What if I told you that there was a movie co-directed by Mario Bava in 1959 that boldly ripped off both The Blob and The Quartermass Experiment? That would be pretty cool, right? You better believe it is! I am not sure how many Italian sci-fi movies were made during this time, but Caltiki the…
The Cinephile Files
Podunk in 4K: Olive Signatures Release of HIGH NOON is a Revelation
Hadleyville is a podunk town in New Mexico. It’s a quiet Sunday morning. Half the town is still in bed, nursing the last night’s hangovers, the other half is in church. At a small civil ceremony, aging U.S. marshal Will Kane (Gary Cooper) has just married Amy (Grace Kelly in her first major film role)…
Olive Films Blu-ray of THE CAPTIVE Puts DeMille on Display
Cecil B. DeMille is a name well known to fans of classic cinema. He directed over fifty films, with the best known being The Ten Commandments and The Greatest Show On Earth. The prestige that comes with those names suggests a proclivity for big epics: big actors, long runtimes. But he got his start in…
The Cinephile Files Special Edition: Counting Down the Top 7 2016 Criterion Releases
Say what you will about 2016, at least The Criterion Collection continued to do the Lord’s work. They continue to be the gold standard by which home video releases are judged with their fantastic restorations and copious extras. Here are the seven best Criterion Blu-ray and DVD releases of 2016. 7. The Complete Lone Wolf…
Grant, Sinatra, and Loren Star in the Classic THE PRIDE AND THE PASSION
The film industry loves romance. Love infiltrates every genre. It’s in big budget action and in small budget horror. It’s in comedies of all shapes and sizes (not just the ones with a “rom” tacked on front). The near-universal applicability of this tango between two people isn’t surprising, or even a bad thing, as it’s…
31 Days, Day 15: Celebrating Half Way to Halloween with THE HORRIBLE DR. HITCHCOCK
The Horrible Dr. Hitchcock is, to modern eyes, a subtle Italian gothic horror. Released in 1962, it riffs on some taboo themes without ever highlighting them to their full squeamish grandeur. Bernard Hitchcock (Robert Flemyng) is a doctor of some repute. He lives in a cavernous mansion with his wife, housekeeper, and cat. It’s something…
31 Days, Day 13: Luke Ventures into THE BEYOND
Eyeball stuff gets me every time. Lucio Fulci’s The Beyond features no less than three cases of eye gouging. It features a couple face meltings, dog attacks, and a scene involving a pack of flesh eating spiders literally tearing a man’s face apart. The Beyond needs to be seen to be believed. There isn’t much…
31 Days, Day 2: THE MONSTER OF PIEDRAS BLANCAS
The Monster of Piedras Blancas is an awkward mouthful of a title. It lacks the instantly memorable ring of something like Creature from the Black Lagoon or Night of the Living Dead. nd it’s fitting too. Monster was destined to be an obscure footnote in 1950s B-Movie Horror. As schlocky creature features go, it’s very…
Dreams of Sexless Sex: The Farsighted’s Introduction to MUBI
[EDITOR’S NOTE: This week’s Stream a Little Stream is our first MUBI edition of recommendations. It also is a double feature entry into The Cinephile Files.] If you haven’t heard about Mubi, let me take the opportunity to recommend it. They have an interesting take on the streaming service model. Instead of offering you a…
The Cinephile Files: The Strange Case of EUREKA
Eureka is a beautiful, mysterious film filled with themes of greed, lust and paranoia. The film opens with us in a blizzard to see Jack McCann (Gene Hackman), a gold prospector, nearly freeze to death before being rescued by a fortune teller (Helena Kallianiotes). She arranges for through “supernatural” means for Jack to hit rich.…
Herk’s Carnival of Cinematic Perfection
Although I didn’t know it at the time, I was introduced to the work of Herk Harvey through Mystery Science Theater 3000. Harvey made educational and industrial shorts in the 1950s for the ominously named Centron Corporation. One such production examined the consequences of academic cheating with hilariously heavy handed existential weight. It was rightfully…
The Cinephile Files: Luke Takes on FANTASTIC PLANET
A woman, half naked, clutches a baby to her breast as she runs terrified through a strange, otherworldly landscape. She is pursued by a giant blue hand, blocking her escape at every turn. It is toying with her. After flicking her down with a cruel boredom, the hand lifts her up into the air and…