Blogs
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Mike’s Picks: ‘Running Wild’ and ‘Great Balls of Fire!’
Running Wild Kino Lorber, Comedy, $19.95 DVD, $29.95 Blu-ray, NR. Stars W.C. Fields, Marie Shotwell, Mary Brian, Barnett Raskin. 1927. Director Gregory La Cava’s silent-era crowd-pleaser is funnier than expected given that W.C. Fields is without his vocal deliveries, but he was such a physical performer, and La Cava such a deft viual director, that … Continue reading “Mike’s Picks: ‘Running Wild’ and ‘Great Balls of Fire!’”
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Mike’s Picks: ‘Night of the Living Dead’ and ‘The L-Shaped Room’
Night of the Living Dead: Criterion Collection Criterion, Horror, $39.95 DVD, $39.95 Blu-ray, NR. Stars Duane Jones, Judith O’Dea, Karl Hardman, Marilyn Eastman. 1968. In any form, the opening shot seems exactly right: a moving car finessing all the twists and turns of a pastoral setting that turns out to be a graveyard entrance that … Continue reading “Mike’s Picks: ‘Night of the Living Dead’ and ‘The L-Shaped Room’”
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‘Bad Samaritan’ Turns to Twitter to Announce Date Change
With windows a hot issue on both the home entertainment side and the theatrical side, it’s interesting to note the frenzy that developed among theatrical distributors when Walt Disney Studios moved up the domestic release date of Avengers: Infinity War by one week, from May 4 to April 27, so it opens theatrically on the same … Continue reading “‘Bad Samaritan’ Turns to Twitter to Announce Date Change”
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‘Downsizing’ at UltraViolet?
As studio home entertainment divisions trumpet the Disney-spawned and re-jiggered Movies Anywhere, Paramount Pictures and Lionsgate remain on the sidelines. Paramount recently announced the digital (March 6) and 4K Ultra HD and Blu-ray Disc (March 20) street dates for the comedy Downsizing, starring Oscar-winners Matt Damon and director Alexander Payne. Notable to the packaged-media release: cloud-based … Continue reading “‘Downsizing’ at UltraViolet?”
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Remembering Russ Solomon
I’ve been thinking a lot about Russ Solomon over the last few days, ever since I heard about the celebrated Tower Records and Video founder’s death Sunday night while watching the Academy Awards. At 92 years old, he was at his home in Sacramento, drinking whisky and complaining about someone’s outfit, his son told the … Continue reading “Remembering Russ Solomon”
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Mike’s Picks: ‘The Hanging Tree’ and ‘Steve McQueen: American Icon’
The Hanging Tree Available via Warner Archive Warner, Western, $21.99 Blu-ray, NR. Stars Gary Cooper, Maria Schell, Ben Piazza, Karl Malden, George C. Scott. 1959. Gary Cooper made three more movies after The Hanging Tree before his death in the spring of 1961, but due to varied limitations in terms of conception and/or execution, none … Continue reading “Mike’s Picks: ‘The Hanging Tree’ and ‘Steve McQueen: American Icon’”
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Is Content King — or Is Data?
You may think Netflix’s business is offering subscription video streaming of increasingly original content and MoviePass’ offering subscription access to theatrical content, but there’s a hidden asset that buttresses both — consumer data. Speakers at the February Digital Entertainment World conference in Marina Del Rey, Calif., pointed out the importance of data in entertainment disruption. … Continue reading “Is Content King — or Is Data?”
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Mike’s Picks: ‘Raw Deal’ and ‘Belle Epoque’
Raw Deal: Special Edition ClassicFlix, Film Noir, $29.95 DVD, $39.95 Blu-ray, NR. Stars Dennis O’Keefe, Claire Trevor, Marsha Hunt, Raymond Burr. 1948. Dennis O’Keefe, who’s something of a comfortable presence throughout Raw Deal despite its occasional pronounced brutality, found himself an ideal actor of noir, thanks to looks on the high-side of “Average Joe” and … Continue reading “Mike’s Picks: ‘Raw Deal’ and ‘Belle Epoque’”
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Netflix Blows Lid Off Hollywood’s Female Age Ceiling
Hollywood’s age cap on conventional female attractiveness has always been unfairly low when compared to male actors. Netflix appears to be disrupting this industry norm as well. It just launched a 13-episode reboot of Norman Lear’s long-running 70s-80s sitcom, “One Day at a Time,” co-starring 87-year-old Rita Moreno as an “old-school” Cuban-born mom who hardly … Continue reading “Netflix Blows Lid Off Hollywood’s Female Age Ceiling”
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Mike’s Picks: ‘The Apartment’ and ‘Captain From Castile’
The Apartment (Blu-ray) MVD/Arrow, Comedy, $49.95 Blu-ray, NR. Stars Jack Lemmon, Shirley MacLaine, Fred MacMurray, Edie Adams. 1960. Though topicality can be a trap when gauging a movie’s effectiveness, it’s a real punch to the face to see how a once controversial comedy-drama from 58 years ago can be so spot-on about sexual harassment in … Continue reading “Mike’s Picks: ‘The Apartment’ and ‘Captain From Castile’”