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WHAT’S NEW ON DVD/BLU-RAY/4K IN AUGUST

Blu-Ray/DVD
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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 AUGUST: THE PEOPLE’S JOKER, I SAW THE TV GLOW, MONSTER MOVIES, AND MORE! NEW RELEASE WALL The People’s Joker (Altered Innocence) and I Saw the TV Glow (A24): Two of 2024’s most exciting and provocative films signal a New New Queer Cinema focused on trans filmmakers and storytelling. Both films use pop-culture characters and tropes to explore the path toward a trans identity: Vera Drew’s audacious People’s Joker casts a coming-out with the denizens of DC’s Comics and cinematic universes, while Jane Schoenbrun’s acclaimed sophomore feature follows the lives of two teen friends whose lives and relationships are forever colored by their…

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I’M GOING UNIVERSAL NEXT MONTH

Exclusive Leonard Maltin
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I am proud and delighted to report that I am programming and hosting a series of six rarely-seen Universal Pictures from the 1930s next month at Quentin Tarantino’s New Beverly Theatre. From Friday to Sunday, September 20-22, I will be introducing 35mm prints of films that, for the most part, haven’t been shown on television or released on home video. (Needless to add—but I will—they aren’t streaming, either.) There are some real discoveries here and a chance to see some fine work from both sides of the camera. The series begins with George S. Kaufman and Moss Hart’s sublime satire of Hollywood in the early-talkie era, Once in a Lifetime (1932), starring Aline MacMahon, Russell Hopton, and Jack Oakie. It opens with a message from Universal chief…

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MY PENGUIN FRIEND

In Theaters Leonard Maltin Movie Reviews
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This utterly likable, disarming film tells a true story about a Magellanic penguin who gets lost—and badly injured—off the coast of Brazil. He is rescued by a simple fisherman (Jean Reno) who is still shaken by the drowning of his young son years ago. Reno nurses the bird back to health and sends him on his way. Little does he dream that the penguin, named DimDin by a girl in his village, will swim 5,000 miles to return to the exact spot where Reno left him again and again. This reads like the synopsis of an old Disney studio movie, but the story is fundamentally true and told with great care and nuance. Reno is perfect as a man who has withdrawn from life, until…

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NEW AND NOTABLE BOOKS: FROM CHAPLIN TO ERROL FLYNN  August 2024

Books
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MISS MAY DOES NOT EXIST: THE LIFE AND WORK OF ELAINE MAY, HOLLY WOOD’S HIDDEN GENIUS  by Carrie Courogen (St. Martin’s Press) If you came of age when comedy albums were all the rage, as I did, it’s likely you were a fan of Mike Nichols and Elaine May (and fellow Chicagoans Bob Newhart and Shelley Berman). Graduates of Chicago’s Compass Players and Second City, they hit New York in 1958 and took show business by storm. Their improv-based comedy vignettes were smart, fresh and new. They officially broke up the act a short time later but remained in each other’s lives through Nichols’ passing in 2014. (She scripted two of his best movies, The Birdcage and Primary Colors.) May directed just three feature-length comedies but became infamous…

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NEW ON 4K/BLU-RAY/DVD IN JULY

Blu-Ray/DVD
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The following article was written by my friend and colleague Alonso Duralde. You can learn more about him HERE. NEW ON 4K/BLU-RAY/DVD IN JULY: PERFECT DAYS, RISKY BUSINESS, TED LASSO, AND MORE! NEW RELEASE WALL Perfect Days (The Criterion Collection): It’s zen and the art of cleaning toilets in Wim Wenders’ latest understated masterpiece. Japanese superstar Kôji Yakusho stars as a man who has found peace in his simple life, cleaning up Tokyo’s public restrooms (which are all architectural marvels) and enjoying cultural pursuits in his off hours (reading, taking photographs, listening to vintage cassettes). It’s a gorgeous tale of life and how to live it, but it also offers the unspoken subtext that human beings deserve jobs that not only offer time to rest but…

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MODERNISM, INC.—A GOOD DOCUMENTARY BY DESIGN

In Theaters Leonard Maltin Movie Reviews
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I must confess that I wasn’t familiar with Eliot Noyes although, like other baby boomers, I was affected by his work. Noyes, the subject of this first-rate documentary, was an esteemed graphic designer who spearheaded the philosophy and practice of modern design in the years following World War Two. (During the war he was a pioneer in an altogether different field: the use of gliders.) But his ideas were formulated before the U.S. went to war: in 1939 he was the first curator of Industrial Design at the Museum of Modern Art! These are just a few of the takeaways from Jason Cohn’s absorbing feature film. We learn about the man who believed that “good design is good business” from three of his children (including…

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TWISTERS DELIVERS THE GOODS

In Theaters Leonard Maltin Movie Reviews
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Shortly after seeing, and enjoying, the 1996 movie Twister, I noticed something on a colleague’s desk that made me laugh out loud: a copy of the published screenplay. If there were ever a film that made me want to read its script less than this, I couldn’t name it. Like its predecessor, Twisters does something only a movie can do, by giving us a vicarious experience that feels exciting and real while it’s happening, and easily forgettable as soon as it’s over. Although it is directed by Lee Isaac Chung, best known for his exceptional indie sleeper Minari (2020) there is nothing to set this white-knuckle disaster movie apart from the 1996 film or other popcorn movies in this genre. The characters are painted in broad strokes, at least when we…

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