Jerry Frebowitz | New Releases This Week
New DVD Releases for this week include Terminator Salvation, Night At The Museum: Battle Of The Smithsonian and Deadline along with other theatrical newcomers, plus Brendan Gleeson is back as Winston Churchill in Into The Storm. Also available for the first time on DVD is a fine holiday classic from 1940, Remember The Night with Barbara Stanwyck and Fred MacMurray, presented in glorious black and white.
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Jay Steinberg | Movie Buzz
December 1, 1903: Edwin S. Porter's The Great Train Robbery, the first motion picture to use intercutting scenes to form a unified narrative, is released.
December 2, 1910: Hefty funnyman John Bunny, the cinema's first comedy star, makes his debut in Vitagraph's Jack Fat and Jim Slim at Coney Island.
December 4, 1924: Greed, previewed in a nine-hour, 42-reel version earlier in the year, opens in a studio-mandated 10-reel cut that director Erich von Stroheim disavows.
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George D. Allen and Irv Slifkin | Movie Buzz, Movie Buzz Podcast
Movie Irv takes a ride on The Road, the highly-anticipated adaptation of the grippingly apocalyptic Cormac McCarthy (No Country for Old Men) novel. It's been a few twists and turns getting this prestigious epic to the big screen, and Irv's here to tell us if the destination is worth the trip:
Irv Slifkin | DVD Beat, Movie Buzz
“Film noir” is a term that movie marketers have pinned to practically every film involving crime or suspense that was shot in b
lack-and-white during the 1950s. While some of the labeling has been downright silly, such as the case with some of the DVD entries from the Fox library (Daisy Kenyon?), it’s great to see the interest for making classic noirs available to fans out there.
Sony has lagged behind Warner, Fox and others in excavating their vast library from Columbia for screen gems, but they’re certainly coming on strong of late. Consider recent sets centered on the works of Budd Boetticher, William Castle and efforts from Ishiro Honda and Toho Studios that have been issued recently.
Sony’s streak continues with the impressive five-disc Columbia Pictures Film Noir Classics I, a nifty compendium of creepy crime movies from the dark side of the screen and human nature.
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George D. Allen | Staff Notes
This review is part of the Boris Karloff Blogathon; fans are invited to survey the entire series of contributions here!
“Today, there is a crying need for a new…socially conscious novel to shake up the complacent public about the high risk of an imminent, serious pandemic. And I don’t mean the much-publicized swine flu. While the world media has obsessed, and rightfully so, about this fast-spreading illness, I’m worried about the next crisis, something much deadlier and more catastrophic, indeed the kind of crisis most people wrongly believe could not happen in this day and age. If I were the author, this urgently needed novel would have to be called Plague.” –Cook, Robin. “Plague: A New Thriller of the Coming Pandemic.” Foreign Policy Nov. 2009: 62-66
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Jerry Frebowitz | Talkin The Oldies
In 1940, times were different from today, in many ways. For one, people who got caught shoplifting, male or female, did jail time -- plain and simple. Remember The Night is a movie about such simpler times and is such a good film, it ranks right up there at the top with the best of the non-Dickens Christmas movies. Miracle on 34th Street, Christmas in Connecticut and It Happened on 5th Avenue are all great for holiday viewing, however this movie, for some reason is not as well-known, but should be.
Mitchell Leisen (bio; videography), famous for a long list of enduring Paramount classic films like Midnight, Frenchman's Creek, Hold Back The Dawn, To Each His Own and so many more, really stands out directing the smooth proceedings and with the help of a screenplay written by Hollywood legend, Preston Sturges (bio; videography), you'll know right from the beginning that you're in for a treat.
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Jerry Frebowitz | New Releases This Week
New DVD Releases for this week include Angels & Demons, Four Christmases and Funny People along with other theatrical newcomers, plus the violent heart-pounding Italian crime epic from 2008, Gomorrah. Also new this week are memories from the Golden Age of Television and a restored version of one of the best movies about WWII, A Walk In The Sun, directed by Lewis Milestone.
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Jay Steinberg | Movie Buzz
November 29, 1939: The legendary rivalry between gossip queens Hedda Hopper and Louella Parsons begins when Parsons is scooped on the divorce of James Roosevelt.
November 25, 1940: Voiced by Mel Blanc, Woody Woodpecker laughs his way into cartoon fame in the Andy Panda short Knock Knock.
November 26, 1942: Taking advantage of Allied landings that put the North African city in the news, Warner Bros. opens Casablanca in New York.
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George D. Allen and Irv Slifkin | Movie Buzz, Movie Buzz Podcast
So, even Nicolas Cage is apparently having his share of financial difficulties. Will the release of Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call New Orleans—a controversial non-remake-remake of Abel Ferrara's blistering 1992 crime drama—provide Cage with a much-needed morale booster? Has the pairing of Cage with director Werner Herzog resulted in a bizarre new masterwork...or a colossal misfire? Let's see what Movie Irv Slifkin has to say about this hotly anticipated release:
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