Goodbye, Dragon Inn Blu-ray Review: An Ode to Going to the Movies
One of my earliest memories is seeing Return of the Jedi at the cinema. I would have been seven years ...
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Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny Is the Pick of the Week
When I was a young teen, or possibly even a preteen, my cousin Karen, who is 6-7 years older than ...
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Blackhat Blu-ray Review: A Rare Miss For Michael Mann
A super hacker, or "blackhat" if you will, plants a computer virus in the Chicago Stock Exchange, causing soy prices ...
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Gator Blu-ray Review: A Charming Burt Reynolds Elevates This Ridiculous Sequel
With the success of White Lightning, the studio was clamoring for a sequel. Burt Reynolds had never been in a ...
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Oppenheimer Is the Pick of the Week
The Tuesday before Thanksgiving traditionally is a big week for new Blu-ray releases as it is the week of Black ...
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Backdraft Blu-ray Review: Thrilling Effects, Terrible Script
Backdraft is overlong, ridiculously melodramatic, and the plot contrivances are dumb even for a Ron Howard film. But damn does ...
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White Lightning Blu-ray Review: A Meditative Hicksploitation Flick
Burt Reynolds ruled Hollywood in the 1970s. Starting with Deliverance in 1972, he made a string of hits and remained ...
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Carlito’s Way (Remastered Edition) Blu-ray Review: De Palma’s Way Is Best Way
Ten years after they teamed up for Scarface (1983), Brian De Palma and Al Pacino created another stylish, violent film ...
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Human Desire Blu-ray Review: Excellent Film Noir from Fritz Lang
Coming off the heels of their definitive film noir The Big Heat (1953), director Friz Lang once again teamed up ...
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Film Noir: The Dark Side of Cinema XV Blu-ray Review: Three Late ’50s B-Noirs Still Make for Good Viewing
We are waist deep into Noirvember and Kino Lorber is once again here to help. Their ongoing series Film Noir: ...
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Shaw Brothers Classics, Vol. Two Blu-ray Review: More Martial Arts Fun From Shout Factory
With Shaw Brothers Classics, Vol. Two, Shout! Factory continues to release films from the legendary studio famous for its martial ...
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The Buster Keaton Collection: Volume 5 Is the Pick of the Week
The pandemic really elevated my movie-watching numbers. We weren't going anywhere so I'd stay at home and watch movies. It ...
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Force of Evil Blu-ray Review: An Art-House Genre Film
In the seemingly endless discourse on social media about Martin Scorsese versus the MCU, one side seems to turn Scorsese ...
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Shaw Brothers Classics, Vol. One Blu-ray Review: Not Quite Truly Classic, but Well Worth It for Fans
I don't know why the Shaw Brothers floodgates have seemingly opened over the last few years, but I'm sure glad ...
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Paramount Scares Volume 1 Is the Pick of the Week
'Tis the season for treats and tricks, for dressing up and carving pumpkins. 'Tis also the season to watch as ...
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Lorna the Exorcist Blu-ray Review: One of Jess Franco’s More Well-regarded Films
Fairly regularly, the film discourse on Twitter and other social media apps turns to sex in cinema. There is a ...
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The Iron-Fisted Monk Blu-ray Review: Disjointed Drama, Fantastic Kung Fu
It makes sense that kung fu movies would eventually add in comedic elements. There is an inherent silliness to grown ...
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Elemental Is the Pick of the Week
There was a time in my life when a new Pixar movie was a cause for celebration. They continually made ...
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Little Women (1933) Blu-ray Review: Sentimental but Sweet
In college, I did work study for the university dinner theater. It was a great job, and I had loads ...
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Wichita Blu-ray Review: Wyatt Earp’s Origin Story
How many movies and TV shows have been made about Wyatt Earp? Or been influenced by his reputation? They say ...
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The Big Knife Blu-ray Review: Stabbing Old Hollywood
Hollywood loves making movies about Hollywood. Usually, they are fawning tales about the magic of the movies, or about how ...
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Poker Face: Season One Is the Pick of the Week
Rian Johnson has made a career out of subverting genre tropes and creating something wonderful and new. From his first ...
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Borsalino Blu-ray Review: A (Not Quite) Epic French Gangster Flick
Alain Delon and Jean-Paul Belmondo were two of the biggest and greatest film stars in France. They were both great ...
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Fathom Events Presents John Carpenter’s They Live
I don't go to the movie theater much anymore. It is too expensive. The crowds are always obnoxious. Half the ...
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The Sensual World of Black Emanuelle Is the Pick of the Week
In 1967, Emmanuelle Arsan published Emmanuelle, a novel about a bored housewife and her sexual adventures in Asia. Seven years ...
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Strangers in the House Blu-ray Review: French Masters of Mystery
In a large, shambling, mostly empty mansion, a loud noise clangs upstairs. It is loud enough to awaken Hector Loursat ...
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Book Review: Werewolf Jones & Sons: Deluxe Super Fun Annual by Simon Hanselmann and Josh Pettinger
I am not by any means a prude, but I should have never read Werewolf Jones & Songs: Deluxe Super ...
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Maggie Moore(s) Is the Pick of the Week
Jon Hamm was so good in Mad Men as the moody, almost sociopathically serious Don Draper that it is always ...
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Criterion’s The Ranown Westerns Is The Pick of the Week
In 1955, John Wayne purchased the script for Seven Men From Now from first-time writer Burt Kennedy. He had originally ...
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Tintin Double Feature Is the Pick of the Week
Tuesday is July 4, which of course is the day the United States of America celebrates its independence. We shoot ...
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Mr. Wong Collection Blu-ray Review: Boris Karloff Detects
The early 1920s saw an influx of Chinese immigrants to the United States. This so-called "Yellow Peril" unsurprisingly led to ...
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The Oyster Princess / Meyer from Berlin Blu-ray Review: A Pair of German Silents from Lubitsch
Ernst Lubitsch is widely considered one of the great directors of classic cinema. His comedies were sophisticated, elegant with a ...
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Caliber 9 Blu-ray Review: Action-Packed Poliziotteschi with a Message
There is a scene relatively early in Fernando Di Leo's classic polischietti Caliber 9 that fairly well sums up everything ...
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Shaw Brothers Classics Vol. One Is the Pick of the Week
In my review of The Flag of Iron (1980) and Legendary Weapons of China (1982) back in February 2022, I ...
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The Package Blu-ray Review: Not so Much a Bad Movie as a Disappointing One
When I was in college, I realized that when you are with a particular group of friends and having a ...
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Film Noir: The Dark Side of Cinema XIII Blu-ray Review: A Triple Feature from the ’50s
Kino Lorber continues to release lesser-known film noirs in their The Dark Side of Cinema sets. Part XIII includes a ...
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Film Noir: The Dark Side of Cinema XIV Blu-ray Review: Moral Teachings Get in the Way
It just now occurs to me that classic-era Hollywood cinema, especially those low-budget B-Movies, often acted like the Afterschool Specials ...
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The Saragossa Manuscript Is the Pick of the Week
When a movie is loved by such diverse folks as Martin Scorsese, Luis Bunuel, and Jerry Garcia, you know it ...
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Film Noir: The Dark Side of Cinema XII Blu-ray Review: I’m Still Watching and Loving It
The thing about film noir is that it was mostly a B-movie genre. For every noir with A-list stars, directors, ...
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Book Review: Salome’s Last Dance by Daria Tessler
Portland artist Daria Tessler's second comic book published by Fantagraphics is a short, strange trip that finds influences from such ...
