Rock ‘n’ Roll High School 4K UHD Review: Do Your Parents Know You’re Ramones?
By Greg Hammond |
Allan Arkush’s Rock ‘n’ Roll High School stars P. J. Soles as Riff Randell, a high school student who is ...
Read More The Terminator 4K UHD Review: Tech Noir
By Jack Cormack |
The Terminator (1984; dir. James Cameron) is a suspenseful, A-grade B-movie—a “tech noir” crafted with cunning and care by a ...
Read More The Block Island Sound 4K UHD Review: Something in the Water
By Kent Conrad |
You do not want your parents to succumb to the indignity of senescence. To lose their personalities to dementia, and ...
Read More The Addiction 4K UHD Review: Vampires, Philosophy, and More Vampires
By Kent Conrad |
The Addiction is about vampires. The Addiction is about evil and how it is connected to the human condition. The ...
Read More Demolition Man 4K UHD Review: Frozen Ass-Kickers Against the Future
By Kent Conrad |
Sylvester Stallone is the good guy. He's the cop who does what the other cops won’t. He wears a beret, ...
Read More Galaxy Quest 4K UHD Steelbook Review: It Never Gave Up
By Kent Conrad |
Galaxy Quest does the neat trick of being both a satire of TV sci-fi, and an excellent sci-fi story itself. ...
Read More North by Northwest 4K UHD Review: A Masterpiece in Ultra High Definition
By Mat Brewster |
Like thousands of people across the nation, I had a heated argument with my family over Thanksgiving. We did not ...
Read More Aguirre, the Wrath of God 4K UHD Review: Herzog, The Beauty of a Filmmaker
By Mat Brewster |
A line of men snakes their way down a mountain, single-file like ants. Some are soldiers all decked out in ...
Read More Little Women (1994) 4K UHD Review: Little Women, Big Hearts, A Gorgeous New Transfer
By Mat Brewster |
My wife and I sometimes laugh about how very similar and yet somehow completely different our lives were growing up. ...
Read More The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari 4K UHD Review: A Silent Masterpiece Like You’ve Never Seen It Before
By Mat Brewster |
I am a great lover of classic film noir and Italian giallo. Any discussion of those genres inevitably leads to ...
Read More Drag Me to Hell 4K UHD Review: Raimi Returns to Horror
By Kent Conrad |
Sam Raimi, renowned horror movie director, has never been a major fan of horror movies. The Evil Dead creator only ...
Read More Beetlejuice Beetlejuice 4K UHD Review: Surprisingly Fresh for a Dead Guy
By Kent Conrad |
Beetlejuice Beetlejuice feels like it should be a disaster. It's a sequel to a nearly 40-year-old film that had a ...
Read More Bill & Ted’s Most Triumphant Trilogy Review: “Sorry. They Melvined Me.”
By Greg Hammond |
Shout! Studios has released Bill & Ted’s Triumphant Trilogy (4K Ultra HD + Blu-ray), including Bill & Ted’s Excellent Adventure, ...
Read More Killer Klowns from Outer Space 4K UHD Review: They Aren’t Klowning Around
By Mat Brewster |
I like to imagine the Chiodo Brothers, writers, directors, and producers of Killer Klowns from Outer Space, were sitting around ...
Read More American Movie 4K UHD Review: Film, Family, and Alcohol Abuse
By Kent Conrad |
In its bare outline, American Movie is a documentary about a striving filmmaker. In the telling, it’s about addiction, family ...
Read More A Nightmare on Elm Street (1984) 4K UHD Review: A Dream Release
By Mat Brewster |
John Carpenter didn't invent the slasher genre with Halloween in 1978 but he certainly popularized it and solidified the formula. ...
Read More Torso 4K UHD Review: ‘The Bodies Bear Traces of Carnal Violence’
By Jack Cormack |
Torso (1973; dir. Sergio Martino) is pure, unfiltered giallo—a movie drenched in blood, nudity, and unapologetic sleaze. It’s rough around ...
