FILM FRENZY

Sally Hawkins in Bring Her Back (Photo: A24)

By Matt Brunson

(View From The Couch is a weekly column that reviews what’s new on Blu-ray, 4K and DVD. Ratings are on a four-star scale.)

THE BIG HEAT (1953). Here’s a brutal bit of film noir that’s long been regarded as one of the classics of the genre. Glenn Ford, a dependable actor who starred in a number of hits (including Gilda and The Blackboard Jungle) but whose reputation has been largely marginalized in recent times, headlines as Dave Bannion, an upstanding detective and an even more upstanding family man whose professional and personal lives queasily come together as he pursues Mike Lagana (Alexander Scourby), a criminal kingpin who seemingly controls the entire city. Rocked by tragedy, Bannion will let nothing interfere with his apprehension of Lagana and his sadistic goons Vince (Lee Marvin) and Larry (Adam Williams), and he receives some unlikely help along the way from Debby Marsh (Gloria Grahame), Vince’s girlfriend and a formidable woman who ultimately gives as good as she gets. The sequence involving a percolating pot of coffee is legendary, but along with the expected bursts of violence and tough-guy swaggering, there are numerous scenes of tenderness, many between Bannion and his wife (Jocelyn Brando) as well as between Bannion and Debby. Grahame, who owned the cinema of the 1950s almost as much as Marlon Brando, is typically terrific; she had received the Best Supporting Actress Oscar the previous year for The Bad and the Beautiful, but she was no less worthy for this picture, which allows her to be funny, sexy, confident, and heartbreakingly vulnerable.

Extras in the 4K + Blu-ray edition include audio commentary by film noir experts Alain Silver and James Ursini; audio interviews with Lang; and interviews with filmmakers (and The Big Heat fans) Martin Scorsese and Michael Mann.

Movie: ★★★½

BRAINSTORM (1965). This has no connection to 1983’s Brainstorm, although I suppose it’s no less far-fetched than that science fiction yarn best known as Natalie Wood’s final film. Brainstorm ’65 begins promisingly, as scientist Jim Grayam (Jeffrey Hunter) prevents a miserable stranger named Lorrie Benson (Anne Francis) from committing suicide, only to learn that she’s the wife of his ruthless boss, Cort Benson (Dana Andrews). Cort is a cruel man, and when he learns that Lorrie and Jim have embarked on a love affair, he hatches a revenge plot with the purpose of making his employee appear crazy. His scheme is inspired by the fact that Jim had a nervous breakdown many years prior, but Jim figures out how to make this work to his advantage: He’ll pretend to be truly mad, then murder Cort and claim not guilty by reason of insanity. The first half, which leans into its noirish elements, offers the requisite intrigue, but once the insane-in-the-brain angle is introduced, the story grows too convoluted and stumbles its way to an obvious ending. Look for Strother Martin and an uncredited Richard Kiel (“Jaws” to Bond fans) as two asylum inmates, and devotees of National Lampoon’s Animal House (and we are legion) will instantly recognize the opening line from the song warbled by another inmate (“I gave my love a cherry…”), since it figures in a great toga-party scene in the John Belushi comedy classic.

Blu-ray extras consist of the 1950 cartoon The Hypo-Chondi-Cat; the 1965 cartoon Well Worn Daffy; and the trailer for the double feature release of Brainstorm and The Woman Who Wouldn’t Die.

