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Doclisboa's retrospectives are moments distinguished by curatorial projects that aim to offer a precise and comprehensive vision of the themes and filmmakers to which they are dedicated; the preview session that will take place on the terrace of the Cinemateca Portuguesa on the 7th of July at 21h30, will be a first glimpse into this year's programme.

This year Doclisboa, in partnership with Cinemateca Portuguesa, dedicates its thematic retrospective to the delicate coalition of radical filmmakers who, in the midst of the Great Depression, fought to birth the new genre of Social Documentary as a tool for socio-political change in the USA.

In parallel to President Franklin Delano Roosevelt's commitment to social justice through the policies of his government's New Deal in the 1930s, a generation of filmmakers sought to infuse facts with feelings, art with agitprop and propaganda, through a cinema of reality that sought to communicate, and perhaps even help resolve,...

The first post-nuclear science fiction thriller is a grim & gripping end-of-the-world tale with rough content for its year. Arch Oboler’s best movie watches as five motley survivors discover that their pre-apocalyptic prejudices have survived as well, precipitating a savage struggle in the shadow of doom. The filming was an artistic collaboration with established film theorists and their film-student disciples — call it ‘lyrical neorealism.’ For its world debut on Blu-ray, the atomic classic is given a new transfer and new extras.

Five

Blu-ray

Viavision [Imprint] 33

1951 / B&w / 1:37 Academy / 91 min. / Street Date February 23, 2021 / Available from Viavision / $34.95 au

Starring: William Phipps, Susan Douglas, James Anderson, Charles Lampkin, Earl Lee.

Cinematographic Consultant: Louis Clyde Stoumen

Photography, Editing and Production assistance: Sid Lubow, Ed Spiegel, Arthur Swerdloff

Film Editor: John Hoffman

Production Design: Arch Oboler

Original Music: Henry Russell

Poem by James Weldon Johnson

Written, Produced and Directed by Arch Oboler

Making something new...

MGM’s glamour factory hit heights of grandeur with this nostalgic disaster spectacle, which retains its power even as its pious sentimentality runs amuck. We don’t believe the characters but we believe the Stars: Clark Gable, Jeanette MacDonald and Spencer Tracy succeed with sheer personality. Best of all are the sensational special effects featuring the highly cinematic earthquake montage by Slavko Vorkapich and John Hoffman.

San Francisco

Blu-ray

Warner Archive Collection

1936 / B&w / 1:37 Academy / 115 min. / Street Date February 16, 2021 / available through the WBshop / 21.99

Starring: Clark Gable, Jeanette MacDonald, Spencer Tracy, Jack Holt, Jessie Ralph, Ted Healy, Shirley Ross, Edgar Kennedy, Warren Hymer, Gertrude Astor, Vince Barnett, Tom Dugan, D.W. Griffith, James Murray, Robert J. Wilke.

Montages: Slavko Vorkapich, John Hoffman

Special Effects: James Basevi, Russell A. Cully, A. Arnold Gillespie, Loyal Griggs

Film Editor: Tom Held

Songs: Bronislau Kaper & Walter Jurmann (music), Gus Kahn (lyrics), Nacio Herb Brown

Written...

I Bury The Living

Blu-ray

Shout! Factory

1958 / B&W / 1:85 / / 76 min. / Street Date April 25, 2017

Starring: Richard Boone, Theodore Bikel.

Cinematography: Frederick Gately

Film Editor: Frank Sullivan

Written by Louis Garfinkle

Produced by Albert Band, Louis Garfinkle

Directed by Albert Band

I Bury the Living implicates us in a primal childhood thought-crime… what if you stepped on a crack and really did break your mother’s back? What if simply wishing someone dead made it so? Guilt, pure and simple, gives this off–kilter 50’s chiller its lasting power.

The film boasts an off–kilter leading man as well with the crater-faced Richard Boone as Robert Kraft, a small town business man railroaded into managing the family run cemetery. To make matters worse, the perennially gloomy Kraft, already skittish about his disconcerting new position, is saddled with a decrepit, unnaturally chilly workplace watched over by an unnerving bit of decoration, an...

Do rediscovered ‘lost’ movies always disappoint? This Depression-era pre-Code science fiction disaster thriller was unique in its day, and its outrageously ambitious special effects –New York City is tossed into a blender — were considered the state of the art. Sidney Blackmer and a fetching Peggy Shannon fight off rapacious gangs in what may be the first post-apocalyptic survival thriller.

Deluge

Blu-ray

Kl Studio Classics

1933 / B&W / 1:37 flat Academy / 67 min. / Street Date February 21, 2017 / available through Kino Lorber / 29.95

Starring Peggy Shannon, Lois Wilson, Sidney Blackmer, Lane Chandler, Samuel S. Hinds, Fred Kohler, Matt Moore, Edward Van Sloan .

