Glenn Erickson's Reviews: Month: December 2025

I Know Where I’m Going!   — 4K 12/09/25

Michael Powell & Emeric Pressburger’s imaginative romance is so good, it justifies a lifetime spent seeking out obscure movies. When bad weather stalls a headstrong young woman’s journey to be wed one island short of her goal, she is compelled to reassess everything she wants for her life. Wendy Hiller’s determination to make the smart choice is complicated by an ideally attractive man she meets en route. The film also brings a playful supernatural curse to bear on the proceedings. As an escape to a ‘civilized’ time and place, IKWIG! is absorbing, enchanting, and grandly positive about life. It’s also been beautifully remastered, in 4K Ultra HD + Blu-ray from The Criterion Collection.
12/09/25

Silent Adventure: Grass + Chang 12/09/25

Milestone Film and Video re-premieres a double bill of landmark silent-era documentaries filmed in far-off lands by the dauntless adventurers Merian C. Cooper and Ernest B. Schoedsack. Grass takes us on a spectacular trek with Irani nomads on a migration in search of greener pastures. Chang investigates life in rural Thailand, with an emphasis on dangerous tigers. Scenes may be staged, but never falsified: the filmmakers strived for truthful reporting, a notion not yet established in documentary filmmaking of 1925. A new 4K remaster job was the work of Milestone, The Museum of Modern Art, the Library of Congress and Kino Lorber. On Blu-ray from Milestone Film & Video.
12/09/25

Alec Guinness Masterpiece Collection  — 4K 12/06/25

He’s Sidney Stratton, Henry Holland, Professor Marcus and a full eight members of the lofty D’Ascoyne family — it’s the best of Alec Guinness’s comedy showcases. The chameleon actor first seen in David Lean classics graduated directly into the class-act comedies of Ealing Studios, working with witty filmmakers that made the words ‘droll and understated’ shine. For American audiences, these UK comedies became an entryway to the finer corners of English filmmaking. The set gives us four hands-down masterpieces, remastered in 4K Ultra HD: Kind Hearts and Coronets, The Lavender Hill Mob, The Man in the White Suit and The Ladykillers. From KL Studio Classics.

12/06/25

The House with Laughing Windows  – 4K 12/06/25

La casa dalle finestre che ridono.  It’s an Italo horror with a surprising agenda … the central theme is still sadism and torture, but the approach is a slow-going mystery without exploitative diversions. An art expert arrives in a backwater Italian town that would like to forget some bad wartime history and some unpleasant business about a murderous mad artist. He has a hard time getting anybody to tell him the truth about the painting he’s come to restore. It isn’t the usual series of clues leading to an obvious conspiracy. Curious writer-director Pupi Avati presents an intriguingly nervous series of sinister situations … without the usual thriller trappings. The new remaster looks sensational in 4K Ultra HD, from Arrow Video.
12/06/25

“Él”  — 4K 12/02/25

Luis Buñuel’s most personal drama billboards a ‘strange obsession’ yet ends up expressing the full injustice of the sexual status quo in polite society. A pillar of the community marries but finds his skewed notion of a romantic ideal betrayed from the start. Paranoid machismo and toxic jealousy is an entryway to full-on mania. The surreal is present but always at the service of truth. Matinee idol Arturo de Cordoba externalizes Buñuel’s internal contradictions for a character most men will recognize as at least partly in themselves. Filmed by Gabriel Figueroa; with excellent extras including a full half-hour of Buñuel in a candid interview. On 4K Ultra HD + Blu-ray from The Criterion Collection.
12/02/25

A Summer Place 12/02/25

Look at She, she’s Sandra Dee!  1959’s most sexed-up soap drama came with beautiful actors, Technicolor scenery and a tune that the radio wouldn’t stop playing. In a Place not too far from Peyton, is it always summer?  The sordid fun includes divorce, frigidity, alcoholism, class snobbery, teen angst, teen sex fears, a teen sex drive, and music that says grab a blanket and find someplace secluded. Sandra Dee became America’s teenaged doll, and Troy Donohue more than a flash in the pan; the advertising tried to make it all seem as salacious as possible. Gosh, what do Good Kids really get up to on summer vacations? On Blu-ray from The Warner Archive Collection.
12/02/25