Movie: ★★½

BRING HER BACK (2025). Australian twin brothers Danny and Michael Philippou made their mark with 2022’s Talk to Me (reviewed here), a unique horror film that earned critical raves and ranks as one of A24’s top-grossing pictures. The bros are back with Bring Her Back, but don’t look for a sophomore slump — darn if this one isn’t as creepy, and thus as memorable, as its predecessor. Sally Hawkins, the star of the Best Picture Oscar winner The Shape of Water, is forced to again confront the shape of water, here employed as a metaphor to be found in a swimming pool, in a bathtub or in a downpour. Like Talk to Me, this explores the concept of grief after the loss of a loved one and what happens when attempts are made to reestablish contact. Hawkins, so sweet in practically everything (Happy-Go-Lucky, Paddington), pulls off a terrifying about-face as Laura, an unhinged foster parent whose blind teenage daughter recently drowned in their swimming pool. The troubled Andy (Billy Barratt) and the visually impaired Piper (Sora Wong), step-siblings whose father mysteriously died in the shower, are sent to live with her, and they discover that she’s also looking after a strange boy called Oliver (Jonah Wren Phillips). Laura has ominous plans for Piper, which is why she bonds with the girl while alienating Andy. The fate of one character is presented inefficiently (it reminds me of the climactic mishandling of Toni Collette’s character in Hereditary), but this is overall a first-rate chiller with particular resonance for devotees of body-horror cinema.

Blu-ray extras consist of audio commentary by the Philippous and a making-of featurette.

Movie: ★★★

CITY ON FIRE (1987). Over the decades, many critics and cineastes (even some found in this release’s bonus features) have excoriated Quentin Tarantino for what they feel was his blatant stealing of material from City on Fire to utilize in his own debut feature, 1992’s Reservoir Dogs. The naysayers usually made it sound like Tarantino basically did an unauthorized shot-by-shot remake of the Hong Kong action flick, when the truth is that he took only the final 10-15 minutes and expanded that one scene into a full-length flick of his own. For his part, he never hid this fact, and City on Fire director Ringo Lam has stated that he never had a problem with it. At any rate, it’s not like City on Fire influenced only the Tarantino picture — on the contrary, the creators of numerous crime flicks have been tapping this particular well for decades. Chow Yun-fat largely came into his own with his charismatic performance as Ko Chow, an undercover police officer who will only be allowed to resign after one final assignment. A gang of jewelry thieves has been terrorizing the city, even causing cop and civilian deaths, and it’s Chow’s job to infiltrate the group and ascertain the location of their next heist. He manages to join the outfit, but he didn’t count on unexpectedly bonding with one of the gang members, the street-smart Fu (Danny Lee). The humor is occasionally awkward and the characterizations not especially deep, but the action is aces and the visual dynamics are frequently intoxicating.

Extras in the 4K + Blu-ray edition include film historian audio commentary; an interview with scripter Tommy Sham; and an image gallery.

Movie: ★★★

THE COBWEB (1956). A major disappointment from Vincente Minnelli, this mediocrity finds the helmer of Meet Me in St. Louis and Father of the Bride (and The Band Wagon, covered in From Screen To Stream below) struggling to add any semblance of dramatic tension to this all-star endeavor. Adapted by John Paxton from William Gibson’s novel — and with Gibson tapped to provide additional dialogue when Paxton’s script failed to satisfy Minnelli — this centers on the staff and patients at a psychiatric institute known as The Castle. Dr. Stewart McIver (Richard Widmark) is the chummy new head, taking over from the seasoned Dr. Douglas Devanal (Charles Boyer). Stewart is facing marital issues since his wife Karen (Gloria Grahame) feels neglected by her workaholic husband; Dr. Devanal, himself married (I was startled to see an older Fay Wray playing his wife, since she appeared in relatively few films after her 1930s heyday), puts the moves on Karen while Stewart finds himself attracted to the facility’s artistic director, Meg Rinehart (Lauren Bacall). All hell breaks loose when new curtains are ordered for the institution’s library and different opinions on the matter are formulated by Stewart, Karen, Devanal, and the bureaucratic skinflint Victoria Inch (Lillian Gish). Grahame, who (as noted in the review for The Big Heat above) won a Best Supporting Actress Oscar for Minnelli’s The Bad and the Beautiful, is the only cast member to make much of an impression, but everyone is defeated by the overarching melodramatics.

Blu-ray extras include a 1955 MGM promotional short looking at some of the studio’s upcoming titles (including The Cobweb) and the 1956 Tom & Jerry cartoon The Egg and Jerry.

