Savant actually went to the movies twice in two days, and saw MINORITY REPORT. It was a lot of fun, but not a great picture. The details of the future world were fascinating and the movie was stuffed full of interesting ideas - that didn't always advance a story which was basically just like THE FUGITIVE. Yet we had a good time.

It's Criterion day, I guess. Their Hearts and Minds is a superior docu on America's role in the Vietnam conflict that is gripping and persuasive. The commentary track from director Peter Davis is extremely good ... Savant listened all the way through!

The Last Wave is an excellent Peter Weir spiritual mystery that takes lawyer Richard Chamberlain into a journey of discovery. Weird weather, including a rain of frogs, heralds his initiation into the mysterious Aboriginal parallel reality called Dream Time.

THE LAST WAVE is the second film in "Classic World Cinema from The Criterion Collection", a television series being shown this July and August on the Sundance Channel, every weekend night at 9PM. The Australian film airs this coming Sunday, July 7. The first feature in the series is Federico Fellini's Juliet of the Spirits, and it shows on Saturday, July 6 at 9PM. Savant will be writing new reviews of most of the titles in the series, and announcing them here. Have a pleasant new week! Glenn Erickson

No new reviews until tomorrow night, but I wanted to let you know about a screening of EIGHT LEGGED FREAKS I've just returned from. I'm not exactly an insider, but through a film teacher friend I sometimes get into these screenings where studios need good audiences when they show their new titles to critics. Well, I didn't see a single critic show up for tonight's show (where were they, all watching Adam Sandler down the street?) but the audience loved the movie and I thought it was fine. They'll have 800 people spreading positive word of mouth for the next week and I think the movie will do well.

The TARANTULA - like poster wasn't very appealing, and I have to admit that I wouldn't have gone on my own, but EIGHT LEGGED FREAKS was a TREMORS- like oldfashioned creepy crawly scare picture that's lighthearted, good natured, fun, and exciting. It's reasonably intelligent, has pleasant characters we like (including Scarlett Johanssen from GHOST WORLD) and a LOT of spiders of all sizes. The fairly generic beginning launches into a solid middle section where monster movie conventions are nicely twisted - people don't unreasonably stay in denial about the menace, the doofus deputy turns out to be a can-do guy, and people aren't killed based upon their sexual activity or status as villains. The spiders would be easily defeated by gunfire .... if there weren't so blinking many of them.

The action is exciting and there's plenty of fun 'boo!' moments. Most of the comedy works (except for one or two too many SPIDERMAN jokes) and the picture was a crowdpleaser, not too gross and definitely entertaining. People applauded in pleasant surprise at the end. So Savant gives a happy positive nod to the movie.

Early peeks at the Fox SuperSpy DVDs are positive - I've got other obligations to review first, but I'll try to get them out before street date. Thanks! Glenn Erickson

Greetings from the desk of Savant, who's just received some Fox SuperSpy capers, and can't wait to get at them! But first, here's a pair of interesting titles:

Image Entertainment's Without Limits: NASA Test Projects is a trio of engrossing docus on high-desert jet and rocket research, that can boast great test footage, and key interviews with the engineers and designers, and the test pilots who fly the experimental aircraft.

Columbia TriStar's Beijing Bicycle is the intense story of a battle for possession of a silver mountain bike, that a messenger needs for his work, and a student needs to impress his friends. It's a very small-scaled, beautifully-photographed Chinese film that seems to expand into bigger meanings.

Savant's been receiving lots of mail about the new 1776 DVD - specifically if it's as long as the older Pioneer laserdisc. Well, it's more complicated than that, so the 1776 review has been amended with some new notes, and a link to a very informative webpage. Thanks for reading, Glenn Erickson

Savant slips into high gear with a fun musical restored with stuff you've probably never seen before, and two special discs of mind-warping educational films.

Fantoma has hit the spot with two releases, Driver's Ed. & On the Job. They're two more volumes from the fearsome Educational Archive, with great titles like The Trouble with Women and The Last Prom. Find out why your attitude at work is so rotten - it's your fault! See 13-year-olds Joyride to doom in a stolen car!

Columbia's new disc of 1776 restores 25 minutes to this very good musical about the founding fathers. William Daniels, Ken Howard and a jovial Howard Da Silva jig and minuet to the revolutionary top ten.

