Funny Face (Blu-ray)

[Note: Parts of this review have appeared in a write-up concerning a previous DVD release of this film.] The first time I saw Fred Astaire glide across the screen with Ginger Rogers in Swing Time (1936), I was mesmerized. They seemed to move so effortlessly, almost as if they were walking on air. Fred led […]

Blu-ray Review: Beauty and the Beast (1946)

Long before Disney’s 1991 animated triumph, Jean Cocteau filmed Beauty and the Beast (La Belle et la Bete) in 1946, in France. Before the days of CGI, and modern creature makeup, Cocteau simply dazzles. Known primarily as a poet and a painter before the release of the film,  Cocteau’s version of the much-filmed Jean-Marie Leprince […]