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Giuseppe Tornatore’s romantic ode to the movies charmed America, convincing theater-goers that little Italian kids are the cutest in the world. Little Salvatore Cascio grows up in a projection booth under the life-tutelage of kindly Philippe Noiret. Arrow presents the theatrical version of this Best Foreign Picture Oscar winner in 4K Ultra HD. The (greatly) extended version is on a second Blu-ray — it plays like a different movie entirely.

Cinema Paradiso

4K Ultra HD + Blu-ray

Arrow Academy

1988 / Color / 1:85 widescreen / 174, 155, 124 min. / Nuovo cinema Paradiso / Street Date December 8, 2020 / 49.95

Starring: Philippe Noiret, Antonella Attili, Salvatore Cascio, Marco Leonardi, Jacques Perrin, Agnese Nano, Brigitte Fossey, Pupella Maggio, Leopoldo Trieste.

Cinematography: Blasco Giurato

Film Editor: Mario Morra

Original Music: Ennio Morricone, Andrea Morricone

Produced by Mino Barbera, Franco Cristaldi, Giovanna Romagnoli

Written and Directed by Giuseppe Tornatore

Every so often there comes along a European movie that so captures American audiences, one would...

Mubi's retrospective Fellini at 100 is showing April 29 - July 13, 2020 in many countries.As someone raised in a town of 500, itching to escape to the nearest city for the best part of my childhood, Fellini’s characters have always felt familiar. “His films are a small-town boy’s dream of the big city,” Orson Welles told Playboy in a 1967 interview, and indeed, dotting them are heroes and eccentrics who either share the director’s provincial origins or dance through the frame with the stupor of perpetual strangers in strange lands. “He’s right,” Fellini said about Welles’s remark, “and that’s no insult.” For that naïve awe is the source of the ageless charm of Fellini’s whole cinema. If the films he made over a career spanning five decades still feel so alive and vibrant, it’s because they nurture the same childlike wonder of their protagonists, and their inordinate lust for life.

Next year will mark the centennial of Federico Fellini, born on January 20, 1920 in Rimini, Italy. While we imagine there will be no shortage of retrospectives and screenings celebrating the Italian master, New York City’s Film Forum is getting ahead of the pack with a presentation of a new 4K restoration of the director’s first solo directorial effort The White Sheik. We’re pleased to present the exclusive trailer debut ahead of an opening on Christmas Day.

Coming after Fellini’s 1950 debut Variety Lights, co-directed with Alberto Lattuada, this 1952 slapstick rom-com follows a honeymoon gone off the rails when the bride (Brunella Bovo) goes off in search of her titular idol. Based on an original treatment by Michelangelo Antonioni, the film also marks a number of early collaborations with future Fellini stalwarts, notably a memorable cameo by Giulietta Masina as Cabiria (five years before Nights of Cabiria) and a score by composer Nino Rota.

Close-Up is a feature that spotlights films now playing on Mubi. Federico Fellini's The White Sheik (1952) is showing January 20 - February 19, 2018 and Nights of Cabiria (1957) from January 21 - February 20, 2018 on Mubi in the United States. Even the most straight-faced Federico Fellini film veers toward the illusory. From the lackadaisical daydreams of wayward young men to the ingenuousness of a simple-minded woman wanting nothing more than to be loved in a world that is anything but loving, his characters regularly search for something so perceptibly near and so conceivably real, yet something often revealed to be deceptive at best, nonexistent at worst. And when he applies this tendency with extravagant conviction, enhancing the whimsy further toward the fantastic, the result is something for which an adjective had to be created: “Felliniesque.” Variety Lights (1950), the first film Fellini directed—in collaboration with Alberto Lattuada—revolved around the world of vaudeville, so...

A spoof? A black comedy? Michael Hodges and Michael Caine’s hardboiled ‘foreign intrigue’ comedy lays on the movie references and clever dialogue, going the distance in the arcane, hipster-noir subgenre. Caine is always good in that mode, and Mickey Rooney gets a supporting role that can only be called bizarre.