Read More The Strangers (2008) 4K UHD Review: Remarkably Taut Suspense Thriller
By Kent Conrad |
The basic outline of The Strangers is absolutely nothing new: bad guys attack people in a house. Doesn't go well. ...
Read More Friday the 13th (2009) 4K UHD Review: Remake Exceeds Low Expectations
By Kent Conrad |
The most famous visual of Friday the 13th is Jason Voorhees in a hockey mask. But Jason wasn't the villain ...
Read More The Chronicles of Riddick 4K UHD Review: An Unexpected Expanded Treasure
By Kent Conrad |
Pitch Black did not seem like a movie that deserved a sequel. It was a serviceable action-horror sci-fi picture that ...
Read More Game Night 4K UHD Review: Game of Life Offers Monopoly of Laughs
By Greg Hammond |
Co-directed by John Francis Daley and Jonathan Goldstein, Game Night is a comedy-kidnap-caper film starring Jason Bateman and Rachel McAdams ...
Read More High Crime (1973) 4K UHD Review: The Italian Connection
By Mat Brewster |
Made during the infamous Italian Years of Lead (a decades-long period of political turmoil and heavy street violence), High Crime ...
Read More Black Mass (2015) 4K UHD Review: Government-Approved Gangsterism
By Kent Conrad |
Gangster movies tend to hang on loyalty. Gangs tend to hang on loyalty. The lower thugs not giving up their ...
Read More IF 4K UHD Review: The Opposite of a Magical Adventure
By Greg Hammond |
John Krasinski directed, co-wrote, and co-starred in 2018’s dark thriller A Quiet Place. In 2020, Krasinski wrote and directed A ...
Read More The Lady from Shanghai 4K UHD Review: Twisty, Twisted Noir Classic
By Kent Conrad |
Except maybe Citizen Kane, everything Orson Welles directed has a kind of asterisk by its name. However good the movie ...
Read More Demons & Demons 2 4K UHD Review: Completely Bonkers in the Best Possible Way
By Mat Brewster |
From his debut film, The Bird with the Crystal Plumage, in 1970 to Opera, his last great film, made in ...
Read More Risky Business Criterion Collection Review: Introducing Tom Cruise and Guido the Killer Pimp
By Greg Hammond |
Written and directed by Paul Brickman, 1983’s Risky Business turned Tom Cruise into a superstar. And it isn’t just dancing ...
Read More The Case of the Bloody Iris 4K UHD Review: A Typically Stylish Giallo
By Kent Conrad |
The Case of the Bloody Iris exemplifies the appeal of the giallo completely. Giallo is the Italian precursor to the ...
Read More Team America: World Police 4K UHD Review: Pulls the Right Strings
By Greg Hammond |
From Trey Parker and Matt Stone, the creators of the long-running TV series South Park (328 episodes between 1997 - ...
Read More South Park: Bigger, Longer, & Uncut 4K UHD Review: Still Funny but Aging Rapidly
By Greg Hammond |
South Park: Bigger, Longer, & Uncut, directed by Trey Parker, and written by Parker, Matt Stone, and Pam Brady, is ...
Read More Chinatown 4K UHD Review: Noir Gold; or “The point is, the girl dies”
By Jack Cormack |
As a masterpiece, Chinatown needed its two main creators, screenwriter Robert Towne (who won the movie’s sole Oscar) and director ...
Read More One from the Heart: Reprise 4K UHD Review: Coppola’s Folly Redeemed?
By Kent Conrad |
After the Godfather films, Francis Ford Coppola went from disaster to disaster. Apocalypse Now is the famous problematic film… but ...
Read More Killer Klowns from Outer Space 4K UHD Review: The Bloody Circus Comes to Town
By Greg Hammond |
Killer Klowns from Outer Space, written, directed, produced, and starring the Chiodo Brothers (pronounced kee-oh-do) is a comedy/action/horror movie that ...
Read More Peter Gabriel: Back to Front 4K UHD Review: Old Dog, New Tricks
By Kent Conrad |
Artists touring old albums has been, since about the mid '00s, seemingly how they make their money. It's hard to ...
