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Cinema Sentries

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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Broadway Melody of 1940 Blu-ray Review: De-Lovely

The obvious draws for this classic MGM musical are the star turn by Fred Astaire and the songs written by ...
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Legion of Super Heroes: The Complete Series Blu-ray Review: Back to the Future

Based on the comic of the same name, Legion of Super Heroes ran for two seasons (26 episodes) from 2006 ...
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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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The Greatest Show on Earth Blu-ray Review: The Show Must Go On… and On… and On

Epic corn was director Cecil B. DeMille’s metier, and The Greatest Show on Earth (1952; 152 minutes), his circus opus ...
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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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Secrets & Lies Criterion Collection Blu-ray Review: Cinema at Its Best

Legendary British director Mike Leigh is one of cinema's greatest and most profound humanists. He crafts beautifully painful portraits of ...
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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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Damn Yankees Blu-ray Review: Lola Wants (and Gets) 4K

How much do you love your favorite baseball team? Or, more accurately, how much do you hate the New York ...
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Baby Doll Blu-ray Review: Let’s Play House, Baby

Scripted by playwright Tennessee Williams, who got sole credit for this adaptation of two of his shorter plays, “Twenty-Seven Wagons ...
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Southland Tales Blu-ray Review: Strange but Strangely Compelling

Stepping in through the door right when the millennium was opening up and carrying with it a sense of doom ...
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Touki bouki Criterion Collection Blu-ray Review: Deserves to be Seen and Discovered

I must admit that African cinema usually goes way over my head. I mostly gloss over it in favor of ...
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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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The Parallax View Criterion Collection Blu-ray Review: The Second Entry in Pakula’s Political Paranoia Trilogy

Based on Loren Singer's 1970 novel of the same name, Alan J. Pakula's The Parallax View is the second entry ...
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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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Laurel or Hardy: Early Solo Films of Stan Laurel and Oliver Hardy Blu-ray Review

Stan Laurel and Oliver Hardy are a legendary comedy duo that had international success with both their silent and sound ...
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Lady Sings the Blues Blu-ray Review: Good Morning Heartache

Allow me to state this upfront: In Lady Sings the Blues (1972; dir. Sidney J. Furie), Diana Ross gives a ...
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JSA: Joint Security Area Blu-ray Review: Death on the DMZ

There's only one place along the Korean DMZ that soldiers from the North and South stand across from one another, ...
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Lovecraft Country: The Complete First Season Blu-ray Review: We Are Not Monsters

The first five minutes of HBO’s adventure horror series, Lovecraft Country (Season One), tells you everything you need to know ...
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Poster of the movie Mandabi by Ousmane Sembene

Mandabi Criterion Collection Blu-ray Review: Unexpected Money Leads to Lots of Problems

One of the things that Ousmane Sembène’s second feature film does that so few films do is, take lesser-known actors ...
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San Francisco Blu-ray Review: The King of the Barbary Coast Finds His Queen

The San Francisco earthquake of 1906 is the backdrop for this handsomely mounted 1936 MGM production, which spends far too ...
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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 ...
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Mario Puzo’s The Godfather, Coda: The Death of Michael Corleone Blu-ray Review

Timed to coincide with the 30th anniversary of the The Godfather Part III , director/producer/co-writer Francis Ford Coppola recut the ...
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The Court Jester Blu-ray Review: Danny Kaye Stars in a Comic Masterpiece

Paramount Pictures' The Court Jester, a grand musical comedy that showcases the talents of its star Danny Kaye, is a ...
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Ethan Hawke featuring in the poster of Tesla

Tesla (2020) Blu-ray Review: Electrifying

To call Michael Almereyda’s Tesla an unconventional biopic would be an understatement. It’s an oddball and brazen approach to the ...
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Survivor Ballads: Three Films by Shohei Imamura Blu-ray Review: Stories of Hardship and Endurance

Shohei Imamura was one of the grandmasters of Japanese cinema in the second half of the 20th century. His first ...
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The Pajama Game Blu-ray Review: Fosse Rising

