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There’s a new publisher in town, and he’s cast a wide net: not only is he commissioning new manuscripts from a field of seasoned writers and directors; he’s also finding unpublished material by filmmakers ranging from Alexander Mackendrick to Abbas Kiarostami. Paul Cronin is the mastermind behind The Sticking Place (Google it to find its…
Do you find yourself absorbing the day’s latest news and feel like screaming? Writer-director Paul Thomas Anderson found another solution: making One Battle After Another, a film so outrageous—yet so timely—that it seems to say, “Don’t scream…just laugh at the sheer absurdity of it all.” That he has pulled this off so expertly should come as no…
Does anyone out there remember They Shoot Horses, Don’t They? That 1969 film was based on a 1935 novel by Horace McCoy, inspired by the bizarre Depression-era craze of dance marathons. Slick entrepreneurs would hire out a ballroom or auditorium and cash customers would root for the couples who tried to stay upright on the dance floor…
The following article was written by my friend and colleague Alonso Duralde. You can learn more about him HERE. NEW ON 4K/BLU/DVD IN SEPTEMBER: SUPERMAN, WES ANDERSON, PEKING OPERA BLUES, AIRPORT 1975, AND MORE! NEW RELEASE WALL Superman (WBD): At a moment where superhero fatigue was hitting audiences in a major way, James Gunn’s sharp, colorful,…
I had the good fortune of meeting and interviewing Robert Redford a number of times, but none of those occasions caused quite the stir that my first encounter did. In those days, the opening night of the Sundance Film Festival (which was then the U.S. Film Festival) was held in a gigantic theater in Salt…
For many years, my wife and I spent most of our evenings attending press screenings of new and upcoming films. That was our routine, and while I didn’t disdain television I rarely had time to watch it, let alone get hooked on a series. But things change. I no longer edit my annual Movie Guide, and…
Leonard here. The following column is written by my colleague Mark Searby highlighting British cinema past and present. Please enjoy A Bit of Crumpet. The Odd Job Probably not very high, or even known, for Monty Python fans is this film starring, and co-written by, Graham Chapman. Coming shortly before Life of Brian, Chapman teamed…
The following article was written by my friend and colleague Alonso Duralde. You can learn more about him HERE. NEW ON 4K/BLU-RAY/DVD IN AUGUST: KARATE KID, LILO & STITCH, BEYOND TRAINSPOTTING AND MORE! NEW RELEASE WALL Karate Kid: Legends (Sony): This one got short shrift in theaters earlier this summer, but here’s hoping it finds its…
Whatever your opinion of early talkies, you’re in for a jolt when you see Law and Order (1932), recently released on Blu-ray by Kino Lorber. It isn’t just the bravura camerawork or the arresting performances by Walter Huston and Harry Carey, or its unstated comparison to the Prohibition era in which it was made. Everything about this…
The following article was written by my friend and colleague Alonso Duralde. You can learn more about him HERE. New On 4K/Blu-Ray/DVD in July: Sinners, Final Destination, Crumb Catcher and More NEW RELEASE WALL Sinners (WBD): Already a strong contender for best-of-2025 status, Ryan Coogler’s visionary vampire tale wraps its arms around lots of ideas –…
The following article was written by my friend and colleague Alonso Duralde. You can learn more about him HERE. NEW ON 4K/BLU-RAY/DVD IN JUNE: THE WEDDING BANQUET, EEPHUS, MIDNIGHT, AND MORE! NEW RELEASE WALL The Wedding Banquet (Decal Bleecker): It’s no easy feat to remake an Ang Lee movie, but writer-director Andrew Ahn, working with…
Leonard here. The following column is written by my colleague Mark Searby highlighting British cinema past and present. Please enjoy A Bit of Crumpet. I adore the work of Takeshi ‘Beat’ Kitano. He’s arguably my favourite writer/director/producer/editor/comedian/gameshow creator & host. There aren’t many like him in the entertainment world. Imagine if Jennifer Lopez – a…
Leonard here. The following column is written by my colleague Mark Searby highlighting British cinema past and present. Please enjoy A Bit of Crumpet. Music in mid-1970s Britian was becoming fractured. Punk was rising quickly led by The Sex Pistols. Rock music was going through a change with raw-er bands like Black Sabbath and Led…
