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I honestly never expected Steven Spielberg in a Criterion Channel series––certainly not one that pairs him with Kogonada, anime, and Johnny Mnemonic––but so’s the power of artificial intelligence. Perhaps his greatest film (at this point I don’t need to tell you the title) plays with After Yang, Ghost in the Shell, and pre-Matrix Keanu in July’s aptly titled “AI” boasting also Spike Jonze’s Her, Carpenter’s Dark Star, and Computer Chess. Much more analog is a British Noir collection obviously carrying the likes of Odd Man Out, Night and the City, and The Small Back Room, further filled by Joseph Losey’s Time Without Pity and Basil Dearden’s It Always Rains on Sunday. (No two ways about it: these movies have great titles.) An Elvis retrospective brings six features, and the consensus best (Don Siegel’s Flaming Star) comes September 1.

While Isabella Rossellini...

Pity the poor exhibitors in 1953 that splurged on 3-D equipment, only to see the payroll soar and the profits fall. Nope, Anamorphic Widescreen was the innovation that swept the world. It proved perfect for stories with scenic grandeur, such as Fox’s very early mini-epic shot on Florida locations. Thanks to Bernard Herrmann’s impressive music score, this one’s not going away.

Beneath the 12-Mile Reef

Blu-ray

Twilight Time

1953 / Color / 2:55 widescreen / 102 min. / Street Date September 19, 2017 / Available from the Twilight Time Movies Store 29.95

Starring: Robert Wagner, Terry Moore, Gilbert Roland, J. Carrol Naish, Richard Boone, Peter Graves, Jay Novello, Angela Clarke, Jacques Aubuchon, Harry Carey Jr., Gloria Gordon.

Cinematography: Edward Cronjager

Film Editor: William Reynolds

Original Music: Bernard Herrmann

Written by A.I. Bezzerides

Produced by Robert Bassler

Directed by Robert Webb

Four years have passed since the now dormant 20th Century Fox Cinema Archives DVD-r label stealth-released a surprise...

Jeanne Crain: Lighthearted movies vs. real life tragedies (photo: Madeleine Carroll and Jeanne Crain in ‘The Fan’) (See also: "Jeanne Crain: From ‘Pinky’ Inanity to ‘Margie’ Magic.") Unlike her characters in Margie, Home in Indiana, State Fair, Centennial Summer, The Fan, and Cheaper by the Dozen (and its sequel, Belles on Their Toes), or even in the more complex A Letter to Three Wives and People Will Talk, Jeanne Crain didn’t find a romantic Happy Ending in real life. In the mid-’50s, Crain accused her husband, former minor actor Paul Brooks aka Paul Brinkman, of infidelity, of living off her earnings, and of brutally beating her. The couple reportedly were never divorced because of their Catholic faith. (And at least in the ’60s, unlike the humanistic, progressive-thinking Margie, Crain was a “conservative” Republican who supported Richard Nixon.) In the early ’90s, she lost two of her...

Elvis Presley holds the throne as “The King” of rock n’ roll. Music was his forte, but he did dabble in film for awhile and the results were a mixed bag. In honor of his 75th birthday which he won’t be able to celebrate for himself (unless you’re an Elvis Lives conspiracy theorist), Fox has released the Elvis 75th Birthday Collection. Presented in 2.35:1 Widescreen (save for Kid Galahad in 1.85:1 and Frankie and Johnny in 1.66:1), the collection shows its age in a few places as Fox seems to have done little to remaster these classics, but overall it’s a nice look at the musician who would be an actor, even if the selection of films leaves a lot to be desired. If the set is good for anything it’s for showing his progress as an actor from his first film ever, Love Me Tender,...