DVDs, 10/16.

In popular lore, it was The Jazz Singer that single-handedly knocked silent cinema dead. "But the truth is more complicated and a bit less poetic," writes the New York Times' Dave Kehr in a must-read primer on the turning point in the history of cinema.

"[T]he new eight-film DVD box set of film from [Roger] Corman's prime era, while being helplessly filthy with mid-century kitsch, is rich in universal anxieties," writes Michael Atkinson at IFC News. Also reviewed is the four-disc set, Treasures III: Social Issues in American Film, 1900 - 1934: "The historical frisson here comes with the passionate take on sociopolitical issues which are no longer issues - anti-Bolshevism is hot, as are prohibition, WWI-era pacifism, suffrage, the need for universal schooling and mail-order marriage. But of course, the films feel remarkably timeless in their arguments for or against humanism, war, poverty, capitalism, social control, social freedom and equality."

Updated through 10/17.

More on that set from curator Scott Simmon on NPR and Susan King; and also in the Los Angeles Times: "I think DVD menu guy is a pretty good title." A profile of Devon Downs. Plus, a note from Milestone's Dennis Doros on the delay of the release of I Am Cuba: The Ultimate Edition.

"Le Corbeau would easily have made the Siren's Top 25 Foreign Films had she seen it in time. Set in 'the present,' it shows a small French town convulsed by a series of poison-pen letters, many of them directed at the place's popular young gynecologist (Pierre Fresnay). On this simple framework Clouzot and his co-screenwriter Louis Chavance build that rare and precious cinema specimen, a genuinely subversive film." And, along with Un amour à taire (A Love to Hide), it leads to thoughts on "the problems she has with certain fictionalized Holocaust movies."

Glenn Kenny's "Monday Morning Foreign-Region DVD Report: Toni: "On the commentary track of this superb disc, critics Phillip Lopate and Kent Jones mention that some scholars consider this 1934 film as one of the five best directed by the great Jean Renoir."

"In today's [New York Post, I interview filmmaker David Stenn, who brings to life a long-forgotten scandal involving a dancer who thought she was going to a film shoot but ended up at a boozy party-cum-orgy that MGM sold for its sales rep, where she was raped by a salesman from Chicago," blogs Lou Lumenick. And Girl 27 is out on DVD today.

A Mighty Heart is out on DVD this week, and Cinematical's Erik Davis sees a missed opportunity: "[W]hen the film ends, you race over to the extras to learn more - see more - but find very little."

Jette Kernion notes that Dear Pillow will be seeing a DVD release on November 13.

"[I]t is quite possible that like Resnais's past films, especially Je T'Aime, Je T'Aime, which were not appreciated at the time of their initial release, [Christoffer Boe's] Allegro may well find its audience in the future," writes Peter Nellhaus.

"Despite the over-the-top title, Hitler: The Rise of Evil actually makes Adolf Hitler seem less evil than insane, portraying his steady, methodically documented rise to power as the chance ascension of a mere madman on the shoulders of a people too stupid or afraid to disobey orders to do anything to stop him," writes Erica C Barnett in the Stranger.

DVD roundups: DVD Talk; Bryant Frazer; Logan Hill in New York; Susan King in the LAT; Movie City News.

Update, 10/17: "[M]y old Entertainment Weekly colleague Steve Daly, in his review [of The Jazz Singer], just can't [get] past the fact that [Al] Jolson spends the sizable part of the movie's back half in blackface," notes the Boston Globe's Ty Burr. "Well, yes, he does, and to focus on that and that alone is short-sighted at best, naive at worst."

Posted by dwhudson at October 16, 2007 10:06 AM