A few technical glitches at DVD Savant: uploading graphics is a non-functioning function at the moment, so today's two reviews may go without illustration for a short while. Sorry for that, there's nothing wrong at your end.

Warner's Alice Adams is a stunningly good-looking disc of a 1935 (!) RKO film, a real classic starring Katharine Hepburn. Her acting is nigh flawless, but Savant picks apart some of the choices made adapting the book to the screen. With a very young Fred MacMurray.

Image Entertainment surprises us with the comedy Champagne for Caesar, which turns out to be as funny as its fans said it was. Ronald Colman is good as a brainy quiz show contestant, but Vincent Price gets top marks for comedy, pulling off some killer delayed-reaction doubletakes. It's also a weird satire on American mediocrity and media influence, decades before Quiz Show.

Been seeing a lot of the top Movies being pushed for Oscars and other awards. Didn't care for ADAPTATION, but liked ANTWONE FISHER, ABOUT A BOY, and LOVELY AND AMAZING. GANGS OF NEW YORK was impressive, but a bit much in almost all departments. ABOUT SCHMIDT is next on the list.

Rather sad news for LA disc fans. Dave's The Laser Place, a store which grew with the Laserdisc craze and became the outlet for the pricey, letterboxed wonders, has gone out of business. They closed their doors last Thursday, just after Christmas, but rumors had been floating about that it might happen. Unlike lasers, DVDs are now available from many retail outlets, and do a massive online business. I first visited Dave's at an earlier location, a nook-like shop on the South side of Ventura in Sherman Oaks, in about 1986; soon thereafter I was the proud owner of a THE WILD BUNCH laser, pan-scanned but the amazing 145 minute cut. That was about 3 and a half years before I had a player to play it on. Dave's was the place to go to pore over the used bins and wait with rapt attention for announcements of new discs. He had big specials each year, a fun staff (what ever happened to 'Chris'?) and his very friendly wife often helped out before she had children. I'd bring my three very polite kids in and get compliments from her.

Dave's was also the laser store to the stars. We saw lots of actors there, and it wasn't uncommon to find some European director, on vacation, buying a big stack of discs to take back to France or wherever. Sometimes, I'm told, Michael Jackson would show up with his entourage just before closing. The shop would stay open an extra half an hour while he went around and bought everything that caught his eye.

Like most customers, I rented a lot more than I bought - lasers just plain cost too much. But I was a good customer just the same. Here's hoping the best for Dave and his family. Glenn Erickson

Savant's checked over the previous twelve months and made his picks, and offers this reprise of last year's reasonably popular Xmas feature: Savant's Most Impressive DVDs of 2002. No E.T., no Disney. We serve hard discs here for viewers who wanna get drunk fast, and we don't need any characters around to give the joint atmosphere. I modestly put forward this list of anti-Blockbuster arcane entertainment.

Now it's time to get serious about the holiday, so I might not have another review up for a few days - but I'll certainly be primed to answer Email, which has always been the best thing about this enterprise. And I'll definitely be back on line with more comments and toasts before the New Year. As Henry Chinasky says in Barfly, "To all my friennnnds!" Cheers! Glenn Erickson

Turning the corner to the holiday, Savant now has a real tree but would like to just leave it there undecorated and enjoy its beauty, you know, without digging through the garage for all the lights and geegaws. But will they let me? Nooo. I've got a couple of reviews of worthy films to slip in tonight:

Paramount's lavish War and Peace will help rescue the reputation of this much-maligned picture, which in this fine widescreen restoration plays like a great and grand soap opera of romance and conflict. Audrey Hepburn is irresistable, Mel Ferrer unusually good, and Henry Fonda rather awkwardly miscast.

John Huston's earthy Fat City shows the down and out life of low-level boxers, with Stacy Keach hanging in for one more go-round while newcomer Jeff Bridges learns what getting a broken nose is like. Candy Clark and Susan Tyrell make impressive debuts as their very different women.

With Christmas upon us, Savant is narrowing down his 'best of list' for the year, which I hope to have up tomorrow night - the Earthlink DSL has suddenly become incredibly slow. I could shoot myself - I mishandled some mail and just discovered a pass to a press premiere of GANGS OF NEW YORK that I missed last Wednesday ... with Martin Scorsese in attendance! Glad I'm not the kind who agonizes over mistakes like that. But the DVD screeners are still coming in. We watched DIE ANOTHER DAY last night, and I'm sorry to say I could not believe how bad it was ... the Danjaq people really need to reinvent themselves a new James Bond approach, one that isn't a meaningless action movie with ridiculous repetitive situations no self-respecting cartoon would present. And enough with the CGI, already, 50% of the show was the worst kind of unconvincing animation! Enough, already, Savant, relax. Thanks! Glenn Erickson

Sneaking in late this time (it's time to put away the discs and do SOMETHING about getting ready for Christmas) with a special disc. This came out a while ago but Savant (sniff) somehow got dropped from the screener chain; the remarkable thing is that a Savant reader, Dave Fredriksen, wrote the email that reversed that disappointment. Thanks!