Pulp

DVD

Arrow Video USA

1972 / Color / 1:85 widescreen / 96 min. / Street Date , 2017 / Available from Arrow Video

Starring: Michael Caine, Mickey Rooney, Lionel Stander, Lizabeth Scott, Nadia Cassini, Leopoldo Trieste, Al Lettieri, Robert Sacchi, Luciano Pigozzi.

Cinematography: Ousama Rawi

Film Editor: Patrick Downing

Original Music: George Martin

Produced by Michael Klinger

Written and Directed by Mike Hodges

Mickey King writes Pulp, lives Pulp, very soon could be Pulp!

After their success with the brutal, now-classic gangster thriller Get Carter, the ‘three Michaels’ Caine, Hodges and Klinger came up with this precociously spoofy takeoff on cheap pulp mysteries, appropriately titled Pulp. Filmed in sunny Malta,...

This remake of a pre-Code classic adds amazing European locations, glorious Technicolor and entire armies on the move, yet doesn’t improve on the original. Producer David O. Selznick secured Rock Hudson to play opposite Jennifer Jones, but the chemistry is lacking. Why did the man spend twenty years trying to top Gone With the Wind?

A Farewell to Arms

Blu-ray

Kl Studio Classics

1957 / Color / 2:35 widescreen / 152 min. / Street Date April 18, 2017 / available through Kino Lorber / 29.95

Starring: Jennifer Jones, Rock Hudson, Vittorio De Sica, Mercedes McCambridge, Elaine Stritch.

Cinematography: Oswald Morris, Piero Portalupi

Production Designer: Alfred Junge

Art Direction: Mario Garbuglia

Film Editors: John M. Foley, Gerard J. Wilson

Original Music: Mario Nascimbene

Written by Ben Hecht from a play by Laurence Stallings from a novel by Ernest Hemingway

Produced by David O. Selznick

Directed by Charles Vidor

What happens when a major Hollywood producer thinks he has all the answers?...

Giuseppe Tornatore’s ode to the Italian love of movies was a major hit here in 1990, despite being severely cut by Miramax. In 2002 the director reworked his long version into an almost three-hour sentimental epic that enlarges the film’s scope and deepens its sentiments.

Cinema Paradiso

Region B Blu-ray

Arrow Academy

1988 / Color / 1:85 widescreen / Special Edition / 174, 155, 124 min. /

Nuovo cinema Paradiso / Street Date March 21, 2017 / 39.95

Starring: Philippe Noiret, Antonella Attili, Salvatore Cascio, Marco Leonardi, Jacques Perrin, Agnese Nano, Brigitte Fossey, Pupella Maggio, Leopoldo Trieste

Cinematography: Blasco Giurato

Production Designer: Andrea Crisanti

Film Editor: Mario Morra

Original Music: Ennio and Andrea Morricone

Produced by Mino Barbera, Franco Cristaldi, Giovanna Romagnoli

Written and Directed by Giuseppe Tornatore

Your average foreign import movie, it seems, makes a brief splash around Oscar time and then disappears as if down a rabbit hole. A few years back I saw a fantastic Argentine movie called The Secret in Their Eyes.

The Sicilian Clan

Blu-ray

Kl Studio Classics

1969 / Color B&W / 2:35 widescreen / 122 min. (French, without exit music); 118 min (American) / Le clan des Siciliens / Street Date February 7, 2017 / available through Kino Lorber / 29.95

Starring Jean Gabin, Alain Delon, Lino Ventura, Irina Demick, Amedeo Nazzari, Danielle Volle, Philippe Baronnet, Karen Blanguernon, Elisa Cegani, Yves Lefebvre, Leopoldo Trieste, Sydney Chaplin.

