Lorne (2026, Universal, Blu-ray, R, 101 min.). This documentary by Morgan Neville (TV’s “Steve (Martin): A Documentary in 2 Pieces,” “What’s Next: The Future with Bill Gates”) – he also co-wrote it with Alan Lowe and Jake Hofstetter – has unprecedented access to its subject, Lorne Michaels, the creator of TV’s “Saturday Night Live” in 1975 and the one who has sustained the show for 46 years of the last 51. In the process, Michaels became one of the key influencers, both good and bad, in contemporary comedy.

A Canadian, Michaels came to Los Angeles, looking to make his mark and he produced Lily Tomlin’s TV specials in 1973 and 1975. Tomlin is one of the many actors and comedians who discuss working with the often-mysterious Michaels over the years. Another is singer Paul Simon, Michaels’ great friend who once went on a trip through the south with him – it yielded Simon’s “Graceland” album – and they have had adjacent apartments in New York City for decades. Simon is interviewed throughout the film.

The documentary is filled with clips from “Saturday Night Live,” including the first five glorious years as well as more recent efforts, including actor Timothee Chalamet preparing to host the show. After losing most of the early brilliant cast, which included Gilda Radner, Chevy Chase, John Belushi, Dan Aykroyd, Jane Curtin, Laraine Newman and Garrett Morris, collectively known as the Not Ready for Prime Time Players, producer Michaels left the show for five years. He came back in 1985 and has been in charge ever since.

In addition to commentary from many of the famous faces who have appeared on the show or know Michaels apart from the show, there are animated sequences, including new ones, as well as clips from the show and behind-the-scenes glimpses of the show’s production schedule during the last few seasons. The latter range from the initial meetings with the hosts to the weekly process of trimming 50-60 possible sketches down to 14 or so for the 90-minute show. A section I enjoyed shows Michaels on his blueberry farm in Maine.

There are segments on Michaels’ forays into film, including “The Three Amigos,” with Martin, and “Wayne’s World.”

Overall, the film is entertaining, even as it appears to avoid anything that would upset Michaels, but then there are plenty of other sources for those subjects. Grade: film 3 stars

Rating guide: 5 stars = classic; 4 stars = excellent; 3 stars = good; 2 stars = fair; dog = skip it

Purchase link for some titles: https://moviezyng.com?bg_ref=ApLKdWV51k

Romanoff and Juliet (1961, Universal, Blu-ray, NR, 102 min.). The film was produced, directed and written, adapting his own successful play, by star Peter Ustinov (“Spartacus,” “Quo Vadis,” “Death on the Nile”). Ustinov turned William Shakespeare’s “Romeo and Juliet” into a Cold War satire.

Ustinov plays the President/General of Concordia, a European country so small that nobody is sure where it is or that it even was a member of the United Nations. As the film starts, Concordia’s President holds the deciding vote in a UN amendment to an amendment to a resolution being fought over by the United States and the Soviet Union. He sustains from voting and then quickly flies home.

Soon, the U.S. and Soviet Union are hatching plans to manipulate Concordia by large aid packages, but Concordia refuses all aid, saying the country is too small to hold it and does not need it anyway. Both countries to have ambassadors in Concordia who constantly spy on each other, but that is where Concordia’s President’s play comes in to play. He decides to play matchmaker between Juliet (Sandra Dee of “Gidget,” “A Summer Place”), the daughter of U.S. Ambassador Hooper Maulsworth (John Phillips of “Village of the Damned,” “Quadrophenia”) and wife Beulah (Alix Talton of “The Man Who Knew Too Much”), and Igor Romanoff (John Gavin of “Psycho,” “Spartacus”), the son of Soviet Ambassador Vadim Romanoff (Akim Tamiroff of “Touch of Evil,” “For Whom the Bell Tolls”).

One wrinkle is that Juliet’s spurned suitor, Freddie (Rik Van Nutter of “Thunderball,” “The Revenge of Ivanhoe”), suddenly shows up to propose again. One of the funnier moments is when Juliet says to Freddie, “I don’t know what’s come over you, Freddie. You started to think.” And he replies, “Yeah, it was tough, but I made it.”

The funniest sequence is when Concordia’s President keeps going back and forth between the two ambassadors, spreading each’s supposed secrets while getting increasingly drunk. In many ways, the film recalls “The Mouse That Roared,” a 1959 film with Peter Sellers. Grade: film 3.25 stars

The Phantom President (1932, Universal, Blu-ray, NR, 78 min.).  The film, directed by Norman Taurog (“The Adventures of Tom Sawyer,” “Boys Town”), has a solid idea – a more outgoing lookalike campaigns for U.S. president instead of the bland banker original – but the execution is not great. The film has too much music and too little campaigning. Also, the bits by Jimmy Durante are too excessive and jarring.

