Violent Streets (1974) Blu-ray Review: Blood and Guts Yakuza Story
It might be a form of survivorship bias, but movies "demystifying" or "deglamorizing" yakuza seem to outnumber any other kind ...
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Samurai Wolf 1 & 2 Blu-ray Review: A Scruffier Yojimbo
The first director a Western audience thinks of for classic samurai films is Akira Kurosawa. After all, his Seven Samurai ...
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Branded to Kill Criterion Collection 4K UHD Review: Yakuza Movie as Experimental Art
Goro Hanada's life is spinning out of control. His wife spends all his money, so he's always on the financial ...
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All-Star Superman 4K UHD Review: Great Comics, Okay Movie
Superman is a difficult character to write good stories about because… he's Superman. Impervious to damage, always the strongest and ...
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Backtrack (1990) Blu-ray Review: Dennis Hopper’s Lost… Piece
Backtrack feels like one of the weird indie comedy-crime-dramas that came out in the wake of Pulp Fiction's success. It's ...
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Heat (1986) Blu-ray Review: Burt Reynolds Comes Back Fighting
They call him "Mex." His name is Nick Escaflante (Burt Reynolds), and we meet him drunk in a bar hitting ...
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The Big Easy (1986) Blu-ray Review: Corrupt Cop Chews Scenery
For Remy McSwain (Dennis Quaid), life in the Big Easy is smooth. He's got his big smile (he's Dennis Quaid, ...
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The Maltese Falcon (1941) 4K UHD Review: Bogart’s Big Break
Is The Maltese Falcon a film noir? To many viewers, it's not a question. It's black and white. There's crime. ...
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Book Review: Fools Die on Friday by Erle Stanley Gardner
Donald Lam knows the girl's a phony. He knows from the second he sees the monogram on her cigarette case ...
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Dead Silence (2007) 4K UHD Review: Scary Dolls Don’t Do Anything
James Wan has had an interesting career. An absolute underdog, coming from Malaysia via Australia, he made the film Saw. ...
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Dragonslayer (1981) 4K UHD Review: Great Dragon, Murky Movie
The title Dragonslayer brings to mind knights in shining armor. Villainous, fire-breathing wyrms. Damsels chained to posts in sacrifice to ...
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The Vagrant (1992) Blu-ray Review: Baffling, but Never Boring Horror Film
The Vagrant has about four movies worth of themes and plots, but less than a single film's coherence. It's weird, ...
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Puss in Boots: The Last Wish Blu-ray Review: Puss Meets Death for the Ninth Time
The Shrek series has been dormant in the cinema for over a decade, since the release of the first Puss ...
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Book Review: The George Herriman Library: Krazy & Ignatz 1925-1927
Krazy Kat is the kind of thing that doesn't happen. The comic strip ran for almost 30 years despite irritation ...
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The Texas Chain Saw Massacre (1974) 4K UHD Steelbook Review: Grinding Relentless Horror Classic
The Texas Chain Saw Massacre deserves its reputation. For grisliness, for nastiness. And for excellence. It's a rare movie that ...
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Kubo and the Two Strings 4K UHD Steelbook Review: Stop-motion Tribute to Samurai Cinema
Kubo and the Two Strings is the story of an estranged family coming together. It is the story of a ...
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The Boxtrolls 4K UHD Steelbook Review: Charming, Odd, Ugly Beautiful?
Stop motion animation is a pretty weird medium. It was an early special effects trick, long since superseded by technology. ...
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Book Review: Talespin: Flight of the Sky-Raker and Other Stories: The Disney Afternoon Adventures Vol. 2
Disney Afternoon was a staple of after-school procrastination for nearly a decade, from 1990-1997. Several of those years included my ...
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Three Colors Trilogy Criterion Collection 4K UHD Review: Enigmatic Masterpieces About People Connecting
The Three Colors of this film trilogy, Blue, White, and Red, are so-chosen for the French tri-color flag (sorry, U.S.A.) ...
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El Vampiro Negro (1953) Blu-ray Review: An Argentinian “M”
Film noir as a genre is rather over-subscribed. It existed for a relatively brief period in the ‘40s and ‘50s ...
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Silent Running 4K UHD: Sci-Fi Hippy Dreams Dying
One of the things that made Star Wars such a huge hit was the state of '70s cinematic sci-fi. Because ...
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National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation 4K UHD Review: Calamitous Christmas Classic
Clark Griswold, the epitome of the American Middle-Class male, is on a slow burn. He has a vision of perfection. ...
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Planes, Trains and Automobiles 4K UHD Review: Thanksgiving’s Annual Lesson
Neal Page is not a bad guy. He's tightly wound, a little too serious, but the most important thing to ...
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Contraband (1980) Blu-ray Review: Explosively Violent Crime Action
Contraband comes in like a cool stylish Italian crime thriller and goes out like a Lucio Fulci gore fest. Being ...
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Elf (2003) 4K UHD Review: Farrell and Favreau Hit
Elf is a strange premise, anchored on a strange performance. Will Ferrell plays the grown-up version of a baby from ...
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The Nun and the Devil Blu-ray Review: Which Mother Will Prove Superior?
Despite the title, the Devil does not make a physical appearance in the Italian The Nun and The Devil (1973). ...
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The Company of Wolves 4K UHD Review: Little Red’s Wolf Fetish
The Company of Wolves (1984) is only kind of a werewolf movie, in that werewolves in the 20th century took ...