Cinematography: Henri Decaë

Production design: Jacques Saulnier

Original Music: Ennio Morricone

Written by: Henri Verneuil, José Giovanni, Pierre Pelegri from a novel by Auguste Le Breton

Produced by: Jacques-e. Strauss

Directed by Henri Verneuil

American crime fanatics wary of European imports now have access to a fully Region-a disc of a big-star, big budget French-Italian-American gangster film from 1969, Henri Verneuil’s exciting The Sicilian Clan. It was filmed in two separate versions, a multi-lingual European original and a less exciting, English language cut for America. A huge hit overseas, The Sicilian Clan didn’t...

It was a winner right out of the starting gate, an instant classic that's still a pleasure for the eyes and ears. Carroll Ballard and Caleb Deschanel's marvel of a storybook movie has yet to be surpassed, with a boy-horse story that seems to be taking place in The Garden of Eden. The Black Stallion Blu-ray The Criterion Collection 765 1979 / Color / 1:85 widescreen / 117 min. / Street Date July 14, 2015 / 39.95 Starring Kelly Reno, Mickey Rooney, Teri Garr, Clarence Muse, Hoyt Axton, Michael Higgins, Ed McNamara, Doghmi Larbi, John Karlsen, Leopoldo Trieste, Marne Maitland, Cass-Olé. Cinematography Caleb Deschanel Film Editor Robert Dalva Supervising Sound Editor Alan Splet Original Music Carmine Coppola Written by Melissa Mathison, Jeanne Rosenberg, William D. Wittliff from the novel by Walter Farley Produced by Fred Roos, Tom Sternberg Directed by Carroll Ballard

Reviewed by Glenn Erickson

Francis Coppola divided audiences with his war epic Apocalypse Now, but in the same...

Michael Caine young. Michael Caine movies: From Irwin Allen bombs to Woody Allen classic It's hard to believe that Michael Caine has been around making movies for nearly six decades. No wonder he's had time to appear – in roles big and small and tiny – in more than 120 films, ranging from unwatchable stuff like the Sylvester Stallone soccer flick Victory and Michael Ritchie's adventure flick The Island to Brian G. Hutton's X, Y and Zee, Joseph L. Mankiewicz's Sleuth (a duel of wits and acting styles with Laurence Olivier), and Alfonso Cuarón's Children of Men. (See TCM's Michael Caine movie schedule further below.) Throughout his long, long career, Caine has played heroes and villains and everything in between. Sometimes, in his worst vehicles, he has floundered along with everybody else. At other times, he was the best element in otherwise disappointing fare, e.g., Philip Kaufman's Quills.

Eli Wallach and Anne Jackson on the Oscars' Red Carpet Eli Wallach and Anne Jackson at the Academy Awards Eli Wallach and wife Anne Jackson are seen above arriving at the 2011 Academy Awards ceremony, held on Sunday, Feb. 27, at the Kodak Theatre in Hollywood. The 95-year-old Wallach had received an Honorary Oscar at the Governors Awards in November 2010. See also: "Doris Day Inexplicably Snubbed by Academy," "Maureen O'Hara Honorary Oscar," "Honorary Oscars: Mary Pickford, Greta Garbo Among Rare Women Recipients," and "Hayao Miyazaki Getting Honorary Oscar." Delayed film debut The Actors Studio-trained Eli Wallach was to have made his film debut in Fred Zinnemann's Academy Award-winning 1953 blockbuster From Here to Eternity. Ultimately, however, Frank Sinatra – then a has-been following a string of box office duds – was cast for a pittance, getting beaten to a pulp by a pre-stardom Ernest Borgnine. For his bloodied efforts, Sinatra went on...

If nostalgia is life through a rose-tinted lens then Cinema Paradiso celebrates that illusion and the power of film to immortalise precious moments. 25 years after its initial release the Italian Oscar-winner returns to the big screen this weekend, lovingly re-mastered and it is sumptuous, highlighting all the richness and texture of good old-fashioned celluloid. In short, it is pure film magic.