The Pajama Game (1957) is very much of its time. That’s part of its charm. Adapted from a hit Broadway ...
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Batman: Soul of the Dragon Blu-ray Review: Everybody Was Kung Fu Fighting

Batman: Soul of the Dragon is the 41st film in the DC Universe Animated Original Movies line. Under their Elseworlds ...
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Rolling Thunder Revue: A Bob Dylan Story by Martin Scorsese Criterion Collection Blu-ray Review

Bob Dylan's Rolling Thunder Revue tour was in support of his album Desire, released January 5, 1976 between the two ...
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The Ascent Criterion Collection Blu-ray Review: Larisa Shepitko’s Masterpiece

The Ukranian-born Larisa Shepitko (one of the greatest female filmmakers of all-time) had only made a few features and short ...
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Bartender (2006) Blu-ray Review: A Calming Aperitif of a Show

Anime in the popular imagination is...I was about to say Dragonball, but that shows my age. Sailor Moon? One Piece? Inuyasha? Once or twice ...
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Versus (2000) Blu-ray Review: Samurai Zombie Yakuza Action

Japanese cinema at the beginning of the 21st century was fun. There was an explosion of cinematic talent coming from ...
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Tourist Trap (VHS Retro Big Box Collection) Review: A Solid, Offbeat Flick

When it comes to the horror genre, there’s always going to be the usual movies steeped in typical cliches, such ...
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The poster of the movie Cinema Paradiso

Cinema Paradiso Blu-ray Review: Heaven-Sent

The winner for Best Foreign Language Film at the 1989 Golden Globes and Academy Awards ceremonies, and deservedly so, Cinema ...
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Three Films by Luis Buñuel Criterion Collection Blu-ray Review: The Don’s Swan Songs

As Luis Buñuel neared the end of his life, he swore each time he made a film that it would ...
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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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Honest Thief Blu-ray Review: Comfort Food for Crime Fans

Honest Thief is a simple crime drama with a plot that resolves unsurprisingly as one who has viewed any of ...
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The Curse of Frankenstein (Two-Disc Special Edition) Blu-ray Review: A Landmark in Horror Is Reborn

As mentioned in the extras and as horror-film fans may be aware, the dominance of the Universal Monsters on the ...
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Crash (1996) Criterion Collection Blu-ray Review: An Anti-Erotic Film

"Prophecy is dirty and ragged", says Vaughan, while complaining about the cleanliness of the tattoo he gets on his chest. ...
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Beau Geste (1939) Blu-ray Review: A Tale of Brotherly Love

Directed by William Wellman, this second film adaptation of P.C. Wren's 1924 adventure novel of the same name stars Gary ...
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The DVD Cover of the award winning movie Judy

Judy (2019) Blu-ray Review: A Look at Life After the Rainbow

There is no denying that all of the praise and awards attention that Renee Zellweger has been receiving for her ...
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Amores Perros Criterion Collection Blu-ray Review: Alejandro González Iñárritu’s Greatest Masterpiece

The most celebrated and well-known filmmakers of the Mexican New Wave are Guillermo del Toro, Alfonso Cuaron, and Alejandro Gonzalez ...
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The 2020 World Series Blu-ray Review: It’s Time for Dodgers Baseball

Major League Baseball presents The 2020 World Series, the official 85-minute documentary of the six-game series played between the Los ...
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Symbiopsychotaxiplasm: Two Takes Criterion Collection Blu-ray Review

As a passionately dedicated lover of film, I really enjoy that not every film has to be a cliche, meaning ...
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The Harvey Girls Blu-ray Review: MGM Misses the Bullseye

Despite the top billing of mega-star Judy Garland and some pricey-looking location shooting and hundreds of extras, The Harvey Girls ...
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Tex Avery Screwball Classics Volume 2 Blu-ray Review: A Second Helping of Silliness

The Warner Archive Collection has released the second volume of their Tex Avery Screwball Classics line, bringing the total number ...
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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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Young Man with a Horn Blu-ray Review: Birth of the Cool

Kirk Douglas was a force in Hollywood for so many decades that it's easy to forget that he was a ...
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