Leonard Maltin's Movie Crazy

BRINGING RARE MOVIES AND MOVIE LOVERS TOGETHER

Leonard Maltin September 24, 2024

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This past weekend was like visiting an oasis. It brought back memories of attending the annual Cinefest in Syracuse, New York, where every day was packed with screenings—and lots of chatter with like-minded friends in between. I proposed to the folks who run Quentin Tarantino’s New Beverly Theater in Los Angeles that we show a selection of early 1930s Universal Pictures, using pristine prints the studio struck over the past twenty years. My colleague Dave Kehr at New York City’s Museum of Modern Art, took advantage of this goldmine eight years ago and framed it as a tribute to Carl Laemmle, Jr., the unsung namesake of the studio’s colorful founder. But until I thought of trying the New Bev, as its denizens call it, I…

MERCHANT IVORY: A UNIQUE LOOK BEHIND THE SCENES

In Theaters Leonard Maltin Movie Reviews September 3, 2024

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I screened this documentary out of a misplaced sense of duty. After all, the filmmaking team of Ismail Merchant and James Ivory made a number of exceptional films over many years’ time, and Ivory is still going strong at age 95. Attention must be paid, and good work celebrated. Stephen Soucy has done just that, but he’s given us a good deal more. Only an insider would be able to penetrate the curtain of discretion that has surrounded the filmmaking team for decades. It was known that of the two, Ivory was the hands-on director and Merchant the outgoing producer who raised the money to get movies like Shakespeare Wallah and The Bostonians made. Most of their films were scripted by the prize-winning author Ruth Prawer Jhabvala—not an Indian,…

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

Blu-Ray/DVD August 25, 2024

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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…

I’M GOING UNIVERSAL NEXT MONTH

Exclusive Leonard Maltin August 25, 2024

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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…

MY PENGUIN FRIEND

In Theaters Leonard Maltin Movie Reviews August 19, 2024

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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…

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

Books August 4, 2024

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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…

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

Blu-Ray/DVD July 28, 2024

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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…

DAY OF THE FIGHT

EMILIA PÉREZ: UNIQUE AND AMAZING

BLITZ: UNLIKE ANYTHING WE’VE SEEN BEFORE

A REAL PAIN

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

A BIT OF CRUMPET: WATERSHIP DOWN

NEW AND NOTABLE BOOKS NOVEMBER 2024

BRINGING RARE MOVIES AND MOVIE LOVERS TOGETHER