CineSavant Column
Hello!
CineSavant stopped collating a ‘best Blu-ray of the year list’, but we still sneak peeks at those by others. Just published is this year’s impressive list from Kyu Hyun Kim, over at his movies-but-also-other-academic-stuff page Q Branch Mirror Site.
Mr. Kim’s taste is eclectic, and he has a refreshing approach to film talk. Better yet, more than half of the films he chooses are things I wouldn’t necessariy even know about, so reading him widens my horizons. Then again, the other half fits right into my ingrown biases, so I feel reassured and comforted. You know American males, all anxious and insecure.
No matter what, you’ll find some interesting writing there. You might need to back-page a bit. The date on the article is February 9, 2025.
Coming in about 60 days:
I haven’t seen an official announcement, but Amazon is carrying an April 15 date for a John Ford picture that ought to look really good on 4K Ultra HD, his 1963 John Wayne – Lee Marvin comedy Donovan’s Reef.
We’re always loved the show, which is generally taken as a low-wattage knockabout comedy concocted for a working vacation in Hawaii. But hey, the film feels like one unending pleasant ritual. It has formal qualities that echo with Ford’s earlier South Seas Pictures, some of his military shows, and even his westerns. And it’s a thing of beauty that makes (we think) a very cool construction out of 1960s kitsch — the ‘Tiny Bubbles’ main theme.
One of the discs’s two commentaries is by Joseph McBride, who I hope launches a major defense of the show.
And we just know that, in your heart of hearts, you’re dying for a more detailed history of of a vintage Hollywood movie studio. Advisor-consultant Gary Teetzel found an interesting page called Duke Wayne: A Filmography. The articles I see listed seem to be more about other angles on Hollywood history.
Gary reports that this one on the Monogram Pictures Corporation offers a handy guide explaining how the films in the Monogram library have been sliced n’ diced and divided up over the years. It’s not exactly trendy material for Entertainment Tonight, but it’s great history just the same. When the Monogram company dissolved, the titles really scattered … most ended up at Warners, Paramount and Columbia. The article’s notes even list aspect ratios. I saw one note reading ‘Renewal also claimed by Wade Williams.’
The article ends with seemingly endlss list of titles, all diagrammed to show how they migrated into different film libraries over time. Each has an informative note: is it a forgotten western, a serial, or something better known?
Thanks for reading! — Glenn Erickson