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When and where does the American western become great political art? Play it again, Johnny.
CineSavant
aka DVD Savant
Latest posts
CineSavant Column
Hello! A season or two ago The Warner Archives George Feltenstein promised great Blu-ray news going forward on a monthly basis, and it soon became clear that he wasn t kidding since spring the monthly tally of WAC releases per month has doubled; every month has had can t-miss-it special items ( Last Summer) and [ ]
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With scenes on Halloween, Christmas, and April 9, Appomattox Day! , this is a regular Holiday movie!
CineSavant Column
Hello! It s pretty clever . Joe Dante circulated this 1960s TV spot reportedly written by comic Stan Freberg. The direction is excellent most spots trying to look hip like this one, quickly date, but this one is as funny as ever. We always thought that Clayton Moore and Jay Silverheels were spot-on with [ ]
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Harry doesn t need a bigger boat. He had all the clues, too. It s a study of the uselessness of good intentions.
CineSavant Column
Hello! Here I am, linking to an article I don t like. I don t think it reads as if written by AI; I just don t agree with much of anything in it. It s about Sam Peckinpah, with his personality and career spun to create an attractive image for a site called Drunkard. The first tip-off [ ]
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They had faces in every decade here s a much admired pair from the 1960s.
Cinesavant Column
Hello! Once again Michael McQuarrie surfaces with a good link. This is to a vintage audio recording called Vincent Price Witchcraft Magic . I had never heard of this record album, but according to CineSavant cohort Wayne Schmidt, it was a serious part of his childhood: I love this album. I ve had it [ ]
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Ancient sagas were made for the big screen Erich Pommer gave this one a fantastic production in high style.
CineSavant Column
Hello! It s disc round-up time here at CineSavant, mainly because the place suddenly has a surfeit of attractive product to review. Not pictured and for that reason mentioned up top are titles being prepped by reviewer Charlie Largent, Kino s new disc of Elvis in King Creole and Deaf Crocodile s splendid new box of Fairy [ ]
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Philip Kaufman did a western, and it s great. It s got Robertson, Duvall, Askew, Armstrong, Elcar, Moffat and Clark.
CineSavant Column
Hello! Lots of interesting email input this week. People are finally receiving their 4Ks of The 7th Voyage of Sinbad, and some were nice enough to write in and say that I didn t steer them wrong. Friend Craig Reardon wrote a very detailed note saying that he thinks the new encoding is the same [ ]
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Take it from Sugar Smallhouse: Dames, they re worse than flies.
CineSavant Column
Hello! Since everybody s caught up in Odyssey fever at least that s the news says we looked into the past to remember some older, good versions of the same story. The Odyssey is of course the sequel to a larger epic about War, The Iliad. We might be re-reviewing the Wolfgang Peterson version [ ]
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Fall in Behind the Major! her name is Major Barbara Undershaft.
CineSavant Column
Hello! The response to last Saturday s Sinbad review was positive the disc is due very soon, so I d like to hear reactions to it. I ve personally stayed away from Sinbad for a number of years. When re-watching films that are just too familiar, I tend to free-associate and find myself mentally somewhere else. [ ]
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A marvelous sidebar idea in an uneven movie it should have been a classic scene.
CineSavant Column
Hello! We aren t known as the biggest boosters of Jerry Lewis, but neither do we hold a grudge against him and we acknowledge his creativity as a director even though his comedies we like more tend to be by Frank Tashlin. This reel of outtakes and other odds and ends from Lewis s [ ]
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Always welcome, always good a real favorite always.
CineSavant Column
Hello! First up is a simple link to a bit of film analysis I liked, from critic David Cairns, July 11, 2026. I ve been reading about Billy Wilder s Double Indemnity for a long time now, but was surprised that Cairns could put so many great observations and thoughts into such a short space. Some [ ]
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Remember, in this story John is not Sean. Sean is the guy on the right.
CineSavant Column
Hello! It s not difficult to get our attention about anything related to the upcoming genre restorations due soon on disc: Arrow s Soylent Green and Forbidden Planet, Criterion s The Elephant Man, Severin s The War Game, Threads and Danza Macabra 5, Vinegar Syndrome s Explorers, Radiance s The Saragossa Manuscript. The new Hammer people turned our heads the [ ]
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Merry, Merry, more to bury, how does my garden grow? With marble stones and ankle bones and relatives all in a row.
CineSavant Column
Hello! Yet another Joe Dante steer to a an excellent webpage A site called Animation Obsessive has an article up from April 12, 2026, with the inside story of a mini-studio whose output we hold dear: United Productions of America, or simply UPA. UPA is much more than Gerald Mc Boing Boing cartoons. [ ]
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It s Jacqueline Gibson or could it be Katherine Mortenhoe, or maybe Claire Tourneur?
CineSavant Column
Once again Joe Dante sends along an article we can t resist. Twenty years ago I listened from the next room while my teenagers keenly watched the TV show The X-Files. I m not sure I ever saw a single episode all the way through, and I ll accept that I must have missed something good. On [ ]
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TCM recently showed a new remaster of this suspense thriller too. Is a new Woody Strode Blu-ray in the works?
