Superman: The Movie
4K Ultra HD | Blu-ray | DVD
Directed by Richard Donner
Written by Mario Puzo, David Newman, Leslie Newman, Robert Benton
Starring Christopher Reeve, Margot Kidder, Marlon Brando, Gene Hackman, Valerie Perrine, Ned Beatty, Jackie Cooper, Glenn Ford, Phyllis Thaxter, Marc McClure
Warner Brothers
PG | 143 minutes
Release Date: November 5, 2018

This year celebrated the 80th anniversary of the creation of maybe the iconic comic character in American history, Superman. It’s also the 40th anniversary of the seminal film by Richard Donner that for many still holds up as the one true film version of Superman. Played by the late great Christopher Reeve, the film details the demise of alien planet Krypton as Jor-El, Oscar winner Marlon Brando sends his child off to planet Earth. Kal-El (Reeve) grows up to become mild mannered reporter Clark Kent of the Daily Planet, who must balance his time between wooing his colleague Lois Lane (Margot Kidder), and saving the world from the plans of corrupt tycoon Lex Luthor, (Gene Hackman). Now you can take the Man of Steel home with you on a brand new 4k Ultra Blu-Ray combo pack.

Night Moves (1975)
Blu-ray | DVD | Digital HD
Directed by Arthur Penn
Starring: Gene Hackman, Melanie Griffith, Janet Ward, James Woods, Harris Yulin, Anthony Costello, Susan Clark, Edward Binns, and Jennifer Warren
Theatrical Release Date: June 11, 1975

– Who’s winning?
– Nobody. One side is just losing slower than the other.

By the time this dialogue occurs you begin to wonder why it took so long for it to be uttered. In 1975 America was striving to overcome the Vietnam War and still reeling from the pungent behavior of those corrupt individuals involved in the deceitful doings of Watergate. The influence of these events were inescapable, thus creating turbulent times all around, especially in cinema.

Night Moves, where the aforementioned quote is from, in particular, directed by Arthur Penn and scripted by Alan Sharp, is a feverish noir that was fully aware of the incessant confusion and mournful distress swallowing up our world at that time, rendering the population hopeless. It’s this kind of cinema, so inextricably tied to its era, that still manages to achieve a sense of timelessness. That’s because of its inquisitive nature to discern truth even if it means losing every now and then.

The French Connection, which remains one of the benchmarks in the history of cinema, particularly instrumental in ushering in a new wave of motion pictures during the latter quarter of the 20th Century in which real, gritty, uncensored, and violent police crime drama narratives were portrayed realistically, uncensored, and cinematically expertly, celebrates its 45th anniversary today.

Originally released on October 9th, 1971 in the United States, The French Connection is based on a true story about a French shipping magnate who plans to smuggle over $30 million in heroin to America to make a deal with some New York underworld gangsters, only to have it thwarted by a ragged yet alpha duo of unconventional and extremely unorthodox cops.

“They were gonna reboot the franchise, and resurrect it for everybody after the debacle that was Superman III. Little did we know that we were actually going to be working on the debacle to end all debacles.”

Superman IV: The Quest for Peace is a bad movie. It is legendary in its badness. It’s not just one of the worst comic book movies of all time, but truly it is exists a few meters above the bottom of the cinematic barrel, dipping to the bottom on occasion for scrapings to keep its putrid reputation alive for a little while longer.

It was a movie made with the purest of intentions; star Christopher Reeve, the iconic final piece in the puzzle that was the long-gestating Superman: The Movie from 1978, had envisioned The Quest for Peace to be both a spectacular superhero adventure with plenty of thrills and laughs for the summertime moviegoing audience and a thought-provoking social commentary about the destructive nature of the nuclear arms race. The final film proved to be neither, and in fact was the first movie in the franchise to actually lose money for its financiers.

While he may not have the pull of a bigger named director, Alexander Payne sure as hell will try to pull his weight to get one of the greatest actors around to jump back into the game.

Vulture is reporting that Payne is set to shoot his upcoming film, Nebraska, in black and white, but must cut his budget to $10 million, and find a big name to grab the lead role.  Who does he have his eye on? Amongst a list including the likes of Jack Nicholson and Robert Duvall is the one and only Gene Hackman.