The following article was written by my friend and colleague Alonso Duralde. You can learn more about him HERE. WHAT’S NEW ON DVD/BLU-RAY/4K IN MAY: BLACK BAG, BLAXPLOITATION, AND BUGS! NEW RELEASE WALL Black Bag (Universal) / Presence (Decal-NEON): Steven Soderbergh offered moviegoers two of the best films of 2025’s first quarter (although, to be fair,…
I don’t harbor many regrets in my life; I’ve been fortunate to meet people and have experiences that others might only dream about. But there are a few things I could and should have done better. One is to avoid procrastination. I’ve delayed calling people I wanted to interview because I had no particular deadline…and…
The American Cinematheque made headlines nine years ago when it announced that it had installed a projection booth that the city of Los Angeles deemed suitable for projecting nitrate prints. There are only a few others like it, even in the city most closely associated with filmmaking. But if you’ve ever seen the way nitrate…
The following article was written by my friend and colleague Alonso Duralde. You can learn more about him HERE. WHAT’S NEW ON DVD/BLU/4K IN APRIL: ANORA, LIZA, RE-ANIMATOR, SUMMER WARS, AND MORE! NEW RELEASE WALL Anora (The Criterion Collection): Writer-director Sean Baker has been an indie fave for years – not coincidentally, Criterion is also releasing…
The following article was written by my friend and colleague Alonso Duralde. You can learn more about him HERE. WHAT’S NEW ON DVD/BLU/4K IN MARCH: BABYGIRL, WOMEN WHO RUN HOLLYWOOD, FILIPINO HORROR, AND MORE! NEW RELEASE WALL Babygirl (A24): Overlooked by the Oscars, but nonetheless one of 2024’s most memorable and provocative films, this sophomore feature…
The following article was written by my friend and colleague Alonso Duralde. You can learn more about him HERE. WHAT’S NEW ON DVD/BLU-RAY/4K IN FEBRUARY: WICKED, IN THE SUMMERS, YOU’RE NEXT, OSCAR MICHEAUX, AND MORE! NEW RELEASE WALL Wicked (Universal): So we’re about a year away from a lavish box set featuring both halves of this…
I just watched CAPTAIN AMERICA: BRAVE NEW WORLD for the second time, as producer Kevin Feige and director Julius Onah came to my class at USC for a q&a following the screening… and you know what? I enjoyed it much more this go around. Somehow, knowing how all the pieces fit and who was responsible…
I am taking a deep breath as I write this, and apologize for the tardiness of this report. Award shows and ceremonies took a backseat to the terrifying wildfires that raged all over Southern California, which meant that many of these fetes had to be postponed and rescheduled. Finding new dates that were amenable to…
With a change in format and a new platform, The Movie Guide is back: it’s a podcast that I co-host with a savvy Australian “journo” named Guy Davis. Every week Guy and I compare notes on a favorite film of the 1970s, 80s, or 90s for a half-hour of lively chatter. I first got in to podcasting…
The following article was written by my friend and colleague Alonso Duralde. You can learn more about him HERE. WHAT’S NEW ON DVD/BLU/4K IN JANUARY: THE SUBSTANCE, HUNDREDS OF BEAVERS, NO HOME MOVIE, INCUBUS, AND MORE! NEW RELEASE WALL The Substance (Mubi): One of the most talked-about films of 2024, Coralie Fargeat’s sophomore feature (following the…
GIANT LOVE by Julie Gilbert (Pantheon) One doesn’t read most film books to savor the prose. This one stands out from the crowd because Gilbert is an exceptionally good writer. She is the great-niece of Edna Ferber, the subject of the book, and knew her well. I fell in love with Giant Love and devoured it over…
I admire Walter Salles’ work, and I’m especially fond of his acclaimed features Central Station and The Motorcycle Diaries. He has returned to his Brazilian roots for another exceptional narrative, I’m Still Here…but he hastens to explain that it’s not the story, or the book by Marcelo Rubens Paiva that impelled him to create this deeply empathetic picture. It…
Unstoppable is a mashup of an underdog sports movie and a domestic drama about a family terrorized by an abusive father. The worst thing I can say about it is that it is conventional, but since when is that a crime? A true-life story told in linear fashion with a superior cast still resonates in 2025,…
Some forty years ago I first met David Lynch in a setting that could have come from an episode of Twin Peaks: the now-defunct Studio City branch of DuPar’s, an all-American coffee shop where he had come to enjoy a well-crafted chocolate milk shake. He seemed to appreciate my enjoyment of seeing him at the cashier’s counter.…