Synapse's Uncensored International Version of Antonio Margheriti's Castle of Blood is a major release for horror fans, who have seen all manner of later Argento and Fulci gore fests but only a scattering of the core, early Euro Horror greats. The mini-label has also done a fine job of restoring all the legendary erotic content to the title, which by its forbidden nature has always seemed more potent to Savant.

Savant saw an early press screening of CATCH ME IF YOU CAN last night, and it's a very pleasant show, with a clever script and bouncy direction that overcomes Steven Spielberg's (or somebody's) heavier touches, to somehow make grand felony of millions somehow okay behavior (no victims ever seem to emerge) because the perp comes from a broken home. The best testimonial to the picture's charm is the fact that it has Leonardo DiCaprio in it, and I still liked it and the picture a lot. Spielberg floats a lot of the show on perky 60s music and character types, and Tom Hanks is twice as effective as he was in the worthless ROAD TO PERDITION. This is going to be plenty popular, methinks. Glenn Erickson

Two well-known 70s titles tonight, a classic Savant's seen several times, and a classic that he'd somehow missed all this time.

Paramount's Serpico is as great a film as it ever was, with Al Pacino's excellent performance capping a cops 'n corruption epic made superior in every way. Paramount is giving more and more attention to their releases, and the extras here are handsomely mounted.

MGM's Where's Poppa? is a grim 'comedy' in the theater of the absurd style of the late 1960s. There's big laughs in some of the antics, but Savant found the overriding tone to be one of despair and misery. Ruth Gordon, George Segal and Trish Van Devere star.

Geoffrey Kleinman tells me that Universal has cut off all screener tapes to web reviewers, a policy I thought began with E.T. last October. Is this a trend? And are the top sites really included in the shut-down? There are certainly many disposable review sites out there, and I expect every company and publicity outfit discriminates in its own chosen way, but this is the first I've heard of an actual ban by a major.
Frankly, I've always wondered if the day would come that review discs would be cut off to the web. In the early years, 1997-1999, anyone online who claimed to be a reviewer could get discs, and I know 'reviewers' who weren't anywhere in print or on the web who got free product just by demanding it in huffy Emails!
I think I've attracted pub people with the depth and breadth of the Savant reviews, and I get lots of unsolicited stuff that sometimes yields a gem like J-MEN FOREVER. I certainly still enjoy the work, and hope it can continue for the forseeable future - I think sites like DVD Talk are legitimate, and useful to both the companies and to readers. Glenn Erickson

Friday night, late, and Savant is determined to get some reviews out ... and then some sleep. Christmas is just another deadline these days - without little kids to spoil, I wish it could just be about a tree and nice music and maybe going to church ... good idea. The reviews:

Anchor Bay leads off with two crime films (separate releases): Hell is a City and The Frightened City. The nigh-perfect b&w transfers show off Val Guest's crackling direction of Stanley Baker in the first, and Sean Connery's salad-day charm in the second. Anchor Bay is really coming across with the classic English titles.

From Region 2, in PAL comes The Warrior, an Indian film that's received some very strong notices. The epic struggle of a warlord's enforcer to find enlightenment ranges from battles on the plains to showdowns in the Himalayas. Reviewed by correspondent Lee Broughton.

Image's Bride of the Gorilla is the movie Savant thought he was getting when he ordered THE BRIDE AND THE BEAST last Summer ... the mistakes one makes in this racket. Here Barbara Payton finds herself married to a philandering murderer who loves her dearly and only has one problem ... he's too interested in roaming the jungle as a mad gorilla monster, to follow through on his wedding night. A bizarre film with a location that doesn't make sense, dramatics that refuse to gel, and bigger-than-life acting ... a guilty pleasure. Why don't they make musicals out of these things?

A surprise package just came from Fearless Leader Geoffrey Kleinman ... but I'll try to make a Savant-sized dent in my backlog of review discs first! Thanks for reading, Glenn Erickson

It's Tuesday night and Savant is sneaking another review or two in, trying to keep the ink flowing. Busy times these are ... and better material is arriving every day.

Paramount's The Duellists pits Harvey Keitel against Keith Carradine in a series of combats that redefine their lives. An excellent first film from Ridley Scott. With an impressive array of extras.