CineSavant Column
Hello! This is an article forwarded by Joe Dante, about a screening/lecture series that most of us will miss. The article is fascinating in itself. From IndieWire on June 26, 2026, writer Jim Hemphill describes the spell cast by Guillermo del Toro in his lecture series at the Academy Museum. Fresh thinking on Alfred [ ]
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TCM showed an A+ digital remaster a few weeks back can a New Blu be in the works?
CineSavant Column
Hello! Congratulations to filmmaker and disc producer Bret Wood. His very good 2002 feature documentary Hell s Highway: The True Story of Highway Safety Films is getting a theatrical release on August 5 from Kino Cult. The notorious docu is described as a morbidly curious exploration of the near-mythical driver education films shown to American [ ]
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This Russ Meyer pic arrrived just as reviewers (Roger Ebert!) started admitting that his movies existed.
CineSavant Column
Hello! We had a good time reading and reviewing Joseph McBride s latest book last month, I Loved Movies, But… but we also enjoyed this piece from FilmInt, an interview of the critic / author / educator conducted by Jonathan Monovich, from June 19. Monovich gets quite efficiently to the center of Joe McBride s [ ]
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It s the original, the good artwork, of course.
CineSavant Column
Hello! For Sale: One Used Spaceship. Gary Teetzel found this ad, looking for a collector with deep pockets It s said to be the original 20th Century Fox model for Klaatu s intergalactic space ship, and it s quite big. I know, I know, it lacks the propulsion system that will take you to Paris at 4,000 [ ]
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Mister Singer s picture now looks darn good, especially in 3-D.
CineSavant Column
Hello! The new issue of Noir City has arrived and it s yet another quality film book in disguise as a special interest magazine. Editors Imogen Sara Smith and Danilo Castro enforce a high bar for quality. The magazine is the academic outreach conduit for the Film Noir Foundation; the articles are at the [ ]
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Now, 4 extra shots of DayQuil ought to mellow me right out
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Hello! We re not feeling too well today and need a day to recover sorry to skip a Tuesday but hope I can be back with a review tomorrow. It ll be a 4K of a Joe Dante classic . Thanks for your patience Glenn Erickson
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Now here s a 106 year-old picture that still plays like new. Once upon a time, Rabbi L w gave life to a man made of clay
CineSavant Column
Hello! Artificial Intelligence is insidious, isn t it? . . . AI playtime videos are beginning to proliferate. Joe Dante circulated this link to a page called CineNova Universe. Its unnamed creator describes himself as an audio-visual artist, art director and music producer; he uses AI to create things that come from the human brain. [ ]
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Experience the rapture of Grape Yum Yum! Pink Put-On! Papaya Surprise! Banana Beige! Periwinkle Pussycat, ohhhhh!
CineSavant Column
Hello! Correspondent Steve Iverson forwarded a link to a YouTube video piece by Adam Savage s Tested , a 25-minute video piece by some really dedicated Star Wars fans. A group of enthusiasts constructed a full recreation of the original Industrial Light and Magic model shop. The level of obsession here is high on the scale. [ ]
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Look, a great American institution is sending a quiet message, which warms my heart. (non-film article)
CineSavant Column
D-Day. Hello! The ever-dependable Darren Gross sends us a real winner. The fledgling magazine Journal of Science Fiction began publishing in 1951, with intial entries contributed by Robert Bloch ( Immodest Proposal ), Fritz Leiber ( Hornbook for the Atomic Age ) and Ray Bradbury ( Where Do I Get My Ideas? ). One of the debut zine s [ ]
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An Improv comic book with Second City talent and the hypnotic, soothing voice of Ken Nordine. Jon Voight IS False Frank !
CineSavant Column
Hello! It s Book Review time, and this week s offering is pretty special. Unlike many film-related books, we read this one front-to-back straight through. It felt more like a good novel than a career bio. We ve been privileged to review filmmaker biographies written by Joseph McBride and Alan K. Rode, and now we have a [ ]
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This confusion between what is and isn t human is going to have a real affect on the perceived value of human life.
CineSavant Column
Hello! We found something interesting while spooling through a better-than-average compilation of 1930s travelogue pictures of Hollywood and environs you know, those YouTube things that show up optimized and colorized. This one has some pretty good items, such as the still-standing radio buildings and the Earl Carroll theater on Sunset, the Griffith Observatory [ ]
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An interesting direction for Vincent and it was very influential for future movies with monsters that start with the letter z.
CineSavant Column
Hello! Hey! From The Warner Archive Collection, it s the FEEL BAD movie of the decade! Frank and Eleanor Perry s Last Summer was a shocker in 1969, and a star-making release for actors Bruce Davison, Richard Thomas and especially Barbara Hershey. It was adapted from a best-seller by Evan Hunter, the author behind Blackboard Jungle, [ ]