When David Lean’s 1962 epic "Lawrence of Arabia" first appeared on movie screens, it was hailed as an evolutionary leap in large-scale filmmaking and storytelling. When it blazed in 1989 again, courtesy of an extensive restoration to its [...]
An odd-duck entry in the Hitchcock catalog, 1955’s "The Trouble With Harry" was something of an experiment for the Master of Suspense. The film lacked a big star roster (although it introduced a mega-star to be), immersed its pitch-black [...]
Fans of "The Doors, " Oliver Stone’s 1991 fantasia about the life of rock legend Jim Morrison and his influential music, will rejoice in Artisan Entertainment’s reissue of the title as a new Special Edition DVD. Aside from a pulsing 5.1 [...]
Filmmaker Arnold Leibovit remembers the man who has changed his life and work forever, the great George Pal. I am an unabashed fan of George Pal. My initiation to the works of this sweet Hungarian gentleman stems from my father’s (who is also [...]
In 1982’s ’Evil Under The Sun, ’ arguably the best of the Agatha Christie book-to-film transformations, Peter Ustinov once again dons the handlebar moustache and fussy virtuosity of Belgian super-sleuth Hercule Poirot. At an exclusive island resort, [...]
While not on par with other Agatha Christie adaptations, 1980’s ’The Mirror Crack’d’ still charms with the patented Christie formula of mixing murder with British manners. This time out, the always-wonderful Angela Lansbury portrays flower-loving [...]
A landmark in science fiction cinema, H.G. Wells’ ’Things To Come’ charts the progress of mankind through the century-long odyssey of a single city. Starting in 1940, Everytown (a thinly veiled London) is a typical bustling community in the carefree [...]
Watching an Agatha Christie movie is like enjoying a cup of warm mulled wine on a rainy night. Even if viewed now as dusty relics, her mysteries spoke to the autocrat as well as the moralist demanding justice. 1978’s "Death on the Nile" was [...]
Almost everyone I know has small fragments of "Fiend Without A Face" lodged deep within their childhood memories. To a generation of addicts glued to the flickering of a late-night TV set, the monochromatic stop-motion brain monsters of the 1958 [...]
At times deadly earnest and incongruously surreal, Norman Jewison’s 1979 film "…And Justice for All" still sucker punches in its audacious indictment of the corruption and abuse rampant within the legal system. In the generation since [...]