Cult DVD strikes at the heart of straight America with J-Men Forever, a dated but hilarious drug-oriented redub of a dozen or so Republic serials, creating the story of The Lightning Bug's bid for world domination, using Rock'n Roll as his weapon of mass destruction. Some of the humor is irresistable, and all those great old Republic effects are a hoot. Thanks for reading, Glenn.

Happy Day of Infamy ... a formative event of my upbringing, the Attack on Pearl Harbor is now 61 years in the past. Helped by the trivializing effect of a certain movie last year, I fear it's quickly being filed away by our culture as some ancient event with no relevance to today's world - which is ridiculous, considering the events of the last year. The past of 1941, where one could at least identify one's enemy, almost seems nostalgic now.

Just one review tonight, mainly because I'm working editorial through the weekend instead of having two days to screen and write. But it's an important title for Savant - a personal 'Crusade' movie, the kind I twist arms trying to get seen.

Image's DVD of Invaders from Mars, the 1953 original, finally presents the paranoid classic with good color and excellent sound, from a 35mm source for perhaps the first time. But the only surviving element (or so the disc claims) has plenty of surface flaws, mostly hairline scratches. Much of the review is Savant's argument why it's a great disc anyway.

A surprise screener came in yesterday. Cult DVD has sent a 1980 goofball pastiche called J-Men Forever - a silly, screwy comedy that Savant never could resist. Got a couple others to review first, but I'll get to it. Thanks for reading! Glenn Erickson

Two 'art' directors in Savant reviews tonight. The New Wave's rebel poster boy thumbs his nose at the mainstream establishment, and a blacklist victim makes good in England with a rough and tough gangster classic, circa 1960.

Criterion brings us a dazzling package with Jean-Luc Godard's Contempt, the kind of film that warms the expresso of the art crowd, while infuriating audiences expecting a 'normal' movie. Brigitte Bardot (and her P.B.), Michel Piccoli, Jack Palance, and Fritz Lang star.

Joseph Losey's The Criminal is a powerful gangster drama with a bruiser-weight Stanley Baker as a crook who spends more time in jail than out, yet still smirks at society as if he has all the answers. This is a British actor-watchers dream ... there must be a dozen name male character actors in this thing, years before they became big.

No fancy news tonight. The real fans are at the Cinematheque, where Ray Harryhausen is debuting his recently completed fairy tale, The Tortoise and the Hare. I'm going to hit the sack ... it's my 14th hour in front of a keyboard. Might as well be a college student, like many of my readers ... Thanks, Glenn Erickson

Greetings from Savant, who is here to slip another review in under the wire of his Tuesday night weekly deadline.

Touchstone's Reign of Fire is a-draggin' its way to DVD, looking great but showing why it didn't attract much attention last Summer. Too bad, as those giant orange posters looked terrific. Matthew McConaughey and Christian Bale slug it out with a race of flying dragons we hardly get to know.

Hm. Various news tonight. The Cinematheque screening of JOURNEY TO THE CENTER OF THE EARTH in 4-track stereo was a success last Saturday, even though the supposedly primo print was a patchwork of good and not-so-good reels. I actually received a note from a Fox insider (thank you) on the upcoming DVD, which the studio internally reports will be in 'Dolby Surround sound'. Sounds good, for those who feared a mono mix. Image hasn't yet sent a review disc of INVADERS FROM MARS, so I can't report on it today. Early news from other sites isn't too promising, but I continue to hope for the best. Thanks for reading! Glenn Erickson

Another month, and Christmas is sneaking up far too quickly. INVADERS FROM MARS is due out from Image on Tuesday, but no review copy so far - too bad, I'm hoping it will be a knockout disc.

The reviews today: Paramount's Roman Holiday shows the studio taking extra care with their flagship titles - the level of restoration on this Audrey Hepburn/Gregory Peck classic is remarkable.

MGM's Legend of the Lost is no classic, but again a flawless transfer makes all the difference. John Wayne and Sophia (why's the shirt torn in those places?) Loren shine under the superior Technirama camerawork of Jack Cardiff.

Screenings, holidays, and editing work are slowing Savant down a bit, but he's working hard to keep the reviews coming. We went out to see THE QUIET AMERICAN last night, a very good movie about a reporter (Michael Caine) involved in the very beginning of CIA meddling in Vietnam, back in 1952 when the French were still there. Brendan Fraser is the 'quiet American', a medical consultant with a secret agenda. Right now I wish I could see the 1958 Audie Murphy (!) version, which reportedly makes the CIA character out to be nobly tragic. The best thing about the show is how it equates the foreign conspiracies against Indochina, with Fraser and Caine's possessive behavior toward the Vietnamese woman. Her only choice is to be a prostitute, or the property of a foreigner.
Thanks for reading! Glenn Erickson