Movie: ★★

THE CONJURING (2013). Here’s a film successful enough to jumpstart a franchise, even if (despite the hype) it isn’t much more frightening than, say, The Flintstones Meet Rockula and Frankenstone or Scooby-Doo on Zombie Island. Ultimately, it’s just one more commonplace haunted-house yarn, albeit one that’s elevated by James Wan’s relatively restrained direction and characters who are more levelheaded than the usual idiots who populate films like this. Reportedly based on a (ha) true story from the early 1970s, this follows professional hucksters — excuse me, paranormal investigators — Ed and Lorraine Warren (Patrick Wilson and Vera Farmiga) as they’re called upon to check out a house purchased by the Perron family. Stopped clocks, strange clapping sounds, doors creaking open by themselves — time to call the Ghostbusters! Or, in a pinch, the Warrens. To his credit, Wan relies on mood more than cheap scares or buckets of blood, but there’s only so much that can be done with a premise as overexposed as this one. Wan tries to generate some scares with a leering doll that’s no match for Trilogy of Terror’s Zuni warrior, a guest appearance by the title apparition in Mama, and even the Pixar ball being rolled across a floor, but the return on investment is minimal. The first sequel (reviewed here) is an improvement; the second (reviewed here) is not.

4K extras include a retrospective featurette; a piece on the Warrens; and an interview with the Perrons.

Movie: ★★½

KNIGHTS OF THE ROUND TABLE (1953). If 1981’s Excalibur (reviewed here) remains the best movie based on the Arthurian legend and 1967’s Camelot (see From Screen To Stream below) and 2017’s King Arthur: Legend of the Sword (reviewed here) rank among the worst, Knights of the Round Table can at least claim the honor of being the dullest. This stodgy epic stars two of the most boring stars of the period, Robert Taylor and Mel Ferrer, as Lancelot and Arthur, with Ava Gardner only slightly less snoozy than her leading men as Guinevere. Arthur and Guinevere are the hottest couple in Camelot, but that doesn’t stop Lancelot and Guinevere from casting longing looks at each other. Arthur’s half-sister Morgan le Fay (Anne Crawford) and her boy toy Modred (Stanley Baker) notice the attraction and manipulate the situation, hoping it will bring down the king and his court. I’ve seen surfboards with more flexibility than Taylor and Ferrer, and the leaden dialogue only accentuates their immobility. Taylor, director Richard Thorpe, producer Pandro S. Berman, and co-scripter Noel Langley had collaborated the previous year on Ivanhoe (reviewed here), which made millions (#6 on the year’s top moneymakers list) and earned an Oscar nomination for Best Picture; while also successful at the box office (#10), this had to settle for only a pair of technical noms (Best Color Art Direction-Set Decoration and Best Sound Recording).

Blu-ray extras include an introduction by Ferrer; newsreel footage from the gala premiere; the 1954 short MGM Jubilee Overture; and the Oscar-nominated 1957 cartoon One Droopy Knight.

Movie: ★★

SOMETHING NEW (2006). From Silver Streak to Bringing Down the House, there have been countless movies in which an uptight Caucasian is taught how to loosen up by an African-American acquaintance. Something New reverses that formula, but beyond this little-seen novelty, there’s not much about this romantic comedy that transcends the story’s expected ebb and flow. Here, the rigid individual is Kenya McQueen (Sanaa Lathan), a workaholic who doesn’t have time to look for her IBM (ideal black male). When she finally does make time to go on a blind date, she’s stunned to discover that the guy, a landscape architect named Brian Kelly (Simon Baker), is white. Initially resistant, she soon realizes he’d make a suitable boyfriend. But once Kenya is introduced to her “perfect mate,” a black businessman (Blair Underwood) who shares her work ethics and outlook on life, she’s forced to make a decision between what she wants and what society expects. This rom-com from director Sanaa Hamri and screenwriter Kriss Turner (both making feature-film debuts) is a diamond in the rough, blessed with a vibrant leading lady and choice moments dealing with racial tensions but marred by occasional clunky dialogue and perfunctory supporting characters. Something New delivers more often than not, but for a truly exemplary love story starring Sanaa Lathan, check out 2000’s irresistible Love and Basketball (reviewed here).