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Safe in Hell Blu-ray Review: A Pre-Code Delight
If you do an image search for "pre-Code Hollywood," you'll most likely find a picture of an attractive blonde woman ...
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In the Line of Duty: I-IV Is the Pick of the Week
Michelle Yeoh recently became the first Asian actress to win an Academy Award. She won it for her starring role ...
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The Sunday Woman Blu-ray Review: A Strange Little Movie That Defies Expectations and Genre Delineations
An Italian Poliziotteschi by way of Agatha Christie. A murder mystery that's more interested in high society and class distinction ...
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Anna May Wong Collection Is the Pick of the Week
Well, hello there, old friends. It is your old pal Mat Brewster ready for another round of Pick of the ...
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Book Review: Night Terror by John Kenn Mortensen
On more than one occasion I've had a dream where I woke up, got up from bed, and went to ...
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The Retaliators (2022) Blu-ray Review: Crisis of Faith Meets Zombies
Stories about men encountering a crisis of faith are as old as stories, or as old as crises, or at ...
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Book Review: Spa by Erik Svetoft
Swedish writer/illustrator Erik Svetoft's Spa is a Kafkaesque adventure that plunges into a Lynchian nightmare. Set in a high-class, luxury ...
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The Bride Wore Black and Mississippi Mermaid Blu-rays Review: Truffaut Does Hitchcock
For much of his career, Alfred Hitchcock was not taken seriously by the critical establishment. His films were hugely successful, ...
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White Woman (1933) Blu-ray Review: Certainly Watchable but Not Much More Than That
In the early 1930s, Paramount Pictures made a name for itself by making films with beautiful women in exotic settings. ...
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Maigret (1960): Season 2 Blu-ray Review: This Series Keeps Getting Better
While I was writing my review for Season 1 of Maigret, I kept wondering if I'd be able to find ...
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Nobody’s Fool Blu-ray Review: At the Center of the Film’s Charm Is Paul Newman’s Performance
It takes a lot of confidence to make a movie in which nothing really happens. It does help to have ...
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Maigret (1960): Season 1 Blu-ray Review: Scores Big for Solid Entertainment Value
Maigret, the French detective created by Belgian writer Georges Simenon, is one of my all-time fictional detectives. Second only, perhaps, ...
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Blood & Diamonds Blu-ray Review: Dull & Boring
Our man Guido (Claudio Cassinelli) can't catch a break. Someone snitches on him and his partner Marco (Carmelo Reale) during ...
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The Night of the Iguana Blu-ray Review: A Long Night’s Journey into the Soul
They say Tennessee Williams was none too pleased with John Huston's adaptation of his play The Night of the Iguana. ...
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Attack of the 50 Foot Woman Blu-ray Review: Maybe If She Were a Little Taller This Would Be Good
The 1950s were an incredibly fertile period for science fiction at the cinema. The invention of the atomic bomb and ...
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The Flash (2014): The Complete Eighth Season Blu-ray Review: Starting to Wear Thin
The Arrowverse is dead. Well, almost. What began with a single show, Arrow in 2012, quickly grew and grew until ...
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Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde (1931) Blu-ray Review: Fredric March Is Quite Wonderful in the Dual Role
When I asked to review this film, Cinema Sentries publisher Gordon S. Miller, remembering that I had just reviewed the ...
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Film Noir: The Dark Side of Cinema X Blu-ray Review: In This Corner…Tony Curtis
Boxing. The sweet science. Gladiators of the ring. Raging war in a small square. Two men bashing their brains out ...
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Eyes of Laura Mars (Special Edition) Blu-ray Review: Artful Trash
There has been a lot of Internet chatter over the last couple of years about the death of eroticism in ...
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Gothic Fantastico: Four Italian Tales of Terror Blu-ray Review
Creaky old castles up on a hill. Dark stormy nights. Strange noises. Beautiful maidens in flowing white gowns. Repressed desires. ...
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Film Noir: The Dark Side of Cinema IX Blu-ray Review: A Trio of Amateur Sleuths
I've been waist-deep in horror movies for the last couple of weeks, it being October and all, but I'm already ...
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Hiroshima mon amour Criterion Collection Blu-ray Review: A Rich and Rewarding Film
Expectations are a difficult thing to overcome while watching a film. Especially if said film is considered to be one ...
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The Burned Barns Blu-ray Review: Two Titans of French Cinema Spar
In a series of interviews with the crew of The Burned Barns (1973) that is included in the new Blu-ray ...
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Flying Guillotine Part II Blu-ray Review: Double the Guillotine, Double the Fun
In 1975, Shaw Brothers Studio released The Flying Guillotine. It is about an elite group of guards to the emperor ...
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DC’s Legends of Tomorrow: The Seventh and Final Season Blu-ray Review
DC's Legends of Tomorrow is a show that learned to break out of its genre's conventions and embrace the inherent ...
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Planet of the Vampires Blu-ray Review: A Low Budget Masterpiece
Mario Bava's work as a special effects designer and cinematographer before he became a director is apparent in all the ...
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The Righteous Blu-ray Review: An Audacious First Film
A married couple grieving for their lost daughter. A stranger at the door asking for help. Then asking for something ...
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Martial Club Blu-ray Review: Come for the Action, Stay for the Moral Lessons
The more Shaw Brothers kung fu movies I watch the more I get into their grooves and understand their tropes. ...
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Hell High Blu-ray Review: Watching It Is Pure Hell
The slasher subgenre of horror was in serious decline in 1989. Audiences, even the very forgiving horror hounds, had grown ...
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Film Noir: The Dark Side of Cinema VIII Blu-ray Review
The thing about film noir is that it is a genre without definition. Unlike something like westerns or science-fiction, genres ...
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The Adventures of Don Juan (1948) Blu-ray Review: Come in with Flynn
One of the great joys of becoming a classic film enthusiast is discovering an actor or actress and then immediately ...
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One-Armed Boxer Blu-ray Review: Delivers a Nuttiness Desired in An Old Kung Fu Movie
A man walks into a bar and notices another man sitting at his table. He tells the man that he ...
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Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde (1941) Blu-ray Review: Well Worth Watching to See Spencer Tracy Play Against Type
Robert Louis Stevenson's 1886 novel Strange Case Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde was originally sold as a penny dreadful and ...
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The Initiation of Sarah Blu-ray Review: A Made-for-TV Carrie Rip-Off
In 1976, Brian De Palma released the supernatural horror movie, Carrie. Based upon Stephen King's first published novel of the ...
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Rogue Cops and Racketeers: Two Crime Thrillers by Enzo G. Castellari Blu-ray Review: Quintessential Italian Crime Dramas
God bless Italian filmmakers. They were consistently making great films in an astonishing array of genres for a good three ...
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The 8 Diagram Pole Fighter Blu-Ray Review: One of the Greatest Kung Fu Movies Ever
I don't know why but there seems to be a great influx of kung fu movies coming to Blu-ray of ...
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Monkey Kung Fu & Shaolin Mantis Blu-rays Review: For Those Who Like Animals with Their Kung Fu
88 Films continues their monthly tradition of releasing excellent versions of classic (and not so classic) Shaw Brothers kung fu ...
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The Flag of Iron & Legendary Weapons of China Blu-ray Review: Two Classics from Shaw Brothers Studios
Last month in my review of Disciples of Shaolin, I noted how much I loved old kung fu movies as ...
