Hello!

It’s disc round-up time for February … although I have one eye in the rear view mirror for things I don’t want to miss out on — gotta keeps somewhat current with classic Sci-fi, and I may even have time for a two-year old release of a notable sci-fi hit, if it lives up to expectations. But February promises some highly desirable winners. Criteron has a heck of a line-up promised: Alfonso Cuaron’s Roma, finally out on home video ( ↑ ); Piere Paolo Pasolini’s Teorema, which I’m willing to give another chance; the great docu Antonio Gaudi; and the hotly desired Czech trick-film trio Three Fantastic Journeys by Karel Zeman.

Well, the Warner Archive Blu-ray release calendar still has that Tex Avery MGM Cartoons disc on the way, a definite hot item. But now special bombshell announcements — !

Kino’s KL Studio Classics line continues to produce a steady diet of CineSavant wants and desires. I’ve just covered February’s release of Jack Clayton’s Room at the Top, and Mike Nichols’ Day of the Dolphin, the Nazi Munchausen, René Clément’s The Deadly Trap, H.G. Clouzot’s Quai de Orfèvres and the self-explanatory Reefer Madness. Enough good Kino titles bleed into March, to be noted: the English comedies The Captain’s Paradise and Barnacle Bill; Brit crime pix The Sweeney and Sweeney 2; the TV movie S.O.S. Titanic, which I hope will be full-length; and finally aa quartet of westerns — Jacques Tourneur’s Canyon Passage, James Nielson’s Night Passage, The Rare Breed and the quasi- western Man in the Shadow.

Although the company doesn’t issue screeners, Scream Factory has X The Unknown, a title I feel compelled to cover one way or another. The nation’s security agencies have likely listed this page as being dedicated to radioactive blobs.

Also noted in passing for February: Lionsgate’s disc of the new Midway, which if received would keep me current with big-screen war pix, good, bad or indifferent.

Thanks for reading! — Glenn Erickson