Wild Palms Blu-ray Review: It’s No Twin Peaks
By Steve Geise |
In the wake of the spectacular rise and fall of the original Twin Peaks, its network ABC was keen to produce ...
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Narrow Margin (Special Edition) Blu-ray Review: Strangers on a Canadian Train
By Gordon S. Miller |
Journeyman Peter Hyams performs triple duty (director, cinematographer, and screenwriter) on enjoyable albeit formulaic thriller Narrow Margin (1990), a remake of The Narrow ...
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South Park: The Complete Twenty-Third Season Blu-ray Review: Maintaining Their Tegridy
By Gordon S. Miller |
Written and directed by Trey Parker, the twenty-third season finds the citizens of South Park continue to deal with current ...
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Portrait of a Lady on Fire Criterion Collection Blu-ray Review: Burning Bright
By Steve Geise |
Writer/director Celine Sciamma's latest film is both exhilarating and depressing: spellbinding because of its absolute excellence and disheartening because it ...
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The Cameraman Criterion Collection Blu-ray Review: A Star Begins to Fade
By Gordon S. Miller |
Although a talented filmmaker, Buster Keaton wasn't a great business man and his box-office struggles caused him to sign on ...
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White Fire, The Wind, and Why Don’t You Just Die! Blu-rays Review: Three from Arrow Video
By Mat Brewster |
As the world continues to move towards consuming media through an increasing number of streaming platforms, there is a niche ...
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Friday the 13th (40th Anniversary) Steelbook Blu-ray Review: There Was This One Time at Camp Crystal Lake…
By David Wangberg |
Confession time. The Friday the 13th franchise is one that I've largely ignored my whole life. Call it snobbery, call it what ...
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Morgan: A Suitable Case for Treatment (1966) Blu-ray Review: Love and Madness
By Kent Conrad |
Morgan is going mad. Or maybe he was always a little mad, but it became too much and wasn't as ...
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Lonely Are the Brave Blu-ray Review: The Last Cowboy
By Joe Keaton |
Based on Edward Abbey's novel, The Brave Cowboy, Lonely Are the Brave (1962) came and went without a fuss. Now known as Kirk ...
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Tex Avery Screwball Classics Volume 1 Blu-ray Review: A Must-Own for Animation Fans
By Gordon S. Miller |
When it comes to the work of legendary animation director Fred “Tex” Avery, the stories typically show order giving way ...
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An Unmarried Woman Criterion Collection Blu-ray Review: Bold and Groundbreaking
By Davy |
As I mentioned in my Pick of the Week recently, the 1970s were a very pivotal time for women. There was the ...
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Film Noir: The Dark Side of Cinema III Blu-ray Review: Gambling, Murder, and Back Alley Adoptions
By Mat Brewster |
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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The Woman Blu-ray Review: Dares to Depict the Dark Side of the American Family
By Davy |
On one side, I see why most people don't hold kindly to "torture porn", the infamous phase of the horror ...
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Sixteen Candles Blu-ray Review: A Problematic but Worthwhile Film
By Mat Brewster |
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
By Mat Brewster |
The western is a uniquely American film genre. It tells stories of cowboys and natives, of a country lighting out ...
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Escape from L.A. Collector’s Edition Blu-ray Review: A More Expensive yet Inferior Remake
By Gordon S. Miller |
Director John Carpenter developed a cult following among horror and science fiction fans from his work in the 1970s and ...
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Sound! Euphonium: The Movie – Our Promise: A Brand New Day Blu-ray Review: One More Year of Music
By Kent Conrad |
Does anything one does in high school matter? At the time, it seems all dreadfully important, and some people see ...
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Spring Night Summer Night Blu-ray Review: An Honest Portrait of Small Town Woes and Broken Dreams
By Davy |
What I truly love about Independent film is the attention to people and places, and the issues that take place ...
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Universal Horror Collection Volume 5 Blu-ray Review: Woman Versus Beast
By Mat Brewster |
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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The Invisible Man (2020) Blu-ray Review: We Needed to See More of Him
By Rons Reviews |
It’s been twenty years since director Paul Verhoeven gave us Kevin Bacon as Hollow Man, which allowed Bacon to return ...
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Beanpole Blu-ray Review: Love and Suffering in Post-War Russia
By Mat Brewster |
It seems a rare thing these days where a movie about war is able to make an effective statement. War ...
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Watchmen (2019): An HBO Limited Series Blu-ray Review: An Instant Classic
By Steve Geise |
If you come to HBO's Watchmen limited series with a knowledge of the original comic book series and/or Zack Snyder's 2009 movie, ...
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When We Were Kings Criterion Collection Blu-ray Review: A Marvelous Time Capsule of Muhammad Ali in 1974
By Gordon S. Miller |
Leon Gast's When We Were Kings documents the "Rumble in the Jungle," the legendary boxing match between undefeated heavyweight champion George Foreman ...
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Masked and Anonymous Blu-ray Review: Too Freewheelin’ for Its Own Good
By Gordon S. Miller |
“I stopped trying to figure everything out a long time ago” is the last line of dialogue in Masked and ...
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Matewan Criterion Collection Blu-ray Review: Labor Pains
By Gordon S. Miller |
John Sayles' Matewan is a dramatization of the Matewan massacre (1920), a battle that took place in the town of Matewan, West ...
