HD Cinema (103): The Walking Hills *** (1949, Westerns)
Summary: While tailing a murder suspect, private detective Frazee follows the suspect into a poker game. When one of the players reveals he knows the location of a lost wagon train full of gold, everyone in the game is suddenly bound up in an expedition into the desert to find the treasure. But heat, sand, wind, and the revelation of personal secrets combine to threaten not only the treasure hunt but the lives of the hunters as well.
HD Cinema (106): Switching Channels *** (1988, Comedy)
Summary: A remake of Front Page. Sully is the producer of a cable news network program. Christy is his ex-wife and best reporter. Her desire to quit the news business and marry Blaine, a sporting goods manufacturer comes as an innocent man is about to be executed. Sully's attempts to keep her in town and break up her upcomming marriage happen against the backdrop of a botched execution, a prison break and a possible pardon.
Epics-HD: White Hunter, Black Heart *** (1990, Comedy)
Summary: Unjustly overlooked in Clint Eastwood's oeuvre, this critical examination of the hubris of machismo predated Unforgiven by just two years and meditated on similar themes. Eastwood plays a macho movie director, in Africa ostensibly to shoot a movie, but more pressingly (to his mind, anyway) to bag an elephant. The story is based loosely on the true story of John Huston's behavior while making The African Queen; Eastwood's Huston imitation (the character here is named Wilson) will no doubt prove distracting to some--he drawls out vowels to the point of breaking--but he captures both the arrogance of and the magnetic force behind the man. The film boasts splendid visuals by cinematographer Jack Green, and the final scene--and Eastwood's performance therein--is nearly heartbreaking. --David Kronke
Divine-HD: Gidget Goes Hawaiian ** (1961, Comedy)
World Cinema-HD: Easy Rider **** (1969, Drama
Summary: Two cool guys head out on motorcycles in search of... well, America, but they'll settle for sex and drugs and rock & roll. There's plenty of each as Captain America (Peter Fonda) and paranoid Billy (Dennis Hopper) encounter a commune, convert a small-town drunk (Jack Nicholson) to the Grin Reefer, pick up two pretty lilies of the alley, Karen Black and Toni Basil (who hit the pop charts in the '80s--check out "Mickey"), and get shot for having long hair. Nicholson won an Oscar nomination and Best Supporting Actor nods from the National Society of Film Critics and the New York Film Critics Circle, but his acting was better than they knew: he had to pretend to be straight and gradually get plastered in many, many takes using real weed. Find out the far wilder, funnier story behind the film in the book Easy Riders, Raging Bulls and Peter Fonda's Don't Tell Dad. --Tim Appelo