Excellent news from Columbia tonight - EARTH VS THE FLYING SAUCERS will be saucering its way into stores on September 17. We'd heard it was going to be a double-bill with the kingsize Octopus opus IT CAME FROM BENEATH THE SEA, but if it just has a good 16:9 transfer, all will be kopasetic. Thanks for hangin' in and see ya on Wednesday or thereabouts. Glenn Erickson

DVD Savant's gotten some good sleep and is back with two reviews of very desirable features ... that you many not know about:

Criterion's The Importance of Being Earnest is the kind of movie Savant avoids, and then can't get enough of. Find out why Oscar Wilde is cracked up to be one of the great wits of all time, through the charming performances of Michael Redgrave, Joan Greenwood, Edith Evans, and Margaret Rutherford.

Columbia's Old Gringo is a superior historical drama about revolutionary Mexico from the great Carlos Fuentes novel. A famous author goes to see Pancho Villa and die, but becomes part of the obsessive story of a mad General. Jane Fonda, Jimmy Smits and best of all, Gregory Peck star.

Next up from Savant, the musical I promised, plus more of those weird Fantoma Educational films! Glenn Erickson

Hello! Just one review tonight, as I haven't been home from work long enough to do more ... Will catch up on the weekend!

Happy father's day from sunny Hollywood.

Savant's been fending off more flame Email than usual. When I get notes like the one flatly stating that Noam Chomsky is a crackpot fraud and I am his stooge, I just have to answer, 'Thank you for your opinion', and call it a day. However, more often than not, a reasonable response will at least convince the writer that Savant's not an irredeemable creep, even if he still thinks I write like one. And that's how I like to keep things .. no firebombs or dead cats on my doorstep, thankyouverymuch. Actually, some of my harshest critics have become the best penpals, and I welcome their criticism to make me question my personal view of things.

On to today's reviews. Columbia Tristar gets a base hit with their fun disc of Ray Harryhausen's monster show 20 Million Miles to Earth. It's the technically wonderful and dramatically almost-wonderful tale of a dangerous Venusian creature in Italy that's poked, stabbed, shocked with electricity and then hunted down like, like, a dangerous Venusian creature. It's Ray's last b&w film and has some of his most accomplished animation.

Paramount's Western Will Penny is actually a superior character study, that mixes its romance with some mad menace via a crazed Donald Pleasance. Charlton Heston and Joan Hackett star in this celebrated sleeper.

DVD Savant continues to watch, and write, and try to find discs you'll enjoy. Have a great Sunday and see you soon! GE

Savant is hanging on here in Hollywood, keeping the reviews coming while editing once again ... and happy to be doing both!

Paramount's Bad Company is a seldom seen gem from Robert Benton, his directorial debut. Jeff Bridges and Barry Brown play punk draft evaders from the Civil War, who find out that living by one's wits out West isn't as easy as they thought it would be. An unusually good film.

Warner's DVD of Blake Edwards' The Great Race is a splendid disc of a lavish, sprawling comedy that may or may not be your idea of humor .. but there's no denying the quality of the production, or the talents of Tony Curtis, Natalie Wood, and Jack Lemmon.

Next up, another classic Western, and some vintage Ray Harryhausen. Glenn Erickson

Two fast reviews tonight: First Run Features' The Murderers are Among Us looks like a German expressionist masterpiece, but it's the first film made in the country after the fall of Hitler. Propagandistic but powerful nonetheless, it stars Hildegard Knef and a few million broken bricks.

Warners DVD of Blake Edwards' Victor/Victoria puts the raucous comedy about a female impersonator who's a female, the best possible spin. Julie Andrews and especially Robert Preston shine in this lavishly produced musical. More DVD reviews to come soon ... Glenn Erickson

A weekend comes to a close, with another UK Region 2 PAL disc report from Lee Broughton, this time covering the BBC Worldwide release of two separate, feature-length Doctor Who adventures, The Tomb of the Cybermen & Vengeance on Varos. Lee knows his Doctor Who facts ... these two episodes star Patrick Troughton and Colin Baker as the good doctor.

More Blake Edwards, more Harryhausen, a creepy post-war German film and a heap o' Westerns coming up from DVD Savant.

DVD Savant is back and on schedule, with reviews from three ends of the genre spectrum.

All Day Entertainment's Vincent Price The Sinister Image is a great 1987 interview with this most civilized of movie stars, horror or otherwise. And the extras are terrific - two television shows, a radio program, an exhaustive stills section, and more.

Zeitgeist Video's Manufacturing Consent: Noam Chomsky and the Media is a partisan documentary about the social philosopher often dubbed, for better or worse, the 'most important intellectual alive today'. So why does he advocate such radical ideas, and why is he consistently marginalized by the mass media?

