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Hard to believe, but December is nearly upon us, and that means we have a brand new batch of Digital and VOD releases to look forward to over the next few weeks. And for those of you looking to indulge in some non-holiday cinematic delights next month, there seems to be quite a variety of films hitting VOD and other digital platforms to keep you cozy inside your home, away from the brutality of winter and its harsh elements.

December’s releases kick off on the 1st with Somebody’s Darling, and December 5th is one of the busiest days of the month with six different titles making their digital bow: The Gatehouse, The Doll Master, Apocalypse Road, Flashburn, K-shop, and The White King. Then, just a few days later, IFC Midnight is releasing the psychological thriller Kaleidoscope, and on December 12th, both The Cutlass and Flatliners (2017) come home.

IFC Midnight...

Psycho killers long ago lost their novelty, but in 1956 Budd Boetticher and Wendell Corey gave us Leon ‘Foggy’ Poole, a screen original with limitless appeal. Imagine a time when ‘normalcy’ was so taken for granted that any weird behavior was enough to give us the chills? Foggy carries this crime potboiler with a refreshing new idea: his dangerous maniac looks more normal than normal people.

The Killer Is Loose

Blu-ray

ClassicFlix

1956 / B&W / 1:85 widescreen / 76 min. / Street Date June 13, 2017 / 29.98

Starring: Joseph Cotten, Rhonda Fleming, Wendell Corey, Alan Hale Jr., Michael Pate, John Larch, Dee J. Thompson, Virginia Christine.

Cinematography: Lucien Ballard

Original Music: Lionel Newman

Written by Harold Medford, story by John & Ward Hawkins

Produced by Robert L. Jacks

Directed by Budd Boetticher

A smartly directed mid-fifties noir with a sensational central performance from the overlooked Wendell Corey, The Killer is Loose shows director Budd Boetticher at ease with a modest budget,...

"You want a glass of Burgundy?" Pamela Adlon asks, encouragingly, as she sits down in a ritzy Beverly Hills restaurant. The multi-hyphenate force behind FX's Better Things then gestures to her full face of makeup, which has been professionally applied for a photo shoot: "By the way, this is not me." She catches a glimpse of her smoky eyes in a nearby mirror, she yanks out a few fake lashes. When the beverages arrive in giant goblets that make the pours look a little stingy, she offers a polite thanks.

“May you live to be a thousand years old, sir.” Still the most widely unheralded great movie on the books, John Patrick Shanley’s lightweight/profound fable is an unmitigated delight. See Tom Hanks at the end of the first phase of his career plus Meg Ryan in an unacknowledged career highlight. How can a movie be so purposely insubstantial, and yet be ‘heavier’ than a dozen pictures with ‘big things to say?’

Joe Versus the Volcano

Blu-ray

Warner Archive Collection

1990 / Color / 2:35 widescreen / 97 min. / Street Date June 20, 2017 / available through the WBshop / 21.99

Starring Tom Hanks, Meg Ryan, Lloyd Bridges, Robert Stack, Abe Vigoda,

Dan Hedaya, Barry McGovern, Amanda Plummer, Ossie Davis

Cinematography Stephen Goldblatt

Production Designer Bo Welch

Film Editors Richard Halsey, Kenneth Wannberg

Original Music Georges Delerue

Produced by Kathleen Kennedy, Frank Marshall, Steven Spielberg and Teri Schwartz

Written and Directed by John Patrick Shanley

I think I found...

My Happy Family also wins two awards at Wiesbaden festival.

Bojan Vuletic’s second feature Requiem For Mrs J. has become the first Serbian film in the history of the goEast - Festival of Central and Eastern European Film’s 17 years to win the top award, the €10,000 Golden Lily, for best film in Wiesbaden’s competition.

The co-production between Serbia’s See Film Pro, Bulgaria’s Geopoly Film, Fyr Macedonia’s Skopje Film Studio, France’s Surprise Alley and Russia’s Non-Stop Production had had its world premiere at the Berlinale’s Panorama section in February and is in the sales line-up of Belgrade-based Soul Food Films.

Vuletic, who had attended his film’s screenings and last night’s awards ceremony with lead actress Mirjana Karanovic (both pictured, top, alongside filmmaker Hana Jusic and festival director Gaby Babic), is no stranger to goEast after his feature debut Practical Guide To Belgrade With Singing And Crying had its...

Curtis Hanson--Confidentially

By

Alex Simon

Curtis Hanson was my first interview with a fellow film buff and film journalist. He was nice enough to sit down with me twice, first at the Rose Cafe in Venice, then at a lunch spot in the Marina, the name of which has been lost to time. He was then kind enough to invite me to the world premiere of "L.A. Confidential" at the Chinese Theater as his guest, my first time on the red carpet at a real-life Hollywood premiere, and called me after this piece ran to thank me personally. A nice man. Hanson, and co-writer Brian Helgeland, would go on to win Best Adapted Screenplay Oscars for "L.A. Confidential."

Years later, I ran into Hanson at a book signing party for Pat York that was held in Westwood. I approached him and reminded him of our interview a decade or so earlier.