“Walt Disney loved showing how stuff works. No one in this movie plausibly would have the curiosity for new knowledge and reverence for the manmade to look twice at a futurist attraction at Tomorrowland, except possibly Laurie’s villainous character.”

Strand Releasing’s 1997 documentary Ayn Rand: A Sense of Life, is, in retrospect, a cinematic achievement. The 143-minute movie debuts on Blu-Ray on July 28. Other than a new trailer and enhanced English SHD sound, this is the same product as the... read more

Disney disclosed this week that the year’s best movie, Cinderella by writer Chris Weitz and director Kenneth Branagh, premieres on home video this year on September 15. The movie will be simultaneously released on Blu-Ray, digital high-definition and the... read more

“Walt Disney loved showing how stuff works. No one in this movie plausibly would have the curiosity for new knowledge and reverence for the manmade to look twice at a futurist attraction at Tomorrowland, except possibly Laurie’s villainous character.”

Originally finished in 1992, but not published until 2012, The Head of Athena, the second Cyrus Skeen detective novel, addresses in this chapter the issue of freedom of speech, in which a notorious atheist, Enoch Paige, attempts to deliver an address in San Francisco... read more

Foreword by the Author It is October 1929. The Roaring Twenties will end near the end of the month with the stock market crash heard round the world. . The nation will absorb the consequences of the crash with great difficulty over the next decade, exacerbated by... read more

Director Robert Wise’s The Sound of Music for 20th Century Fox is an opulent and lavish production. The 1965 movie musical, written by Ernest Lehman, is melodic and cinematic. At the start of its nearly three hours, with sweeping aerial photography in famous... read more

The 50th Anniversary edition movie soundtrack for Richard Rodgers’ and Oscar Hammerstein’s The Sound of Music (20th Century Fox’s 1965 winner for the Academy Award for Best Picture) is a rare, wonderful treat (click on the image to buy the CD or... read more

“Nothing propinks like propinquity.” So remarked Felix Leiter to James Bond in Ian Fleming’s fourth Bond novel, Diamonds are Forever. It was propinquitous that someone at Pegasus Books thought that I’d reviewed another of Fleming’s books, For Your Eyes Only, a... read more

Screened at the TCM Classic Film Festival 2015, one of Walt Disney’s most personal films, So Dear to My Heart, introduced by film and Disney historian Leonard Maltin, is utterly charming. The movie includes live action and a few brilliant scenes in poetically themed... read more

This film noir classic with a femme fatale played by Lizabeth Scott (who apparently hated the movie) is a shocking portrayal of a diabolical woman literally on the manhunt. The late Miss Scott, whom I recently discussed with Leonard Maltin and Robert Osborne, was an... read more