Cinematography: Norbert Brodine

Film Editor: Martin G. Cohn, Rose Loewinger

Special Effects: Ned Mann, Williams Wiliams, Russell Lawson, Ernie Crockett, Victor Scheurich, Carl Wester

Original Music: Val Burton

Written by Warren Duff, John F. Goodrich from the novel by Sydney Fowler Wright

Produced by Samuel Bischoff, Burt Kelly, William Saal

Directed by Felix E. Feist...

or, Savant picks The Most Impressive Discs of 2015

This is the actual view from Savant Central, looking due North.

What a year! I was able to take one very nice trip back East too see Washington D.C. for the first time, or at least as much as two days' walking in the hot sun and then cool rain would allow. Back home in Los Angeles, we've had a year of extreme drought -- my lawn is looking patriotically ratty -- and we're expecting something called El Niño, that's supposed to be just shy of Old-Testament build-me-an-ark intensity. We withstood heat waves like those in Day the Earth Caught Fire, and now we'll get the storms part. This has been a wild year for DVD Savant, which is still a little unsettled. DVDtalk has been very patient and generous, and so have Stuart Galbraith & Joe Dante; so far everything...

After a restored print played for the first time at the 2015 Toronto Film Festival, Kino Lorber presents Julian Roffman’s 1961 vintage horror film The Mask on 3D Blu-ray. Collectors of vintage 3D technology and classic horror cinema should take note, especially for the film’s expressive, nightmarish sequences. Hailed as ‘psychedlic’ and repackaged as a psychotronic classic, the title is a fun throwback to event cinema.

Owning several notable distinctions, not only was it the first Canadian film widely distributed in the United States, but it was also the only 3D feature from the country to play here, as well as the Canada’s first foray into the genre. It’s the last of only two titles directed by Roffman, who would eventually produce a small handful of films (including the obscure early 70s delight The Pyx).

The Toronto International Film Festival’s sole surviving 35mm print was deemed too brittle after an initial screening,...

For the final week of November, horror and sci-fi fans have a few things to be thankful for, including some great films they can add to their home entertainment collections. With the holidays just right around the corner, Rlj Entertainment is releasing A Christmas Horror Story and Scream Factory is resurrecting a duo of classic films in HD on Tuesday as well—Ghost Story and Blood and Lace.

Other notable titles being released on November 24th include The Badger Game, The Last House, The Mask 3-D and The Incredible Two-Headed Transplant.

A Christmas Horror Story (Rlj Entertainment, Blu-ray & DVD)

It’s the season of joy, peace, and goodwill… unless you live in Bailey Downs. Last Christmas Eve, two teens came to a grisly end in a school basement. Now, one year later, a new set of horrors has come to town. As three friends explore the site of the massacre,...

Don't Wait!  Put on the mask, Now!   The legendary 1961 spook-show classic has been restored and adapted to a better 3-D system than used for its original release.  A psychiatrist possessed by a Mayan ritual mask is compelled to enter a fantastic hell zone each time he wears the scary thing.  Kino packs the deluxe disc with extras, including a 2014 3-D short subject with its own "Let's go to Hell" story concept. We see Hell, all right. But where are the trailers from it? The Mask 3-D Blu-ray Kino Classics 1961 / B&W /1:66 flat Academy / 83 min. / Street Date November 24, 2015 / available through Kino Lorber / 29.95 Starring Paul Stevens, Claudette Nevins, Bill Walker, Anne Collings, Martin Lavut, Leo Leyden, Norman Ettlinger. Cinematography Herbert S. Alpert Film Editor Stephen Timar Original Music Myron Schaeffer, Louis Applebaum Written by Frank Taubes, Sandy Haver, Franklin Delessert Produced by Julian Roffman, Nat Taylor Directed by Julian Roffman

Reviewed...

Get your beret and warm up the espresso! Some of the most famous deep-dish art film is here -- in HD -- starting with attempts to translate various art 'isms' to the screen, to graphics-oriented abstractions, to 'city symphonies' to the dream visions of Maya Deren and beyond. The careful remasters reproduce proper projection speeds and original music.   Masterworks of American Avant-Garde Experimental Film 1920-1970 Blu-ray + DVD Flicker Alley 1920-1970 / B&W and Color / 1:33 full frame / 418 min. / Street Date October 6, 2015 / 59.95 With films by James Agee, Kenneth Anger, Bruce Baillie, Stan Brakhage, James Broughton, Rudolph Burckhardt, Mary Ellen Bute, Joseph Cornell, Jim Davis, Maya Deren, Marcel Duchamp, Emien Etting, Oksar Fischinger, Robert Florey, Amy Greenfield, A. Hackenschmied, Alexander Hammid, Hillary Harris, Hy Hirsh, Ian Hugo, Lawrence Janiac, Lawrence Jordan, Owen Land, Francis Lee, Fernand Léger, Helen Levitt, Jan Leyda, Janice Loeb, Jonas Mekas, Marie Menken, Dudley Murphy, Ted Nemeth, Bernard O'Brien,...

