CineSavant’s new reviews today are:

Hello!

Powerhouse Indicator made the announcement .. May 21 will bring a boxed set of Randolph Scott-Budd Boetticher movies roughly known as the ‘Ranown’ cycle: The Tall T, Buchanan Rides Alone, Decision at Sundown, Ride Lonesome and Comanche Station, all in restored Blu-ray. It’s like five variations on the same theme — a man alone in a raw country. They’re more than welcome. The official title of the box is Five Tall Tales: Budd Boetticher and Randolph Scott at Columbia 1957-1960.

Kino made a splash with its announcement of a 4K restoration of Rafferty, Loader and Rafferty’s The Atomic Cafe, a must-see, highly influential documentary made entirely of government, public service and AEC propaganda movies from the (mostly) 1950s. The original 1982 release was a purposeful slap in the face to the Reagan notion of a winnable atom war; they make no bones about the fact that this quality re-boot was motivated by our country’s insane new toying with war threats. Kino’s announcement came with a great link, to Rafferty and Loader being interviewed about The Atomic Cafe exactly 36 years ago on The David Letterman Show: March 10, 1982.

I’ve just received from Vinegar Syndrome a scarce neon punk-era Sci-Fi fantasy called Liquid Sky, that’s set to come out on April 24. It’s the notorious 1982 picture with Anne Carlisle, that I’ve never seen. A helpful publicity rep tipped me off, bless her — I’m not offered much Vinegar Syndrome product so somebody must have thought me especially appropriate to the task.

A helpful note arrived from revered correspondent and reviewer “B” about my review for Colossus: The Forbin Project, in which I give Universal a hard time for muffing the Sci-fi film’s release. “B” stood up for Universal, which did after all try a second 1970 release for the film just a few months after the first laid an egg. Even he notes that the show was ready to go the year before: Ad materials designate its rating “M”, which changed to “GP” early in 1970.

I just made a big noise about the legendary early talkie King of Jazz being wholly unavailable back in the day, but correspondent and old friend Avie Hern has just told me that, back when he went to college, he saw it in 2-strip Technicolor via a print owned by old-time collector William K. Everson. So, so much for my memories and some other sources as well.

Thanks for reading! — Glenn Erickson

CineSavant’s new reviews today are:

Hello!

(From Sunday afternoon:) Helicopters and blimps are circling in the clear skies over Hollywood as I write this — just yesterday we were in the middle of a rainstorm. And the Oscars will of course have been given out by the time this is posted — and I’m not all that familiar with what has and hasn’t been nominated. I ain’t called Savant for nothin’, you know.

Joe Baltake’s The Passionate Moviegoer has two interesting articles up, one on Jack Smight’s The Traveling Executioner and another on an actress I don’t know well enough, Carmen Phillips. My own review on Executioner is back at the old DVD Savant page.

I’m actually very interested in a Disney release right now. Curmudgeon that I am, I wasn’t in any hurry to see the animated musical Coco last Xmas, but when we were in Arequipa in Peru, I got talked into it with the knowledge that it would be a Spanish-language version, and Disney is well-known for excellently scripted and recorded foreign language versions. We saw it at Arequipa’s Cinépolis Theater, a multiplex with digital projection every bit as good as what can be found here. We liked it so much that I have it on order now — the Blu-ray carries the Español track as well, so it will be win-win. Actually, I have to admit that the movie made me feel great — I watched it with no subtitles and understood practically all of it, even many of the language-specific jokes. Filmmakers — the audience is vain, so always flatter it!

Contributing reviewer Charlie Largent is eyeing a German Mario Bava disc box announced now, but not scheduled until September, a 3-title Koch Media Mario Bava Horror collection, with Die Stunde wenn Dracula kommt, Lisa und der Teufel, Die Drei Geschichter der Furcht, Baron Blood and Die Toten Augen Des Dr. Dracula. I’d forgotten that Black Sunday was given a ‘Dracula’ title in Germany. My broken German indicates that Camillo Mastrocinque’s Ein Engel für den Teufel is in there as a ‘bonusfilm,’ adding to the confusion. I’ll let you look up the Deutsche titles on IMDB, to reference back to the ones we’re more familiar with.