Paramount Home Video digs deep into the vaults for a vintage film noir thriller, Sorry, Wrong Number. Bedridden harridan Barbara Stanwyck overhears murderous plans on a bad telephone connection ... could they have something to do with hubby Burt Lancaster's odd behavior?

More reviews on the way, toot sweet ... and perhaps (if I get to the screening on time) a quick review of a new title too. Adíos, Glenn E.

Welcome back to DVD Savant, home of the over-analyzed DVD review!

Today from Criterion, comes an old favorite, The Horse's Mouth. It's a very odd, very endearing film about a scurrilous artist played by Alec Guinness. Gulley Jimson is the most dishonest, abusive, destructive and troublesome con-man imaginable, but he's also a dedicated genius!

Image Entertainment blasts forth with a pair of WHAM BAM Japanese live-action juvenile superhero shows, Ultraman Tiga and Ultraman Dyna & Ultraman Dyna: The Battle in Hyperspace ... please don't make me write that again. Guest reviewer Gary Teetzel provides an analysis sharp enough to make the most discriminating Kaiju or Anime fan nod in approval.

Savant is enjoying the summer sun and the sparkling flow of hot'n cold DVDs ... with a growing stack begging faster reviews. Thanks! Glenn Erickson

Happy debarcation day! While you're storming the beaches, take some time out for a DVD review!

Warner's She Wore a Yellow Ribbon is one of the better John Ford / John Wayne Westerns, and the Technicolor photography of Monument Valley is magnificent. With Joanne Dru, Victor McLaglen and the late John Agar.

Image Enertainment has finally inflicted Edward D. Wood, Jr.'s Night of the Ghouls on us, and it's here not to shock or terrify, but to make us go, "Whaa..?" With the inimitable Tor Johnson, whose makeup makes him look like a snowplow ran over his face.

Savant chanced upon a fun review website written by an Australian woman who analyses films just the way Savant likes them. It's called And You Call Yourself a Scientist! and it's especially concerned with the distortion of science and scientists in movies - writer Liz Kingsley is herself a scientist. With lots of references to 'multi-colored liquids in conical flasks'. See you Saturday, Glenn Erickson

Two reviews of nice Warners DVDs today:

S.O.B. is a fall-down funny satire on the venal ratrace of Hollywood, circa 1980, that's probably a bit more accurate for 1970 ... but William Holden and Robert Preston are hilarious, while Julie Andrews scores some points against her restrictive Disney image.

McCabe & Mrs. Miller is one of Robert Altman's best, a dreamy, murderous Western set in the beautiful Northwest in a town deceptively named Presbyterian Church. Warren Beatty and the Oscar-Nominated Julie Christie star.

A bit more trivia to float on the subject of METROPOLIS, specifically the 20fps, 148 minute version showing on the European arte network this month - the one without the superior music track that enforces a 24fps speed. My contacts who've seen it have noticed a slight choppiness in the flow, as if the action staggers along with extra frames inserted. This is exactly what they're watching. Thomas Bakels of Munich's Alpha Omega tells me that the arte master was made by direct reformatting of the digital restoration files into PAL video. This didn't allow the complex distribution of frames that happens in a telecine, where advanced electronics allow 20 frames to be smoothly transposed over 24 or 25 video frames for each second. Instead, extra frames did have to be inserted to slow down the frame rate. What would seem to be needed for a truly smooth 20 fps video master, is a transfer instead of a completed film negative.

More reviews on Thursday, including a pair of guest reviews of PAL and domestic product! Glenn Erickson

Warner's The Harvey Girls isn't Savant's idea of a great musical, but it's certainly historically great, and of course has one peerless number: "On the Atchison, Topeka and the Santa Fe", reputed to have been filmed by Judy Garland in two shots of only one take each.

Image Entertainment's The Haunted World of Edward D. Wood, Jr. does a very thorough job of recounting the life and times of Hollywood's most maladroit auteur, with many first-hand witnesses to tell the tale, but its promotional slant and lack of perspective (sorry, ol' Ed was not a great anything) limit its appeal.

So, on that other major issue: The METROPOLIS release from KINO is definitely going to be at 24 fps., because that's what they contracted to release from the German rights holders: it synchs up with the original score done in 1926-7 that indeed was meant to be shown with the film at 24 fps.

But the restoration of METROPOLIS is screening this month at 20 fps on Europe's arte channel: Correspondent Guido from Germany reported in with the details:

From Last Friday night: Well, Metropolis is running right now and I know it's a crime to watch it while writing emails. But I'm taping it to watch it completely in the next days. As far as the first hour goes, I can make some observations...

