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It's arrived -- thanks in part to a successful Kickstarter campaign, this nearly comprehensive compendium of American 'Race Films' is here in a deluxe Blu-ray presentation. Pioneers of African-American Cinema Blu-ray Kino Classics 1915-1946 / B&W / 1:37 flat Academy / 952 min. / Street Date July 26, 2016 / available through Kino Lorber / 99.95 Directed by Richard Norman, Richard Maurice, Spencer Williams and Oscar Micheaux

Reviewed by Glenn Erickson

Black Cinema History? We didn't hear a peep about any such thing back in film school. Sometime in the 1980s PBS would broadcast a barely watchable (see sample just below) copy of a creaky silent 'race movie' about a 'backsliding' black man in trouble with the law, the Lord and his wife in that order. The cultural segregation has been almost complete. It wasn't until even later that I read articles about a long-extinct nationwide circuit of movie theaters catering to black audiences, wherever the populations were big enough to support the trade.

The Hallow Blu-ray / DVD will feature a “making of” documentary along with behind-the-scenes videos and much more. Also in this round-up: updated release details for Road Games and news on I Fall Down and The Samaritans.

The Hallow: Press Release: “Vividly atmospheric and brimming with tension, the twisted modern fairy tale The Hallow makes its Blu-ray and DVD debut April 5th, 2016 from Scream Factory, in conjunction with IFC Midnight. Wonderfully horrifying, this compelling and creepy film comes loaded with bonus features, including audio commentary with director Corin Hardy, a Surviving the Fairytale: The Making of The Hallow documentary, three behind-the-scenes vignettes, creature concept art, storyboard and sketchbook galleries, and more! Fans can pre-order their copies now by visiting ShoutFactory.com

When a London-based conservationist is sent to Ireland with his wife and infant child to survey an area of forest believed to be hallowed ground by superstitious locals, his...

Jack’s (Andrew Simpson) European trip has slowed down some since hitting the French countryside as the number of passing motorists willing to give him a lift has dwindled to zero. He catches a distracting break when a car stops — not to pick him up, but to drop off Véronique (Joséphine de La Baume) after a violent argument with her boyfriend — giving him someone to talk with while awaiting the next good Samaritan. The two hit it off despite his limited French vocabulary, and he quickly learns why getting a ride has been so difficult. A serial killer has been stalking the rural roads. At this point some of you more familiar with the slasher/killer genre might suspect this film is a remake of Richard Franklin’s identically-titled Australian chiller from 1981 starring Jamie Lee Curtis and Stacy Keach. It is not. The pair are saved — at least temporarily — when a man named Grizard (Frédéric Pierrot) picks...

Pioneering woman director Lois Weber socially conscious drama 'Shoes' among Library of Congress' Packard Theater movies (photo: Mary MacLaren in 'Shoes') In February 2015, National Film Registry titles will be showcased at the Library of Congress' Packard Campus Theater – aka the Packard Campus for Audio Visual Conservation – in Culpeper, Virginia. These range from pioneering woman director Lois Weber's socially conscious 1916 drama Shoes to Robert Zemeckis' 1985 blockbuster Back to the Future. Another Packard Theater highlight next month is Sam Peckinpah's ultra-violent Western The Wild Bunch (1969), starring William Holden and Ernest Borgnine. Also, Howard Hawks' "anti-High Noon" Western Rio Bravo (1959), toplining John Wayne and Dean Martin. And George Cukor's costly remake of A Star Is Born (1954), featuring Academy Award nominees Judy Garland and James Mason in the old Janet Gaynor and Fredric March roles. There's more: Jeff Bridges delivers a colorful performance in...

Screwball comedy movies, rare screenings of epic box office disaster: Library of Congress’ Packard Theater in April 2014 (photo: Cary Grant and Irene Dunne in ‘The Awful Truth’) In April 2014, the Library of Congress’ Packard Campus Theater in Culpeper, Virginia, will celebrate Hollywood screwball comedy movies, from the Marx Brothers’ antics to Peter Bogdanovich’s early ’70s homage What’s Up, Doc?, a box office blockbuster starring Barbra Streisand and Ryan O’Neal. Additionally, the Packard Theater will present a couple of rarities, including an epoch-making box office disaster that led to the demise of a major studio. Among Packard’s April 2014 screwball comedies are the following: Leo McCarey’s Duck Soup (Saturday, April 5) — actually more zany, wacky, and totally insane than merely "screwball" — in which Groucho Marx stars as the recently (un)elected dictator of Freedonia, abetted by siblings Harpo Marx and Chico Marx, in addition to Groucho’s perennial foil,...

Northern Irish actors Bronagh Gallagher (Pulp Fiction), Jayne Wisener(A Kiss For Jed) and Andrew Simpson have all been cast in upcoming BBC series 'The Life and Adventures of Nick Nickleby', which is currently shooting in Belfast. Adrian Dunbar (Hear My Song) also stars. David Innes-Edwards is directing all five episodes, four of which have been written by Joy Wilkinson (Doctors) and one which was written by Dominique Moloney (Land Girls). Sue Breen is producing for London-based Kindle, while Melanie Stokes and Anne Brogan are executive producing. Northern Irish Jim Creagh (Give My Head Some Peace) is the director of photography, and Nick Emerson will edit. Ifta-winning Hazel Webb-Crozier (Your Highness) is the costume designer on the project.

Andrei Tarkovsky's Andrei Rublev Andrei Tarkovsky, Audrey Hepburn, Clara Bow Movies: Packard Campus May 2012 Schedule Friday, April 27 (7:30 p.m.) Solaris (Magna, 1972) An alien intelligence infiltrates a space mission. Directed by Andrei Tarkovsky. With Natalya Bondarchuk and Donatas Banionis. Sci-fi psychological drama. Black & White and color, 167 min. In Russian and German with English subtitles. Saturday, April 28 (7:30 p.m.) To Kill A Mockingbird (Universal, 1962) A Southern lawyer defends a black man wrongly accused of rape, and tries to explain the proceedings to his children. Directed by Robert Mulligan. With Gregory Peck, Mary Badham, Phillip Alford, Brock Peters and Robert Duvall. Drama. Black & white, 129 min. Selected for the National Film Registry in 1995. Thursday, May 3 (7:30 p.m.) The Little Giant (Warner Bros., 1933) A Chicago beer magnate about to lose his business with the repeal of Prohibition, moves to California and tries to join society's upper crust, but his gangster origins prove tough to shake.

Paul Leni's The Man Who Laughs, starring Conrad Veidt, Mary Philbin (top); Andrew Simpson at the Wurlitzer (bottom) Cary Grant, Irene Dunne, Alida Valli, Pierre Brasseur, Angela Lansbury, Conrad Veidt, Sean Connery, John Wayne, Gene Wilder, silent-film stars Mary Philbin and Buster Keaton, and lots of zombies (it's Halloween, after all) are some of the performers featured in the Library of Congress Packard Campus for Audio Visual Conservation’s free film series in Culpeper, Va., in October. [Packard Campus Oct. 2010 Schedule.] Among the screening movies are Leo McCarey's comedy My Favorite Wife (1940), Mel Brooks' spoof Young Frankenstein (1974), Raoul Walsh's early epic Western The Big Trail (1930), and George A. Romero's zombie-packed Night of the Living Dead (1968). My two chief recommendations are: Georges Franju's eerie Les yeux sans visage / Eyes Without a Face (1960), which long predates The Silence of the Lambs in its tale about young women's skins [...]...