June, 2010 Archive
John Tartaglia and George D. Allen | Movie Buzz, Movie Buzz Podcast
Customers shopping with Movies Unlimited by way of phoning our toll-free number (1-800-4-MOVIES--how simple is that?) or visiting us online and placing orders at our sales website might be wondering...just how do your favorite videos end up on your doorstep? Paying homage to Woody Allen and ribbing those snoozy (oops, delightful) educational films we all saw as kids, we've put together a brief video tutorial on what it takes for an order to be processed at Movies Unlimited. Enjoy!
guest-blogs | FanFare Guests
Guest blogger R.D. Finch writes:
Bigger Than Life
***½
Country: US
Director: Nicholas Ray
As Bigger Than Life opens, we see the long horizontal façade of a school building stretched across the huge CinemaScope screen. A bell rings, and elementary school students come pouring through the doorway, walk toward the camera, and separate to the left and right as they reach it. Among the last children to leave are three sets of twins—two boys, two girls, and finally a boy and girl—who walk toward the camera without separating. What an appropriate beginning for a movie that is essentially Nicholas Ray's 1950s suburban version of Robert Louis Stevenson's classic doppelgänger tale Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, beautifully restored and newly released by Criterion.
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Irv Slifkin | Staff Notes
Do an Internet search on the film director Michael Haneke, and you will likely conjure an image of a saintly-looking senior citizen with a big white beard who looks like he could play St. Nick at the local mall during holiday time.
Delve into his films, however, and you will discover that Haneke is more likely to portray “Santa Claws” rather than Santa Claus.
That’s because Haneke is perhaps the most consistently envelope-pushing, fright-inducing, crowd-dividing filmmaker on the planet. And he doesn’t even make horror movies. At least, not on the surface.
My first experience with Haneke came about 15 years ago, when a friend in Canada told me about a film he saw called Funny Games. I had never heard of it, so he sent me a VHS copy of the movie. I put it aside, thinking I would throw it in the VCR when I was in the mood for a light comedy, figuring that with a title like that, how could it be anything but.
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Jason Marcewicz | Staff Notes
It can be debated whether having a catchy title helps drive people to the theater. But it sure doesn't help matters if a film is badly named! The following movies certainly all belong on this ignominious list of Bad Movie Titles. Feel free to share your picks in the comments section below.
B.A.P.S
As if a nauseously pandering tagline, “These Pretty Women…are Clueless,” wasn’t enough, this movie was also burdened with an eminently forgettable acronym, short for “Black American Princesses.” Apparently.
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Jay Steinberg | This Week in Film History
July 3, 1905: The long tradition of cinematic canine heroes begins in England with the debut of the seven-minute melodrama Rescued by Rover.
June 30, 1929: Alfred Hitchcock's Blackmail, which nearly saw completion as a silent film, was re-shot with sound, becoming Britain's first "talkie."
June 29, 1933: Unable to overcome the scandal that plagued him 12 years earlier, Roscoe "Fatty" Arbuckle, 46, dies penniless of a heart attack.
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guest-blogs | FanFare Guests
Guest blogger Will Errickson writes:
"There is a creature alive today that has survived millions of years of evolution. Without change, without passion, and without logic. It lives to kill. A mindless eating machine, it will attack and devour anything. It is as if God... created the devil... and gave him... Jaws." - Narration from the original 1975 trailer.
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Chris Cummins | New Releases This Week
New DVD Releases: Week of 6-28-10
Another week, another batch of great new releases. This week's most noteworthy picks include a time travel comedy starring John Cusack (Create-A-Caption), a deluxe edition of a Judy Garland classic, a remake of one of George Romero's most influential works, the first film based on the Percy Jackson books, and much more. Let's take a look at what's new to DVD and Blu-ray.
Hot Tub Time Machine
"Back to the Future" meets "The Hangover" in this outrageous comedy following four guys as they get drunk in a ski resort hot tub that just so happens to be a time machine. Suddenly finding themselves in 1986, the men--recently divorced nice guy John Cusack, party animal Rob Corddry, unhappily married Craig Robinson, and antisocial nerd Clark Duke--try to make their future lives better by changing the past. With Chevy Chase, Crispin Glover and the always wonderful Lizzy Caplan. Although this film wasn't the monster hit it was expected to be, it will likely find a devoted audience on DVD and Blu-ray.
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guest-blogs | FanFare Guests
The Wolfman: A Movie Review
Guest blogger Tom Read writes:
After the death of his brother, Shakespearean actor Lawrence Talbot (Benicio del Toro) returns to the family stately home in Blackmoor. His father John (Anthony Hopkins) and brother’s fiancee Gwen (Emily Blunt) wait for him there. Gruesome killings start to take place, tracked by Scotland Yard Inspector Abberline (Hugo Weaving).
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Irv Slifkin | Staff Notes
Comedy is not pretty.
If you don’t believe the saying popularized by Steve Martin during his standup years, then take a gander at movies Hollywood has given us about comedians. In most cases, they are lonely, neurotic, insecure, sad people. And from these personality traits –or disorders-- comes humor.
Joan Rivers: A Piece of Work
The latest movie to focus on a comic is Joan Rivers: A Piece of Work, a fascinating warts-and-all bio-doc about the queen of mean, following one topsy-turvy year in her life. The downs (she fires her longtime manager, a play in England bombs, she’s heckled by an audience member in Milwaukee) and ups (she scores in a tribute to George Carlin, wins the reality series Celebrity Apprentice, has a book published, keeps audiences rolling in live shows) are captured for the camera, while Joan comments on her career and frenzied life.
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Brian Sieck | First Viewing Experiences
People often say, “Beware of false prophets.” It’s an important life lesson, and Charles Laughton’s The Night Of The Hunter (his only credited directorial effort) perfectly exemplifies this warning. Another invaluable rule for folks to heed is, “Beware of false advertising.” That’s right film fans, yours truly is having a really difficult time with this one. Over fifty years after its release, the nightmarish tale of Robert Mitchum’s preacher assailing young children is lauded by critics across the board as one of the finest films ever made. Even Roger Ebert (one of my heroes who, even when I disagree with him, often gives me pause) has exclaimed, “It is one of the most frightening of movies, with one of the most unforgettable of villains, and on both of those scores it holds up…” Well, sometimes part of maintaining one’s integrity is having the heart to disagree with popular opinions and standing defiant against individuals with a much more esteemed reputation than oneself. It’s with this in mind that I have to state that I “pretty much” disagree with The Night of the Hunter’s widely regarded superior reputation.
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Irv Slifkin | Coming Attractions, DVD Beat
Our Man Flynn: Errol Flynn may have best been known for his portrayals of Robin Hood, the Earl of Essex, General Custer and “Gentleman” Jim Corbett. But Flynn brought his rugged and often dashing demeanor to other roles as well, such as those contained in TCM Spotlight: Errol Flynn Adventures, a five-disc set showcasing the Tasmanian-born star. Included here are Desperate Journey (1942), in which he teams with fellow RAF pilot Ronald Reagan to escape the Nazis in Poland after their plane is downed; Edge of Darkness (1943), in which Flynn and Ann Sheridan are resistance fighters battling the Axis in a Norwegian fishing village; Northern Pursuit (1943), with Errol as a Mountie tracking down Nazi Helmut Dantine in the Canadian wilderness; Uncertain Glory (1944), with Flynn as a condemned murderer fleeing a Parisian prison following a British air raid; and Objective Burma! (1945), where the actor leads paratroopers trying to put the kibosh on Japanese forces in Burma. The amazing thing to us was how he got all of these films done in such a short span of time!
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