4K UHD Review: The Mirror Crack’d
With the success of Murder on the Orient Express and Death on the Nile, it’s no surprise that the same group of producers would forge ahead with another tale by Agatha Christie, this one featuring Miss Marple. Based on the 1962 novel The Mirror Crack’d from Side to Side, 1980’s The Mirror Crack’d stars Angela […]
Blu-ray Review: The Spiral Road
Released in 1962 and based on a novel by Jan de Hertog, The Spinal Road stars Rock Hudson as Anton Drager, an egotistical young doctor in the 1930’s, who maneuvers his way to leprosy-ridden Indonesia to work under famed doctor Brits Jansen (Burl Ives). He must fulfill his contract: five years of service in return […]
Blu-ray Review: Magnificent Obsession (Criterion Collection)
Released in 1954, Magnificent Obsession was directed by Douglas Sirk. While not the German émigré’s first Hollywood film, it would later be recognized as the first to demonstrate what could be called the “Sirkian” style. By the end of the decade, Sirk would release a series of films–All That Heaven Allows (1955), Written on the […]
Hornets’ Nest (Blu-ray)
Widely ignored upon its release in 1970, Hornets’ Nest is set during World War II. Reanoto, Italy, 1944. After residents refused to give up the location of Resistance partisans, the Nazi’s open fire, massacring the entire village. Weeks later, American commando Turner (Rock Hudson), and his team are parachuted into Italy to blow up a […]
All That Heaven Allows (Criterion Collection) (Blu-ray)
A well-known intellectual in Germany before he fled the Nazis, Douglas Sirk came to Hollywood where he worked as a director for hire until he an Ross Hunter developed a kind of high class soap opera that made a fortune for Universal in the 1950’s and in later years made Sirk an inspiration to such […]
DVD Review: Dynasty – The Fifth Season, Volumes 1 and 2
*NOTE: CBS Home Entertainment brings all 29 episodes of season five in two sets, but this time both sets were made available on the same date as standalones or a two-pack. Dynasty was at the peak of success during the fifth season, finishing first in the Neilsen ratings, despite a few notable changes: Fallon (Pamela […]