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Stage Fright (1950) Blu-ray Review: Second-Tier Hitchcock Is Still Good Cinema
Stage Fright, Alfred Hitchcock's thriller from 1950 begins with a great curtain that opens to reveal a shot of, not ...
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Disciples of Shaolin Blu-ray Review: Socially Conscious Kung Fu
When I was a kid one of the local television stations used to run what they called Kung Fu Theater ...
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Two from Sergei Eisenstein: October & Alexander Nevsky DVD Reviews
Sergei Eisenstein was one of the most important film theorists and directors of early cinema. If he didn't invent the ...
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Counterpoint Blu-ray Review: Battle of the Cellos
Towards the end of World War II, soldiers gather in a bombed-out church to listen to a symphony orchestra as ...
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The Accused (1949) Blu-ray Review: Works Something Like a Film Noir in Reverse
The classic film noir plot goes something like this: a man, usually a not too bright one, meets a woman ...
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DC’s Legends of Tomorrow: The Complete Sixth Season Blu-ray Review: Not Quite Legendary
In my reviews of previous seasons of Legends of Tomorrow, I've discussed my love for how this series understands how ...
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Breakheart Pass Blu-ray Review: Like an Agatha Christie Western
Take a moment and look at the cover art for this Blu-ray which is the recreation of the original poster. ...
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The Sheik (1921) Blu-ray Review: A Silent and Problematic Classic
In December of 1912 a beautiful young man with the unlikely name of Rodolfo Alfonso Raffaello Pierre Filiberto Guglielmi di ...
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The Incredible Shrinking Man Criterion Collection Blu-ray Review: Giant-Sized Fun
I wonder what it is about stories of humans being shrunk down to tiny size or living in a land ...
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The Cheat (1931) Blu-ray Review: Third Time Isn’t the Charm
I'm about two steps away from completely being a classic movie snob. I've loved classic movies pretty much my entire ...
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Torch Singer (1933) Blu-ray Review: A Very Modern Pre-Code
One of the interesting things about reviewing very old films is the tension between my modern standards and my understanding ...
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The Flash (2014): The Complete Seventh Season Blu-ray Review: The Stories Feel Undercooked and Underwhelming
Disclaimer: Warner Bros. Home Entertainment provided Cinema Sentries with a free copy of the Blu-ray reviewed in this post. The ...
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Hot Saturday Blu-ray Review: Fascinating Pre-Code Shenanigans
Had Hot Saturday (1932) been made just a few years later, it would have been a completely different film. It ...
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Cold War Creatures: Four Films from Sam Katzman Blu-ray Review: This Set Is a Must-buy
Sam Katzman got his start in the movies working as a stage laborer in the early 1920s. He moved up ...
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The Fourth Victim Blu-ray Review: Stay Till the End
A pretty blonde woman lounges languidly in the swimming pool of a large estate. When her cigarette pops a hole ...
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Mona Lisa Criterion Collection Blu-ray Review: A Neo-noir with a Mystic Smile
The first time I remember seeing Bob Hoskins was as Eddie Valiant the hard-boiled, yet ultimately soft-hearted detective working for ...
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The Awakening (2011) Blu-ray Review: Half a Great Ghost Story
I love a good ghost story. Unlike any other genre, they seem to be able to create a mood within ...
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The Brotherhood of Satan Blu-ray Review: Panic in a Small Town
As the 1960s turned into the 1970s, America's cultural mores began to shift dramatically. The birth control pill fuelled the ...
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Ashes and Diamonds Criterion Collection Blu-ray Review: A Polish Masterpiece
A little over a decade ago my wife and I lived in Shanghai, China. At the time, and probably still ...
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Friday the 13th 8 Movie Collection Blu-ray Review: The Paramount Films
In the Spring of 1980, a little-known director named Sean. S. Cunningham made a low-budget horror film called Friday the ...
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Born for Hell Blu-ray Review: Too Exploitative for the Arthouse, Too Damn Slow for the Grindhouse
During one long, hot night in Chicago in the summer of 1966, Richard Speck held nine student nurses hostage. Over ...
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Union Pacific Blu-ray Review: The Great Train Epic
Westerns love trains. Almost as much as they love horses and saloons. There are westerns where a stranger comes to ...
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No Time For Love Blu-ray Review: No Time for Colbert and MacMurray
Coming off the huge success of It Happened One Night (1934), Paramount quickly began looking for another romantic comedy for ...
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Vengeance Trails: 4 Classic Westerns Blu-ray Review: Proving There’s More to Spaghetti Westerns than Sergio Leone
The western was one of the more prominent genres of American cinema from the 1930s through the 1950s. As it ...
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Deep Cover Criterion Collection Blu-Ray Review: Neo-Noir with a Message
Russell Stevens (Laurence Fishburne) is a good cop. He's also a black man. And a good, black cop is exactly ...
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Shenandoah Blu-ray Review: Indifference in a Time of War
Charlie Anderson (James Stewart) is a good man. He's built a big, beautiful farm in Virginia. He's raised six sons ...
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The Gilded Lily Blu-ray Review: Claudette Colbert and Fred MacMurray’s First Team-Up
By the time The Gilded Lily was made in 1935, Claudette Colbert was a huge star. She'd gained notoriety in ...
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British Noir III DVD Review: A Nice but Slight Look into the Genre
Film noir seems like the quintessential American genre. The French term literally means black film and was used as a ...
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Alias Nick Beal Blu-ray Review: A Faustian Noir
For the last four or five years, I've participated in #noirvember, that's hashtag speak for film noirs in November. It ...
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Icy Breasts Blu-ray Review: A Cool French Noir
I am a collector, a list maker, and a spreadsheet creator. There is something so satisfying about making a list ...
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Ferris Bueller’s Day Off (35th Anniversary) Steelbook Blu-ray Review
I am proud to say that I am a member of Generation X. Or as proud as a Gen X-er ...
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Years of Lead: Five Classic Italian Crime Thrillers (1973-1977) Blu-ray Review: A Great Overview of the Poliziotteschi Genre
The Italian Giallo is generally considered to be a subgenre of horror. This makes plenty of sense as they are ...
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There Was a Crooked Man… Blu-ray Review: Revisionist Western Could Have Used a Few More Revisions
The western is, perhaps, the most malleable and everlasting American film genre. Though it has certainly been in decline for ...
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The Prince’s Voyage Blu-ray Review: A Film Only the French Could Make
My wife and often operate on different wavelengths when it comes to cinema. We share a lot of common ground, ...
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The Legend of Hei Blu-ray Review: A Must-See For Animation Fans
As I was watching The Legend of Hei (on Shout! Factory's new Blu-ray release, coming this Tuesday) I kept thinking ...
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Memories of Murder Criterion Collection Blu-ray Review: The South Korean Zodiac
A woman has been brutally raped and murdered. Her body was shoved into a drain ditch. Detective Park Doo-man (Song ...
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Death Has Blue Eyes Blu-ray Review: It’s a Mastorakis Mess
Greek writer, producer, director Nico Mastorakis has had a long, strange career. He started out as a reporter, becoming the ...
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The Invisible Man Appears Blu-ray Review: It Can Finally Be Seen
Why is it that in seemingly every depiction of an invisible man in the movies, the ability to turn invisible ...
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Earwig and the Witch Blu-ray Review: A Lesser Effort from Studio Ghibli
Famed Japanese filmmaker Hayao Miyazaki announced his retirement in August of 2014. As he was the co-founder and main creative ...