The quality is really stunning. Apart from some occasional scratches the print is amazingly clean. Sometimes the whole picture flickers a bit, but not as much as I expected and the picture looks very stable. It's obvious that this version was assembled from many different prints, but the overall quality is consistent and doesn't look like from 1927 at all. The running speed looks okay and natural. This transfer is a bit windowboxed on all sides, and the round edges of the camera aperture are often visible. Good for TVs with too much overscan, so less picture gets cut off - that's how every 1.33 Transfer should be done.

The Bernd Schuldheis music is a bit strange, it definitely isn't something to listen to every day. I really can't remember what the original score is like, but this new version reminds me strongly of Logan's Run, Planet of the Apes and maybe even Fantastic Voyage. Even if it sounds strange, it's very effective.

If you want to mention the next broadcast times on arte on your website: 7th June at 00:10 and 12th June at 00:00. arte can be received all over Europe via satellite, analog and digital on Astra.

Guido continues, on Sunday, June 1: I tried to find out some more about the possibilities of a good Metropolis DVD, but I couldn't find anything really new. This is what I have so far:

- Apparently there will be at least three different releases: one directly from Transit-Film and the Murnau Foundation in Germany, one British release by Eureka Film and the American release by Kino Video. The German and British releases are loosely scheduled for either late 2002 or early 2003 (so says Transit Film), the American DVD will supposedly be released in summer 2003.

- Kino still claims that 24 fps is the correct speed, given by the German restorers. Somebody also mentioned that some paperwork of the original score surfaced, which had the comment "26-28 fps" (!). My impression is that the arte-broadcast at 20fps (it clocked in at about 148 min.) is perfect, everything else would be either too slow or too fast. 28 fps would look like a bad joke, 24 fps would also be far from natural. I think there are some huge misunderstandings between the restorers and the distributors, but there's lots of time to complain.

One other thing: while searching I found out that there was a screening of METROPOLIS yesterday right in the next city around here. Unfortunately the screening and a second one in two weeks are sold out since the cinema venue isn't very big. But I was told that other showings here in Germany were always accompanied by a live orchestra playing the alternative score, and the speed seems to be identical to the arte-broadcast. I heard that there were plans to show METROPOLIS in the famous "Lichtburg" in Essen (still the largest one-screen-cinema in Europe), but that wasn't possible because it is closed for renovation until December. Bye, Guido

Guido runs an interesting-looking German website on film, and is commenting heavily on METROPOLIS there, in German, of course: Guido's home page. I thank him for his generosity.

The important conclusion from Guido's report is that there are two restored METROPOLIS'es on video - the 'correct' 24 fps KINO-licensed one with the original score, and another 'correct' 20 fps version with the Bernd Schuldheis music. KINO's version will surely sound better (nobody has much praise for the other score), there's no denying that. I certainly hope the version that correctly presents the Fritz Lang movie instead of showcasing the musical score surfaces as well, as I would certainly want to see both. Perhaps it will be shown on TCM, or cable? All one need do to see the potential difference is to dig out the old Moroder version of the film, where the action at 24 fps is so distractingly jerky. Thanks for the patience ... Glenn Erickson

Another Epic tonight, along with a rare Czech movie with a hotsy-totsy reputation.

No real news on METROPOLIS yet; I've talked to one of the restorers but won't print his response until he has a chance to review it. There's a nice thread at The Mobius Home Video Sci Fi Forum debating the topic and I've put my two cents in on the subject there for now. I've gotten a number of nice Emails about this, one today from a European fellow named Guido. He reports that "the French-German tv-channel arte will broadcast the restored version tomorrow (?) night, and that it's listed with a running time of 148 minutes. It will be accompanied by the other newly-recorded score, by Bernd Schuldheis. It was for the screenings at last year's Berlin film festival" - where the Deutches themselves saw fit to show METROPOLIS at 20 fps.

The reviews: MGM's DVD of The Pride and the Passion isn't as wonderful as the others in the series, but the overblown Stanley Kramer production does have a goofy appeal through the glorious miscasting of Frank Sinatra, and the stiff characters assigned Cary Grant and Sophia (yabbadayabbada) Loren.

Image Entertainment's Ecstasy is the German version of a notorious Czech movie from 1932, which stars Hedy Lamarr (then Kiesler) as a lovestruck runaway bride who meets the man of her dreams while skinny dipping. It's sexy as all getout, but mostly because the movie is an almost-silent 'symphony of love' directed very expressionistically in the style of Murnau's SUNRISE. No wonder Lamarr was such a dream girl - she's much more animated and emotional here than in her later MGM films.

Let's see, this is Thursday ... be back on Saturday. Glenn Erickson