The first feature film directed by Gia Coppola, Eleanor and Francis’s granddaughter, is a respectable but unmemorable vehicle for former Baywatch and Playboy pin-up Pamela Anderson. The script has been custom-tailored for her and she comes off well, but the film has only one note to play and that is revealed in the title. Anderson portrays a forty-ish woman…
If you are a Laurel and Hardy devotee it’s probably old news that the second volume of beautifully restored shorts has been released on Blu-ray and DVD by Flicker Alley. Covering the year 1928, the second year of their official partnership, this two-disc set features such silent-comedy classics as THE FINISHING TOUCH, SHOULD MARRIED MEN…
Leonard here. The following column is written by my colleague Mark Searby highlighting British cinema past and present. Please enjoy A Bit of Crumpet. Everybody, at some point in their life, has seen an Alfred Hitchcock movie. He made so many iconic films throughout his career. He was, and still is, hugely influential in filmmaking.…
The following article was written by my friend and colleague Alonso Duralde. You can learn more about him HERE. WHAT’S NEW ON DVD/BLU/4K IN DECEMBER: WALLACE & GROMIT, TERRIFIER 3, SEINFELD, AND MORE! NEW RELEASE WALL Wallace & Gromit: The Complete Cracking Collection (Shout Factory): Well, “complete” except for the brand-new W&G feature, Wallace & Gromit:…
Biographical films are a minefield, but A Complete Unknown dodges every trap and emerges as my favorite movie of 2024. No one is more surprised than I, because I’ve never been a Bob Dylan fan… but Timothée Chalamet delivers a compelling and convincing performance as the singular troubadour-poet. By not imitating Dylan’s distinctively whiny voice he even…
Every rare now and then, a performance comes along that is so organic and natural that even though one is familiar with the actor all memories of his other work recede. That’s how I felt watching Adrien Brody in The Brutalist. It isn’t a matter of acting per se: he becomes Laszlo Toth, a Hungarian refugee trying to make…
The overuse of the word “iconic” has rendered it practically meaningless, but if it ever applied to a public figure it would be opera star Maria Callas. Director Pablo Larrain, having focused on two other notable women of the 20th century (Jacqueline Kennedy and Lady Diana Spencer) has now turned his attention to the diva whose…
Phrases like “game-changer” and “cutting-edge” can’t capture just how audacious and original Emilia Pérez is. I daresay it wouldn’t or couldn’t have been made, or even conceived, just ten years ago. (Maybe five…) I am determined to praise and discuss it without giving too much away. Here goes: Emilia Pérez is a crime thriller that boils over into melodrama,…
What ever happened to genre movies? Hollywood thrived on westerns, musicals, gangster stories, hospital dramas, whodunits and the like until television consumed almost every category. The Day of the Fight isn’t trying to rewrite the playbook. It’s a boxing picture, and it hits most of the notes we anticipate…but that’s what makes it so satisfying. It gives…
Leonard here. The following column is written by my colleague Mark Searby highlighting British cinema past and present. Please enjoy A Bit of Crumpet. Think you’re a tough guy, huh? Real tough, yeah? You thought A Serbian Film was funny did you? Threads was a light-hearted documentary was it? Well, let’s see how tough you really are…
Jesse Eisenberg has nothing to prove; he has already staked his claim as an actor, writer, and director. But A Real Pain digs deeper than he ever has before; even the film’s title has multiple meanings. The movie simmers and occasionally boils over. The end result is a satisfying brew (to stretch a metaphor). As a writer…
The following article was written by my friend and colleague Alonso Duralde. You can learn more about him HERE. WHAT’S NEW ON DVD/BLU-RAY/4K IN NOVEMBER: BEETLEJUICE BEETLEJUICE; BOX SETS CELEBRATING CRITERION COLLECTION, HITCHCOCK, AND CAPRA; AND SO MUCH CHRISTMAS NEW RELEASE WALL Beetlejuice Beetlejuice (Warner Bros. Discovery Home Entertainment): Neither director Tim Burton nor sequels in…
Blitz is a powerful and somewhat disarming film about the longterm German bombing of London in 1940. One might be forgiven for expecting a kinder, gentler rendition of this horrific event because it’s told through the eyes of a 9-year-old boy. Guess again. Writer-director Steve McQueen spares us nothing in his recreation of the conditions before,…