Glenn Erickson's Reviews: Month: September 2024

The Project A Collection — 4K 09/28/24

Jackie Chan’s legendary ‘Project A’ pictures reach 4K in a boxed set as lavish as home video can get. Chan’s pals Sammo Hung and Biao Yuen, and the amazing Chan Stunt Team assemble two of the most frenetic, athletic & death-defying comic action thrillers ever; the first is a Marines-vs-pirates epic and the second a semi-comic intrigue about police corruption. Fighting as well are Isabella Wong, Maggie Cheung, Rosamund Kwan and Carina Lau. We see star-writer-director Chan growing in cinematic smarts, while maintaining his limitless inventiveness for action scenes and daredevil stunts. It’s a 4-disc set, with all the bells and whistles. On 4K Ultra HD + Blu-ray from 88 Films.
09/28/24

The Lost Picture Show 09/28/24

Charlie Largent takes on a challenge — a ten-title, 15-hour, six-disc Blu-ray collection of marginal genre films advertised as being so marginal, they fall outside the lines altogether.  What a sales gimmick — with titles like The Las Vegas Strangler, The Last of the American Hoboes, What’s Love, Beware the Black Widow, and The Sex Serum of Dr. Blake.… who’da thunk it?   Are we curious about this one, or just Curious Yellow? On Blu-ray from Vinegar Syndrome.
09/28/24

Kosmicheskiy reys: Fantasticheskaya novella 09/24/24

“Space Flight: A Fantastic Story.”  As ’50s kids we assumed that Soviet claims of ‘firsts’ in space science were a pack of lies. But this once- incredibly obscure 1936 silent feature dramatizes the space travel theories of a visionary Russian scientist who first published in the 1880s. The year is 1946 when the space ship ‘Joseph Stalin’ blasts off for the moon. Terrific stop-motion special effects depict a giant spacecraft hangar and Cosmonauts leaping across the craggy surface of the moon. The remastered disc also contains a decent encoding of the Soviet Sci-fi talkie Gibel Sensatsii — about Capitalists, Communists, and an army of nine-foot robots. On Region-Free Blu-ray from Ostalgia.
09/24/24

The Battle of Chile 09/24/24

La batalla de Chile.  Patricio Guzmán’s 3-part ‘you are there’ documentary of the beleaguered presidency of Chile’s Salvador Allende goes into great detail to show how a democratically-elected government can be destroyed from within. Guzmán’s cameras witness terrible events leading to the military attack on the presidential palace on September 11, 1973. It’s an amazing achievement — the film had to be smuggled out of Chile and away from General Pinochet’s killers. Also included is Guzmán’s first feature, a docu account of Allende’s first year in office — which ends with trouble brewing for his fledgling socialist state. On Blu-ray from Icarus Films.
09/24/24

The Long Good Friday — 4K 09/21/24

It’s still the best gangster film of the post- Godfather era. Bob Hoskins and Helen Mirren are a striking couple at the top of London’s crime scene; Hoskins’ Cockney fireball Harold Shand is about to transform his crooked lifestyle with Mafia money and a land development scheme. Becoming the Posh Prince of the City has one hitch — unknown insurgents are firing up a turf war unheard of in England. Hailed as one of England’s best movies ever, John Mackenzie and Barrie Keefe’s tale is woven around the Easter holiday, with disturbing parallels to The Passion. On 4K Ultra HD + Blu-ray from The Criterion Collection.
09/21/24

Film Noir the Dark Side of Cinema XXI 09/21/24

Kino’s 21st noir series entry gives us two winners and a not-bad contender. Fritz Lang’s Cloak and Dagger with Gary Cooper and Lilli Palmer is a grim spy chase to keep atom secrets out of enemy hands; the weird Shack Out on 101 with Terry Moore, Lee Marvin and Frank Lovejoy sees a Malibu diner become a Cold War battleground for more atomic spies. Short Cut to Hell is a remake of an Alan Ladd hit, directed by James Cagney and showcasing the deserving unknowns Robert Ivers and Georgeann Johnson. All are remastered from 4K scans. On Blu-ray from KL Studio Classics.
09/21/24

