Their Finest Hour: 5 British WWII Classics Blu-ray Review: That British Stiff Upper Lip
By Kent Conrad |
Five British films about WWII, from home invasion to Dunkirk to the African campaign.
The Bolshevik Trilogy: Three Films by Vsevolod Pudovkin Blu-ray Review: Silent Soviet Masterpieces
By Kent Conrad |
Three classics of silent Russian cinema exhibit the Soviet approach to editing as storytelling, with disparate tales of Bolshevik revolution.
Come to Daddy Blu-ray Review: Twisty, Twisted Story of Family
By Kent Conrad |
Elijah Wood stars in this story of a man reconnecting with his father, and learning terrible secrets about them both.
My Bloody Valentine (1981) Blu-ray Review: Superb Slasher Restored
By Kent Conrad |
One of the best ’80s slasher films, My Bloody Valentine returns to Blu-ray with newly restored video and audio.
FLCL Progressive/Alternative Blu-ray Review: A Classic Badly Revived
By Kent Conrad |
A U.S. anime hit returns with a pair of mediocre sequel series that totally misunderstand the original’s appeal.
Trapped (1949) Blu-ray Review: Great Restoration of a B-movie
By Kent Conrad |
Previously only available in murky, ugly prints, pretty good crime thriller Trapped has been beautifully restored in HD.
Book Review: Making Moon by Simon Ward
By Kent Conrad |
The behind-the-scenes story of the conception and filming of one of the 21st century’s best sci-fi movies.
Millennium Actress Blu-ray Review: Animated Japanese Film Fantasia
By Kent Conrad |
Satoshi Kon’s second anime feature film about an actress’ pursuit of a lost love intertwines fiction and reality.
The Fan (1981) Blu-ray Review: Bloody ’80s Stalking Thriller
By Kent Conrad |
Michael Biehn is a creepy but underdeveloped stalker obsessed Lauren Bacall in ’80s New York.
Stephen King’s Storm of the Century (1999) DVD Review: Intriguing Premise at Snail’s Pace
By Kent Conrad |
Perhaps the best of the run of Stephen King TV movies, Storm is atmospheric, creepy, and slow, slow, slow.
Popstar: Never Stop Never Stopping Blu-ray Review: Musical Parody Mostly Amusing
By Kent Conrad |
Lonely Island’s first feature film is an often amusing, if toothless satire of the modern era of pop music.
The Dead Center Blu-ray Review: Mostly Effective Psychological Horror
By Kent Conrad |
Primer’s Shane Carruth stars in psychological and supernatural horror tale, where a suicide returns from the dead… but not alone.
Ringu Collection Blu-ray Review: Ghostly Revenge, Again and Again
By Kent Conrad |
Four weird, gripping and often terrifying films of spectral revenge that began the J-horror boom are now on Blu-ray.
Genius Party & Genius Party Beyond Blu-ray Review: Dozen Odd Egg Japanese Animations
By Kent Conrad |
Twelve short films from veterans of the anime industry explore the limits of storytelling, animation, and sometimes the audience’s patience.
Morituri (1965) Blu-ray Review: Hidden Naval WWII Classic
By Kent Conrad |
Starring Marlon Brando and Yul Brenner, Morituri is a great spy thriller beautifully shot aboard a real German frigate.
The Big Fix (1978) Blu-ray Review: A Hippy Neo-noir Lament
By Kent Conrad |
Richard Dreyfuss is Moses Wine, a former-hippy detective whose latest case takes him back to his radical roots.
Hellbound: Hellraiser II (1988) Blu-ray Review: Same Gore, Less Story
By Kent Conrad |
Follow up to Hellraiser has the same aesthetic, same cast, much the same crew, but not enough story or ideas.
Hellraiser (1987) Blu-ray Review: Clive Barker’s Semi-professional Debut
By Kent Conrad |
An erotic and grotesque twist on a haunted house story, with an unsettling horrific vision that supersedes some film-making fumbles.
True Believer (1989) Blu-ray Review: Blisteringly Performed Courtroom Drama
By Kent Conrad |
Briskly paced, excellent acted late ’80s drama stars a disillusioned James Woods and a young, idealistic Robert Downey Jr.
The Flavor of Green Tea over Rice Criterion Collection Blu-ray Review: Gentle Ozu Comedy
By Kent Conrad |
Grandmaster filmmaker Ozu’s minor, observant comedy about the growing differences between a middle-aged married couple.
Akio Jissoji: The Buddhist Trilogy Blu-ray Review: New Wave Filmmaking, Naked Ladies
By Kent Conrad |
Challenging, evocative films from the Japanese New Wave that contemplate aspects of the Buddhist religion, with lots of sex.
The Leopard Man (1943) Blu-ray Review: Subtle, Underrated ’40s Chiller
By Kent Conrad |
A disappointment to its creators on release, The Leopard Man is one of Val Lewton and Jacques Tourneur’s hidden gems.
Yakuza Law Blu-ray Review: Gory Fun Yakuza Anthology
By Kent Conrad |
Three fun but gory short stories of the Yakuza taking the law into their own hands, filled with bloody torture.
Batman vs. Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Blu-ray Review: Fun, If Over-packed, Crossover Event
By Kent Conrad |
The mutant turtles join the Caped Crusader as Foot ninjas descend on Gotham city.
John Carpenter’s Ghosts of Mars Blu-ray Review: Sad Retread from a Master
By Kent Conrad |
This rote sci-fi horror thriller from a former master has some good ideas that it does nothing with.