Blu-ray extras include a making-of featurette.

Movie: ★★½

THEY DIED WITH THEIR BOOTS ON (1941). The biopics produced by Warner Bros. during the 1930s and ‘40s weren’t exactly known for their adherence to historical accuracy, yet They Died With Their Boots On is often so outlandish that viewers will instantly realize that history is getting assaulted and murdered right before their eyes. Yet the results are so entertaining that it’s hard to get too indignant. Flynn delivers a typically robust performance as George Armstrong Custer, whose career arc is traced from his days as a mischievous West Point cadet through his years of heroism during the Civil War and finally to his fateful last stand at Little Bighorn. Olivia de Havilland co-stars as Custer’s sweetheart and eventual wife Elizabeth “Libbie” Bacon, while a young Anthony Quinn portrays Oglala chief (and Little Bighorn victor) Crazy Horse. The characterization of Custer is more believable when he’s leading Union troops against Confederate scumbags during the Civil War stretch and less so in the later scenes when he’s sympathetic to Native Americans and swears to honor all treaties benefiting them. The Civil War and Little Bighorn battle scenes are superbly staged, and the film also marks the eighth and final screen teaming of Flynn and de Havilland.

Blu-ray extras consist of a retrospective featurette; “Warner Night at the Movies,” which, emulating the moviegoing experience from decades past, includes a newsreel, a short film, a cartoon, and a trailer before the main attraction; and the theatrical trailer.

Movie: ★★★

FILM CLIPS

THE ALTO KNIGHTS (2025). The Alto Knights reunites the writer (Nicholas Pileggi), producer (Irwin Winkler), and top-billed star (Robert De Niro) of 1990’s GoodFellas, but don’t look for Martin Scorsese, as even he presumably knew this was one mob movie too many. Instead, Bugsy director Barry Levinson takes the reins of a motion picture that would play far better if it didn’t always feel like a “Greatest Hits” compilation. Still, the hits keep coming, meaning there’s nevertheless some entertainment value to be mined in this fact-based drama about the rivalry between gangsters Frank Costello and Vito Genovese. De Niro plays both mobsters, a decision brought about by either the actor’s desire to have some fun or the filmmakers’ desire to save on one extra salary. Certainly, this stunt casting is not for the benefit of the audience, as it isn’t dynamic enough (or even unusual enough) to rate a salute.

The 4K + Digital Code edition contains no extras.

Movie: ★★½

THE INVENTION OF LYING (2009). Here’s a working definition of the cliché about a script needing one final rewrite before reaching its full potential. Writer-director-star Ricky Gervais has come up with a terrific idea for a movie — a man who lives in a world in which everyone has always told the truth discovers he suddenly has great power after he tells civilization’s first recorded fib — and he peoples his cast with an apt leading lady (Jennifer Garner), a strong supporting cast (Tina Fey and Jeffrey Tambor, among others), and even a few amusing cameos (Edward Norton, Philip Seymour Hoffman). Yet despite some choice comic bits and interesting food for thought (most regarding the “man in the sky”), the overall result is never quite as amusing — or as trenchant — as the material warrants. Still, I’d be lying if I said it wasn’t worth your time.

Blu-ray extras include a making-of piece; a prequel of sorts, The Dawn of Lying; deleted scenes; and outtakes.

