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Article Index  Review Index
Favorite Discs of 2009

[Savant Links] [Year Five Report]
Write Savant (Glenn Erickson) at
dvdsavant@mindspring.com!
(dvdsavant@mindspring.com)

Saturday February 6, 2010

Savant's new reviews today are

Bad Girls of Film Noir Volume 1
The Killer that Stalked New York,
Two of a Kind, Bad for Each Other, The Glass Wall
Sony

Bad Girls of Film Noir Volume 2
Night Editor, One Girl's Confession,
Women's Prison, Over-Exposed
Sony

The Last Stage
Facets Video / Polart

and
Countdown
Warner Archive Collection

Greetings! I was able to correct an error in last Tuesday's post, but it was too late to keep it from being sent out in the newsletter. I reported that the Toho science fiction film Dogora would be released on Blu-ray by Severin in a couple of months; as it turns out this new "Dogora" is a different movie entirely. It never occurred to me that that title might be given to another movie. My apologies.

Savant correspondent and radio producer Dick Dinman was awarded a Golden Minidisk Award back in January and sent me this photo of him receiving the prize at the awards ceremony. His winning program is the DVD Classics Corner on the Air radio show Seeing Red: A Skelton in Your Closet, an interview piece featuring memories of Red Skelton from stars Arlene Dahl, Ann Rutherford and Betty Garrett.

A great link heads-up from David Erickson, about Lockheed's fake camouflage "neighborhood" erected during WW2, to disguise the aircraft plant from Japanese bombers. I remember reading about this while researching 1941; an early Bob Gale-Robert Zemeckis script included a scene where General Stilwell visits the odd construction. The script said that everything on the seemingly endless array of nets was built at a scale smaller than reality, but I can't tell that from these pictures, at the website Think or Thwim.

Universal has announced a Blu-ray release of Apollo 13 on April 13, and a disc of Dune on April 27. Thanks for reading! Glenn Erickson


Tuesday February 2, 2010

Savant's new reviews today are

Roberto Rossellini's War Trilogy
Rome Open City, Paisan, Germany Year Zero
Criterion

The Woman on Pier 13
aka I Married a Communist
Warner Archive Collection


and
Goodfellas
Blu-ray
Warner Home Video

Greetings! My review of the Roberto Rossellini War Trilogy is finally up; it's Criterion's 500th spine number and a valuable contribution to film culture all around. Elsewhere, Warners' Goodfellas Blu-ray is indicative of that Studio's commitment to value. It's loaded with the usual WB quality extras including a second disc with a documentary and a selection of vintage cartoons. And I still like the way WB discs let us get into the feature content with a minimum of disclaimers, promos and other diversions.

Correspondent Rob sends me this link to a new horror-related web page called Shadows and Screams, hosted by a cartoon ghoul named Myron Morbidio (right). The graphics are certainly good and I liked the review I read of I Bury the Living. Best wishes!

Correspondent Guido Bibra has forwarded a link to a really interesting U.K. site called Carpool that I hadn't heard of (ignorant me). The nicely produced show presents Robert Llewellyn (from Red Dwarf) interacting with various guests as he drives them around London ... doing interviews on the run. Some are local notables, authoritative experts and a sprinkling of outright celebrities like Patrick Stewart. You'll be surprised at how well-made the shows are and how good are Mr. Llewellyn's talk skills.

Frequent Savant correspondent and pal Gordon A. Thomas informs me that the new issue (#67) of the web zine Bright Lights is up ... it contains Gordon's personal review column Bright Sights and his special piece The Power of Pulp that compares Lang's Dr. Mabuse with Miss Mend, a bizarre America-set silent Soviet thriller newly released by Flicker Alley.

