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THE MAGICIAN
Rex Ingram was a flamboyant director of the silent era, who distanced himself from the Hollywood system to achieve more autonomy in his projects. Michael Powell (director of THE RED SHOES and TALES OF...
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VILLAIN
This blend of WHITE HEAT with UK mod gangster Ronnie Kray, is an intentionally dismal looking affair, whose dialogue (use of the word ‘sordid’ crops up too often to be randomly chosen), super-grainy...
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PETER PAN
This is the one! I was nine years old, and I made family members take me to the New Rochelle movie theater over and over and over, never tiring of this mythic tale. I even made one tolerant soul sit...
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WRECK-IT RALPH
I never got into video-games. Imagine my delight, then, when on putting this often (to me) inaccessible-to-its-cleverer-points film on pause, up popped an intermission wherein a friendly host...
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DAY OF THE FALCON
As soon as I realized what the fact-based story was about – the initial discovery of oil in the middle East – I took excitedly to my seat and prepared for an amazing tale. That event precipitated...
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HEAVEN WITH A GUN
Glenn Ford liked making Westerns more than the other genres in which he appeared. And he’s uniformly good in them. But he never teamed up with a director who would lend a sense of unity to his body of...
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SAMSON AND DELILAH
“I was doing a vaudeville act with a comedian named Dick Burney. We would go to all the different circuits on weekends. One of Cecil B. DeMille’s talent scouts saw me and brought me into Paramount,...
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CHEYENNE
Whatever you do, do not read the back-jacket synopsis. It gives too much away. I was really taken with the film. It has been said that it was withdrawn from release due to Warner TV’s 1955 series...
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ULTIMATE GANGSTERS COLLECTION – CLASSICS
It was a smart and enlightening move to put both LITTLE CAESAR and THE PUBLIC ENEMY together in this dynamic quartet. LITTLE CAESAR was the DRACULA of the Gangster genre. The ills of the sudden Talkie...
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VIOLET & DAISY
Violet & Daisy were the names of the Hilton twins, conjoined sisters who had a fruitful life in vaudeville (except that their earnings were taken from them by family and management) and appeared...
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BREAKING BAD: SEASON FIVE
Season four was out of control. The writers seemed to be flailing around for narrative threads, even though there was still, often, the sense that revelations and twists in these episodes had been...
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THE SILVER CHALICE (Warner Bros Archive Collection)
Many fine talents crashed and burned on this production. In front of the camera, everyone bit the dust…everyone that is except Jack Palance, hamming it up in a strangely mellow manner, decked out for...
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THE GIRL
Back when I was teaching at the New School in Manhattan, Donald Spoto was supervising the dept, and we spoke now and then. I remember helping him with a book he was doing on Stanley Kramer by loaning...
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BANSHEE (HBO Home Entertainment)
Loved the painting on the DVD cover – a striking example of Regional Art with matte finish. It has nothing in common with the hard-hitting hyper-speed style of the show. An interesting choice, and I’m...
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SUGARFOOT (WB Archives) Season One, 1957/58, 20 episodes.
The collection box cover features a medium close up of Will Hutchins as the lead character, brandishing a six-shooter which is prominently displayed near his face. Misleading. Tom Brewster (Hutchins)...
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DETECTIVE INSPECTOR IRENE HUSS
Two 3-packs of the popular Swedish TV crime series are now available. Each episode runs about an hour and a half. Featured is Angela Kovacs as a police detective with the violent crimes unit, who is...
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