DVDs, 1/22.

"Even the best work from [John] Frankenheimer's prolific 60s heyday (he made 11 films that decade) has been unfairly overshadowed by the iconic status of The Manchurian Candidate (1962), one of the four films in [a new] set," writes Dennis Lim in the Los Angeles Times.

More from Fernando F Croce in Slant: "Had Seven Days in May and Seconds also been included, it would have provided a fuller, scarier view of the paranoid urgency that made Frankenheimer such a wicked director in the 1960s. As it is, however, this DVD set gives a sturdy outline of the paradoxes in his lengthy career: a graduate of live television productions who loved baroquely cinematic setups, an admirer of classic craftsmanship nevertheless plagued with contemporary anxieties, a jittery modernist who ultimately found himself typecast as a terse action filmmaker."

"Venus in Furs remains a brilliant film, whether taken as a microcosmic view into the wild world of director Jess Franco or as a prime example of European Genre Cinema, exploding with creativity and style," writes Mike at Esotika Erotica Psychotica.

"King Kong the success was born in 1933. King Kong the smash happened in 1952." John McElwee tells the story at Greenbriar Picture Shows.

Ardvark at Twitch on Gandahar: "Once again René Laloux provides nearly 80 minutes of excellent eye-candy, and this time it supports an interesting story. While his efforts never seem to be as accomplished as, say, Hayao Miyazaki's, he is more like Mamoru Oshii: preaching to his own choir, concentrating on the things he himself does best."

For IFC News, Michael Atkinson reviews Saved from the Flames, a "cattershot collection of 'orphans' - scatterings of film that, by definition, profit nobody, and so are therefore only salvaged and restored by cinephilic charities and archives." And: "For story, coming at you like a stampede of wildebeest, Lars von Trier's The Kingdom - Series Two (1997) continues his 1994 saga with this nearly five-hour sequel."

In the Austin Chronicle, Rick Klaw reviews two films that "transformed movie storytelling by using revolutionary stop-motion techniques to produce realistic-looking monsters, aliens, and even spaceships": It Came From Beneath the Sea and Earth Vs the Flying Saucers.

In Vue Weekly, Brian Gibson recommends No End in Sight and The Devil Came on Horseback.

DVD roundups: Paul Clark (ScreenGrab), Bryant Frazer, Peter Martin (Cinematical) and Gina McIntyre (Los Angeles Times).

Posted by dwhudson at January 24, 2008 1:59 PM