Leonard Maltin

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Let's Hear It For Lon

By Leonard Maltin
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February 12, 2010 4:58 AM
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I doubt if any horror-film buff doesn’t already own a copy of The Wolf Man (1941) in one of its DVD incarnations, but the release of the new Benicio Del Toro feature has inspired Universal to reissue the original one more time—with a brand-new 35-minute biography of Lon Chaney, Jr. among its bonus features. The documentary, titled Pure in Heart: The Life and Legacy of Lon Chaney, Jr. may not hold any revelations, but it’s a first-rate survey of the actor’s bittersweet life and career, with rare photos, a sampling of film clips (including some of his earliest appearances in the 1930s, and his immortal performance as Lenny in Of Mice and Men), and interviews with a number of admirers, scholars, and colleagues—

By Leonard Maltin
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February 9, 2010 6:12 AM
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1 Comment

I’m pleased to announce the publication of Leonard Maltin’s 151 Best Movies You’ve Never Seen. As those of you know who watch my weekly show Secret’s Out on ReelzChannel, there’s nothing I enjoy more than steering movie lovers to good films they may have missed. HarperStudio gave me an opportunity to write essays about 151 such films, and I jumped at the chance.

By Leonard Maltin
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February 9, 2010 1:47 AM
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James Cameron likes to be in control, but Arnold Schwarzenegger took him by surprise during Saturday night’s presentation of the Modern Master Award at the Santa Barbara International Film Festival. I was onstage conducting an evening-long interview with Cameron, interspersed with clips from many of his films. Normally, a presenter appears at the end of the program to hand the physical award to our honoree, but when that person is the Governor of the state of California, things work a bit differently. As he was unable to stay past a certain hour, and hadn’t arrived by the time we started the program, we surprised Cameron and the audience by having Schwarzenegger appear immediately following a lengthy scene from Terminator II.

By Leonard Maltin
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February 4, 2010 12:00 AM
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7 Comments

After five years I’m proud to announce the publication of a revised edition of Leonard Maltin’s Classic Movie Guide (Plume), now available in stores and online. It’s more than 100 pages thicker than the first volume, with many changes, additions, and corrections. In the first Classic volume we reviewed 1,100 titles we’d never covered before in my Annual Guide. This time we have 300 brand new entries, covering films from the teens through the 1960s, and featuring stars like Lon Chaney, Cary Grant, and Douglas Fairbanks, as well as films from such formidable directors as Jean Renoir, F.W. Murnau, Frank Borzage, Yasujiro Ozu, and Ernst Lubitsch. We’ve added silent movies, foreign films, early talkies, B musicals of the 1940s, film noirs (or is that films noir?) and more.

By Leonard Maltin
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February 2, 2010 6:05 AM
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4 Comments

Anne Hathaway and Academy President Tom Sherak read the announcements at 5:38 a.m.I don’t relish hearing my alarm go off at 4 in the morning, but I hopped out of bed today with a smile on my face. An hour later it’s still dark outside the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, but inside there’s tangible excitement in the air. The lobby is packed with the familiar faces of reporters, critics, publicists, and Academy staffers. We’re all at the nexus of show-business, where eagerly-awaited news is about to be beamed around the world.

By Leonard Maltin
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February 1, 2010 6:42 AM
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2 Comments

Even as Hollywood survivor Dennis Hopper battles prostate cancer, he is being celebrated in a multimedia show that’s touring the world. I caught a glimpse of it on my recent trip to Australia, where the exhibition called Dennis Hopper and The New Hollywood is on display through April 25 at the Australian Centre for the Moving Image in Melbourne. The touring show of photographs and artwork by Hopper is accompanied by a coffee-table book of the same name, published by Flammarion in conjunction with the ACMI and La Cinematheque Francaise. The book was on sale in the Centre’s lovely gift shop, but I didn’t want to lug it home, figuring it would turn up on our shores soon enough: in fact, it is scheduled for U.S. publication in April. But I did purchase one Hopper-related goodie: a replica of his stars-and-stripes-decorated Harley Davidson cycle from Easy Rider.

By Leonard Maltin
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January 31, 2010 4:20 AM
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1 Comment

James Cameron may be the King of the World when it comes to box-office receipts, but I haven’t seen him personally selling Avatar merchandise. On the other hand, Pixar’s John Lasseter is now appearing in a series of videos at the Disney Store online to introduce and promote a new high-end line of Toy Story toys and collectibles. A cynic could write this off as nothing more than a commercial ploy, and it’s certainly meant to sell merchandise, but what makes it work is that Lasseter is in fact a dedicated toy collector. When he says that he buys two of everything—one to keep in its package, in mint condition, and the other to play with—he isn’t kidding. His office at Pixar is crammed with character toys, and not just from Pixar movies. If you’re of the same stripe, you’ll want to check out this new line from Thinkway Toys, featuring Woody, Buzz Lightyear, and other Toy Story characters—in anticipation of Toy Story 3’s release later this year. And if you follow the links you’ll see individual Lasseter videos describing each individual item.

By Leonard Maltin
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January 28, 2010 9:29 AM
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3 Comments

Let’s deal with the elephant in the room right away: I wasn’t sure how I would respond to seeing Mel Gibson on screen for the first time since his public embarrassments and utterances. Like many of you, I have felt ever since queasy about the man. I wasn’t even sure if I wanted to like his new starring vehicle. But minutes into Edge of Darkness I forgot about all that;

By Leonard Maltin
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January 28, 2010 3:21 AM
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0 Comments

.syn{font-family:Arial;font-size:11px;padding:5px;width:470px;background:#585858;border-top:1px solid #777777;color:#ccc;} .syn a {color:#ccc;}The Hurt Locker Leonard Maltin's Secret's Out | Movie Trailers

By Leonard Maltin
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January 27, 2010 1:59 AM
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6 Comments

Like most film buffs, I was upset to hear about Jean Simmons’ passing over the weekend…but I felt incredibly lucky to have met her at the Telluride Film Festival over Labor Day Weekend in 2008. In his program notes for her tribute, Scott Foundas wrote, “It is one of the few serious shortcomings, don’t we all agree, of David Lean’s otherwise exemplary version of Great Expectations (1946) that Jean Simmons leaves the screen much too soon, to be replaced by Valerie Hobson as the grown-up version of the Estella character.

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Let's Hear It For Lon

Leonard Maltin’s 151 Best Movies You’ve Never Seen

James Cameron, The Terminator and Me

A New Look At Old Movies

Oscar's Early Bird Special

Dennis Hopper On Display

John Lasseter, Toy Guru

film review - Edge of Darkness

Secret's Out - The Hurt Locker

Remembering Jean Simmons

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