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Céline and Julie Go Boating Criterion Collection Blu-ray Review: A Long, Strange, Riveting Film
Julie (Dominique Labourier), a young woman with big, curly red hair, sits on a park bench distractedly reading a book ...
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Crossfire (1947) Blu-ray Review: Film Noir with a Message
Crossfire, Edward Dmytryk's 1947 film which crosses classic noir tropes with an anti-racist message, is now getting a nice-looking Blu-ray ...
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On-Gaku: Our Sound Movie Review: A Lo-fi Delight
On-Gaku: Our Sound is a lo-fi animated treat from director Kenji Iwaisawa about a trio of high school delinquents who ...
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Doctor Who: Revolution of the Daleks is the Pick of the Week
Well, hi there. It has been a long time since I've written one of these. Dave has done such a ...
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The Last Starfighter Blu-ray Review: Tailor Made for 1980s Gamers
As a kid growing up in the 1980s, I loved video games. In the summer, my cousins and I would ...
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Jack and the Beanstalk (1952) Blu-ray Review: Abbott and Costello Meet the Giant
When I was a kid, my uncle and cousins were all huge Three Stooges fans. I much preferred Abbott and ...
Read More Joint Security Area Blu-ray Review: Friendship and Murder in the DMZ
I first came to Park Chan-wook's films, like I suspect a lot of other Americans did, through Oldboy, his 2003 masterwork ...
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Lupin III: The First Blu-ray Review: Lots of Fun
Arsène Lupin the great master of disguise and gentleman thief was created by Maurice Leblanc in 1905. The character originally ...
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Mouchette Criterion Collection Blu-ray Review: So Beautiful, So Sad
The opening scene to Mouchette, Robert Bresson's 1967 drama, finds a young man tying little loops of wire to branches ...
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Popeye (1980) Blu-ray Review: A Strange Little Miracle
That Popeye got made at all is a small wonder. That it is really quite wonderful is nothing short of ...
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The Deeper You Dig Blu-ray Review: A Terrific Low-budget Horror
In a small, dark bar, in a small New York hamlet, Kurt (John Adams) eats a grubby little dinner and ...
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Focus Features 10-Movie Spotlight Collection Blu-ray Review
Last week I reviewed a 10-film collection from Blumhouse Productions, a relatively young studio that specializes in low budget films. This ...
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Five Cool Things and Dune (2020)
I think I speak for nearly everyone on the planet when I say that this year has not gone as ...
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Blumhouse of Horrors 10-Movie Collection Blu-ray Review: A Mixed Bag
For over a decade now, Blumhouse Productions has specialized in making small budget films, mostly horror, that give their directors ...
Read More Five Cool Things and DC’s Legends of Tomorrow: The Complete Fifth Season
I started this month with the intention of watching a lot of science fiction films set in space. As I ...
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Five Cool Things and Two Jules Dassin Films Get the Criterion Treatment
Last week, I noted that for the month of September I was going to try to watch space-based science fiction ...
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Brute Force & The Naked City Criterion Collection Blu-ray Reviews: A Jules Dassin Double Feature
There are over 1,000 movies in the Criterion Collection, these are two of them. Jules Dassin has five films thus ...
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Five Cool Things and No Time to Die Trailer
It has been a while since I did a theme month for the movies I'm watching. I think I got ...
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The Balcony Blu-ray Review: Cinematic Satire, I Guess
The Balcony (1963) is a cinematic adaptation of the French play by the same name from writer Jean Genet. It almost ...
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Five Cool Things and Chadwick Boseman
School finally started around these parts. My daughter has been out of school, or at least not physically attending school ...
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Breezy Blu-ray Review: Like Sunday Morning
An old, cynical man meets a young woman and is changed by her zeal for life. It is a tale ...
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The Sign of the Cross Blu-ray Review: Saints and Debauchery in a Pre-Code Epic
Claudette Colbert naked in a bath filled donkey's milk. Well, topless at least. And the milk was powdered cow's milk ...
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Cry Freedom Blu-ray Review: A Fight for Justice
As our culture continues to shift towards something like equality, it is difficult sometimes to watch and critique older films ...
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There’s Always Tomorrow Blu-ray Review: A Nuanced Portrayal of a Man Grown Bored with His Life
Twelve years after making the perfect film noir, Fred MacMurray and Barbara Stanwcyk starred in another movie about a married ...
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The Flash (2014): The Complete Sixth Season Blu-ray Review: The Stakes Have Gotten Higher but the Fun Has Gotten Smaller
Warner Bros. Home Entertainment provided Mat Brewster with a free copy of the Blu-ray reviewed in this post. The opinions ...
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Toni Criterion Collection Blu-ray Review: An Influential French Drama
In 1934, acclaimed French director Jean Renoir left the studio in Paris and headed for the countryside in the south ...
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Tender Mercies Blu-ray Review: A Gentle, Beautiful Film
Two men brawl over a bottle of whiskey in a run-down old motel room. One man falls, or is possibly ...
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Five Cool Things and The Suicide Squad
My apologies for taking a couple of weeks off. One of our subcontractors told us a few weeks ago that ...
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Life Is a Long Quiet River Blu-ray Review: It Could Use a Few Noisy Rapids
A nurse, Josette (Catherine Heigel), is in love with Doctor Mavial (Daniel Gélin), whom she works for. He continues to ...
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Raid on Rommel Blu-ray Review: Raids Other Films for Ideas
As an American of 40 some odd years of age, I'm ashamed to admit I don't know that much about ...
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DC’s Legends of Tomorrow: The Complete Fifth Season Review: So Much Fun
Disclaimer: Warner Bros. Home Entertainment provided Cinema Sentries with a free copy of the Blu-ray reviewed in this post. The ...
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Batwoman: The Complete First Season Blu-ray Review: The Arrowverse Finally Goes to Gotham
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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Backlash (1956) Blu-ray Review: Searching for Gold and Daddy
A woman rides up to a man digging in the dirt in what appears to be an abandoned camp out ...
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Bloodstone Blu-ray Review: Indiana Jones and the B-Movie Knock-Off
Arrow Video continues to release HD versions of the film of Greek director/writer/producer Nico Mastorakis, and I am here for ...
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The Eagle and the Hawk Blu-ray Review: World War I Was Hell
Over the last few months, I've watched three World War I films (All Quiet on the Western Front, Paths of Glory, and ...
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Hiroshima Blu-ray Review: Unrelenting Terror
The sky is a pale blue. Big, white clouds float by. It looks peaceful. It won't for long. This is ...
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Black Rainbow Blu-ray Review: A Spiritual Thriller
What happens when your fake medium act turns real? When you've been pretending to see visions of dead people in ...
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The Quest (1986) Blu-ray Review: Sit This Adventure Out
Fresh off the enormous success of E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial, Henry Thomas, the fresh-faced star of that film must have been offered ...
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Zombie for Sale Blu-ray Review: A New Take on an Old Genre
One would think the zombie movie would be completely played out by now. There have been countless films about the ...
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Audie Murphy Collection Blu-ray Review: War Hero Becomes a Movie Star
Towards the end of the tenth and final episode of Band of Brothers, HBO's acclaimed miniseries that follows Easy Company from ...
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Five Cool Things and the New Mutants
It was an eclectic week for old Mat Brewster and his consumption of cool things. We've got new horror movies, ...
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Tony Curtis Collection Blu-ray Review: Charming
Reason #473 that I love boutique labels such a Kino Lorber: they allow us to dig into various genres and ...
