Leonard Maltin's Movie Crazy

A BIT OF CRUMPET WITH MARK SEARBY

Exclusive May 31, 2025

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Leonard here. The following column is written by my colleague Mark Searby highlighting British cinema past and present. Please enjoy A Bit of Crumpet. Music in mid-1970s Britian was becoming fractured. Punk was rising quickly led by The Sex Pistols. Rock music was going through a change with raw-er bands like Black Sabbath and Led Zeppelin. Pop music was being dominated by flamboyant artists such as Elton John and Freddie Mercury. And David Bowie was ushering in a wave of androgyny. Then, lower down the music pole were bands from working class towns that weren’t about being the most proficient, but were about just have a damn good time. Slade was one of those bands. Mainly known today for their mega-Christmas hit ‘Merry Xmas Everybody.’…

A BIT OF CRUMPET WITH MARK SEARBY

Exclusive May 31, 2025

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Leonard here. The following column is written by my colleague Mark Searby highlighting British cinema past and present. Please enjoy A Bit of Crumpet. I adore the work of Takeshi ‘Beat’ Kitano. He’s arguably my favourite writer/director/producer/editor/comedian/gameshow creator & host. There aren’t many like him in the entertainment world. Imagine if Jennifer Lopez – a talent that spans several entertainment sectors – created and hosted Deal or No Deal. Obviously, she didn’t. But it’s that type of WTF??!! that is so very Kitano, as he created, and appeared in, the amazingly violent gameshow Takeshi’s Castle (look out for him in one of the cars on the Storming of the Castle challenge). However, Kitano’s name is more synonymous in the West with filmmaking, and specifically violent movies.…

WHAT’S NEW ON DVD/BLU-RAY/4K IN MAY

Exclusive May 31, 2025

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The following article was written by my friend and colleague Alonso Duralde. You can learn more about him HERE. WHAT’S NEW ON DVD/BLU-RAY/4K IN MAY: BLACK BAG, BLAXPLOITATION, AND BUGS! NEW RELEASE WALL Black Bag (Universal) / Presence (Decal-NEON): Steven Soderbergh offered moviegoers two of the best films of 2025’s first quarter (although, to be fair, Presence made its debut at Sundance 2024). Both written by the legendary David Koepp, these movies technically fall under the category of “genre films,” although they’re both richer in character and theme than a cursory description might suggest. Presenceinvolves a family moving into a haunted house – and everything we see in the film is from a poltergeist’s POV – but it’s as much about trauma and the cracks…

COULDA, WOULDA, SHOULDA

Leonard Maltin May 15, 2025

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I don’t harbor many regrets in my life; I’ve been fortunate to meet people and have experiences that others might only dream about. But there are a few things I could and should have done better. One is to avoid procrastination. I’ve delayed calling people I wanted to interview because I had no particular deadline…and waited too long. This thought popped into my head last week as I was watching a rerun of an episode of Wanted: Dead or Alive with Steve McQueen on the Encore Westerns channel. In the supporting cast were Lori Nelson, Michael Pate, and Than Wyenn, a busy and versatile actor who seems to have worked nonstop in the heyday of episodic television. I met Than some years ago at High Holy Day…

SO…WHAT PRINT ARE YOU SCREENING?

Exclusive April 28, 2025

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The American Cinematheque made headlines nine years ago when it announced that it had installed a projection booth that the city of Los Angeles deemed suitable for projecting nitrate prints. There are only a few others like it, even in the city most closely associated with filmmaking. But if you’ve ever seen the way nitrate can burn (as dramatized in Cinema Paradiso) you know why so many precautions are necessary. Once, when I was working at the Museum of Modern Art in New York, I programmed a silent comedy short from the archives for a weekend show; a torn sprocket was all it took to ignite the print. The quick-thinking projectionist grabbed the film and the takeup reel below it and ran to the sink to get…

WHAT’S NEW ON DVD/BLU/4K IN APRIL

Exclusive April 28, 2025

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The following article was written by my friend and colleague Alonso Duralde. You can learn more about him HERE. WHAT’S NEW ON DVD/BLU/4K IN APRIL: ANORA, LIZA, RE-ANIMATOR, SUMMER WARS, AND MORE! NEW RELEASE WALL Anora (The Criterion Collection): Writer-director Sean Baker has been an indie fave for years – not coincidentally, Criterion is also releasing of his early films, Prince of Broadway, this month – but this heartfelt tale of a sex worker and the spoiled son of oligarchs blew up in a big way, starting with a Palme d’Or following a well-received premiere at Cannes and culminating in a sweep at the Oscars, including Best Picture. But if you’ve been paying attention to Baker’s work, his latest succeeds where all his films do, by…

WHAT’S NEW ON DVD/BLU/4K IN MARCH

Exclusive March 30, 2025

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The following article was written by my friend and colleague Alonso Duralde. You can learn more about him HERE. WHAT’S NEW ON DVD/BLU/4K IN MARCH: BABYGIRL, WOMEN WHO RUN HOLLYWOOD, FILIPINO HORROR, AND MORE! NEW RELEASE WALL Babygirl (A24): Overlooked by the Oscars, but nonetheless one of 2024’s most memorable and provocative films, this sophomore feature from writer-director Halina Reijn (Bodies Bodies Bodies) stars Nicole Kidman as a forceful CEO and seemingly happy wife and mother who discovers she has a yearning for sexual submissiveness when she crosses paths with a new intern played by Harris Dickinson. Kidman is fearless and frank as she plunges into the character’s contradictions, and the film never judges her for intimate journey of discovery. Also available: Antiviral (Severin): A 4K…