Never-Ending Man: Hayao Miyazaki Blu-ray Review: Master Filmmaker’s New Challenge
By Kent Conrad |
An intimate look at Japanese filmmaker Hayao Miyazaki’s return from retirement to make a short CGI film.
The Brain (1988) Blu-ray Review: Giant Brain Eats Man
By Kent Conrad |
A ridiculous, fun ’80s horror sci-fi flick about a man-eating alien brain with hypnotic powers.
A Silent Voice Blu-ray Review: Bully Redemption in a Subdued Tone
By Kent Conrad |
An animated drama about a school bully picking on a deaf girl tells a story quiet about redemption and consequences.
The Body Snatcher (1945) Blu-ray Review: Boris Karloff’s Finest Hour
By Kent Conrad |
One of RKO’s famous Val Lewton produced horror pictures and an atmospheric, tense horror thriller.
Perfect Blue (1997) Blu-ray Review: Anime Psychothriller Lives Again
By Kent Conrad |
Satoshi Kon’s animated psychological thriller is a mind-bending story of violence and personality crisis in the Japanese pop world.
The Magnificent Ambersons Criterion Collection Blu-ray Review: A Flawed Masterpiece, but Still a Worthwhile Film
By Kent Conrad |
The Criterion Collection has stacked this beautiful release of Welles’s troubled second production with a plethora of extras.
Lu Over the Wall Blu-ray Review: Vampire Mermaids Warm the Heart
By Kent Conrad |
A boy befriends a mermaid, and director Masaaki Yuasa reigns in his anarchic animation style…for a little while.
Maquia: When the Promised Flower Blooms Blu-ray Review: Emotional, Poignant Fantasy Epic
By Kent Conrad |
This visually arresting fantasy story of a mother and son that pulls at the heartstrings (and the tear ducts).
Suspiria (2018) Blu-ray Review: Wildly Reinvented, Massively Flawed
By Kent Conrad |
This remake of the 1977 horror classic completely reinvents the story, rarely for the better, and is very, very long.
Melies: Fairy Tales in Color Blu-ray Review: When Special Effects Were Magic
By Kent Conrad |
A collection of 13 short films by the early effects genius of Silent Cinema.
Little Annie Rooney Blu-ray Review: Charming Silent Comedy and Melodrama
By Kent Conrad |
One of Mary Pickford’s most successful films pulls on the heartstrings with admittedly shameless melodrama.
Fanchon the Cricket (1915) Blu-ray Review: Lost Pickford Film Charms
By Kent Conrad |
Mary Pickford’s waif character is charming in a rural comedy about a wild child and the townsman she loves.
Orgies of Edo Blu-ray Review: Torture, Surrealism, and Topless Women
By Kent Conrad |
Teruo Ishii’s strange anthology of period stories of sex and torture is more bizarre than erotic, though entertaining.
Metropolis (2001) Blu-ray Review: Visually Opulent, Narratively Dormant Adaptation
By Kent Conrad |
Inspired by Osamu Tezuka’s manga and Fritz Lang’s movie, this anime has style in excess…but lacks a cohesive story.
Torso (1973) Blu-ray Review: Sleazy Suspenseful Giallo Goodness
By Kent Conrad |
Director Sergio Martino crafts a precursor to modern slasher movies that combines sexploitation with stabbings. And gougings.
Book Review: The Teenage Slasher Movie Book by J.A. Kerswell
By Kent Conrad |
A comprehensive, lavishly illustrated overview of the reviled, but ever popular, slasher-movie genre.
Horrors of Malformed Men Blu-ray Review: Complete Malformed Japanese Madness
By Kent Conrad |
Teruo Ishii’s strangest film of murder, doppelgangers, and the titular malformed men finally makes it to Blu-ray.
Tideland Blu-ray Review: Childhood, Love, and Necrophilia
By Kent Conrad |
Terry Gilliam’s controversial tale of an innocent in a grotesque world is four parts beautiful, six parts repulsive.
Mind Game (2004) Blu-ray Review: Endlessly Confusing, Endlessly Fascinating
By Kent Conrad |
Masaaki Yuasa’s debut animated feature is a kaleidoscope of images and scenes that, miraculously, make a coherent (if confusing) film.
Street Mobster Blu-ray Review: Gritty, Nasty Yakuza Drama
By Kent Conrad |
Kinji Fukasaku’s brings docu-drama realism and brutal ugliness to the Yakuza genre in this gritty film.
The Third Murder Movie Review: All Justice, No Truth
By Kent Conrad |
Hirokazu Kore-eda’s keen observation of human interaction is brought to a courtroom drama, winner of six Japanese Academy awards.
Detective Bureau 2-3: Go to Hell Bastards! Blu-ray Review: Undercover Yakuza Hijinks
By Kent Conrad |
Released in 1963, director Seijun Suzuki was on the brink of his artistic breakthrough with this comic gangland picture.
The Bloodthirsty Trilogy Blu-ray Review: Dracula Goes East
By Kent Conrad |
Three Japanese movies directed by Michio Yamamoto that involve Western-style vampires, with style, atmosphere, and some decent sprays of blood.
Seijun Suzuki: The Early Years Vol. 2 Border Crossings: The Crime and Action Movies Blu-ray Review: Nikkatsu Noir
By Kent Conrad |
Five early films by Seijun Suzuki spotlight Nikkatsu’s early 60s trends and the director’s growing ambition.
Basket Case (1982) Blu-ray Review: Enthusiastically Silly and Sleazy
By Kent Conrad |
Frank Henenlotter’s feature debut comes on a ridiculously stuffed Blu-ray, a must for any fan.