And a final note: Next up is definitely a pair of full reviews on the eight titles in Sony's Bad Girls of Film Noir, Volumes One and Two. Those will be posted bright and early on Saturday the 6th. Thanks for reading, Glenn Erickson


NEWEST FEATURE ARTICLES
Bad Girls of Film Noir Volume 1
Columbia reaches into its "B" noir racks to come up with a fistful of femmes, some more fatale than others: Evelyn Keyes, Lola Albright, Lizabeth Scott and Gloria Grahame. The films in question are The Killer that Stalked New York, Two of a Kind, Bad for Each Other and The Glass Wall. Sony.   02/06/10

Bad Girls of Film Noir Volume 2
Reaching deeper into its bag of murderous noir babes, Columbia uncovers Janis Carter, Ida Lupino and Jan Sterling; and discovers the sultry 50s bombshell Cleo Moore. The lineup of guilty titles: Night Editor, One Girl's Confession, Women's Prison and Over-Exposed. Sony.   02/06/10

The Last Stage
Wanda Jakubowska's harrowing tale of Auschwitz is probably the earliest and certainly one of the most graphic -- it was filmed in the actual concentration camp just three years after the close of the war. This is a problem picture: influenced by pro-Soviet propaganda, it's accurate in some details and shamefully deceitful in others. Facets Video/ Polart   02/06/10

Countdown
Robert Altman's first major studio feature gives us a superior suspense film about the space race to the moon, with good performances from James Caan, Robert Duvall, Barbara Baxley and Joanna Moore. The film is all the more daring, considering that it was made the year before the Apollo moon landing. Warner Archive Collection.   02/06/10

Roberto Rossellini's War Trilogy
Criterion celebrates its 500th spine number with restored presentations of Rossellini's Rome Open City, Paisan and Germany Year Zero, together with numerous authoritative key-source interviews and docu extras.   02/02/10

The Woman on Pier 13
Also known as I Married a Communist, this Red Scare epic has good actors (Robert Ryan, Laraine Day) and is well directed and photographed. Another oddball Howard Hughes production that "needs a lot of explaining". Warner Archive Collection.   02/02/10

Goodfellas
Blu-ray. Martin Scorsese's near-perfect gangster saga takes the genre in a new direction away from the glamour of post- Godfather tales. Ray Liotta, Robert De Niro and especially Joe Pesci are chilling as venal, horrible Brooklyn mobsters. Warner Home Video.   02/02/10

Mystic River
Clint Eastwood and a perfect cast knock out a superior, moody murder yarn filmed on Boston locations. With Sean Penn, Tim Robbins, Kevin Bacon, Laurence Fishburne, Marcia Gay Harden and Laura Linney . Blu-ray, from Warner Home Video.   01/30/10

 The Master Race  Rembetiko  The Music Man Blu-ray  The Crowded Sky  Pandorum Blu-ray  Che parts 1 and 2 Blu-ray  The Unsuspected  Lost Boundaries  Sky - The Complete Series Region 2 PAL review by Lee Broughton  The Civilian Conservation Corps  Magnolia Blu-ray  Split Second  Goodbye Gemini  District 9 Blu-ray  The Fabulous World of Jules Verne Savant Revival Review  Good Evening Ev'rybody: In Celebration of Louis Armstrong   Blu-ray  Bill Warren Interview by Stuart Galbraith IV  The Green Berets Blu-ray  Paranormal Activity Blu-ray  Bootleg Film  It's a Great Life; Sally; Golden Dawn  Glenn Erickson's DVD Wish List 2010  Remember the Night  Trinity and Beyond: The Atomic Bomb Movie Blu-ray  Untamed Youth  Moon Blu-ray  The Next Voice You Hear...  DVD Savant's Most Impressive Discs of 2009  The Battle of Chile  Sex, Lies, and Videotape Blu-ray  The Animation of Alexeïeff  Angel Baby  Taking Woodstock Blu-ray  Inglourious Basterds Blu-ray

 SAVANT'S DVD WISH LIST 2010

Hundreds more Savant reviews at the Other End of this Link!


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