It has been a year since Erich von Stroheim’s Greed entered the public domain and still the Gods of Cinema remain sound asleep at the switch. More than two-thirds of the legendary 9+ hour epic …

My first entry for 2022 was originally intended for another trio of last year’s leftovers. But my steed blew a flat before making it to the finish line of The Green Knight. One can only …

Let’s end the year batting cleanup on three of this year’s oddities and curiosities, starting with a request. Several months ago, Lydia D’moch wrote asking why I never got around to reviewing Lamb. It opened …

The most challenging component of being my stickling, anal-retentive moviegoing self has been this dumbfounding devotion to logic and historical continuity that rides roughshod inside my skull. The trailer to Sing spoke to me, saying, …

During an audience Q&A at the Chicago International Film Festival, Robert Wise was asked why he chose to open both West Side Story and The Sound of Music with tapering views from above. “Because I …

A friend recently linked me to a collection of Sunday newspaper TV ads, and I chanced upon a half-pager from November 1973 pitching a late show airing of The Young Lions, in which Marlon Brando …

Like most Americans, rather than fortify the pre-feedbag portion of Thanksgiving Day with parades and sporting events, I chose to gorge on 2-D transfers of two dozen or so impeccably restored-to-blu-ray 3-D curios. Why 2-D? …

Rather than calling this week’s column a homework assignment, look upon it as a chance to reacquaint yourself with one of cinema’s founding fathers, the man who gave editing its pulse, a purveyor in Russian …

Speaking with Christian McKay was the closest I would ever come to meeting Orson Welles in this lifetime. McKay (pronounced “Mc-KYE”) made his screen debut in Richard Linklater’s Me and Orson Welles, a boffo pre-Citizen …

This week’s trio skipped town before I could get around to covering them. Coming soon to a blu-ray or streaming service near you. Drive My Car (2021) In the shadows of their bedroom, a Japanese …

Many families, in some way or another, exercise their right to rely on secrets and lies as means of postponing (prolonging?) life’s darker moments. It wasn’t until I turned 30 that my mother copped to …

Let’s harken back to a time when DVDs were arranged on the rental rack spine side out and alphabetically by title. One never knew what unknown riches were just a lateral scan of the eye …

Author's note: an hour after the paper went to press, I received a note informing me that the distributor delayed the virtual engagement at the Digital Gym by one week. Luzzu streams starting on November …

This year’s San Diego Asian Film Festival continues to dazzle. The three films up for discussion will screen at UtlraStar Cinemas in Mission Valley. Next week’s lead review is Drive My Car, the festival’s closing …

I am a sucker for 3-D. The eye sees in three dimensions, why shouldn’t a moviegoer? Three of the five major technological advances that cinema would undergo in the first 126 years of its history …

Thank heavens for this year’s San Diego Asian Film Festival, if for no other reason than it gives me an excuse to showcase quality over Hollywood’s latest regurgitation. The Festival runs October 28 through November …

To celebrate the release of the 27th James Bond film, might I humbly suggest that some time before or after you make time for No Time to Die, that you spend 142 minutes in the …

Who ya got: The Munsters or The Addams Family? I had just turned ten the season both shows made their network debuts, so the choice became the subject of raging schoolyard debate. It wasn’t a …

It’s all out there somewhere: the Pomona preview print of The Magnificent Ambersons; the missing reels of Eric von Stroheim’s Greed; Lon Chaney’s uncut London After Midnight; even the pie fight from Dr. Strangelove is …

The latest from Kiyoshi Kurosawa (Pulse, Cure, Tokyo Sonata) is being pitched as an “old-school Hitchcockian thriller.” The Master has been dead over 40 years. All this slavish delineating has long since passed the point …

“Testing! Testing!” The voice still worked. No sign of hearing impairment either. It was 3:50 p.m. and in the time it took to tilt my head clockward, a nurse was at my side. “Would you …

What can be said of an ensemble drama in which Milton Berle gives the best performance? Or a searing indictment of the Oscars that couldn’t have been made without producer Joseph E. Levine first obtaining …

UPDATE: I was mistakenly sent sent a list of screeners that included Skylark and Point Symmetry. Neither film is included in the Joyce Forum. Sorry for any confusion. With the San Diego Jewish Film Festival …

My analysis of The Carpetbaggers was pitched as either a cover story or a column entry to be presented in two parts. Guess who lost the coin toss. Here’s part two. The Carpetbaggers (1964) Somewhere …

The bad news is that Days is intentionally unsubtitled. The good news is that there’s barely a word spoken by our two leads. Loneliness is their universal language. More bad news: this is the only …

The Carpetbaggers (1964) Producer/distributor Joseph E. Levine had been in the picture business for a little over a decade before his success blossomed. What did he get in return for purchasing the rights to Godzilla …