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Five Cool Things and a Bookstore Haul
I got out of the house today. I get out of the house most days, actually. Work takes me to ...
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Five Cool Things and Possessor
For nearly four months now, my family and I have gotten up on Saturday mornings, piddled around, watched TV, and ...
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The World in His Arms Blu-ray Review: Swashbuckling Gregory Peck
Last week I watched three films that are part of Kino Lorber's ongoing Film Noir: The Dark Side of Cinema collection. After ...
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Book Review: Gramercy Park by Timothée de Fombelle and Christian Cailleaux
On top of a tall building stands a woman. She keeps bees. She talks to them. She loves them. Across ...
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Five Cool Things and Gillian Welch’s All the Good Times Are Past and Gone
Hamilton I finally got to see the show everyone has been talking about for five years. When Hamilton first became ...
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Film Noir: The Dark Side of Cinema IV Blu-ray Review: Too Much Melodrama, Not Enough Noir
For Part IV of their Film Noir: The Dark Side of Cinema series Kino Lorber Studio Classics is releasing three films from ...
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America as Seen by a Frenchman Blu-ray Review: A Fascinating Snapshot in Time
I've been lucky enough to have done a bit of traveling in my life. I've lived in France, Belgium, and ...
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Blood Tide Blu-ray Review: Fun and Monsters in the Greek Sun
Can I consider myself a fan of a filmmaker after hating one of his films, liking another one, and kind-of ...
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Five Cool Things and the Fourth of July
It is a holiday weekend and I'm making the most of it. So let's get right into this week's cool ...
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The Flesh and the Fiends Blu-ray Review: Selling Corpses in Scotland
For centuries the science of anatomy lagged behind other fields of study due to cultural norms and religious beliefs concerning ...
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Five Cool Things and Pearl Jam Uncensored
I'm a huge fan of Letterboxd, the social networking site for film nerds. It is a great way to track ...
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White Fire, The Wind, and Why Don’t You Just Die! Blu-rays Review: Three from Arrow Video
As the world continues to move towards consuming media through an increasing number of streaming platforms, there is a niche ...
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Five Cool Things and Ian Holm
I was realizing today that we've been on lockdown since mid-March. That's a little over three months in which my ...
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Film Noir: The Dark Side of Cinema III Blu-ray Review: Gambling, Murder, and Back Alley Adoptions
If you are a fan of film noir, I hope you've been paying attention to Kino Lorber, the boutique video ...
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Five Cool Things and Bill & Ted Face the Music
Our house has two stories but only one HVAC unit. This means that the upstairs (where my bedroom is) always ...
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Sixteen Candles Blu-ray Review: A Problematic but Worthwhile Film
As someone who grew up in the 1980s, the films of John Hughes, especially the teen comedies he wrote during ...
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Western Classics I Blu-ray Review: Dust, Grit and Cowboys A-Plenty
The western is a uniquely American film genre. It tells stories of cowboys and natives, of a country lighting out ...
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Five Cool Things and Lovecraft Country
Over the last few years, I've really upped my movie-watching game. I've gone from watching around 10 movies per week ...
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Universal Horror Collection Volume 5 Blu-ray Review: Woman Versus Beast
Horror movies often manifest from a culture's deepest and darkest fears. It is no coincidence that Godzilla was born in Japan only ...
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Beanpole Blu-ray Review: Love and Suffering in Post-War Russia
It seems a rare thing these days where a movie about war is able to make an effective statement. War ...
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Five Cool Things and Perry Mason
I started this month planning to watch a bunch of movies from the late, great, Japanese actor Toshiro Mifune. I ...
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Five Cool Things and Tenet
Every week, I tell myself that as soon as I watch or read or listen to something cool I am ...
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EMMA. (2020) Blu-ray Review: A Delightful Confection
Bill Nighy is a treasure. I almost said "national treasure" there but since he’s English and I’m American I suppose ...
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Film Noir: The Dark Side of Cinema II Blu-ray Review: Three Little-known Noirs Well Worth Your Time
Is it just me or has film noir made an incredible and strange comeback? The oft-imitated, but difficult to define ...
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I recently received, watched, and reviewed a boxed set of three films from Kino Lorber entitled Film Noir: The Dark ...
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Five Cool Things and I Know This Much Is True
This long lock-down, shut-in has created some interesting situations, not all of them bad. Don't get me wrong, I hate ...
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Indiscretion of an American Wife (Special Edition) Blu-ray Review: Love and Loss at the Train Station
My wife and I were strictly long distance for the first couple of years of our relationship. When we first ...
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Barbara Stanwyck Collection Blu-ray Review: Not Barb’s Best
Double Indemnity is one of my favorite film noirs which makes it one of my favorite movies of all time. Barbara ...
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Five Cool 1930s Movies and a Sixth
For the month of April, I decided that my theme should be movies made in the 1930s. Actually, my original ...
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Five Cool Things and the Lemonheads
I mowed and weed-eated my yard today. A small accomplishment I know, but one that felt good. Our house is ...
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Secret Ceremony and Love Among the Ruins Blu-rays Review: Small Casts, Great Dramas
In our modern cinematic world of superheroes, Jedis, and super-sized monsters, it sometimes feels like there is no more room ...
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Underwater (2020) Movie Review: Kristen Stewart Takes a Dive
Deep inside the Mariana Trench, the world's deepest undersea trench - which at its deepest is some 34,000 feet below ...
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Beyond the Door Blu-ray Review: Rosemary’s Baby Meets the Exorcist
It is a universal truth that whenever anything is successful someone else will come along and copy that thing. Usually, ...
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The Passion of Darkly Noon Blu-ray Review: The Story Goes Nowhere
A man, dressed in a suit and tie but bruised and battered, comes running through the woods. He stumbles and ...
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Fathom Events and TCM Present King Kong (1933)
In 1929, while filming baboons in Africa on the set of The Four Feathers, director Merian C. Cooper developed the ...
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One Missed Call Trilogy Blu-ray Review: Let This One Go to Voicemail
A group of friends are hanging out. A cell phone rings, but nobody recognizes the ringtone. Finally, someone realizes it ...
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Five Cool Things and Run
Last month, I watched, on average, over one movie per day. I knew going into February I would not keep ...
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Manon Blu-ray Review: Doomed Love in Post-war France
Manon Lescaut is an 18th Century novel by Antoine François Prévost. It was controversial at the time of its release, for ...
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Deadly Manor Blu-ray Review: A Complete and Total Dud
A group of teenagers decides to go camping at the lake. Four of them are in a Jeep, two drive ...
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Edge of the Axe Blu-ray Review: Careful with That Axe, Psycho Killer
It is always fascinating to me when the makers of low-budget slasher films try to inject their films with an ...
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Brewster’s Millions Collector’s Edition Blu-ray Review: Maybe Worth a Hundred
In 1902, George Barr McCutcheon, writing under the pseudonym of Richard Graves, wrote a novel entitled Brewster's Millions. In it, a ...
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Fathom Events and TCM Present An American in Paris
In the late 1940s, MGM executive Arthur Freed attended a production of George Gershwin classics and became inspired by the ...
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Five Cool Things and Hunters
I hope everyone had a great holiday season. I had a great time with mine and my wife’s family. I ...
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The Magic Sword Blu-ray Review: Dragons, Princesses, and Basil Rathbone
Poor Basil Rathbone. After finding great success on stage and the screen, after becoming a huge star playing Robin Hood, ...