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The Kindred (1987) Blu-ray Review: Practical Effects, Impractical Storytelling
The difference between bad practical effects and bad CG is that bad practical still look like effort. Bad CG looks ...
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Casablanca 4K UHD Review: Here’s Looking at UHD
There's an old joke about a woman who saw Hamlet for the first time and hated it. "It was all ...
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E.T. The Extra-Terrestrial Blu-ray Review: ’80s Friendly Alien Invasion
E.T. is Jaws inverted. They both involve invasions of small communities by an alien entity. In one, the invasion disrupts ...
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Blind Fury (1989) Blu-ray Review: ’80s Action Meets Japan Pulp
Eighties action was more fun. The special effects were often primitive. The martial arts was less fluid, the camera work ...
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Happy Birthday to Me (1981) Blu-ray Review: Canuxploitation Slasher Slog
Post Halloween, the slasher was the go-to low budget money maker. The formula is so simple (young people, bloody death, ...
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Army of Darkness 4K UHD Limited Edition Steelbook Review: Long Live the Medieval Dead
Army of Darkness was my personal introduction to the Evil Dead. Because of Universal's awful marketing at the time, however, ...
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The Lost Boys 4K UHD Review: Flashy ’80s Vampire Flick
Half of the The Lost Boys is a moody gothic music-video styled horror movie. The other half is the '80s ...
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Le Corbeau Criterion Collection Blu-ray Review: A Poison Pen French Noir
France has always been one of the centers of cinema in the world. After all, the Lumiere brothers rivaled Edison ...
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The Old Man Movie Blu-ray Review: Cows Udders End the World
When three Estonian kids are left in the country to spend the summer with their dairy farming grandpa, they expect ...
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Event Horizon 4K UHD Review: Atmospheric Space Chiller
At first glance, Event Horizon looks like a rip-off of Alien. A crew in space, far from any aid, investigating ...
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Flatliners (1990) 4K UHD Review: Visually Stimulating Psychological Thriller
Doctors lead very exciting lives in movies. Every doctor I've known in real life has been a little dull. Intelligent, ...
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Desperate Hours Blu-ray Review: Hostage Thriller Boils Over
Desperate Hours is based on a classic thriller scenario: a family held hostage in their own home by a criminal. ...
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The Deer King Movie Review: Beautiful, If Overly Complicated Fantasy
Van, the protagonist of The Deer King, is a big man. Probably the biggest in the salt mine where he's ...
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Edge of Tomorrow 4K UHD Review: Groundhog D-Day
It is a strange time to look at a film that earned hundreds of millions at the box-office and wonder: ...
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Panda! Go Panda! Blu-ray Review: Proto Totoro Anime Film
In my estimation, Miyazaki's My Neighbor Totoro is one of the greatest films ever made. It's an almost perfect fantasy ...
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True Romance 4K UHD Review: Sick Love, Slick Film
True Romance isn't a Quentin Tarantino movie. His name is on the screenplay. It has many scenes which no other ...
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Raiders of the Lost Ark Limited Edition Steelbook 4K UHD Review: Cinematic Adventure Perfection
Watching as a child, I knew that Raiders of the Lost Ark was a great adventure. It had everything you ...
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Candyman (1992) 4K UHD Review: Urban Legend, Urban Horror
Of the many great things about Bernard Rose's Candyman, one of the best is that it isn’t structured like a ...
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Children Who Chase Lost Voices Blu-ray Review: Fantasy Adventure about Loss
Asuna is a happy girl. She's lucky to be happy since she spends so much of her time on her ...
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5 Centimeters Per Second Blu-ray Review: A Story about Distance
The title refers to the speed at which cherry blossoms fall to the earth. It is practically the first line ...
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The Place Promised in Our Early Days Blu-ray Review: Sci-Fi Sentimental Teenage Drama
The Place Promised in our Early Days is set on an alternative Earth on the brink of war. Some part ...
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12 Monkeys (1995) 4K UHD Review: Time-Travel Tragedy
Terry Gilliam lives to be idiosyncratic. In a British comedy troupe, Monty Python, he was the American. In Hollywood filmmaking, ...
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Wild Things 4K UHD Review: High Level Sleaze
Wild Things is trash. But it's a kind of exquisite trash. It's the best Cinemax-style soft porn ever made. It's ...
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The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance 4K UHD Review: End of the Classic Western
The ubiquity of the popularity of the Western is a cultural phenomenon that is hard to fathom. It wasn't just ...
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Mystery Science Theater 3000: Season 13 and The Gizmoplex Debut Today
Mystery Science Theater 3000 is a show that will not die. It has moved through so many incarnations, starting on ...
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Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein (1994) 4K UHD Review: Loud, Blaring Classic Adaptation
There's so much to love about Kenneth Branagh's take on the story of Frankenstein and his monster, but there is ...
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To Sleep So as to Dream Blu-ray Review: Ode to Silent Japanese Cinema
What an odd film. To Sleep So as to Dream (1986), the directorial debut of Kaizo Hayashi is many things. ...
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The Godfather Trilogy 4K UHD Review: A Restoration You Can’t Refuse
The most written about American films in history have to be Citizen Kane, Psycho, and The Godfather. All are epochal ...
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SXSW 2022 Review: In the Court of the Crimson King
I've seen King Crimson once in concert. It was at the Greek in Los Angeles in 2017, and I went ...
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The Legend of the Stardust Brothers DVD Review: ’80s Japanese Manic Musical
The Legend of the Stardust Brothers is overlong, amateurishly acted, and schizophrenically directed. It has several scenes that make no ...