Sean Penn’s latest arrived at multiplexes armed with an edict from its star/director aimed at the unjabbed among us: unless you’re vaccinated, stay away from Flag Day. Talk about cruel and unusual punishment. Why should …

No, not that Casino Royale. The other, better one! Casino Royale (1967) We open with a postscript that can be found in the supplementary section of the DVD: it was Peter Sellers who suggested Orson …

C.L. Franklin (Forest Whitaker) regularly awakened his daughter Aretha (Skye Dakota Turner) to wow the partygoers gathered in the spacious living room below with the young girl’s remarkable vocal reach. These so-called “church parties” were …

What’s bigger, more exciting, and two years older than Airport 1975? Airport ‘77! Airport ’77 (1977) In Airport, the Arthur Hailey original, disaster struck in the form of mad bomber Van Heflin, while the 747 …

It’s been a fertile period of late for adventure films that pair tough burly movie stars opposite young unknowns — Dave Bautista and Chloe Coleman in My Spy, Liam Neeson and Jacob Perez in The …

If this dive into Airport 1975 were any deeper, it would have crashed! Airport 1975 (1974) It was the first of three officially sanctioned sequels to Airport, the obscenely successful air-disaster soap opera based on …

There was a time in the mid-’90s when it seemed like every other indie release owed a debt of originality to Quentin Tarantino. Hell, he produced half of them! The studio press release for Habit, …

Many performers lost their careers during Hollywood’s transition to sound, but Jean Arthur literally found her voice in talkies. And don’t let the pink and squishy sounds it radiates fool you: Ms. Arthur was a …

There should never be another fictionalized account of the Holocaust put to film. The temptation to sentimentalize the atrocities too often proves impossible to resist. (As Prof. Deborah Lipstadt points out, “The minute you’re trying …

What was the first film to receive an R rating from the MPAA? Not The Graduate, which was classified Adults Only, but The Split, a crime drama starring Jim Brown and Diahann Carroll. Do you …

There have been movies based on 45 rpm singles (Ode to Billy Joe, Harper Valley P.T.A.) T.V. shows (Downton Abbey, Barney’s Great Adventure), toys (Ouija, The LEGO Movie), and comic books too numerous to mention, …

This week’s grouping offers hope to the horizontally challenged, especially if one has a sense of humor when it comes to body image. Heavyweights (1995) The Parent Trap meets Stalag 17 when an overnight camp …

A careful jog of the memory might help to recall the headline-grabbing story upon which Joe Bell is based. Those who have seen the trailer should find it fairly easy to ascertain the gingerly hinted-at …

Still reluctant to book a flight? Here are a couple of vacations you can take without leaving home. Where The Boys Are (1960) A convincingly fabricated backlot blizzard is enough to persuade four Midwestern college …

What is life but a succession of good and bad choices? There were times when Nicolas Cage’s career and personal life bounded off the rails in the direction of Charlie Sheen wackyland. But then Cage …

Saturday Night Fever made something special out of white polyester and blow-dryers as an extension of one’s arm, and transformed Deney Terrio — John Travolta’s trainer and future host of Dance Fever — into a …

Thoughts of writing this one off were tempting, but the day was hot, the timing right, and the screen large. Was Marvel right to patiently ride out the pandemic by skipping the VOD route in …

As promised in last week’s review of Alexandre Rockwell’s Sweet Thing, a few words on its prequel, Little Feet. But first, let’s present two of the director’s previous films. In the Soup and Pete Smalls …

Where were you on July 20, 1969? Unless you were among the thousands fortunate enough to have been in Mount Morris Park for the opening of the Harlem Cultural Festival, chances are you were glued …

Before we discuss three of the better Bugs and Elmer shorts contained in the numbered, limited edition blu-ray set, The Bugs Bunny 80th Anniversary Collection, a word about packaging. The Looney Tunes gang has morphed …

The latest family affair from Alexandre Rockwell (In the Soup, 13 Moons) is a product from another time. On the surface, it could very well have been a black-and-white low-budget indie that was left lounging …

The movies’ one glorious footnote to disco roller-boogie can be found in Peter Bogdanovich’s awfully romantic comedy They All Laughed, wherein a klutzy John Ritter attempts to skate his way into Dorothy Stratten’s heart. That’s …

The company Grandpa Bill Marks worked for threw an annual picnic that encouraged employees to invite family members for an afternoon of games, barbeque, and enough beer to keep back teeth at high tide. Having …

Three comedies about critics starring Mel Brooks, Vincent Price, and Bob Hope. Our first entry earned Mel an Oscar® for Best Animated Short, and in spite of that, it’s good! The Critic (1960) For many, …