Glenn Erickson's Reviews: Month: June 2025

Brazil — 4K 06/28/25

It was amusingly dystopian in 1985, but it’s terrifyingly normal now: Terry Gilliam’s elegant gloss on ‘1984’ opens with armed, masked government agents whisking away a citizen ‘invited’ to help the government with an ‘inquiry.’ It’s an epic of creativity and imagination, and now much more profoundly disturbing. Jonathan Pryce, Robert De Niro, Katherine Helmond, Ian Holm, Bob Hoskins, Pam Greist & Michael Palin star; this one should have taken all the awards for design and art direction. Now in 4K Ultra HD + Blu-ray from The Criterion Collection.
06/28/25

Some Like It Hot — 4K 06/28/25

A second 4K release of the Billy Wilder-I.A.L. Diamond classic?  Yes, but the advantage goes to the extras, which include unique input from the stars and especially the director. It’s a career best show for Marilyn Monroe, and Jack Lemmon and Tony Curtis give everything they’ve got to a pair of cross-dressing musicians, roles that could easily have been a career disaster under anyone else by Billy Wilder in his prime. One of the extras is an expert analysis of the film’s costumes, about which we naturally think, ‘how did Monroe’s sheer gowns ever get past the censors?’ On 4K Ultra HD + Blu-ray from The Criterion Collection.
06/28/25

The Gentle Gunman 06/24/25

What a terrible title … but it does describe a playwright’s effort to solve the ‘Ireland problem’ with a single cheerful thriller about anti-English terrorism during World War 2. Basil Dearden’s direction is mostly good, and we love the cast: John Mills, Dirk Bogarde, Elizabeth Sellars, Robert Beatty, Barbara Mullen, Eddie Byrne, Joseph Tomelty, Liam Redmond, James Kenney and Jack MacGowran. But expect a lot of speechifyin’ and earnest position speeches. Can’t we all just get along?  We can all agree that the transfer of this B&W Ealing production is dazzling. On Region A locked Blu-ray from Powerhouse Indicator.
06/24/25

Sabrina — 4K 06/24/25

This gem is too charming to ever become old or creaky; a new viewing confirms it as a pleasing confection for Audrey Hepburn and Humphrey Bogart, a fairy tale with a slightly caustic edge. Filmmaker Billy Wilder caught a lot of flak for ‘brutalizing’ his actresses, when he’s really a romantic softie … with a telling sour note here and there. Along with the music, the storytelling hails from 1930, with Hepburn’s elegant French fashions bringing us back to 1954. Big star William Holden plays comic support in gratitude for director Wilder’s career support earlier on. The 4K remaster brings out the elegance in this May-December romance … or is it more of a May-October fling?  On 4K Ultra HD + Blu-ray from KL Studio Classics.
06/24/25

Black Bag — 4K 06/21/25

Steven Soderbergh and writer David Koepp fashion a thinking-fan’s spy picture about a hunt for traitors among a group of agents that socialize together… Cate Blanchett and Michael Fassbender are a warm couple in a ‘cool’ business, with a marital arrangement that makes room for ‘professional mistrust’ … no agent should be expected to trust anyone on faith alone. It’s packed with interesting detail and smart dialogue; the suspense is all ‘who knows what,’ not gimmicks or action gadgets. Don’t expect anything warm & fuzzy — the show has a ‘cool’ surface, and the leading players don’t try to be lovable. On 4K Ultra-HD + Blu-ray + Digital from Universal Home Entertainment.
06/21/25

Midnight — (1939) 06/21/25

This gem of a romantic comedy is as fresh now as it was 86 years ago. Mitchell Leisen’s lightest farce is also a comic triumph for the writing team of Charles Brackett and Billy Wilder. Claudette Colbert, Don Ameche, John Barrymore and Mary Astor make the most of delightful characters and a glowing Paris created on the Paramount back lot. Criterion’s extras include input from Michael Koresky, David Cairns, plus a vintage audio interview with director Leisen. On Blu-ray from The Criterion Collection.
06/21/25