Movie: ★★½

FROM SCREEN TO STREAM

THE BAND WAGON (1953). The 1931 Broadway revue The Band Wagon was the basis for director Vincente Minnelli’s opulent MGM musical, for which the legendary writing team of Betty Comden and Adolph Green (Singin’ in the Rain, On the Town) built a plot around the stage show’s Howard Dietz-Arthur Schwartz songs and in the process made a film that’s amusingly self-reflexive. While not as perceptive — or hilarious — as 1952’s Singin’ in the Rain in its skewering of backstage shenanigans among artists, it offers plenty of astute observations as it centers on has-been movie star Tony Hunter (Fred Astaire), who hopes his flagging fortunes will be salvaged by appearing in a lightweight Broadway musical written by his friends Lily and Lester Marton (Nanette Fabray and Oscar Levant). But problems materialize when the Martons select as their director Jeffrey Cordova (Jack Buchanan), a self-important blowhard who changes the Martons’ frothy piece into a portentous reimagining of Faust. To further complicate matters, Cordova decides the leading lady should be ballet star Gabrielle Gerard (Cyd Charisse), whose classical training causes Tony to wonder whether their different styles will allow them to be compatible dancers. Buchanan easily steals the show as the pompous director, and key musical bits include the dreamy “Dancing in the Dark,” the amusing “Triplets,” and the classic “That’s Entertainment,” which was introduced in this film. This earned three Oscar nominations, including one for Best Story & Screenplay.

Movie: ★★★

CAMELOT (1967). This lumbering adaptation of the Broadway smash features some catchy (though not top-drawer) Lerner & Loewe compositions and lavish production values but remains dramatically inert throughout its three-hour running time. The roles of King Arthur, Guenevere, and Lancelot were played on stage by Richard Burton (who won a Tony), Julie Andrews, and Robert Goulet, but after Burton and Andrews turned down the opportunity to reprise their roles and Goulet was bypassed altogether, Richard Harris, Vanessa Redgrave, and Franco Nero snatched up the parts. They prove to be a less-than-scintillating love triangle, and Joshua Logan’s heavy-handed direction insures that the intensity of the romances gets muted at every turn. (On the plus side, Redgrave and Nero became a couple while making this movie, and, following a lengthy stretch apart, reconciled, got married in 2006, and remain together to this day.) The film is often so misguided that it threatens to become a spoof worthy of Monty Python or Mel Brooks — the doddering King Pellinore (Lionel Jeffries) could easily fit into the landscape of Monty Python and the Holy Grail, and when Harris’ Arthur hisses, “I demand a man’s vengeance!” he sounds exactly like Cloris Leachman bleating, “Death to King Louis!” in Brooks’ History of the World: Part I. (And an unfortunate shadow crossing the actor’s face during that scene recalls David Krumholtz’s line in 10 Things I Hate About You: “I have a dick on my face, don’t I?”) Nominated for five Academy Awards, this won three: Best Music Adaptation, Art Direction-Set Decoration, and Costume Design.

Movie: ★½

DAYS OF GLORY (1944). The opening credits of Days of Glory take care to slowly acknowledge each individual in its “brilliant cast of new personalities,” but while a couple would enjoy minor careers — and the majority would eventually be forgotten altogether — only one would move on to an illustrious career. Receiving top billing along with renowned Russian ballerina Tamara Toumanova, Gregory Peck makes his film debut as Vladimir, the leader of a band of Russian guerillas bravely protecting their homeland against the Nazis. Vladimir is all business until a dancer (Toumanova) joins their ranks, and the pair embark on a passionate affair even as the enemy threat around them grows stronger. The great director Jacques Tourneur (Cat People) seems more restrained than usual, perhaps in deference to the gung-ho script by writer-producer Casey Robinson (who would soon marry Toumanova). With the Cold War and the Hollywood blacklist just around the corner, movies in which Russians were the heroes would soon become obsolete, but at any rate, this one remains above the political fray to focus exclusively on convincing battlefield heroics (these scenes earned the film an Oscar nomination for Best Special Effects). The stiff Toumanova would only appear in five more movies over the next 26 years, but Peck immediately followed Days of Glory with The Keys of the Kingdom, which earned him the first of his five Best Actor Oscar nominations and kicked off a distinguished career.

