CineSavant Column

Saturday February 1, 2020

Hello!

Not exactly hard to see, but strange none the less … Gary Teetzel forwards a link to this Extended version of Walmart’s Super Bowl ad, which must have cost the big-box mega-company fortune in licensing fees. When Gary speaks, we listen:

“The Arrival gag is cute, but I don’t like seeing a thoughtful, ambitious serious sci-fi item mixed in with pop culture staples. What next?  The robots from Ex Machina peddling iPads?  And the ending must be a big mistake — where’s the shot of a bubble-gum Martian’s ray gun blasting the entire Walmart store to smithereens?”


‘Licensing issues’ plays a part in a really good- sounding new 3-D, Flicker Alley’s 3-D Rarities Volume II: some of the best short subjects rescued and restored by the 3D Film Archive are tied up in corporate (def: non-cooperating) control issues, the same licensing legalities that mighty Walmart attorneys leaped over in a single bound.

But we loved the vintage items in Volume I and the new goodies promised here appeal just as strongly. I’m especially glad for a feature included on the disc, the entire 3-D Mexican production El Corazón y la Espada, a costume picture from 1955 starring Cesar Romero and Katy Jurado, filmed in “Tercera Dimensión Bríceno.” None other than Edward Dein (Shack Out on 101, The Leech Woman) co-directs. I’d call that the definition of ‘rare.’

Thanks for reading! — Glenn Erickson