trotta, this reverent...

By this point, we're all familiar with "Sweet Sweetback's Baadasssss Song" and "Superfly" and "Shaft," we know all about Pam Greer and Fred Williamson and Jim Brown. But the 1970s produced dozens and dozens of blaxploitation films beyond the handful that have come to stand-in for the entire genre. Many were formulaic, some were downright terrible, but a lot were a cut above. These four uniquely superb blaxploitation films, largely forgotten to history, deserve rediscovery by new audiences and fresh eyes.

"Across 110th Street" (1972)

Directed by Barry Shear

Some 30 years before the groundbreaking crime series "The Wire," an unassuming blaxploitation picture covered similar territory with much the same complexity, albeit on a much smaller scale and with significantly fewer critical accolades. Both were shot in real locations with local actors; both draw parallels between the structure and politics of the underworld and the police force. Often in "Across 110th Street,...

By Matt Singer

By this point, we're all familiar with "Sweet Sweetback's Baadasssss Song" and "Superfly" and "Shaft," we know all about Pam Greer and Fred Williamson and Jim Brown. But the 1970s produced dozens and dozens of blaxploitation films beyond the handful that have come to stand-in for the entire genre. Many were formulaic, some were downright terrible, but a lot were a cut above. These four uniquely superb blaxploitation films, largely forgotten to history, deserve rediscovery by new audiences and fresh eyes.

"Across 110th Street" (1972)

Directed by Barry Shear

Some 30 years before the groundbreaking crime series "The Wire," an unassuming blaxploitation picture covered similar territory with much the same complexity, albeit on a much smaller scale and with significantly fewer critical accolades. Both were shot in real locations with local actors; both draw parallels between the structure and politics of the underworld and the police force. Often in "Across 110th Street,...