Movie: ★★½

INSIDE DEEP THROAT (2005). “[Porn] lived in some mid-world between crime and art, and it was adventurous.” So states novelist Norman Mailer in this groovy documentary from directors Fenton Bailey and Randy Barbato (The Eyes of Tammy Faye). The pair unearth plenty of archival material and shoot yards of new interviews to add some perspective to the saga of Deep Throat, the 1972 hardcore sensation that briefly legitimized porn (everyone went to see it, not just shifty men concealed under dark raincoats) while also becoming the centerpiece in any number of culture wars. At the time, it was a given to many of those interviewed that porn and mainstream cinema would eventually merge, creating works of art that were unabashedly adult in nature. Instead, the dark forces of censorship and repression (led by Richard Nixon and Charles Keating, two corrupt individuals naturally painting themselves as paragons of virtue) quickly put the kibosh on that notion. The porn industry’s ties to the mob aren’t sufficiently fleshed out, and the feminists who appear throughout the film to either defend pornography or denounce it are ultimately given short shrift — indeed, Bailey and Barbato often have trouble corralling the diverse opinions in order to make any sticking points. Yet what’s most memorable about this documentary is noting the ordinariness of those involved in the X-rated feature (director Gerard Damiano, stars Linda Lovelace and Harry Reems), guileless folks who had no idea that their modest cinematic romp would change not only their lives but the culture of the country.

Movie: ★★★

LITTLE BIG MAN (1970). Directed by Arthur Penn and scripted by Calder Willingham (adapting Thomas Berger’s 1964 novel), Little Big Man is one of the great films of the 1970s. Amusingly, it also anticipates Forrest Gump in the manner in which it centers on a decent man who meets several notable figures while taking a volatile journey through a thorny chapter in American history. Dustin Hoffman stars as Jack Crabbe, an elderly man who reflects on his experiences as a young boy raised by the Cheyenne, a naive youth educated by whites, an adult who returns to live with his Native American brothers, and, finally, a survivalist engaged in a deadly contest of wills with the demented George Custer (Richard Mulligan). The movie has a wicked sense of humor that’s mixed with the drama, although it’s still tough to watch the scenes in which white men brutalize innocent people of color (as Trump reminds us daily, one of the things this nation admittedly still does best). The then-33-year-old Hoffman delivers a towering performance in the lead role, aging from 17(!) to 121(!!) years old (Dick Smith of The Exorcist fame designed his excellent makeup). As Crabbe’s adopted Cheyenne father, a saintly sage constantly muttering, “It’s a good day to die,” Chief Dan George earned a Best Supporting Actor Oscar nomination after nabbing awards from the New York Film Critics Circle and the National Society of Film Critics.

Movie: ★★★★

RAT RACE (2001). Accentuating the positive first, there’s a scene in Rat Race in which Jon Lovitz’s character agrees to take his wife and kids to the Barbie Museum, only to discover that it’s actually a site dedicated to Klaus Barbie, the infamous Nazi butcher. It’s a wonderful gag, so how the hell did it end up in this picture? Following in the tenuous comic tradition of It’s a Mad Mad Mad Mad World, The Cannonball Run, and Million Dollar Mystery, this also finds various strangers taking to the highway in a race to see who can reach the proverbial pot of gold first. In this case, the prize is two million dollars, the sponsor is a casino tycoon (John Cleese), and the journey takes the participants from Las Vegas to Silver City, NM. Director Jerry Zucker was one of the guiding lights behind Airplane! and Kentucky Fried Movie, so it’s possible he was attracted to this project by a couple of the vignettes: Lovitz’s road trip (in Hitler’s car, no less) builds to a satisfying payoff, and Rowan Atkinson provides his scenes with some sparkle. But the remaining episodes (featuring Whoopi Goldberg, Cuba Gooding Jr., and Seth Green, among others) are terrible, replacing comic invention with shrill mimicry and random chaos. A busload of Lucille Ball impersonators sounds funny on paper but here merely brings on a headache; ditto for the bits involving airborne cows, a helicopter assault on a swimming pool, and a charity concert spearheaded by the then-ubiquitous Smash Mouth.

Movie: ★½