A review of the "Better Call Saul" season finale coming up just as soon as I know what a Chicago sunroof is... "I know what stopped me. And you know what? It's never stopping me again." -Jimmy There's a moment early in "Marco" where Jimmy and Kim walk past the dented trash can in the Hhm parking garage — a reminder of so many of Jimmy's early frustrations with his brother's law firm — and he assures her that he's at peace with what he learned about Chuck. It seems, just then, that the "Better Call Saul" creative team — most of them (like co-creator Peter Gould, who wrote and directed the finale) veterans of "Breaking Bad," a show largely defined by the patient way it moved through its arcs — will be playing a particularly long game in getting us from Jimmy McGill to Saul Goodman. Chuck's betrayal was a brutal blow,...

Ramon Novarro and Greta Garbo in ‘Mata Hari’: The wrath of the censors (See previous post: "Ramon Novarro in One of the Best Silent Movies.") George Fitzmaurice’s romantic spy melodrama Mata Hari (1931) was well received by critics and enthusiastically embraced by moviegoers. The Greta Garbo / Ramon Novarro combo — the first time Novarro took second billing since becoming a star — turned Mata Hari into a major worldwide blockbuster, with $2.22 million in worldwide rentals. The film became Garbo’s biggest international success to date, and Novarro’s highest-grossing picture after Ben-Hur. (Photo: Ramon Novarro and Greta Garbo in Mata Hari.) Among MGM’s 1932 releases — Mata Hari opened on December 31, 1931 — only W.S. Van Dyke’s Tarzan, the Ape Man, featuring Johnny Weissmuller and Maureen O’Sullivan, and Edmund Goulding’s all-star Best Picture Academy Award winner Grand Hotel (also with Garbo, in addition to Joan Crawford, John Barrymore, Wallace Beery, and...

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The BFI London Film Festival has announced its 2012 award winners. Jacques Audiard's Rust & Bone is the Best Film, and Benh Zeitlin's Beasts of the Southern Wild (which also picked up an award at the Abu Dhabi Film Festival this past week) is the Best Debut. For a complete list of winners, click here. The Rome Film Festival has unveiled some additions to their lineup, including new films from Paul Verhoeven (his mid-length feature Tricked, which we've previously shared the trailer for) and Peter Greenaway. Via The Guardian: It's hard to go very long without hearing word of new projects from Werner Herzog, and his list of forthcoming films has grown yet again with the announcement of his adaptation of Dbc Pierre's Vernon God Little:

"Herzog will return to Texas: it's about a teenager who heads to Mexico after becoming a scapegoat for a high-school killing in a small Texan town.

The Goose Woman (1925) Direction: Clarence Brown Cast: Louise Dresser, Jack Pickford, Constance Bennett, Marc McDermott, George Nichols, Gustav von Seyffertitz Screenplay: Melville W. Brown, titles by Dwinelle Benthall; from Rex Beach's story Highly Recommended Louise Dresser, Jack Pickford, The Goose Woman At the 2011 San Francisco Silent Film Festival, the Clarence Brown-directed 1925 Universal release The Goose Woman was introduced by author and film historian Kevin Brownlow. For me, Brown's family drama was the best film I saw at this year's festival. [Spoilers ahead.] Based on a Rex Beach story (itself inspired by a real-life murder trial), The Goose Woman stars future Best Actress Academy Award nominee Louise Dresser as Mary Holmes, a former opera star known as Marie de Nardi. Once the toast of Paris, Mary is now a drunken slattern, living in an old farmhouse where she raises geese. She openly resents her son, Gerald (Jack Pickford), whom she bitterly...

Dorsky’s done it again! Just like last week — but even more so! — this week’s Absolute Must Read is Nathaniel Dorsky’s remembrance of living the avant-garde film life in NYC in the late ’60s. Adventures include hanging out with Stan Brakhage and Naomi Levine, going to the deli with Slavko Vorkapich, projecting films with Jerome Hiller and many other impossibly cool things. The New York Times published an official obit for Robert Breer, which has several pieces of personal bio info not otherwise found online. Also, Yoel Miranda has a very personal remembrance of Breer. So, what’s it like to intern at a major independent film festival? Rooftop Films intern Sheila Maria Lobo lets us know. By the way: Donna k. lets us know that film festivals, in general, are fabulous. South Australia has banned A Serbian Film. Man, that country is so uptight. Speaking of which,...

Chosen to direct The Empire Strikes Back, he turned in one of the best sequels – and highest box-office earners – of all time

The film director Irvin Kershner, who has died aged 87, was known in the trade as a hired gun. His most famous film, The Empire Strikes Back (1980), the fifth episode in the Star Wars saga, is most commonly linked to its executive producer, George Lucas. Never Say Never Again (1983) is celebrated as the film in which Sean Connery made his comeback as James Bond after 12 years away from the role, the director merely providing the vehicle. Kershner's first feature, Stakeout On Dope Street (1958), was made under the aegis of Roger Corman, who usually gained the main credit for the films he produced. Yet, eclectic as Kershner seemed, his best films reveal a visual flair, with an eye for the telling detail and a sympathy for the rebel.

The Philadelphia...