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Blue Collar Blu-ray Review: Workingman’s Blues
After finding great success as a screenwriter on such movies as The Yakuza (directed by Sydney Pollack), Taxi Driver (Martin Scorsese) and Obsession (Brian De Palma), ...
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Stick Blu-ray Review: Burt Reynolds Should Have Stuck to Acting
More than half of Elmore Leonard's novels have been turned into movies (and more than a few were adapted twice, ...
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Universal Horror Collection Volume 3 Blu-ray Review: Not Quite Scary
Universal horror will always be synonymous with a handful of monsters and the dozens of films the studio made starring ...
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A Sunday in the Country Blu-ray Review: A Day in the Life
Never was a film so aptly titled as A Sunday in the Country. The only way to make it more accurate ...
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She (1984) Blu-ray Review: Post Apocalyptic Nonsense
I wonder if you could draw a line from the sword and sandal epics from the early 1960s to the ...
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Tunes of Glory Criterion Collection Blu-ray Review: An Acting Tour de Force
I have been on a bit of an Alec Guinness kick of late. He's an actor I knew and loved ...
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Long Day’s Journey into Night (2018) Blu-ray Review: A Beautiful Dream
You gotta love marketers. They can make you lots of money and screw you at the same time. Bi Gan's ...
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Hitchcock: British International Pictures Collection Blu-ray Review: Becoming a Master
From a very early age, Alfred Hitchcock knew he wanted to be in the filmmaking business. He read the trade ...
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The Anne Bancroft Collection Blu-ray Review: Prepare to Be Seduced
Anne Bancroft landed her first film role in 1952 as a lounge singer in Don't Bother to Knock. For the next ...
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The Fly Collection Blu-ray Review: Be Excited, Be Very Excited to Own This
It is a deceptively simply story. A man invents a machine that can instantly teleport matter from one place to ...
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Jake Speed Blu-ray Review: When Indiana Jones and Brendan Fraser Aren’t Available, Call Jake Speed
My mother likes to call the Brendan Fraser Mummy movies “a poor man's Indiana Jones.” What she means is that both series ...
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The Fare Blu-ray Review: Groundhog Day in a Cab
A taxicab driver named Harris (Gino Anthony Pese) gets a call to pick up someone in the middle of nowhere. ...
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Funan Blu-ray Review: A Genocide Through the Eyes of One Family
In the mid to late 1970s, the Khmer Rouge ruled Cambodia as one of the most brutal regimes in modern ...
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Thor Movie Review: God of Boring
Before I became a bonafide fan of the MCU, I watched their movies whenever I got around to it. Sometimes ...
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Hitch Hike to Hell Blu-ray Review: Put Your Thumb Down and Run
If you are a fan of Netflix's excellent series Mindhunter, then you may feel a sense of familiarity with Howard (Robert Gribbin), ...
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Flowers in the Attic (1987) Blu-ray Review: I Think They Wilted
I have this memory in which my mother gives me a copy of V.C. Andrews' 1979 novel Flowers in the Attic. ...
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Charley Varrick Blu-ray Review: No Country For Walter Matthau
When I think of Walter Matthau, which is more often than you'd think, I think of him as a comic ...
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Woman in Hiding Blu-ray Review: Worth Looking For
It is funny how when you discover something you'd never noticed before you suddenly start seeing it everywhere you look. ...
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It Always Rains on Sunday Blu-ray Review: A Slice of Post-War London
A man breaks out of prison and returns to the home of his former fiancee. They were set to be ...
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The Man Between Blu-ray Review: Out of The Third Man’s Shadow
It is difficult not to compare The Man Between, Carol Reed's 1953 thriller to a film he made four years earlier, The ...
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Seven Days to Noon Blu-ray Review: A Very Good Drama
The atomic bomb not only helped win World War II and fueled the Cold War for years after it, but ...
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Naked Alibi Blu-ray Review: Gloria Grahame Steals the Show
The cops pick up a guy on a drunk and disorderly. He doesn't have any identification but says he's a ...
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Apprentice to Murder Blu-ray Review: Graduated to Boring
The early 1970s saw several British films being released that have been defined as “folk horror” by fans. These are ...
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Ringu Blu-ray Review: One Ring That Started Them All
Japanese folklore has long included ghosts who haunt the living because they died with anger, rage, fear, or some other ...
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Scarface: The World Is Yours Limited Edition Review: Say ‘Hello’ to Your New Christmas Present
In the opening of Howard Hawks's gangster film Scarface (1932), we see a title card that notes that the film is an indictment ...
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La Marseillaise Blu-ray Review: Viva La Revolution!
The French Revolution is one of the most important events of modern history. That mere commoners - people stricken with ...
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My Boyfriend’s Back Blu-ray Review: A Light Comedy with Zombies
There has been a lot of bemoaning over the last few years about how Avenger-sized films have destroyed the mid-budget ...
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And Soon the Darkness (Special Edition) Blu-ray Review: And Eventually the Thrills
Two British nurses, Jane (Pamela Franklin) and Cathy (Michele Dotrice), take a cycling holiday in rural France. They've planned their ...
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Nightmare Beach Blu-ray Review: Somebody Wake Me Up
If you've ever wondered what it would be like to mix an ‘80s slasher with an ‘80s spring break comedy, ...
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Hercules in the Haunted World Blu-ray Review: Sword & Sandals Meets Horror
For decades the Italian film industry often emulated the successful films of the United States. Through the late 1950s and ...
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The Prey Blu-ray Review: Pray You’ll Never Have to Watch
The 1980s were a great time for horror movies in general and slasher flicks in particular. With the advent of ...
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Ida Lupino: Filmmaker Collection Blu-ray Review: Trailblazing
Several weeks ago, I randomly decided to watch On Dangerous Ground, the pretty good film noir by Nicolas Ray from 1951. ...
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The Hills Have Eyes, Part 2 Blu-ray Review: Flashback City
Wes Craven is often placed near the top of lists concerning the greatest horror filmmakers of all time, and rightly ...
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Doom Patrol: The Complete First Season Blu-ray Review: Seriously Weird
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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In the Aftermath Blu-ray Review: An Odd Mishmash of Live Action and Animation
In The Path to Aftermath, an extra included in Arrow Video's new release of In The Aftermath, producer Tom Dugan explains that in ...
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Un Coeur En Hiver Blu-ray Review: A Man Without Feelings
In movies and on television, a sociopath - someone who doesn't have real feelings or emotions - is usually depicted ...
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DC’s Legends of Tomorrow: The Complete Fourth Season Blu-ray Review: Legendary Fun
Disclaimer: Warner Bros. Home Entertainment provided Cinema Sentries with a free copy of the Blu-ray reviewed in this post. The ...
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Hussy Blu-ray Review: You’ll Wonder If You Haven’t Seen It Before
If there was a template for the movie genre where a nice boy falls for a hooker and complications ensue ...
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Who Saw Her Die? Blu-ray Review: Bond Does Giallo
Poor old George Lazenby. When Sean Connery quit the James Bond gig (for the first, but not last time) after You ...
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Supergirl: The Complete Fourth Season Blu-ray Review: Too Much Preaching
Disclaimer: Warner Bros. Home Entertainment provided Cinema Sentries with a free copy of the Blu-ray reviewed in this post. The ...
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The Chairman Blu-ray Review: Mr. Peck Goes to China
For their third and final collaboration director J. Lee Thompson and Gregory Peck made The Chairman, a spy thriller about an ...