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Evil Eye plus The Girl Who Knew Too Much (1963) Blu-ray Review: Slick in Italian, Murky in American
Nora has a very bad first night in Italy. The relative she is visiting dies of a heart attack right ...
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Alligator (1980) 4K Ultra HD Review: Jaws in the Sewers
It's always nice when a movie tells you exactly what it's about in the title. This film is a monster ...
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The Capture (1950) Blu-ray Review: Complex Modern Western Crime Narrative
Lin Vanner (Lew Ayres), the protagonist of The Capture (1950), accidentally shoots an unarmed man. He believes the man is ...
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Rich and Strange Blu-ray Review: Marriage in Crisis
Alfred Hitchcock is known as primarily a director of thrillers, and after he came to the U.S. in 1939 it ...
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Red Angel (1966) Blu-ray Review: Disturbing War Hospital Drama
Red Angel is about a war-time nurse, and it lives up to themes implicit in the name. Nurse Sakura Nishi ...
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The Toolbox Murders (1978) 4K Ultra HD Review: Gruesome Grindhouse Exploitation
The difference between exploitation and horror is attitude. In a horror movie, you sympathize with the victim. In exploitation, your ...
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Shock (1977) Blu-ray Review: Bava’s Final Film
Shock is the final film that Mario Bava directed and is commonly regarded as an underwhelming swan song. He was ...
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Bob Spit: We Do Not Like People Movie Review: Punk is NOT Dead
Angeli is an apparently extremely famous cartoonist in Brazil. He has created several iconic characters that are, and combined shock ...
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Krampus: The Naughty Cut 4K Ultra HD Review: Anti-Santa Extended Edition
A fan of folklore often feels a pang of loss when one of the creatures or legends you cherish suddenly ...
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David Byrne’s American Utopia Movie Review: Beautifully Filmed but Imperfect Concert
David Byrne is one of those typical outsider becoming insider American stories. He set out to make oddball music, and ...
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Wife of a Spy Blu-ray Review: Understated Japanese Spy Thriller
Wife of a Spy is the latest film by Japanese craftsman Kiyoshi Kurosawa. He was one of several filmmakers, along ...
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The Ghost Ship/Bedlam Double Feature Blu-ray Review: Two Val Lewton Suspense Thrillers
Val Lewton ran the horror film unit at RKO Picture from 1942 to 1946. The massive success of Cat People, ...
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Some Came Running Blu-ray Review: ’50s Melodrama Feels Familiar
Prestige dramas in each decade in American cinema each tend to have their own flavor, and in the '50s, it ...
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Middle Earth Ultimate Collector’s Edition 4K Ultra HD Review: Beautiful Box but Incomplete
The Lord of the Rings is a landmark of modern cinema. New Line's audacity of committing to a trilogy before ...
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Night Has a Thousand Eyes Blu-ray Review: Psychic Thriller a Near Miss
What a great title. Night Has a Thousand Eyes. It evokes a sense of mystery, even of terror. The opening ...
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The Beast Must Die (1952) Blu-ray Review: Argentinian Revenge Noir
The structure of The Beast Must Die is the first thing to notice about it. It has a now standard, ...
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Karen Dalton: In My Own Time DVD Review: Sad Songs, Sad Life
Karen Dalton, as described by one of the participants in this documentary, was one of the few folk singers in ...
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Batman: Year One Commemorative Edition 4K Ultra HD Review: Good Batman Story Unexceptionally Told
Batman: The Dark Knight Returns made a bigger splash, but of the two famous Frank Miller revisionist Batman stories of ...
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Mad Love (1935) Blu-ray Review: Grotesque ’30 Body Horror
Mad Love would be a long lost Universal horror film had it not been made by MGM. It has a ...
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Book Review: Hitchcock and the Censors by John Billheimer
Alfred Hitchcock was a weird guy. That's not a slur on his character, but a statement of fact. He was ...
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In the Shadow of Hollywood: Highlights from Poverty Row Blu-ray Review: Independent ’30s B-Movies
Entertainment is often called a recession-proof (or even depression-proof) industry. The theory being that even when people are at their ...
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Universal Classic Monsters: Icons of Horror Collection 4K Ultra HD Review: Four Classic Horrors
The longevity of the iconography of the Universal monster films in popular culture is truly remarkable. A single image of ...
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Deep Red (1975) 4K Ultra HD Review: Argento’s Giallo Swan Song
In Deep Red, Dario Argento finally synthesizes his art and obsessions, and creates a film where the entire visual strategy ...
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Demons I & II Blu-ray Review: Italian Gore Shlock Romp
One of the keys to great schlock is integrity, and sincerity. Schlock that works cannot ever let the audience know ...
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Vera Cruz (1954) Blu-ray Review: Twisty Western Caper
Vera Cruz (1954) is an interesting western: it's a buddy movie where the buddies never really like each other. It's ...
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Dune (1984) 4K Ultra HD Review: Beautiful, Fascinating Mess of an Adaptation
Dune is probably unfilmable. The problem is not the special effects required, nor is it the scope of the action. ...
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Death Screams (1982) Blu-ray Review: Regional ’80s Slasher Artifact
There used to be a thing called regional cinema in the U.S. Hell, there used to be a thing called ...
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Children of the Corn (1984) 4K Ultra HD Review: Beating Up Kids in 4K
In the cottage industry of Stephen King adaptations, it's strange that one of his early stories about killer kids has ...