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In Search of Dracula Blu-ray Review: A Bloody Good Documentary
By Elizabeth Periale |
In Search of Dracula, originally released in 1975, and directed by Calvin Floyd (Terror of Frankenstein, The Sleep of Death), has ...
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Alice in Wonderland (1933) Blu-ray Review: The Special Effects Are Actually Quite Special
By Elizabeth Periale |
The live-action (mostly) version of Alice in Wonderland, released by Kino Lorber, has a lot packed into its 76-minute running time. ...
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EMMA. (2020) Blu-ray Review: A Delightful Confection
By Mat Brewster |
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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The Pink Panther Cartoon Collection: Volume 6 (1978-1980) Blu-ray Review
By Gordon S. Miller |
From January 2018 to December 2019, Kino Lorber Animation released the entire run of 124 Pink Panther cartoons produced by DePatie-Freleng Enterprises ...
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Film Noir: The Dark Side of Cinema II Blu-ray Review: Three Little-known Noirs Well Worth Your Time
By Mat Brewster |
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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Promare Blu-ray Review: Hyper Kinetic Superhero Firefighters
By Kent Conrad |
There's barely a still moment in Promare, a science fiction anime film about firefighters who not only put out blazes but ...
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An Inspector Calls (1954) Blu-ray Review: More of a Psychological Mystery than Detective Story
By Elizabeth Periale |
In 1912, the wealthy Yorkshire Birlings, Eric and Sybil (Bryan Forbes and Olga Lindo) have a lot to celebrate. Their ...
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Roberto Rossellini’s War Trilogy Criterion Collection Blu-ray Review: Intro to Italian Neorealism 101
By Gordon S. Miller |
In reaction to what many were experiencing in Italy under Mussolini and after World War II, the Italian neorealism movement ...
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Indiscretion of an American Wife (Special Edition) Blu-ray Review: Love and Loss at the Train Station
By Mat Brewster |
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
By Mat Brewster |
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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Their Finest Hour: 5 British WWII Classics Blu-ray Review: That British Stiff Upper Lip
By Kent Conrad |
The Second World War is a different story, depending where it's told. For Americans, it can be complex (how our ...
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Don’t Drink the Water (1969) Blu-ray Review: A Subpar Sitcom
By Gordon S. Miller |
Based on the 1966 Broadway play of the same name written by Woody Allen, Don't Drink the Water is basically a TV ...
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Three Fantastic Journeys by Karel Zeman Criterion Collection Blu-ray Review: Trips Worth Taking
By Gordon S. Miller |
I've been a big fan of movies for most of my 50-odd years on this planet and have enjoyed a ...
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Cattle Annie and Little Britches Blu-ray Review: Outlaw Groupies with True Grit
By Joe Keaton |
Ripe for rediscovery, Cattle Annie and Little Britches follows the exploits of the real-life titular characters, two teenage girls in love with ...
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The Gentlemen Blu-ray Review: Finally, a Real Guy Ritchie Film
By Steve Geise |
Guy Ritchie's latest film is a winning return to the gritty ensemble crime caper format that fueled his rise to ...
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Billy Liar Blu-ray Review: Tom Courtenay’s Performance is Absolutely Spellbinding
By Davy |
The British New Wave was an innovative, but short-lived cinematic movement during the early '60s to the early '70s. It ...
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The Bolshevik Trilogy: Three Films by Vsevolod Pudovkin Blu-ray Review: Silent Soviet Masterpieces
By Kent Conrad |
First and foremost, Pudovkin was a Soviet. His art was propaganda, because he believed in the cause. He's a contrast ...
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Like A Boss Blu-ray Review: Making Up is Hard to Do
By Elizabeth Periale |
Like A Boss has the ingredients of a really good girl power comedy: a great cast with lots of chemistry (led ...
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Secret Ceremony and Love Among the Ruins Blu-rays Review: Small Casts, Great Dramas
By Mat Brewster |
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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Beyond the Door Blu-ray Review: Rosemary’s Baby Meets the Exorcist
By Mat Brewster |
It is a universal truth that whenever anything is successful someone else will come along and copy that thing. Usually, ...
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Cruising Blu-ray Review: Hardcore in Blue
By Joe Keaton |
Nightmarishly vivid, director William Friedkin's Cruising, a divisive film about an undercover New York cop (Al Pacino, miscast) who cruises gay ...
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Zodiac (2-Disc Director’s Cut) Blu-ray Review: A Great Film, Top to Bottom
By Gordon S. Miller |
David Fincher’s Zodiac tells the story of the serial killer who terrorized Northern California in the late 1960s/early 1970s. Based ...
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Bluebeard’s Eighth Wife Blu-ray Review: Lifestyles of the Rich and Zany
By Elizabeth Periale |
Kino Lorber has just released Bluebeard's Eighth Wife, starring Claudette Colbert and Gary Cooper. Made in 1938, the screwball romantic comedy was ...
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Bones (2001) Blu-ray Review: Unleash the Blunt
By Joe Keaton |
Bones bores. Director Ernest Dickerson, Spike Lee's former DP, pulls off a few nifty visual tricks. Chief among them are a ...
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Good Omens Blu-ray Review: A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to Armageddon
By Gordon S. Miller |
Based on the 1990 novel by the late Terry Prachett and Neil Gaiman, the latter of whom oversaw the television ...
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