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The Quiller Memorandum Blu-ray Review: Next Time Make It a Mission Statement
With the success of the first James Bond film, Dr. No, in 1962 there was a mad rush of spy films ...
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Five Cool Things and Friday the 13th
This getting older thing is kind of a bummer. The other day I was bemoaning how old I'm getting and ...
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The Case of Hana & Alice Blu-ray Review: An Animated Slice of Life
In 2004 Japanese director Shunji Iwai made Hana & Alice, a live-action movie about two high school students who both fall ...
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John Carpenter’s Vampires Collector’s Edition Blu-ray Review: Put a Stake in It
An armored van pulls up to a dilapidated house. A group of scruffy-looking men and a priest get out. The ...
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Wizard World Tulsa 2019 Review: My Last Con, This Time I Mean It
Several years ago while chaperoning a group of college students through Europe as part of a study-abroad program my wife ...
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The Lavender Hill Mob / The Man in the White Suit Blu-rays Review: An Alec Guinness Two-Fer
This weekend I caught a Fathom events screening of Lawrence of Arabia. That is a movie made for the big screen ...
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Alps Blu-ray Review: Weird, Wild, and Confusing
Greek director Yorgos Lanthimos often makes movies about insular groups of people who live in absurdist worlds that create and ...
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Straight Forward: Series 1 DVD Review: Should Have Taken a Curve
One of the worst parts of being a semi-professional reviewer is that you sometimes have to watch and talk about ...
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The Flash (2014): The Complete Fifth Season Blu-ray Review: Slow It Down, Flash!
Warner Bros. Home Entertainment provided Mat Brewster with a free copy of the Blu-ray reviewed in this post. The opinions ...
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Murdoch Mysteries: Season 12 DVD Review: A True Delight
I am an unabashed detective story/crime drama/mystery fan. Whether these tales are being told via novels, comics, movies, or television ...
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The BRD Trilogy Criterion Collection Blu-ray Review: Fassbinder at His Best
When World War II ended, Germany was due a reckoning. As a nation, they had to come to terms not ...
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The Good Place: The Complete Third Season DVD Review: A Great Show
While watching Season One of The Good Place - a series in which four not-so-good humans find themselves in the heaven-like Good ...
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Doctor Who: The Krotons DVD Review: Better Than Its Reputation
The Krotons, the fourth serial from the sixth season of Classic Doctor Who has a lot going for it. It is one ...
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The Milky Way (1969) Blu-ray Review: Surrealistic Satire
h About an hour into Luis Bunuel's surrealistic drama The Milky Way, two men, a Jesuit and a Jansenist, argue over ...
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Death in the Garden Blu-ray Review: Well Worth Watching
After befriending Salvador Dali and finding success in the surrealist movement with films like Un Chien Andalou and L'Age d'Or, Luis Buñuel was ...
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Doctor Who: The Three Doctors Special Edition DVD Review: Three Times The Fun
It has been said before, but having The Doctor regenerate was a stroke of genius. In the beginning of the ...
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Gone to Earth / The Wild Heart Blu-ray Review: One Story Cut Twice
Throughout the 1940s, Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger made a series of films that are considered some of the greatest ...
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Universal Horror Collection, Volume 1 Blu-ray Review: Bela Lugosi Versus Boris Karloff
The year 1931 saw the release of both Dracula and Frankenstein. Both became absolute classics of the horror genre, cornerstones for the long-lasting ...
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Double Face Blu-ray Review: Could Have Used a Face Lift
I am officially on the record (more than once as anyone who has actually followed my writing in these pages ...
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Night of the Creeps Collector’s Edition Blu-ray Review: Blood, Guts, and Laughs
It is fascinating to me when artists incorporate the culture of their formative years into their current work. Think about ...
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Mississippi Burning Blu-ray Review: How Can We Sleep When Our State Is Burning
I gotta tell you, dear reader, that I wasn't real excited sitting down to watch this new Kino Lorber Blu-ray ...
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Killing Eve: Season Two Blu-ray Review: Missing Phoebe Waller-Bridge
Phoebe Waller-Bridge is the new It Girl. Not because she is attractive and trendy (though she is both) but because ...
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The Silent Partner Blu-ray Review: An Underseen Gem
An average, ordinary, unambitious bank teller who lives alone, works on chess problems by himself, and collects tropical fish discovers ...
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Kidnapped (1971) Blu-ray Review: More Political than Adventurous
Robert Louis Stevenson wrote over a dozen novels in his lifetime plus multiple short stories, poems, essays, and other works. ...
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Modest Heroes Blu-ray Review: Eat Their Shorts
When Hayao Miyazaki announced his retirement in 2013, producer Yoshiaki Nishimura grabbed as many animators from the famed studio as ...
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Bright Angel Blu-ray Review: A Coming-of-Age Road Trip
One of the great joys of being a movie nerd in these times is that we have access to so ...
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La Prisonnière Blu-ray Review: Cluzot Gets Modern
The 1960s were a time of enormous cultural upheaval. The aftermath of World War II found many countries with a ...
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The Nun (1965) Blu-ray Review: Get Thee to a Nunnery
Jacques Rivette's 1965 adaptation of the Denis Diderot book The Nun (La Religieuse) was controversial before it was even released. The script ...
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The Shield: The Complete Series DVD Review, Part 2: Seasons 4-7
This review discusses Seasons 4-7 of the FX series The Shield and the recent release of the complete series on DVD by ...
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A Delicate Balance Blu-ray Review: A Caustic Bore
In the mid 1970s, producer Ely Landau created a subscription-based film series that attempted to recreate a theater experience at ...
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The Shield: The Complete Series DVD Review, Part 1: Seasons 1-3
There is a scene in the pilot episode of The Shield in which Detective Vic Mackey (Michael Chiklis) has been brought in ...
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The Iguana with the Tongue of Fire Blu-ray Review: Confusing and Dull
Following the success of Dario Argento's The Bird with the Crystal Plumage, Italian cinema was awash in lurid crime stories with ...
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Terra Formars Blu-ray Review: Miike Can Do Better
Japanese director Takashi Miike is probably best known for his ultra-violent splatter films like Ichi the Killer and Audition. Or perhaps for his ...
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Strip Nude for Your Killer Blu-ray Review: Keep Your Clothes On
There are certain expectations that come with genre films. What is a genre except a set of criteria that help ...
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Fantômas Three Film Collection Blu-ray Review: Tres Silly
Fantômas was originally first created in 1911 by Marcel Allain and Pierre Souvestre. He appeared in some 43 stories over ...
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Scared Stiff Blu-ray Review: Bored Silly
A little free critical advice to anyone planning to make a low-budget horror film: don't put all of your money, ...
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Dragged Across Concrete Is the Pick of the Week
I'm a pretty big genre-film fan. I love the way genre films exist within a certain set or rules and ...
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Dragged Across Concrete Blu-ray Review: Challenging, but Rewarding
Director S. Craig Zahler is a provocateur who loves both ‘70s genre conventions and pissing off at least half his ...
Read More Enigma (1982) Blu-ray Review: Where Have All The Good Spy Movies Gone
Spy movies just haven't been the same since the Berlin Wall crumbled and Russia turned to capitalism. Without the communist ...
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Keoma Blu-ray Review: The Spaghetti Western’s Last Breath
With his Dollars trilogy, Sergio Leone revived the failing western genre, infused it with European sensibilities, and created his own subgenre, the ...