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The Window (1949) Blu-ray Review: The Boy Who Cried Murder
There's a good reason to hate films focused on kids: they're obnoxious. If they're cute, it's usually a cuteness at ...
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The Village Detective: A Song Cycle Movie Review: Meditation on Ruined Film
Around 2016, an Icelandic fishing boat caught something unusual in their nets. The ship was a bottom trawler, which sends ...
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The Cat O’ Nine Tails 4K Ultra HD Review: Convoluted Giallo Murder Mystery
The frustrating thing about Dario Argento is not the bad parts of his movies: it's the good ones. When he's ...
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Bugsy Malone Blu-ray Review: Bizarre and Charming Kiddie Gangster Musical
Bugsy Malone is one of those movies whose existence is very difficult to explain. It's a pastiche of gangsters and ...
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The Bird with the Crystal Plumage 4K Ultra HD Review: Dario Argento’s Debut Giallo
Dario Argento is one of those "stylish" directors who, at some point in his career, allowed the style to completely ...
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Hail to the Deadites Movie Review: Evil Dead’s Biggest Fans
Horror movie fanatics are a different breed. They've attached themselves to a genre, and usually one film or series in ...
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Dead & Buried (1981) 4K Ultra HD Limited Edition Review: Uncovered ’80s Horror Gem
Dead & Buried takes place in a small town, which is always bad news in a horror movie. Those are ...
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I Wouldn’t Be in Your Shoes Blu-ray Review: Limp Mystery Noir
There's a tendency amongst enthusiasts of film noir to use it as a badge of quality. If some old movie ...
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Irezumi (1966) Blu-ray Review: Revenge and Obsession
"Irezumi" is the Japanese word for a style of tattooing. It employs the use of a long wooden-handled needle that ...
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Drunken Master II Blu-ray Review: Pinnacle Chan Martial Arts
The fun of any of Jackie Chan's early Chinese movies is in the thrill of seeing someone doing something potentially ...
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The Final Countdown (1980) 4K Ultra HD Limited Edition Review: Great Planes, Great Set-up, No Story?
The scenario and set-up are almost perfect for an alternative history science fiction story: a fully loaded modern (in 1979) ...
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Django (1966) 4K Ultra HD Review: A Spaghetti Western Icon
Sergio Leone's Dollars trilogy might have signaled the international recognition of the spaghetti western, but it was Django that launched ...
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They Won’t Believe Me Blu-ray Review: Melodrama Noir
There are two elements normally present in a classic film noir. One is a main character, usually male, with decent ...
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Isle of the Dead (1945) Blu-ray Review: Atmospheric Chiller from Val Lewton
The key to the enduring appeal of the horror movies that Val Lewton produced for RKO in the '40s lies ...
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History Is Made at Night (1937) Criterion Collection Blu-ray Review: Love Crosses the Atlantic
Director Frank Borzage, who grew up with Hollywood, making (and acting in) silents from 1916 and remaining active up to ...
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Perdita Durango 4K Ultra HD Review: An Evil, Evil Love Story
An important key to understanding Perdita Durango, the character: her boyfriend is a bank-robbing Santeria priest who, in front of ...
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The Day of the Beast (1995) 4K Ultra HD Review: Surrealist Spanish Horror Comedy
With solemn music, steady angles and serious lighting, The Day of the Beast opens with a pair of priests in ...
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Southland Tales Blu-ray Review: Strange but Strangely Compelling
Stepping in through the door right when the millennium was opening up and carrying with it a sense of doom ...
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JSA: Joint Security Area Blu-ray Review: Death on the DMZ
There's only one place along the Korean DMZ that soldiers from the North and South stand across from one another, ...
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Tremors (1990) 4K Ultra HD Review: Monster Movie in Perfection
Tremors takes place in a town called Perfection (population: 14). It’s an ironic name, because the only thing perfect about ...
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Survivor Ballads: Three Films by Shohei Imamura Blu-ray Review: Stories of Hardship and Endurance
Shohei Imamura was one of the grandmasters of Japanese cinema in the second half of the 20th century. His first ...
Read More Bartender (2006) Blu-ray Review: A Calming Aperitif of a Show
Anime in the popular imagination is...I was about to say Dragonball, but that shows my age. Sailor Moon? One Piece? Inuyasha? Once or twice ...
Read More Versus (2000) Blu-ray Review: Samurai Zombie Yakuza Action
Japanese cinema at the beginning of the 21st century was fun. There was an explosion of cinematic talent coming from ...
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Crash (1996) Criterion Collection Blu-ray Review: An Anti-Erotic Film
"Prophecy is dirty and ragged", says Vaughan, while complaining about the cleanliness of the tattoo he gets on his chest. ...
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Vigilante (1982) 4K Ultra HD Review: Gritty Death Wish Redux
Vigilante, a Death Wish-inspired action drama from 1982, does so many interesting and fun things that it's a shame it ...
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Weathering with You (Limited Collector’s Edition) 4K Ultra HD Review: Prettier Colors, More Insight
Whatever misgivings I had about 2019's Weathering With You when I reviewed it a couple of months ago in its initial ...
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Chernobyl (2019) 4K Ultra HD Review: Harrowing, Horrifying Disaster Story
Chernobyl is a horror story with two monsters. One is technological, the other is human. The human horror caused the ...
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Daughters of Darkness (1971) 4K Ultra HD Review: Mysterious, Sensuous Vampire Story
On the first level, Daughters of Darkness is a film about a newly married couple who encounter an intriguing, if overly familiar ...