The charmless candidate is Theodore K. Blair, while the impersonator is roadshow herb salesman “Doc” Varney. Both roles are played by George M. Cohan, composer, songwriter and former vaudevillian, in his first film. Durante (“It’s a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World”) plays Varney’s aide Curly Cooney. There is a lot of rear projection when their car losses its brakes, almost hits a train and goes through a large picnic. Curly later sings a song about diseases. By the way, the music is by Rodgers and Hart.

Claudette Colbert (“It Happened One Night,” “So Proudly We Hail!”) plays Felicia Hammond, whom Blair wants to marry, but who falls for Varney. Grade: film 2.5 stars

Keeping Up with the Joneses (2016, 20th Century Fox, 4K Ultra HD + Blu-ray, PG-13, 105 min.). There are enough funny bits, including lunch at a Chinese snake restaurant, to keep the generally predictable film entertaining. It is directed by Greg Mottola (“Superbad,” “The Daytrippers”) and written by Michael LeSieur (“The Grinch,” “You, Me and Dupree”).

Married couple Jeff (Zach Galifianakis of “The Hangover,” “Due Date”) and Karen Gaffney (Isla Fisher of “Wedding Crashers”) are happy living in their cul-de-sac, until the home of their new neighbors, Tim (Jon Hamm of “Hoppers,” TV’s “Mad Men”) and Natalie Jones (Gal Gadot of “Wonder Woman,” “Death of the Nile”), blows up – just after the Gaffney’s have snuck into the house and discovered the Joneses are spies.

Jeff works in human resources for MBI, an aeronautics company whose technology may be being sold illegally. Tim and Natalie work for some clandestine U.S. agency.

Then film then jumps back two weeks to when the Joneses first move in. Shortly thereafter, Karen finds Tim trying to sneak into Jeff’s study during the neighborhood’s annual JuneOctober Fest. This leads to Karen following Natalie on her daily rounds, seeing her swap a book with another inside a store, then bumping into her target in a dressing room at a lingerie shop. There is some discomfort as mousy Karen tries to lie her way out of Natalie’s lingerie-dressed presence.

The film throws in real action, as Jeff tries to track down who might be selling MBI’s secrets, only to have he and his wife end up under fire. They are rescued by Tim and Natalie, before the four are chased by shooting motorcyclists. It all is a bit standard from then on, with apparently a lot of improvisation, but I did enjoy the epilogue.

Extras include a behind-the-scenes look (11:44); five alternate-extended scenes (18:17); a look at filming in Georgia and Atlanta (5:04); and a photo gallery. Grade: film 2.25 stars; extras 1.5 stars

Redux Redux (2025, Sony Pictures, DVD, R, 109 min.). Irene Kelly (Michaela McManus of TV’s “Aquarius,” “Awake”) travels through parallel universes, repeatedly killing her daughter's murderer, diner cook or, once a server, Neville (Jeremy Holm of TV’s “House of Cards”). Kelly has a machine that transports her that she carries in a track she rents or has in her motel room, and that she apparently has used thousands of times. Each parallel universe is only slightly different, but in most she has apparently died after her 14-year-old daughter’s death. She keeps trying to find a universe in which her daughter is still alive. She also usually hooks up with Jonathan (Jim Cummings of “Thunder Road,” “Halloween Kills”), whose wife has died and is a good listener for her.

In one universe, she rescues Mia (Stella Marcus) from captivity at Neville’s house. Soon, Mia wants to join Irene’s quest of killing multiple Nevilles. Luckily, the transport machine can hold two, on top of each other. Unfortunately, at one point, the battery burns out and Irene tries to buy a replacement from sketchy Billie (Taylor Misiak of TV’s “Dave,” “Going Dutch”).

No matter which universe they are in, one constant is Deb (Deborah Christofferson of TV’s “Carnivale,” “9-1-1”) as the diner waitress where Neville usually works.

The show is rather intriguing and I kind of like the means of transport through the parallel universes. Grade: film 3.25 stars

The Black Shield of Falworth (1954, Universal, Blu-ray, NR, 99 min.). Peasant Myles Falworth (Tony Curtis of “Some Like It Hot,” “Spartacus”) is trained for knighthood and groomed by a couple of nobles in a complicated plot to defeat the evil Gilbert Blunt, Earl of Alban (David Farrar of “Black Narcissus,” “The 300 Spartans”), who is plotting to kill the unhealthy King Henry IV (Ian Keith of “The Crusades,” “The Ten Commandments”) and steal the throne of England. The CinemaScope film was directed by Rudolph Mate (“The 300 Spartans,” “When Worlds Collide”), also a notable cinematographer.

