Love Roman Holiday though I may, Audrey Hepburn won her Oscar for the wrong movie. Arguments can be made for Breakfast and Tiffany’s or, I suppose, My Fair Lady, and I wouldn’t deny that she’s luminous in all of them. However, for my money, the actress gave her best performance in Wait Until Dark, the… Read More The World’s Champion Blind Lady | Wait Until Dark (1967) Blu-ray
In the very brief span of just nineteen months, between multiple Oscar wins for The Deer Hunter in April 1979 to the disastrous financial and critical failure of Heaven’s Gate in November 1980, Michael Cimino went from being a celebrated Hollywood darling to a pariah in the filmmaking industry. The director wouldn’t attempt (or wouldn’t… Read More You’re Too Impressed with Yourself | Year of the Dragon (1985) Blu-ray
Released very early in 1950 as one of the first new American films of that decade, the noir thriller Gun Crazy wasn’t regarded as a piece of art worthy of much distinction, at least not at first. Upon its arrival, notable critics of the day dismissed it as just another B-movie, a trashy crime picture… Read More Fine Shot You Are | Gun Crazy (1950) Blu-ray
Three years before his pop culture breakthrough role in Twin Peaks, Kyle MacLachlan got his first practice at playing a weirdo FBI agent in the sci-fi thriller The Hidden. While the film wasn’t much of a box office smash at the time, it went on to become a cult item, especially among fans of the… Read More Explanation’s Not Gonna Help You | The Hidden (1987) Blu-ray
Robert Altman’s final film, completed and released to theaters just five months before his death, A Prairie Home Companion is generally considered a minor work from the legendary director, often relegated to a trivia note in his career, if not forgotten amidst his more popular and acclaimed successes. That fate is at least a little… Read More Every Show’s Your Last Show | A Prairie Home Companion (2006) Warner Archive Blu-ray
Author H. Rider Haggard’s 1885 adventure novel King Solomon’s Mines has been popular fodder for movie and TV adaptations over the years, most of them sadly not very good. Of the various attempts to bring it to screen, the most successful and arguably best was the 1950 version starring Stewart Granger and Deborah Kerr, which… Read More A Woman on Safari? No Thank You! | King Solomon’s Mines (1950) Warner Archive Blu-ray
The Video File Blog 