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Cold Light of Day (1989) Blu-ray Review: Portrait of a British Serial Killer
Obscure, cheap, short, and brutal, Cold Light of Day is a surprising discovery of British cinema. Shot on 16mm, the occasionally extremely ...
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Graveyards of Honor Blu-ray Review: Grim Yakuza Renegade Dramas
Both Kinji Fukasaku and Takashi Miike were unlikely survivors in their different eras of Japanese cinema. They both were highly ...
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Warning from Space Blu-ray Review: Starmen Waiting in the Sky
All science fiction is dated. Even the most up-to-the-minute, forward-looking piece of work is still a work of its time, ...
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Split Second (1992) Blu-ray Review: Blade Runner and Alien’s Stupid Baby
Stealing the antagonist from one Ridley Scott movie and the world building (and star) from another, Split Second could have been a ...
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Flash Gordon (1980) 4K Ultra HD Review: Garish and Spirited Comic Action
George Lucas's inspirations for Star Wars were many. He was a voracious reader of golden age science fiction, and picked elements he ...
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Black Test Car + The Black Report Blu-ray Review: Japanese Businessman Noir
One of the enduring images of contemporary Japanese culture is the salaryman. The rather anonymous guy in the suit who ...
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Pitch Black 4K Ultra HD Review: Riddick Starts Here
Pitch Black was released in 2000, and it feels very much like the last science fiction action film of the '90s. ...
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Weathering with You Blu-ray Review: Anime Girls Make the Rain Stop
In a 2021 Tokyo that is drenched with constant rainfall, there's a rumor going around about a so-called Sunshine girl: ...
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The Alfred Hitchcock Classics Collection 4K UHD Review: Four Masterworks of Suspense
Alfred Hitchcock is known as the master of suspense, but that's too limited a title for him. Where his talents ...
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The New York Ripper 4K Ultra HD Review: Sleazy Exploitation American Giallo
The New York Ripper is sleazy. It contains sleaze. It is about sleaze. In its semi-coherent narrative, it indulges in the ...
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The House by the Cemetery 4K Ultra HD Review: ‘Damn Tombstones!’
It's probably not accurate to say Lucio Fulci is an acquired taste. It's more accurate to say, of all the ...
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Tales from the Darkside: The Movie Blu-ray Review: Slick ’90s Horror Anthology
The anthology movie seems like it is always going out of style, and yet it seems to crop up again ...
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She Dies Tomorrow Movie Review: Meditation on Impending Doom
The premise is in the title: She Dies Tomorrow. She knows she's going to. She's certain of it. So certain ...
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Ride Your Wave Blu-ray Review: Touching Romance Becomes Ghost Story
For the first half hour of Ride Your Wave, it seems like Masaaki Yuasa was tackling something he'd only ever flirted ...
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Dream Demon Blu-ray Review: Newly-Unearthed ’80s Horror Fantasy
An obscure British release from 1988 that never made it to the states theatrically, Dream Demon's major problem is that it ...
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The Mad Fox Blu-ray Review: Kabuki-styled Cinematic Fantasia
Tomu Uchida is not one of the big names of Japanese cinema in the West, even though he had been ...
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Inferno of Torture Blu-ray Review: Torsos, Tattoos, and Torture
Inferno of Torture is the third of Teruo Ishii's ero-guro (erotic grotesque) films that have recently been released by Arrow Video. Orgies ...
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Morgan: A Suitable Case for Treatment (1966) Blu-ray Review: Love and Madness
Morgan is going mad. Or maybe he was always a little mad, but it became too much and wasn't as ...
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Sound! Euphonium: The Movie – Our Promise: A Brand New Day Blu-ray Review: One More Year of Music
Does anything one does in high school matter? At the time, it seems all dreadfully important, and some people see ...
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Promare Blu-ray Review: Hyper Kinetic Superhero Firefighters
There's barely a still moment in Promare, a science fiction anime film about firefighters who not only put out blazes but ...
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Their Finest Hour: 5 British WWII Classics Blu-ray Review: That British Stiff Upper Lip
The Second World War is a different story, depending where it's told. For Americans, it can be complex (how our ...
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The Bolshevik Trilogy: Three Films by Vsevolod Pudovkin Blu-ray Review: Silent Soviet Masterpieces
First and foremost, Pudovkin was a Soviet. His art was propaganda, because he believed in the cause. He's a contrast ...
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Come to Daddy Blu-ray Review: Twisty, Twisted Story of Family
Come to Daddy is a twisty movie. A lot of its narrative power comes from its plot surprises, so as a ...
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My Bloody Valentine (1981) Blu-ray Review: Superb Slasher Restored
My Bloody Valentine was, if not quite a box-office bomb, a severe disappointment. It was released right at the height of ...
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FLCL Progressive/Alternative Blu-ray Review: A Classic Badly Revived
Warner Bros. Home Entertainment provided the writer with a free copy of the Blu-ray reviewed in this article. The opinions ...
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Trapped (1949) Blu-ray Review: Great Restoration of a B-movie
Film noir are crime movies, but not all crime movies are film noir. There has to be an element of ...
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Book Review: Making Moon by Simon Ward
Hard sci-fi differentiates itself from the other kind by trying to follow the rules of physics and take place in ...
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Millennium Actress Blu-ray Review: Animated Japanese Film Fantasia
It's a love letter to film, a historical overview of early to mid-century Japan, and a biography of an actress ...
