If you’re going to steal, the saying goes, steal from the best. Like many a filmmaker, Dario Argento was strongly influenced by the works of a certain British director, so much so that he earned the nickname “The Italian Hitchcock.” His debut film, The Bird with the Crystal Plumage, embraces many a cliché of the thriller genre while also forging its own path. Shot and scored with genuine inspiration, the film boasts a clever plot, with twists that are not easy to predict, as well as a distinctive sense of humor.
Author Walter Farley’s sweet, timeless tale of a young boy and his special bond with a spirited horse was brought to cinematic life with irresistible visual and sonic beauty, more appreciable than ever on Criterion’s fantastic new Blu-ray. Our boy, Alec (Kelly Reno, what a find), is washed ashore on a remote island after a shipwreck, and the only other survivor is a magnificent Arabian stallion. Their time alone together is a prolonged marvel of wordless storytelling, while the post-rescue second half is quite a different animal, as a grizzled old trainer (a wonderfully cast Mickey Rooney) agrees to prepare the horse to race. It’s a thrilling adventure for kids, but without the sap that might otherwise send the adults fleeing.
My fondness for Bob's Burgers extends all the way back to the first episode in 2011. The writing and performances are on par with the very best sitcoms, the animation has a style all its own, and they've kept us hooked on the lovably losery Belcher clan through week after week of uproarious antics.
I knew Jason Bourne. Aaron Cross (Jeremy Renner), you’re no Jason Bourne.
The first Bourne movie not based on an actual Robert Ludlum novel, Legacy gets quite a lot wrong, frankly. The story brings us back to the era of 2007’s The Bourne Ultimatum, when extreme measures were being taken to maintain the secrecy of the covert, overly ambitious super-soldier program that created Jason. A whole new crop of men has become the subject of some risky new behavior/performance-enhancing experiments, and as one of these lethal lab rats, Aaron is desperate for answers—and the necessary meds to keep his edge—despite the nasty opponents pursuing him at every turn.
Filmmaker Brady Corbet seeks to conjure movies of a bygone era in more ways than one with his latest, The Brutalist. Perhaps most notably, he and director of photography Lol Crawley resurrected the defunct large‑format VistaVision process, supplanted years ago by IMAX.
Super Hero
Christopher Reeve flies again.
Perhaps never before in the history of home video has a studio crafted months of releases upon a single theme, as Warner has in 2006, “the year Superman returns.” No doubt tying into that new feature film, all manner of Super movies and TV shows have been issued on DVD, some for the first time—new seasons of Smallville, the classic Adventures of Superman, Lois & Clark, Superboy, The Animated Series, and even the cartoon adventures of the Dog of Steel, Krypto. But we can never give enough credit to Christopher Reeve and his dual role as the impossibly awkward Clark Kent and a gentlemanly savior in a red cape. Reeve’s electric screen presence was born of classical acting training, an understanding of how to fly under his own power—from his experience as a glider pilot—and a willingness to bulk up his lean frame under the tutelage of Darth Vader himself, trainer David Prowse. The later of Reeve’s four franchise films were not an ideal stage for his inspired thespian stylings, but his characterization was a high-water mark for the timeless hero, as celebrated in Warner’s new boxed set, The Christopher Reeve Superman Collection.
The seminal hero of sword and sorcery, Conan was created by author Robert E. Howard and later evolved from the pages of pulp magazines across movies, TV, and more. His first big-screen outing was also a pivotal career move for bodybuilder Arnold Schwarzenegger, who became a bona fide movie star by anchoring director John Milius’ epic adventure film Conan the Barbarian with his statuesque presence: While not everyone can survive the fashion risk of a furry little loincloth, Arnie rocks it. But yes, there are a couple of solid stories to back it all up, reunited in Arrow’s magnificent new “Conan Chronicles” boxed set featuring 1982’s Conan the Barbarian and the 1984 follow-up Conan the Destroyer on 4K Blu-ray.
So yeah, steelbooks are totally a thing now, as collectors are driving a growing segment of the physical media market, looking for something that feels special in the hand and looks distinctive on the shelf. It also helps if there’s a good movie inside and the studios have been happy to oblige, mostly revisiting catalog titles to bring us noteworthy releases like these picks from this past summer.
Eight years have passed since the complicated events of The Dark Knight. The Batman (Christian Bale) has taken the blame for the death of district attorney Harvey Dent in an attempt to inspire the people of Gotham City to stand strong against crime. With the subsequent passage of the Dent Act, Gotham is tougher on criminals than ever, even while The Bat has disappeared, his alter ego Bruce Wayne living in self-imposed exile.
Far from the madding convention center, Dolby provided A-B comparisons of their new Dolby Contrast technology, part of their HDR ("High Dynamic Range") tech family. The interesting part is that it is a video technology, for adjusting the range of dark to light in the LED backlighting of LCD TVs. By precisely dimming the right area of the screen at the right time, contrast can be heightened as never before, for a very film-like effect. (As the exciting screen image suggests, Blu-ray and DVD playback will both benefit.)