Rent it now: ‘Doctor Zhivago’
Released smack in the middle of the turbulent 1960s, “Doctor Zhivago” (1965) now looks like a bridge between two different eras in movie making. Director David Lean had triumphed three years earlier...
View Article‘Spartacus’: somewhere Cecil B. DeMille is smiling
There is a long Hollywood history of using Biblical tales and adventures in ancient Rome and Greece as an excuse for showing off a lot of skin and indulging in violence that might not go down so easy...
View ArticleThe return of ‘Ben-Hur’ in a deluxe DVD restoration
Anyone who believes old-fashioned showmanship disappeared when the movie business shifted from theaters to home viewing hasn’t seen Warner Home Video’s recently released five-disc reissue of the 1959...
View Article‘Around the World in 80 Days’: nostalgia isn’t what it used to be
From July 8, 2011 – It can be dangerous to tamper with your past by going back to a movie you loved as a child but haven’t seen since. When I impulsively pulled “Around the World in 80 Days” off a...
View Article‘Anatomy of a Murder’: Otto Preminger’s finest hour
The Milford Arts Council has been running a weekly series of Oscar-contending classic films over the past month and it will be my pleasure to introduce tonight’s screening of “Anatomy of a Murder” at...
View ArticleRent it now: the still provocative British classic ‘Victim’
Video distributors love to celebrate anniversaries with reissues of their major titles. “Ben-Hur” appeared in 2011 in a belated deluxe 50th anniversary edition — the restoration of the 1959 best...
View ArticleSomething that only Quentin Tarantino can do
The excitement has been building among hard core movie buffs about the plan to release the new Quentin Tarantino film, “The Hateful Eight,” as a “road show” experience, projected in the Ultra...
View Article‘The Hateful Eight’ nostalgia trip
The glorious experiment by Quentin Tarantino and The Weinstein Company that resulted in bringing back the roadshow and Ultra Panavision 70 wide-screen format will end tomorrow night at 100 theaters...
View ArticleChanning Tatum’s showstopper
The new Coen brothers movie, “Hail, Caesar!,” pulls off the mean feat of both mocking and celebrating the Hollywood films of yesteryear – the output from the 1950s, in particular. The picture opens and...
View Article‘EuroCrime!’: an unheralded ‘70s film genre
Mike Malloy looks at the dozens of cop and gangster pictures that were churned out in Italy during the 1970s in the engaging documentary “EuroCrime! The Italian Cop and Gangster Films That Ruled the...
View ArticleOn the fringes of Hollywood history
There are so many good little documentaries hidden away in various nooks and crannies of the Amazon Prime catalogue. Last night I watched a 54-minute gem, “The Man Who Saved Ben-Hur,” filmmaker Joe...
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