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The Fan (1981) Blu-ray Review: Bloody ’80s Stalking Thriller
The Fan was made in 1981. It's about a deranged man who kills people. He uses a special weapon to do ...
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Stephen King’s Storm of the Century (1999) DVD Review: Intriguing Premise at Snail’s Pace
TV made sense as its own thing until about 20 years ago. Nowadays, what constitutes TV is so sprawling and ...
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Popstar: Never Stop Never Stopping Blu-ray Review: Musical Parody Mostly Amusing
Comedy, like horror, is largely critic-proof, because the power of the genre lies in an immediate emotional reaction. You get ...
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The Dead Center Blu-ray Review: Mostly Effective Psychological Horror
A spiral is integral to The Dead Center's imagery and story. A spiral appears on the photographs of a body from ...
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Ringu Collection Blu-ray Review: Ghostly Revenge, Again and Again
Horror as a genre tends to go through brief periods of inspiration, followed by long slogs of imitation. If you're ...
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Genius Party & Genius Party Beyond Blu-ray Review: Dozen Odd Egg Japanese Animations
Short movies get kind of short shrift because... they're short. And even though our modern mode of considering a "film" ...
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Morituri (1965) Blu-ray Review: Hidden Naval WWII Classic
The cliché is, they don't make them like they used to. But, damn it, movies like Morituri don't get made anymore. It's ...
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The Big Fix (1978) Blu-ray Review: A Hippy Neo-noir Lament
Despite being such a sunny city, Los Angeles is the home of noir. All those sun bleached streets are hiding ...
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Hellbound: Hellraiser II (1988) Blu-ray Review: Same Gore, Less Story
It's strange that so many horror movies spawn enormous franchises when the surprise and the unknown are central to the ...
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Hellraiser (1987) Blu-ray Review: Clive Barker’s Semi-professional Debut
Roger Ebert hated Hellraiser when it came out, giving it half a star. He starts with the money quote Stephen King gave ...
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True Believer (1989) Blu-ray Review: Blisteringly Performed Courtroom Drama
True Believer has been released on Blu-ray in one of Mill Creek's Retro VHS Look packages. While it's the same dimensions ...
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The Flavor of Green Tea over Rice Criterion Collection Blu-ray Review: Gentle Ozu Comedy
The first thing to get used to in an Ozu film is the camera perspective. He never (or at least ...
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Akio Jissoji: The Buddhist Trilogy Blu-ray Review: New Wave Filmmaking, Naked Ladies
It's difficult to put a modern film-fan in the mind of a viewer from the past, because of the nature ...
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The Leopard Man (1943) Blu-ray Review: Subtle, Underrated ’40s Chiller
Based on Cornell Woolrich's dark novel, Black Alibi, The Leopard Man was the first property Val Lewton wanted to develop when he became ...
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Yakuza Law Blu-ray Review: Gory Fun Yakuza Anthology
Yakuza Law is not even in the top-five craziest movies made by Teruo Ishii, and in it, a man rips out ...
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Batman vs. Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Blu-ray Review: Fun, If Over-packed, Crossover Event
Crossovers are fun because they can never really be consequential. Popular characters are the tent poles of multi-billion dollar corporations ...
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John Carpenter’s Ghosts of Mars Blu-ray Review: Sad Retread from a Master
The hero of John Carpenter's Ghosts of Mars is introduced asleep and handcuffed to a train. It seems like an apt metaphor ...
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Never-Ending Man: Hayao Miyazaki Blu-ray Review: Master Filmmaker’s New Challenge
Hayao Miyazaki has announced his retirement several times throughout his career, but in 2013 it looked like he meant it. ...
Read More The Brain (1988) Blu-ray Review: Giant Brain Eats Man
There are levels to shlock. And inside many a terrible movie, there are seeds of interest and enjoyment. The Brain is, ...
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A Silent Voice Blu-ray Review: Bully Redemption in a Subdued Tone
There's a certain style in Japanese storytelling and film-making where the important things are what is not shown, what is ...
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The Magnificent Ambersons Criterion Collection Blu-ray Review: A Flawed Masterpiece, but Still a Worthwhile Film
Before getting into the history of the film: the mangling by the studio, the likely deliberately destroyed edited footage, and ...
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Dawson City: Frozen Time (2016) Blu-ray Review: Uncovering Cinematic Buried Treasures
In an industry that is lately obsessed with making films available in multiple different versions, both in medium of delivery ...
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Children of the Corn (1984) Blu-ray Review: Killer Kids Get Religion
Cult movies aren't the same as good movies. Good movies generally have decent production values, interesting stories and scripts, nuanced ...
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Doberman Cop (1977) Blu-ray Review: Sonny Chiba’s Hick Dirty Harry
Kinji Fukasaku, of Battles Without Honor or Humanity fame, is best known as the director of hard-edged, cynical material with ...
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Evangelion 3.33: You Can (Not) Redo DVD Review: Giant Robots with Daddy Issues
This will take some explaining. In the mid '90s, the anime TV series Neon Genesis Evangelion sparked something of a ...
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Let There Be Light: John Huston’s Wartime Documentaries Blu-ray Review: From Propaganda to Trauma
It's odd to feel nostalgia for a time one never lived in, and to envy men who are fighting in ...
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Book Review: The Art and Making of Hannibal: The Television Series: A Gleefully Grisly Souvenir
When I first heard about the Hannibal TV show, it seemed like a joke - the apotheosis of the modern ...