Law and Order — (1932) 06/14/25

What a surprise … an early sound western that’s solid gold genre entertainment. John Huston adapted W.R. Burnett’s violent retelling of the Wyatt Earp story without an ounce of moralizing. Walter Huston is magnificent as the lawman ‘Saint Johnson,’ a town-taming killer who can’t abide thugs and despots. The show is serious, and so is the body count. Terrific input from Harry Carey, Andy Devine and in a bit part, Walter Brennan. It’s a flawless 4K restoration with perfect audio. The director is none other than Edward L. Cahn, of ’50s exploitation fame. On Blu-ray from KL Studio Classics.
06/14/25

Three Comrades 06/14/25

Filmed in the high MGM style, this polished tragic romance stars Robert Taylor, Franchot Tone and Robert Young as Germans having a rough time in the 1920s Weimar Republic, while Margaret Sullavan’s disillusioned beauty succumbs to a dreaded Movie Disease. It is also a prime example of the negative effect of Hollywood’s Production Code. MGM wanted the name value of Erich Maria Remarque’s best seller, but not his message: conservative politics forbade any mention of (shhh!)   Nazis.   It’s still a very good movie, but it needs to be known that its content was changed to please a Nazi influencer. On Blu-ray from The Warner Archive Collection.
06/14/25

Oliver! — 4K 06/10/25

One of the more prestigious ’60s movie musicals was extremely popular roadshow item, but late-career director Carol Reed wasn’t treated kindly by the critics. It certainly looks attractive on Sony’s new 4K remaster… the stylized art direction comes across well. Ron Moody, Shani Wallis and Oliver Reed star, with Mark Lester and Jack Wild leading the pack of orphinks as the heroic Oliver and The Artful Dodger. The disc comes with a Digital Code, but not a 2nd Blu-ray encoding. On 4 K Ultra-HD + Digital from Sony / Columbia Pictures.
06/10/25

Dark City — 4K 06/06/25

Let’s go back to the days of ‘The Matrix’ when the newfangled CGI toolbox was employed to visualize virtual Sci-fi fantasy dystopias, the kind that operate by the rules of an all-powerful writer … we can almost hear the ghost of Philip K. Dick rattling its chains, just off-camera. Alex Proyas’ enclosed virtual domain may corral 10 ideas too many, but several are very nicely rendered. It suffers from exposition overload, and it may be too art-directed for its own good, yet we really enjoy a lot of what we see. Rufus Sewell, William Hurt, Kiefer Sutherland, Jennifer Connelly and Richard O’Brien star; this new 4K disc has both the theatrical and director’s cuts. On 4K Ultra HD from Arrow Video.
06/06/25

007 James Bond Sean Connery 6-Film Collection — 4K 06/06/25

It’s a ‘first look’ review: we’ve managed to borrow a copy of the 4K remasters of the Sean Connery 007 blockbusters. The average reader mostly wants to know what the new remasters look like, so we’re skipping a lot of the review-essay business. We’ve seen them all on screen and in every possible video configuration, and have some thoughts about the new transfers, which are loaded with pleasant surprises. One feature has an original alternate soundtrack. What’s it all about, CineSavant?  How do they hold up?  On 4K Ultra HD from Amazon MGM Studios / SDS.
06/06/25

World Noir Vol. 3 06/03/25

This is exactly how Blu-ray boutique labels like Radiance help collectors find great foreign films beyond the top acknowledged classics. This 3-disc collection gets our attention with a notable item we have heard of, Peter Lorre’s one stab at feature film direction, The Lost One. But the other two films are what carried us away: Not Guilty and Girl with Hyacinths. Both are excellent, and one is a genuine masterpiece. On Blu-ray from Radiance Films.
06/03/25

Steppenwolf (2024) 06/03/25

We’re glad we were steered toward this violent 2024 film from Kazakhstan, as it’s not one we would have chosen for ourselves. Adilkhan Yerzhanov’s dystopian bloodbath is a reality check on ‘Mad Max’ glamour: not a post-apocalyptic fantasy, just a reflection of the world beyond our national newsfeed. A traumatized woman wants to retrieve a kidnapped son in the midst of appallingly merciless street fighting; an involuntary police torturer goes freelance to help her. Yerzhanov makes up his own rules in this suspenseful, very stylish tension piece … the killing quotient is so high, it’s a marvel either of survives more than a few minutes. The disc has good extras plus an entire second Adilkhan Yerzhanov feature, Goliath. On Blu-ray from Arrow Video.
06/03/25