Three Little Words 09/17/24

All of the Warner Archives’ newly-remastered MGM musicals are terrific, and this 1950 musical bio with Fred Astaire is no exception. His dancing partner is Vera-Ellen, and he’s backed up by Red Skelton playing a dramatic role. Looking smashing in Technicolor are Arlene Dahl and Gloria De Haven, and Debbie Reynolds and Carleton Carpenter make a splash in a novelty number. The subject is the Tin Pan Alley songwriters Bert Kalmar and Harry Ruby, who penned standards like Who’s Sorry Now? and I Wanna be Loved By You. On Blu-ray from The Warner Archive Collection.
09/17/24

Bringing Out the Dead — 4K 09/17/24

Martin Scorsese and Paul Schrader teamed several times, and this harrowing nightmare about Ambulance EMTs trying to wade through the chaos of drug & gang-ridden Manhattan is an effort that deserves more praise. Nicolas Cage’s EMT Frank is flipping out under the stress of the work and a guilt complex he can’t shake. He tries to get personally involved with Rosanna Arquette’s equally shaken Manhattanite, but is driven even more mad than his fellow emergency responders John Goodman, Ving Rhames and Tom Sizemore. The ‘mean streets’ have taken hold of Frank, who is succumbing to a serious dose of Catholic guilt … and the movie abounds with hallucinatory visuals and religious symbolism. On 4K Ultra-HD + Blu-ray from Paramount Presents.
09/17/24

Mother Nature’s Monsters 09/17/24

From September 14   Reviewer Charlie Largent touches down in Bert I. Gordon territory, and reviews two of the director’s ‘giant bugs and vermin’ thrillers, plus one that’s better by John Bud Cardos:  The Food of the Gods,  Empire of the Ants and  Kingdom of the Spiders. It’s a guick breeze-by of BIGordon’s popular shows, given star presence by A.I.P.: Ida Lupino, Joan Collins, William Shatner. You will believe that Marjoe Gortner free-form wrestled with a giant Rat. On Blu-ray from KL Studio Classics.
09/14/24

How Did They Ever Make a Movie of Lolita? 09/17/24

From September 6  It’s a pure case of ‘they said it couldn’t be done,’ but Stanley Kubrick got the jist of Vladimir Nabokov’s novel across even if he had to sidestep its directly censorable core. Charlie Largent discusses Kubrick’s career miracle and the choice of a novel that to most movie pros seemed a death trap. Filmed in a fake America constructed in England, the story is diverted to a battle of wits between James Mason’s Humbert Humbert and Peter Sellers’ Claire Quilty — whatever one might think, Mason’s pathetic writer-with-an-obsession and Shelley Winters’ equally pathetic romantic dupe are characters of high tragedy.
09/06/24

Perfect Days 09/03/24

Wim Wenders’ tale of one man’s attainment of personal harmony is halfway between documentary and drama, with a strong dose of clear-headed philosophy. A focus on a Tokyo toilet attendant becomes a positive, life-affirming meditation on coping with the modern world’s false goals and confining ‘lifestyle demands.’ The star Kôji Yakusho won a Best Actor award at Cannes; the show received a warm theatrical welcome here in the States. Writer-director Wenders’ interview extra is a gem. On 4K Ultra HD + Blu-ray from The Criterion Collection.
09/03/24

Le Doulos 09/03/24

Enjoy one of Jean-Pierre Melville’s finest, remastered on 4K and looking good. It’s a complicated story of thieves betraying thieves, the wrinkle being the contrast between weary ex-con Serge Reggiani and the slickest of slicksters, Jean-Paul Belmondo. ‘Doulos’ is slang for ‘informer,’ but Belmondo appears to be engaged in a massive con job, framing his confederates, fooling the police and double-crossing more than one woman. Everything he says can’t be a lie, or can it? On 4K Ultra HD + Blu-ray from KL Studio Classics.
09/03/24