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Nikkatsu Diamond Guys Volume 1 Blu-ray Review: Action Heroes ’50s Japanese Style
The Nikkatsu Diamond Guys title comes from a marketing scheme from nearly 60 years ago. Nikkatsu is a studio in ...
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David Bowie, The Heart’s Filthy Lesson, Se7en, and Me
David Fincher led me to David Bowie. I doubt that was a typical path to the Thin White Duke, but ...
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Bone Tomahawk DVD Review: Rare Horror Western Hybrid
One of the problems with the modern Western is the seemingly desperate need for creators to seem superior, both to ...
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Wake Up and Kill Blu-ray Review: Gritty but Unengaging Criminal Bio-pic
Wake Up and Kill isn't quite a traditional gangster film. There's a philosophy to the gangster film that requires a ...
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Requiescant Blu-ray Review: Massacred Mexican Communist Revenge
As Westerns go, Requiescant is an odd one. Its story isn't all that unusual - a young boy's entire Mexican ...
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Tenderness of the Wolves Blu-ray Review: Serial Killer Social Drama
German cinema during the '70s belonged to Rainer Werner Fassbinder. The director was incredibly prolific from an annoyingly precocious age. ...
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Attack on Titan: The Movies: Part 1 & Part 2 Review: Anime-Inspired Cinematic Insanity
Of the various pleasures of Japanese cinema, for me one of the greatest is to see stuff on screen that ...
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Big House, U.S.A. Blu-ray Review: Lean, Tough ’50s Crime
This was an unexpected treasure. Big House, U.S.A. (which is a completely undescriptive, absolutely terrible title for this grim thriller) ...
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The Hee Haw Collection DVD Review: Stockholm Syndrome in the Cornfields
The first hour of watching The Hee Haw Collection might have been the longest hour of anything I've seen. The ...
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Cemetery Without Crosses Blu-ray Review: Franco-Spanish Spaghetti Western
Filmed in Spain, with a mostly French cast directed by (and starring) the French Robert Hossein and with a screenplay ...
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He Ran All the Way Blu-ray Review: Beautiful Cinematography Elevates Standard Noir
He Ran All The Way was written by Dalton Trumbo and directed by John Berry, both just before they were ...
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Person of Interest: The Complete Fourth Season DVD Review: A.I. Supercomputer Battle Royale
Every season of Person of Interest ends with some kind of apocalypse, some place to recover from. A lot of ...
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Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell Blu-ray Review: A Magical Series About Real Magic in England
There are people who cannot handle fantasy. There are viewers who think that any mention of the specifically impossible (instead ...
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Stray Cat Rock Blu-ray Review: Motorcycle Girl Gangs and Hippy Crime Sprees
On an interview on this disc, director Yasuharu Hasebe talks about how ephemeral the movies he made were. “I expected ...
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Society Blu-ray Review: Glorious Mess of an ’80s Horror Movie
Horror movies are often critiqued as metaphors, largely in an attempt to approach them in terms that distance critics from ...
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The Searchers Blu-ray Review: Revisionist Western Before There Were Revisionist Westerns
Taking a highly praised classic on is a tricky business for any film reviewer. A movie as celebrated and revered ...
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Retaliation Blu-ray Review: Japanese Gangster Exploitation Mayhem
One of the joys of watching old exploitation movies like Retaliation is that the inexpensive filmmaking meant that a documentary ...
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The Friends of Eddie Coyle Criterion Collection Blu-ray Review: Crime, Lowkey, and Unsentimental
Released about a year after Coppola's crime epic, The Godfather, The Friends of Eddie Coyle was seen by some critics ...
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Fast, Cheap & Out of Control Movie Review: Skewed Look at Human Behavior
The title might throw a viewer off - 'Out of Control'. A documentary about things being out of control sounds ...
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Blind Woman’s Curse Blu-ray Review: Gory Japanese Ghosts and Yakuza Fun
Blind Woman's Curse, directed by Teruo Ishii and due out on Blu-ray on April 21 from Arrow Video, is a ...
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A Walk Among the Tombstones Blu-ray Review: Somber, Slow Detective Throwback
Looking at the trailer for A Walk Among the Tombstones, one would be forgiven for assuming it is a Liam ...
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The Vanishing (1988) Criterion Collection Blu-ray Review: Thriller as Character Study
The missing person is the greatest motif of the mystery story. Even if the murder story is more common (and ...
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UHF Blu-ray Review: Constant Parodying, Semi-Constant Laughter
"Weird Al" seems to be perpetually "coming back". It's surprising to see, in a world where all careers have peaks ...
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Phineas and Ferb: Star Wars DVD Review: A Parallel Adventure in the Galactic Empire
Phineas and Ferb works almost entirely on the basis of their engaging formula. While there have been occasional efforts to ...
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Father Brown: Season One DVD Review: Uninspired Priest Detective Series
It is difficult to determine where Father Brown fails more completely: as an adaptation, or as a mystery show in ...
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Any Given Sunday 15th Anniversary Blu-ray Review: Oversized Game Meets Oversized Filmmaker
Recently at lunch, I was watching ESPN with the sound off at a local bar. For 20 minutes, the anchors ...
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Rocks in My Pockets Movie Review: Animated Exploration of Suicide and Depression
Rocks in My Pockets begins with a detailed discussion of suicide by hanging, with all angles fully explored, from how ...
