Movie Anecdotes

Four classic Leone movies given the deluxe treatment and FINALLY released in the U.S. on DVD

At the height of World War II, the German army has placed two devastatingly powerful guns in a practically bomb-proof cave on the island of Navarone, overlooking a seaway leading to the vital island of Keros in the Aegean Sea. The guns are preventing passage to Keros where thousands of British troops have been stranded and who find…

It was a minor stroke of genius when director Andrew Leman of the H.P. Lovecraft Historical Society decided to film Lovecraft's influential 1925 horror story as a faux silent film. Fake scratches, handsome intertitles, a captivating score, and high-contrast black-and-white images at dramatic angles that recall the best German Expressionism go a long way to further the illusion that the film was made in '25 instead of '05. With one gesture, Leman solved dozens of problems–suddenly, it didn't matter that the special effects weren't quite state of the art, that the story consists of an undramatic pile-on of narratives-within-narratives, that the production couldn't even afford a real boat. The result is an almost-vintage tale of hair-raising mystery full of bizarre dreams, murderous eskimos, and blood-thirsty cultists that culminates in the revelation of an unspeakable horror. "Call of Cthulhu" is a highly entertaining addition to anybody's Halloween library.

Alexander Portnoy’s parents are the stereotypical Jewish couple, always complaining and obsessing about their lives and their children. His overbearing mother (Lee Grant) and his perennially constipated father (Jack Somack) provide the comic relief in this intense tale about the young Portnoy who cannot find happiness in his life and relates every detail to his psychiatrist. Alexander picks up a sex-crazed woman (Karen Black) and they quickly become a couple. The problem is, Portnoy works for the city and Monkey as she is called (because she invented a new sex position), cannot even spell. The dichotomy between the characters is overshadowed by their mutual love of sex.