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From Sergei Eisenstein to Andrei Konchalovsky, Russian filmmakers perfected a formula for manufacturing social reality out of highly concentrated mixes of activist outrage and artistic chutzpah. Political hindsight overshadows their unparalleled toying with film language, but it also deepens great works of art like Aleksandr Dovzhenko’s Earth and Mikhail Kalatozov’s I Am Cuba. These two enthralling synergies of sight and sound were made with the support of a communist machine that would eventually fail the people of the Soviet Union and Cuba, but they’re first and foremost exaltations of the rebel spirit, hurled at audiences with a fierce conviction and belief in cinema as a propagandistic vehicle for change.

For the Soviet Union, I Am Cuba was an opportunity to promote socialism abroad during de-Stalinization in the Khrushchev era, and for Cuba it was a way of staking out a cinematic presence. So it is that the...

Robert Enrico's literally searing terror tale from the French occupation is not for the faint of heart. Fearing reprisals, surgeon Philippe Noiret sends his wife Romy Schneider out of harm's way of the retreating Germans -- but things go horribly wrong. What follows is an ordeal of vengeance even more brutal than Straw Dogs, fought to the finish in a medieval castle. The Old Gun MGM Limited Edition Collection DVD-r 1975 / Color / 1:78 enhanced widescreen / 102 87 min. / Le vieux fusil / Street Date September 8, 2015 / available through Screen Archives Entertainment / 19.95 Starring Philippe Noiret, Romy Schneider, Jean Bouise, Joachim Hansen, Robert Hoffmann, Karl Michael Vogler, Madeleine Ozeray, Caroline Bonhomme, Catherine Delaporte, Daniel Breton, Jean-Paul Cisife, Antoine Saint-John. Cinematography Étienne Becker Film Editor Ava Zora Original Music François de Roubaix Written by Robert Enrico, Pascal Jardin, Claude Veillot Produced by Pierre Caro Directed by Robert Enrico

Reviewed by Glenn Erickson

Some of us can remember...

On December 21st, director Steven Spielberg and producer Peter Jackson will bring Herg&#233's internationally iconic comic book characters to the big screen with the motion capture mystery The Adventures of Tintin: Secret of the Unicorn.

But this isn't the first time Tintin, his faithful dog Snowy, Captain Haddock, and the rest of the gang have been immortalized in a big screen outing. The beloved characters were first brought to cinemas in the rarely seen 1947 black and white stop motion animated film The Crab with the Golden Claws. This was followed by two live action family movies: 1961's Tintin and the Golden Fleece and 1964's Tintin and the Blue Oranges.

Both movies have served as inspiration for director Steven Spielberg, not only in bringing Tintin and his pals to life once again in theaters worldwide, but also in his earlier work. We have trailers for both live action Tintin movies below,...

Here’s a list of some of the new movie and TV shows coming to DVD and Blu-ray this week that we’re looking forward to seeing. Also, there’s some classic, and not-so-classic, movies hitting Blu-ray for the first time this week as well.

Of all the new releases, we’re particularly interested in the Blu-ray versions of movies and TV shows such as Battlestar Galactica: The Plan, Night of the Creeps, the original Stargate, The Sam Fuller Collection, Orphan and the complete The Prisoner series starring and created by Patrick McGoohan (pictured above).

Check them out.

Movies

Battlestar Galactica: The Plan ~ Edward James Olmos, Tricia Helfer (DVD and Blu-ray)

42nd Street Forever 5: Alamo Drafthouse Edition ~ Charlton Heston, Robert Englund (DVD)

Ice Age: Dawn of the Dinosaurs ~ Ray Romano (DVD and Blu-ray)

Into Temptation ~ Kristin Chenoweth, Jeremy Sisto (DVD and Blu-ray)

Messiah of Evil: The Second Coming ~ Michael Greer,...

Year: 1983

Director: Luc Besson

Writers: Pierre Jolivet/Luc Besson

IMDb: link

Trailer: link

Amazon: link

Review by: agentorange

Rating: 9 out of 10

Before dazzling us with genre favorites like Subway, Nikita, The Professional, and The Fifth Element, Luc Besson made a full length post-apocalyptic film called Le Dernier Combat in 1983. Beautifully shot in black and white and without a lick of dialog, Le Dernier Combat is not only one of the most interesting films of the genre, but one of the most striking works of art I've seen in a really long time. Seriously, what is it with French directors and their ability to harness all the cliches of a certain genre (which in the case of Pa read as; mystery, adventure, horror, action, suspense, etc) without ever loosing sight of the work's artistic aspirations? Well anyway, watching Le Dernier Combat again last night reminded me of why I fell in...