Leonard Maltin's Movie Crazy

PROTO-NOIR AND PRIME NOIR ON BLU-RAY

Blu-Ray/DVD May 28, 2026

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THE BIG COMBO – Ignite Films Joseph H. Lewis was a prolific director of B movies and episodic television, but his latter-day claim to fame is a virtuosic film noir, Gun Crazy (1950). When I first saw that film it knocked me out and led me to seek out his second-best-known noir, The Big Combo (1955) which I’ve always thought of as The Big Disappointment. But the lavish treatment it has received in this new Blu-ray release has caused me to have second thoughts. There are no fewer than three audio commentary tracks, by the estimable Imogen Sara Smith and Philippe Garnier, which I would classify as admirably interpretive. The third is conversational and highly informative, which is what we’ve come to expect from the…

WHY YOU SHOULD GO OUT TO SEE ‘TUNER’

In Theaters Leonard Maltin Movie Reviews May 28, 2026

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I’ve seen Tuner more than once and while it’s a thriller with its fair share of surprises, it holds up awfully well. I would urge you to go out and see it at your first opportunity. If grownups don’t support an entertaining mainstream movie like this while it’s playing in theaters what hope is there for other budding filmmakers to get their stories told? The premise of the picture came about when Daniel Roher, who won an Academy Award for his outstanding documentary Navalny, found himself seated next to a stranger at an industry event. He asked the fellow what he did for a living and learned that his luncheon mate was a piano tuner. This set the wheels turning in his mind and led…

WHAT’S NEW ON 4K/BLU/DVD IN MAY

Exclusive May 28, 2026

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THE FOLLOWING WAS WRITTEN BY MY FRIEND AND COLLEAGUE ALONSO DURALDE. YOU CAN LEARN MORE ABOUT HIM HERE. WHAT’S NEW ON 4K/BLU/DVD IN MAY: WUTHERING HEIGHTS, HEARTS OF DARKNESS, COME BACK TO THE FIVE AND DIME, JIMMY DEAN, JIMMY DEAN, AND MORE! NEW RELEASE WALL The Bride! / “Wuthering Heights” (both WBD): Spring of 2025, Warner Bros. was all about leading men in multiple roles, with Mickey 17, The Alto Knights, and Sinners being released in succession. For 2026, the theme was apparently unleashing women directors onto classic literature (also written by women). Emerald Fennell’s “Wuthering Heights”earned its quotation marks by being the auteur’s wildly horny take on the Emily Brontë original; ditto The Bride! and its exclamation point, as Maggie Gyllenhaal kicked out the…

WHAT’S NEW ON 4K/BLU/DVD IN APRIL

Exclusive April 28, 2026

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THE FOLLOWING IS WRITTEN BY MY FRIEND AND COLLEAGUE ALONSO DURALDE. YOU CAN LEARN MORE ABOUT HIM HERE. WHAT’S NEW ON 4K/BLU/DVD IN APRIL: DUST BUNNY, FACES OF DEATH, UFORIA AND MORE! NEW RELEASE WALL Dust Bunny (Lionsgate): Visionary TV mogul (and, full disclosure, personal friend) Bryan Fuller makes his big-screen directorial debut with all of the clever scares and gloriously overstated art direction that fans have come to love in cult favorites like Pushing Daisies and Hannibal. The latter’s star Mads Mikkelsen plays a hit man who gets an unusual assignment from his young neighbor (talented newcomer Sophie Sloan): kill the monster under her bed, the one who’s already eaten her parents. Mikkelsen finds himself facing off with not only the thing in the…

CATCHING UP WITH BLU-RAYS

Leonard Maltin March 23, 2026

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As I said in my recent post, I’ve been laggard in keeping up to date on this website. The following Blu-ray releases are no longer fresh, but they warrant your attention nonetheless. If you want to know why Louise Brooks has such a fervent following, make it a point to see G.W. Pabst’s Pandora’s Box and Diary of a Lost Girl. Focus on Louise Brooks from Flicker Alley is aimed at the diehards who want to see every frame of footage in which she appeared, including the first silent films she made under contract to Paramount. She already had “the look” that still enchants us, but the small and/or supporting roles she landed are inconsequential at best. The San Francisco Film Preserve has combed…

WHAT’S NEW ON 4K/BLU/DVD IN MARCH

Blu-Ray/DVD March 23, 2026

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THE FOLLOWING WAS WRITTEN BY MY FRIEND AND COLLEAGUE ALONSO DURALDE. YOU CAN LEARN MORE ABOUT HIM HERE. WHAT’S NEW ON 4K/BLU/DVD IN MARCH: KILLERS OF THE FLOWER MOON, OFFICE KILLER, THE BIG COMBO, AND MORE! NEW RELEASE WALL Killers of the Flower Moon (The Criterion Collection): Given how long it took Apple TV to put Best Picture winner CODA on physical media, we should be grateful for the relative speed with which we’re getting a 4K release of Martin Scorsese’s masterful tale of crimes committed against this nation’s indigenous peoples. It’s a sweeping epic of American barbarism, with greedy interests out to slaughter the population that dares stand between a corporation and its oil, told with brutal efficiency and heartbreaking disappointment in human nature.…

A NEW BOOK FROM MALTIN AND MALTIN

Exclusive March 14, 2026

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The past few months have been hectic for my family and me and as a result, I haven’t had the wherewithal to keep up with this blog, as much as I have wanted to. My daughter and collaborator Jessie is a hands-on, full-time Mom to our four-year-old granddaughter Daisy, which means it’s hard to find any so-called spare time. We have managed to log on almost every Sunday afternoon for our weekly livestream, Maltin on Movies, which is also the name of our podcast, which posts on Fridays. We’ve missed a couple of weeks here and there, but we have two first-rate interviews coming up in the weeks ahead, with actors Caroline Goodall and Lou Taylor Pucci. What’s more, we have joined forces to produce…