The story from writer/director Giuseppe Tornatore is loosely autobiographical, revisiting his childhood in post-war Sicily via the adorably cheeky Salvatore Cascio as Toto. The boy is constantly making a nuisance of himself at home (his father was lost at war) and in the projectionist's booth at the Cinema Paradiso where Alfredo (a wonderfully hangdog turn by French actor Philippe Noiret) tries to convince him that he should turn his mind to higher matters.

Even so, Alfredo is set on a pedestal. Peeking between the curtains Toto sees that...

Rank the week of October 4th’s Blu-ray and DVD new releases against the best films of all-time: New Releases Fast Five

(Blu-ray & DVD | PG13 | 2011)

Flickchart Ranking: #803

Win Percentage: 57%

Times Ranked: 5781

Top-20 Rankings: 40

Directed By: Justin Lin

Starring: Dwayne Johnson • Vin Diesel • Paul Walker • Jordana Brewster • Elsa Pataky

Genres: Action • Action Thriller • Chase Movie • Crime • Drama • Thriller

Rank This Movie

Scream 4

(Blu-ray & DVD | R | 2011)

Flickchart Ranking: #1420

Win Percentage: 49%

Times Ranked: 6843

Top-20 Rankings: 26

Directed By: Wes Craven

Starring: Alison Brie • Neve Campbell • David Arquette • Hayden Panettiere • Courteney Cox

Genres: Horror • Mystery • Slasher Film • Thriller

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Submarine

(Blu-ray & DVD | Nr | 2010)

Flickchart Ranking: #2772

Win Percentage: 60%

Times Ranked: 1079

Top-20 Rankings: 10

Directed By: Richard Ayoade

Starring: Craig Roberts • Yasmin Paige • Sally Hawkins • Paddy Considine • Noah Taylor

Genres: Comedy Drama • Coming-of-Age • Drama

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Classics & Re-releases Salo, Or The 120 Days Of Sodom

(Criterion Blu-ray & DVD | Nr | 1976)

Flickchart Ranking: #4386

Win Percentage: 43%

Times Ranked:...

Ryan looks back at Mario Bava’s gore classic, A Bay Of Blood, a film that provides the link between Italian pulp literature and American slasher movies...

In their native Italy, they're known affectionately as giallo. Cheap, paperback novels so named because of their lurid yellow covers, their pages were filled with mystery and murder. While the genre had existed in the pages of pulp fiction since the 30s, it was director Mario Bava who brought the sensationalist themes of giallo to the big screen with The Girl Who Knew Too Much (La Ragazza Che Sapeva Troppo) in 1962.

It was Bava, with his operatic direction filled with dramatic shadows and often drenched in colour, who established many of the trappings that would become familiar in giallo cinema. His heavily stylised camera work, expressive use of lighting and, above all, imaginatively brutal murders would have a profound, lasting impact on filmmaking,...

A colorful, sentimental trip through the happy days when the Italo film biz wasn’t in a perennial ‘crisis’, this Amarcord about a marvelous Sicilian hardtop and a boy who loves the movies boasts eye-catching technical work and a solid cast. Young helmer Giuseppe Tornatore (The Professor) is an able storyteller who knows the value of cute kids and easy emotion. Beneath the schmaltz lie buried a lot of good ideas.

Clocking in at an overlong 2 1/2 hours (cut from three), film divides into three parts, corresponding to the three ages of cineaste-hero Salvatore. As an adorable 10-year-old moppet (first-timer Salvatore Cascio), the boy sneaks into the parochial Paradise Cinema to watch a priest (Leopoldo Trieste) snip out all the kissing scenes. He worms his way into the heart of crusty peasant projectionist Alfredo (a well-balanced Philippe Noiret) who speaks in film dialog.

With Alfredo the cinema is magic – like the...