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Hidden Kingdoms Blu-ray Review: Contrived Narratives Meet Astonishing Nature Footage
Nature shows have to balance the nature with the show. The point of watching animals do stuff is to see ...
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The Book Thief Blu-ray Review: Familiar but Compelling Wartime Drama
It's almost always stupid to say, "They don't make films like this anymore" to describe some character drama. It's usually ...
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Books Review: Starting Point: 1979-1996 and Turning Point: 1997-2008 by Hayao Miyazaki: Unique Memoirs from an Animation Genius
Hayao Miyazaki's downbeat personal sensibility, constant self-doubt, and pessimism are nearly absent from his works. My Neighbor Totoro, Kiki's Delivery ...
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Dragons: Defenders of Berk Part 2 DVD Review: Mostly Satisfactory Season Ender
How to Train Your Dragon 2 looks, at least from the early trailer, like it is willing to take risks ...
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Book Review: Weird Fantasy, Volume 1: Glossy Reprint of Classic SF Comic
EC Comics holds a special place in comic book history. After all, it was EC comics in particular that were ...
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Dragons: Defenders of Berk Part 1 DVD Review: Another Half Season of Dragon Training
They've changed the title. Dragons, the TV series continuation of the hit CGI movie How to Train Your Dragon was, ...
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Himizu Movie Review: Compellingly Weird Coming-of-age Drama
Weird movies (and Sion Sono makes nothing but weird movies) can only be really successful story vehicles if they properly ...
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Guilty of Romance Movie Review: Sexy Thriller with Tacked-on Murder
Izumi seems like the perfect wife, by her husband's sterile and demanding definition of perfect. She has his slippers in ...
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Book Review: Gasoline Alley: The Complete Sundays, Volume One 1920-1922 by Frank King
Reading archives of old comic strips can be odd, because not only were these never meant to be perennial entertainment, ...
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Book Review: Hellboy: The First 20 Years by Mike Mignola
Hellboy: The First 20 Years is a celebration, not necessarily of the character, but of the artist and writer who ...
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Wicked Blood Blu-ray Review: Southern Meth Generic Crime Drama
The film's title, Wicked Blood, implies that it will be about family, and I suppose it is. It evokes the ...
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The Agatha Christie Hour: Complete Collection DVD Review: Agatha Christie’s Also-Rans
When I was a young television viewer, I had romantic notions about TV in Britain. The only British TV I ...
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Milius Movie Review: The Director Who Wanted to be a General
For a man who has had many triumphs, John Milius is seen as a tragic figure - he's the one ...
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Bryan Ferry: Live in Lyon DVD Review: Smooth, Professional Concert Crooning
After a certain age, all British rock musicians seem to funnel into one style of music. It begins gradually (and ...
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In Search of Blind Joe Death: The Saga of John Fahey DVD Review: Straightforward Look at Oddball Musician
Nothing is obscure anymore - or nothing can remain obscure. Internet information proliferation flattens structures. Getting information on John Fahey ...
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Sanguivorous DVD Review: Super-Arty Asian Vampires
At 56 minutes, Sanguivorous has a quality rare in experimental/avant garde cinema - it knows if it isn't going to ...
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Vikings: The Complete First Season Blu-ray Review: Old Gods Make Decent Drama
The images that are conjured by the words "History Channel scripted series" are not too exciting. It makes one think ...
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Waking the Dead: Season Eight DVD Review: Forensic Cop Show, Overwrought and Desperate
An advantage many British shows have over American television is that they usually have far fewer episodes. A show will ...
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American Horror Story: Asylum Blu-ray Review: Absolutely Insane, but It Works
American Horror Story is more about horror than it is horror. It has the tropes, and the imagery, of real ...
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Birth of the Living Dead Movie Review: Timely Revisiting of Horror Classic
At the risk of sounding hipsterish, I'm sick of zombies. Zombies are so done. When I was a young Night ...
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Brainwave DVD Review: Interesting Lectures, but Missed Opportunity
Brainwave is an annual lecture/conversation series that has been presented by the Rubin Museum of Art in New York since ...
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Haven: The Complete Third Season DVD Review: Supernatural TV Series Dives into Some Pitfalls
There are two major pitfalls that supernaturally themed TV shows can easily fall into. First, since these shows have to ...
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Blandings: Series 1 DVD Review: The Great Wodehouse (Somewhat) Well Adapted
P. G. Wodehouse, an incredibly prolific British humorist (writing nearly 100 books, and many plays, movies and short stories) was ...
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Robotech 2-Movie Collection DVD Review: The Shadow Chronicles Collector’s Edition and Love Live Alive: A Robotech Sequel and A Long, Long Clip Show
Robotech was the introduction to an entire generation to the wonders of anime (at the time called Japanimation), and (perhaps ...
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Shoah Criterion Collection DVD Review: Superb Release of Haunting, Tragic Film
Shoah is a film about trains. Inside its nearly 10 hours of running time, the image and movement of the ...
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Strike Back: Cinemax Season Two Blu-ray Review: 21st Century Production Values, ’80s Action Sensibility
Throughout Strike Back's second season, a single episode did not go by where someone was not shot in the head ...
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Dragons: Riders of Berk Part 1 and 2 DVDs Review: More Vikings, More Dragons
How To Train Your Dragon was a surprise, a CGI-animated action adventure story with humor and real heart coming from ...
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The Gangster (2012) Blu-ray Review: Ambitious but Flawed Gangland Epic
Classic gangster movies followed a specific arc, probably best codified in the original Scarface (1932) - the audience follows the ...
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