Read More Once Upon a Time in the West 4K UHD Review: Weird West
By Jack Cormack |
In Once Upon a Time in the West (1969; dir. Sergio Leone), a just-widowed beauty, Jill McBain (Claudia Cardinale); a ...
Read More The Crow: 30th Anniversary Edition (1994) 4K UHD Steelbook Review: Grim Classic Adaptation Returns
By Kent Conrad |
There's no getting around Brandon Lee's death when discussing The Crow. An actor's death during the production or release of ...
Read More Mean Girls (2004) and Mean Girls (2024) 4K UHDs Review: So Fetch They’re Grool
By Greg Hammond |
It is interesting that the book Queen Bees and Wannabes: Helping Your Daughter Survive Cliques, Gossip, Boys, and the New ...
Read More Rolling Thunder 4K UHD Review: Dead Inside
By Jack Cormack |
In director John Flynn’s Rolling Thunder (1977), Major Charles Rane (William Devane) has just come home to San Antonio after ...
Read More Nostalghia 4K UHD Review: Out, Out, Brief Candle
By Jack Cormack |
In director Andrei Tarkovsky’s Nostalghia (1983), a glum Russian poet, Andrei (Oleg Yankovsky), treks the Italian countryside with his comely ...
Read More The Ring Collection 4K UHD Review: Video Terror’s Diminishing Returns
By Kent Conrad |
The Ring (2002) might be one of the most influential horror movies of the new century. Based on the Japanese ...
Read More Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom 4K UHD Review: Inventive Action Sequences Keep the Story Alive
By Greg Hammond |
James Wan’s Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom is funny, action-packed, filled with strong performances, and it is one of the ...
Read More The Heroic Trio/Executioners Criterion Collection 4K UHD Review: Insane Hong Kong Lady Action
By Kent Conrad |
In the pre-Internet era, information about different cultures’ cinema was obscure. It was rumor. It was some still in a ...
Read More Contagion 4K UHD Review: If I Could Throw Your Computer in Jail, I Would
By Greg Hammond |
Steven Soderbergh’s Contagion, written by Scott Z. Burns (The Bourne Ultimatum), is about a pandemic which spreads quickly and kills ...
Read More Darkman 4K UHD Review: A Must-See for Sam Raimi Fans
By Greg Hammond |
In Sam Raimi’s Darkman (1990), Liam Neeson, in his first starring action role, plays Dr. Peyton Westlake, a researcher in ...
Read More Footloose (1984) 4K UHD Review: Rambunctious, Though Mostly Tired
By Greg Hammond |
After the death of his father, Ren McCormack (Keven Bacon), and his mother (Frances Lee McCain) move from Chicago to ...
Read More Willy’s Wonderland 4K UHD Review: Nicolas Cage Brings a Whole Lot of Fun
By Greg Hammond |
Kevin Lewis’s Willy’s Wonderland stars Nicolas Cage, a possibly mute, probably just super quiet, nameless drifter driving the backroads, who ...
Read More The Man in the Iron Mask (1998) 4K UHD Review: Struggles to Find its Footing
By Greg Hammond |
The phenomenal success of Randall Wallace’s screenplay for 1995’s Braveheart gave him carte blanche on his next film for which ...
Read More Point Break (1991) 4K UHD Review: “27 banks in three years – anything to catch the perfect wave!”
By Jack Cormack |
In Point Break (dir. Kathryn Bigelow), Johnny Utah, an FBI hotshot (Keanu Reeves), joins an FBI schlub (Gary Busey) to ...
Read More The Train 4K UHD Review: “You talk about the war. I talk about what it costs!”
By Jack Cormack |
Based on a true story, director John Frankenheimer’s The Train (1964) is about the lengths the French Resistance went to, ...
Read More Face/Off 4K UHD Review: Great Performances and a Fun Sci-Fi Script
By Greg Hammond |
In John Woo’s Face/Off, FBI Special Agent Sean Archer (John Travolta) holds a particularly personal grudge against no-good-nic Castor Troy ...
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