"The Hot Nights of Linda" (Severin)
Jess Franco's 1975 erotic-gothic effort has a Warholian rawness that makes it utterly compelling if you're not repelled by the purposeful skeeviness of the whole enterprise. Starring his muse and wife Lina Romay as the enthusiastically uninhibited daughter of a decidedly degenerate and secrets-crippled household, its beauty, such as it is, comes from the cinematography being so raw, so unpolished. The decadent goings-on have an almost documentary-like thrill. The Blu-ray of this triple-disc set (high def and standard def editions make up the first two) nails the looks, print scratches and all. A third disc presents a standard-def rendition of the hardcore version, which was digitized from a VHS tape and looks it. In addition it is kind of icky. The extras are Fantastic-Fest-centric enough to include actual footage from a Fantastic Fest tribute to the filmmaker. — B
"Jumbo" (Warner Archive)
"Khartoum" (Twilight Time)
Presenting a very nice transfer of the 1966 widescreen near epic about a bit of 19th century nastiness in Sudan and Egypt and the British trying to hold it all together down there, tut tut, pip pip, etc. Interestingly, this production was in a less cumbersome iteration of Cinerama which reminds us that today's debates about "fake" IMAX are nothing new. Any how, the desertscapes and action all look beautiful and solid; what tech wonks call a "density" issue yields slight throbbing in the wide blue skies of some scenes but nothing too distracting: it's quite an impressive thing. I didn't have time to check out its unofficial companion piece, "Zulu," also just out on Twilight Time, but I hope to get to that elegy for imperialism soon. Like "Zulu" this has a commentary track featuring historian (and Twilight Time co-founder) Nick Redman, critic Julie Kirgo, and screenwriter Lem Dobbs, who's unusually and somewhat amusingly critical of the film and comes down hard on its director Basil Dearden. Damn. —A-
"Nostalghia" (Kino Lorber)
"Royal Flash" (Twilight Time)
Richard Lester's 1975 adaptation of George MacDonald Fraser's second Flashman novel takes the piss out of period adventure pics as slyly as Fraser's books take the piss out of period adventure novels. Malcolm McDowell is as game as he ever was playing the bully/coward who's a hero in his own mind. The period pastiche is enabled by the wealth of diffused light captured in cinematographer Geoffrey Unsworth's lens; dig the milky glow of the white vests worn by the boxers in evening dress (Oliver Reed and real life pugilist Henry Cooper) in one particularly wry depiction. There's also a bathhouse scene presaging Lester's subsequent "The Ritz"…or is it quoting "The Life And Death of Colonel Blimp?" Presented in delightful 1.66 , and featuring a rollicking casual commentary with Nick Redman and McDowell. A-
"Throne of Blood" (Criterion)
"Trans Europ Express" (Kino Lorber)
The Vivien Leigh Anniversary Collection (Cohen Media)
Glenn Kenny was the chief film critic of Premiere magazine for almost half of its existence. He has written for a host of other publications and resides in Brooklyn. Read his answers to our Movie Love Questionnaire here.