The Earl of Alban rules the Council, which would rule in case of Henry’s death as Prince Hal (Dan O’Herlihy of “The Last Starfighter,” 2 “RoboCop” films) would be considered too weak a successor. Actually, Hal is just pretending to be weak, just as William, the Earl of Mackworth (Herbert Marshall of “Foreign Correspondent,” “The Little Foxes”) is pretending to be the friend of Walter Blunt (Patrick O’Neal of “The Way We Were,” “In Harm’s Way”). Both Hal and William also are pretending to be fools.

William gets a new tool in his secret fight against the Blunt brothers in young Myles, who arrives at his castle along with his sister Meg (Barbara Rush of “It Can from Outer Space,” “When Worlds Collide,” “Robin and the 7 Hoods”). Myles carries a letter to William, urging him to take in Myles and Meg as wards. The headstrong Myles incurs the enmity of the chief of esquires, Walter Blunt, but also falls in love with William's daughter, Lady Anne (Janet Leigh of “Psycho,” “Touch of Evil,” “The Manchurian Candidate”). Soon, William assigns Myles to be trained for knighthood, so that he may claim his birthright and defeat the Duke of Alban in combat.

There are a couple of individual fights and then the duel between Myles and Gilbert Blunt, which is soon overtaken by an all-out battle between the forces of Blunt and Mackworth, which closes the film in exciting fashion. Grade: film 3 stars

Monogram Matinee Volume 3 (1946, 1949, Warner Archive Collection, Blu-ray, NR, 117 min.). The disc contains two Monogram B Westerns, both starring Johnny Mack Brown, who made more than 60 Westerns for Monogram Pictures. He was a hero to millions of young children and consistently among the top ten money-makers in Westerns from 1942 to 1950.

In “Under Arizona Skies” (1946, 60 min.), Brown plays Dusty Smith, who early on breaks up a crooked poker game at the Last Chance Saloon. This draws the attention of Jim Simpson, owner of the Circle Cross ranch, who is headed to the big city for medical treatment and wants someone to look after his hot-headed son, Bill (Riley Hill of “The Haunted Mine,” “Border Bandits”). Dusty says no, but takes an authorization note from Jim, giving him control of the ranch.

Dusty ends up working at the Circle Cross, along with new friend Santa Fe Jones (Raymond Hatton of “The Three Musketeers,” “The Hunchback of Notre Dame”), who gets installed as cook. Dusty never shows the authorization letter, but he helps solve the cattle rustling that has plagued the ranchers.

In “Range Justice” (1949, 57 min.), Brown plays Johnny Mack Brown, a new hire by Ma Curtis (Sarah Padden of “A Woman’s Face”), who needs help, as again there are cattle rustlers, as well as neighbors who are cutting her fences, as she has shut off their access to the river. One of those hurt by her efforts is Glenn Hadley (Riley Hill again), a friend of Brown’s.

Once again, Brown’s character breaks up a fight after a crocked poker game. This film’s offbeat character is card magician and ventriloquist Alibi the Great (Max Terhune of “The Range Busters,” “Red River Range”), whose dummy is Little Elmer. The head bad guy is Ed Dunton (Tristram Coffin of “Creature with the Atom Brain,” “The Crawling Hand”). Grades: Under Arizona Skies 3.5 stars; Range Justice 2.75 stars

The Amityville Asylum (2013, Leomark, Blu-ray, NR, 91 min.). This film was produced, written and directed by Andrew Jones, and he possibly did the music as well, although that credit goes to Andrew J. Jones. In any case, Jones is responsible for this awful horror film.

The main problems are having the dialogue low, while the music is too loud, and there are three instances – two times when historical background is being given – when the music actually drowns out the dialogue. Additionally, some scenes are out of focus, while others are too dark to know what is going on.

Apparently, the Amityville horror house has been torn down and replaced with the High Hopes Asylum, run by Dr. Elliot Mixter (Jared Morgan of “The Nun”). A new cleaning hire is Lisa Templeton (Sophia Del Pizzo of TV’s “Whitstable Pearl”), who gets the job despite sneezing on Dr. Mixter’s hand during her interview. She is assigned to work nights with Delaney (Lee Bane of “Werewolves of the Third Reich”), who gives an overly long, detailed description of how to use the cleaning tools and solutions.

Almost immediately, Lisa has problems as she sees a child in the corridor, but Delaney says there are no children, and a few days later sees a catatonic patient in the hallway, who actually whispers something to her, only to find out that patient had died earlier that day. Another worker, Pemberton (Kenton Hall) comes on to her sexually. Grade: dog