(Oscars Follow-up.) Congrats to Guillermo Del Toro — The Shape of Water became my favorite film of the past few years as soon as I saw it last November. I’ve avoided writing about it I think because I was afraid it wouldn’t be appreciated, but the nod happily went its way. The L.A. Times knuckleheads kept calling it a Science-Fiction film, saying that this is the first Sci-Fi film to get best picture when 2001, Close Encounters, etc. did not. It’s not a Sci-Fi film at all but a plain, out and out fantastic monster movie, plain and simple. The monster isn’t scientific but an Amazonian GOD, which puts the movie into the category of ‘modern fairy tale.’ Although the show owes much to all kind of movies, the operative models are the French Beauty and the Beast, Mr. Peabody and the Mermaid and Chaplin’s Modern Times.

Sally Hawkins’ magic performance puts the whole thing over. My only disappointment of these Oscars is that she was all but ignored. Is she not glamorous enough? Is she a Hollywood outsider, insufficiently enthusiastic about the political issues in this year’s race? Maybe she’s just not the kind of actor that engages a squad of publicity people. Oh, well, this means it’s time to see Happy-Go-Lucky again.

I don’t think I’ll try to really write about The Shape of Water until it’s out on disc. My advice to friends that didn’t see it was to wait until optimal conditions came around. Here’s the little blurb I wrote about it last Fall:

“The second picture is the one I’ve been waiting for, for months — Guillermo Del Toro’s The Shape of Water. I love Del Toro’s nigh-perfect Spanish language horror fantasies but this is his masterpiece to date, a fusion of great monster picture ideas that transcends every category of judgment. It sounds like it might be derivative, but it’s not — every time I was reminded of an older movie, it was clear that Del Toro had done something better with the borrowed ideas. The obvious parallels are Universal’s The Creature and the lesser-known Russian The Amphibian Man, but everything here is so new in so many ways that the result is breathtaking.

Saying any more would be a serious disservice — I’m so glad I turned off the teaser last summer and didn’t read any reviews. The show opens in just a few days. I’m happy to see Mr. Del Toro hitting one so far out of the park — we were fascinated and thrilled. The Shape of Water is going to go down as one of the great ones.” (11.25.17)

Thanks for reading! — Glenn Erickson

CineSavant’s new reviews today are:

Hello!

Four reviews up today, including a Region B item I didn’t want to get away from me. I’m happy to report that the Blu-ray companies show no sign of slowing down the flow of desirable titles. The busy review schedule this week, plus my main web-scouring correspondent being out of the state, has left me with little news this Saturday except the rain outside.

Powerhouse Indicator did contact me about some interesting upcoming UK releases: Dick Clement’s Otley with Tom Courtenay and (swoon) Romy Schneider, John Guillermin’s Town on Trial with John Mills, and Stephen Frears’ Gumshoe with Albert Finney, Billie Whitelaw and Janice Rule. I haven’t seen more than a few minutes of any of them; they should be interesting.

Good news on KL Studio Classics’ Duck You Sucker, which I’ll be happily re-reviewing presently. Kino has properly encoded my old NTSC featurettes for this release, so they’re actually watchable — Sir Christopher Frayling’s historical analysis of the picture is quite good. I’ll try to roll out a new idea or two about Sergio Leone’s controversial picture, and recount my personal subterfuge getting MGM to revert to its original title in their books.

I’m not much of an Oscars person — I avoid articles about the ‘hot’ movies to avoid spoilers. On Oscar night I generally listen to the broadcast from above, bopping down every once in a while to back up and see something I want to see, like the always-good-for-a-gripe Obituary montage. The awards are this weekend, and I’m not fully aware of what is nominated and what isn’t. I was knocked out by one thing — is it true that The Shape of Water’s special makeup wasn’t even nominated? Does that make sense, or was the film’s ‘special asset’ creature completely accomplished through digital means? I’ve not read up on the film’s production, even though it’s my favorite picture of the year. When I really like a movie’s effects, it takes a long time for me to even want to find out how they were made. The magic lasts longer that way; the real fun in movies is when one can be an ordinary fan again.

Thanks for reading! — Glenn Erickson