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Tito and the Birds Blu-ray Review: Slight Story, Gorgeous Animation
While computer-generated animation moves closer and closer to photorealism, it is always nice to see an animated film that revels ...
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The Strange Door Blu-ray Review: Not Strange Enough
Very loosely based upon the Robert Louis Stevenson story, The Sire de Maletroit's Door, The Strange Door stars Charles Laughton as Sire ...
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Noir Archive Volume 1: 1944-1954 Is the Pick of the Week
Last November (or Noirvember, as I like to call it), I set out to watch as many film noirs as ...
Read More Scream and Scream Again Blu-ray Review: You’ll Scream for It to Be Over
In London, a jogger runs toward the camera and collapses. He wakes up in a hospital bed while a nurse ...
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Five Cool Things and Alice in Wonderland
My daughter celebrated her eighth year of life this week. That seems an incredibly long time and yet it seems ...
Read More The House of the Seven Gables Blu-ray Review: A Fine Adaptation of a Classic Novel
Throughout the 1920s and early 1930s, Universal Studios was known for their horror films. They unleashed into cinemas a string ...
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Glass Is the Pick of the Week
With the huge success of The Sixth Sense, director M. Night Shyamalan was able to make just about any film ...
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The Land Unknown Blu-ray Review: A Hot Time in Antarctica
We live in a world without mystery. We have the collective knowledge of humanity at our fingertips. We have explored ...
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Five Cool Things and The Rise of Skywalker
For reasons I won't get into here, I've decided to shut my little music blog down. Probably permanently. There are ...
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Bancroft: Season One DVD Review: Completely Bonkers
In this world of seemingly endless must-watch, prestige TV filled with award-winning writers, directors, and actors, it is nice to ...
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Five Cool Things and The Dead Don’t Die
It has been one rough week. My professional and personal life have been filled with much stress. I don't want ...
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Emmanuelle Blu-ray Review: A Young Girl’s Strange Erotic Journey From Paris to Bangkok
The 1970s were a fascinating time for American cinema. The studio system that dominated the Golden Age of Hollywood was ...
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Five Cool Things and Another Birthday
I turned 43 on Monday. I took my kid ice skating on Saturday and took myself to the big used-book ...
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Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse Is the Pick of the Week
Since Sam Raimi introduced Spider-Man into the summer blockbuster tradition 16 years ago, there have been no fewer than seven ...
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Doctor Who: Resolution Blu-ray Review: The New Cast Finally Comes Together
The Daleks are one of the oldest and most popular villains on Doctor Who. They were created by Terry Nation ...
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Five Cool Things and Good Omens
It has been a weird week. Last weekend, it snowed. Monday the temperature dropped to nearly zero degrees Fahrenheit. Tomorrow, ...
Read More The Favourite Is the Pick of the Week
While I do love the cinema, I very rarely get to go to an actual theater. As a family, we ...
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Five Cool Things and Detective Pikachu
We moved back to Oklahoma a few years ago, but no matter how long I am here, I will never ...
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Halloween (2018) Blu-ray Review: A Pleasing Sequel
Up front I've got to admit that out of the eleven films in the Halloween franchise, I've only seen John ...
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Five Cool Things and The ABC Murders
A great big pile of appreciation to my fellow Sentries who helped me out while I was on vacation. I'm ...
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Sorry to Bother You Is the Pick of the Week
Sorry To Bother You stars Lakeith Stanfield as a telemarketer who adopts a white person's voice at his job in ...
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Exorcist II: The Heretic Blu-ray Review: Terrible Sequel, Great Movie
Based upon the best-selling novel by William Peter Blatty, The Exorcist was a huge success. It earned over $66 million ...
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DC’s Legends of Tomorrow: Season Three Blu-ray Review: Legendary Television
Warner Bros. Home Entertainment provided the writer with a free copy of the Blu-ray reviewed in this Blog Post. The ...
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Five Cool Things and Captain Marvel
Several years ago, before we moved, the wife and I had a regular foreign-film night. Every second Saturday of the ...
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Won’t You Be My Neighbor? Is the Pick of the Week
I loved watching Mister Rogers' Neighborhood growing up. I have only the vaguest memories of actually watching the show, but ...
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Five Cool Things and Operation Finale
For the first time in a while, I feel back in the swing of things. I've been relatively healthy. Our ...
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The Flash (2014): The Complete Fourth Season Blu-ray Review: Faster than Ever
Disclaimer: Warner Bros. Home Entertainment provided Cinema Sentries with a free copy of the Blu-ray reviewed in this post. The ...
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RBG Is the Pick of the Week
The Supreme Court of the United State is shrouded in mystery. The decisions they make have far-reaching and long-running impacts ...
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Book Review: Star Hawks, Volume Three: 1979-1981 by Gil Kane and Archie Goodwin
Star Hawks was a science fiction/fantasy daily newspaper comic strip that ran from 1977 to 1981. It tried to ride ...
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Five Cool Things and a Suspiria Remake
School is back. which should mean that I'm watching a lot more cool stuff as I'm putting my daughter to ...
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The Terror Is the Pick of the Week
The question we are faced with, dear reader, is whether to go with the new release that we have seen ...
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The Terror: The Complete First Season Blu-ray Review: Utterly Terrifying
In 1845, the British Empire was at the top of its game with colonies and territories all over the world. ...
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Five Cool Things and Aretha Franklin
I've been binge-watching both Masters of Sex and The Terror all week, which I thought would mean I'd have nothing ...
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Masters of Sex: The Complete Series Blu-ray Review: Undergraduate of Prestige TV
Showtime's Masters of Sex is the very epitome of Prestige Television. It is almost as if show creator Michelle Ashford ...
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Avengers: Infinity War Is the Pick of the Week
Oh snap, Avengers: Infinity War comes out this week. It's been twenty years since Iron Man began the Marvel Cinematic ...
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What Have They Done to Your Daughters? Blu-ray Review: I Hope They’re Not with Solange
Two years after he directed the excellent giallo What Have You Done to Solange?, Massimo Dallamano helmed this giallo/poliziotteschi hybrid. ...
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Five Cool Things and Kidding
I have really lousy allergies. I've never gotten any specific testing done on my body but whenever I'm around freshly ...
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The Death of Superman Is the Pick of the Week
Superman died in 1993. Or at least DC Comics briefly killed him in Superman #75. It was a huge media ...
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Five Cool Things and Making It
My wife made an observation last night that I tend to have more energy on Thursdays than any other day ...
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Tully Is the Pick of the Week
Last week, I complained that there wasn't much of interest coming out. At least it had a big Steven Spielberg ...
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Five Cool Things and 16 Years
As a reviewer, I find that it's much easier to talk about things that I either love or really dislike. ...
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Ready Player One Is the Pick of the Week
We are officially into the Dog Days of Summer. Actually, that may not be true. Is there an official start ...
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Five Cool Things and Glass
For the first time in several years, I've managed to get poison ivy. I'm really quite allergic to it and ...
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Isle of Dogs Is the Pick of the Week
One of the hardest things to do with Wes Anderson films is waiting for the eventual Criterion release. Every film ...
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The Case of the Scorpion’s Tail Blu-ray Review: Stereotypical Giallo
When Lisa Baumer's (Ida Galli) husband dies in a plane explosion (via a very obvious model getting blown to bits ...
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Doom Asylum Blu-ray Review: Terribly Charming
When a hotshot palimony attorney (Michael Rogen) wins a big case, he takes his girlfriend (Patty Mullen) for a ride ...
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