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Savant's new reviews today are:

One Million B.C.
VCI
Blu-ray

 Leapin' Lizards!  The original cavemen vs. dinosaurs saga is a winner -- if viewer involvement trumps visual effects, it's got a narrow lead over the Hammer/Harryhausen remake. Victor Mature, Carole Landis and Lon Chaney Jr. all made career hay out of their weeks spent running in loincloths, out in the desert. And the new is a terrific UCLA Archive restoration, with an informative commentary by Toby Roan. On Blu-ray from VCI.
9/12/17

The Big Sick
Lionsgate
Blu-ray + DVD

 This modern romantic comedy about stand-up comedians generates a genuine warmth about people, the ones-who-need-people kind. Kumail Nanjiani and Emily V. Gordon's comic dramatization of the way they became a couple is a big winner, with heart-tugging performances from Nanjiani and Zoe Kazan, and fine characterizations by Holly Hunter, Zenobia Shroff, Ray Romano, and Anupam Kher. A Dual-Format edition on Blu-ray and DVD from Lionsgate.
9/12/17

and

The Illustrated Man
The Warner Archive Collection
Blu-ray

 Ray Bradbury adapted to the screen is always something to check out; this Jack Smight- directed trio of stories bound together by a mystery man wearing the graffiti of the title at least works up a little ethereal-cereal excitement. Husband and wife Rod Steiger and Claire Bloom spout ominous dialogue as they face various futuristic threats. On Blu-ray from The Warner Archive Collection.
9/12/17

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Hello!

Gary Teetzel links us to the world today, starting with two Metropolis- themed items. A Smithsonian Magazine article by Matt Novak from 2012 takes a look at a vintage explanation of the film's effects: 1927 Magazine Looks at Metropolis, 'A Movie Based On Science'. Then, in Wired Magazine from the same year, Geeta Dyal displays another rare item: Recovered 1927 Metropolis Film Program Goes Behind the Scenes of a Sci-Fi Masterpiece. My only comment is about the method used to create the 'electric bolts' in the machine room -- the article implies that they were shot live on the set, like a foreground miniature, when they were double-exposed at a later time. Just a detail. The second document was for years the main source of technical info on the film, so it's nice that it was so carefully written.

Film collector Wade Williams, over at the Home Theater Forum, is saying that he's contributed a film source to a Warners restoration of the long version of Howard Hawks' The Thing From Another World, a show long in need of a visual reupholstering job. When the show plays on TCM now, the long-version scenes drop to a low-quality 16mm source. It would be nice if a smart new restoration were indeed on the way, but Williams' note mostly clouds the issue. He says he loaned his print to WB ten years ago, and recently as three years ago I was told that WB still lacked decent elements with which to 'fix' the movie -- a collector's print might or might not be good enough, and WB has pretty high standards. When Williams says the film is 'newly restored,' is he saying that something new and unannounced has happened? Only when Warners issues a confirmation will we know.

Thanks for reading! --- Glenn Erickson