Displaying items by tag: 1973

“American Graffiti is one of those films where a filmmaker brings his youth to the screen with such a sense of sweetness and genuine nostalgia, that his or her personal recollections somehow become universal for the audience.” – Gary Leva, director of Fog City Mavericks: The Filmmakers of San Francisco

The Digital Bits and History, Legacy & Showmanship are pleased to present this longform retrospective commemorating the golden anniversary of the release of American Graffiti, George Lucas’s popular film that nostalgically asked, “Where were you in ‘62?”

American Graffiti starred Richard Dreyfuss (Jaws, Close Encounters of the Third Kind), Ronny Howard (The Andy Griffith Show, Happy Days), Paul Le Mat (Aloha, Bobby and Rose, Melvin and Howard), Charles Martin Smith (Never Cry Wolf, The Untouchables), Candy Clark (The Man Who Fell to Earth, Blue Thunder), Mackenzie Phillips (One Day at a Time), Cindy Williams (The Conversation, Laverne & Shirley) and Wolfman Jack (popular radio DJ), plus a small, early-career performance by Harrison Ford (Star Wars, Raiders of the Lost Ark). The film was nominated for five Academy Awards (Picture, Director, Supporting Actress—Candy Clark, Screenplay, and Film Editing). In 1995 the Library of Congress selected American Graffiti for preservation in the National Film Registry as being “culturally, historically or aesthetically significant.” Its most recent home media release, on 4K UHD, was in November of this year (but received less than high marks for A/V quality in most reviews).[Read on here...]

Welcome to our newest column addition Scream for a Week!

We here at The Digital Bits are big fans of Shout!’s Scream Factory division and, not unlike Todd Doogan’s Criterion Spines Project, we wanted to cover Scream Factory’s releases by catching up on a bunch that we’ve missed while acknowledging the previous ones. We’ll also be covering new ones here as well. This column will go up on a bi-weekly basis, so be sure to check back in another two weeks for another pile of Scream Factory goodness.

First up is a double feature of Tales from the Crypt and Vault of Horror, both terrific horror anthologies. Tales from the Crypt in particular contains one of the creepiest and more effective Christmas horror stories. Speaking of Christmas, new on the slate is a Collector’s Edition of Black Christmas, a title long sought after by Scream Factory fans and one that I believe many will feel was worth the wait. Also new on the chopping block is Jack’s Back, a great little thriller mostly forgotten by genre fans. Next is George A. Romero’s Monkey Shines, one of his most enjoyable non-Dead movies. And last but not least is a double feature of TerrorVision and The Video Dead, one of Scream Factory’s earliest releases and still one of their most fun. [Read on here…]

(If it can be difficult to remember who won the Academy Award for Best Picture, it’s downright mindbending trying to remember everything else it was up against. In An Honor To Be Nominated, I’ll be taking a look back at some of the movies the Oscar didn’t go to and trying to determine if they were robbed, if the Academy got it right, or if they should ever have been nominated in the first place.) [Read on here...]