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BLADE RUNNER 2049: NOT WORTH THE WAIT

Film In Theaters Leonard Maltin Movie Reviews
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II’ve taken more heat for my negative review of 1982’s Blade Runner than almost anything else I’ve written. I gave the film three shots as director Ridley Scott revised it over the years but it never spoke to me, beyond its obvious visual achievement. Now comes an eagerly awaited sequel, directed by Denis Villeneuve (Incendies, Arrival) and penned by the original movie’s screenwriter, Hampton Fancher, in collaboration with Michael Green. Given the collective pedigree of its creators, I hoped I would feel differently about this production and went to see it with an open mind. The setting is an even bleaker and grimier Los Angeles, thirty years following  the initial story. Ryan Gosling is an LAPD officer, known as a Blade Runner, who spends most of his…

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HAROLD AND LILLIAN ON BLU-RAY

Film In Theaters Leonard Maltin Movie Reviews
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EDITOR’S NOTE: This wonderful film is now available on Blu-ray from Kino Lorber and Amazon. Watch the trailer HERE. You don’t have to be a movie buff to fall in love with the story of Harold and Lillian Michelson. Their sixty-year marriage—with more than its share of ups and downs—would be compelling enough. Their long involvement with Hollywood is icing on the cake, as we learn about Harold’s career as a storyboard illustrator and concept artist and Lillian’s work as a research librarian. They almost never received screen credit, yet without their input films as diverse as The Ten Commandments, The Birds, and Rosemary’s Baby wouldn’t be the same. Harold Michelson visualized entire films scene by scene, shot by shot. Directors ranging from Cecil B. DeMille…

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OUR SOULS AT NIGHT

Film In Theaters Leonard Maltin Movie Reviews
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I love watching Robert Redford. He still has the effortless charisma that made him a star more than fifty years ago, and he’s ideally matched with Jane Fonda in Our Souls at Night. It’s their fourth collaboration; they are clearly comfortable together and accepting of their status as senior citizens. Whether audiences are as flexible about this matter is an open question; there is a temptation to want our movie stars to remain frozen in time. But Our Souls at Night could have been written with these actors in mind, and they adopt their fictional identities the way you or I would slip on an old shoe. The source material is the final novel by Kent Haruf, but the set-up resembles an old movie device known as “meeting…

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BEFORE KING KONG: A LOST WORLD FOUND

Exclusive
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Film buffs and aficionados of stop-motion animation have been frustrated for years because The Lost World, the 1925 feature that laid the groundwork for King Kong, has only existed in severely truncated prints. Even an ambitious restoration in the late 1990s had to make do without a number of key scenes. Now Lobster Film of Paris, in association with Blackhawk Films, has pulled off the near-impossible, with the participation of numerous archives and collectors around the globe—and it’s a joy to behold. The new Blu-ray from Flicker Alley even includes a jaw-dropping reel of outtakes showing technicians manipulating their dinosaur models! Much of this is the result of hard work and persistence, but some of it must be chalked up to serendipity. Master preservationist Scott…

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REMEMBERING HUGH HEFNER

Leonard Maltin
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There will be much written about Hef in the days ahead, reiterating the story of the self-made man who built an empire and championed not only sexual liberation but freedom of speech. Yet I doubt that many obituaries will cite the vast sums of money he donated to film preservation and scholarship—running to seven figures—benefiting the UCLA Film and Television Archive and the USC School of Cinematic Arts. What’s more, he helped to save the world-famous Hollywood sign—on two separate occasions. I was lucky enough to know Hugh Hefner because of our shared love of movies. It was a screening that earned my wife and me an invitation to the Playboy Mansion some twenty-five years ago. We never encountered a more gracious or generous host;…

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LUCKY: A TESTAMENT TO HARRY DEAN STANTON

Film In Theaters Leonard Maltin Movie Reviews
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Lucky is a remarkable film, a living testament to the talent and formidable screen presence of the late Harry Dean Stanton. It was written as a vehicle for the nonagenarian actor by his longtime assistant, Logan Sparks, in collaboration with Drago Sumonja, and while it’s fictional, it incorporates many facets of the actor’s life and personality. The film opens with a shot of a tortoise crawling through the desert and disappearing behind a rock—an arresting image, especially in a widescreen frame. Then we hear a harmonica rendition of “Red River Valley,” and learn that it’s being played by the main character, Lucky. What a fitting and poetic way of opening this character portrait. Lucky is an old man who lives by himself and follows a…

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AMERICAN MADE: CRUISE OUT OF CONTROL

Film In Theaters Leonard Maltin Movie Reviews
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If audiences are growing weary of seeing the legend “Based on a true story…” at the beginning of movies, they haven’t discouraged Hollywood from continuing to mine a seemingly  bottomless reserve of real-life material. American Made gives director Doug Liman and his charismatic star, Tom Cruise, a superior vehicle and plays to their strengths. Cruise is perfectly cast as a TWA pilot named Barry Seal, who’s been making a little money on the side smuggling Cuban cigars in the 1970s. This attracts the attention of CIA liaison Domnhall Gleeson, who enlists the naive pilot to expand his illegal activities, with the supposed blessing of Uncle Sam. Pretty soon he’s dealing with the likes of Manuel Noriega in Panama and the Medellin drug cartel in Columbia…

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