DVD Reviews

Out of all of the films that director David Lean made during his legendary career, he admits himself that Summertime is his favorite. Not Dr. Zhivago. Not The Bridge on the River Kwai. Not Lawrence of Arabia. But Summertime, starring fellow film legend Katharine Hepburn, is the film  ...

“They’re here.” Living in suburbia is HELL in and of itself. There, I said it. It doesn’t help matters at all to learn that your house - no matter how American it may seem - is built on top of a cemetery in which only the headstones were removed ...

At its heart, Killer’s Kiss is a movie where the choreography of ballet dancing meets the moves of boxers crossing in the ring.  Film fans recognize it as Stanley Kubrick’s second film (the first being his 1953 debut feature Fear and Desire), in which he took the streets of New York with 35 mm  ...

Shot on Video, tape warts, print noise, and all, Slaughter Day is a most ambitious horror from the days of fuzzy definition and red bandanas. It is both fun and thrilling with some off-the-wall POV shots as Blake and Jonah, played by real life twins Blake (Rising Dead, Who Saw the Men in  ...

Beginning with a pixelated Atari-like Universal logo, complete with the familiar sounding bleeps and squawks from that gaming system as it blips out the usually orchestrated Universal Studios theme music, Scott Pilgrim vs. The World announces its thunderously playful attitude as a sugary  ...

Kitty’s back on the cell block!  Woot! Woot!  Let the sweat-dripping orgies begin! Violence in a Women’s Prison, originally released in 1982, is a damn ugly exploitation flick. Even when you lower the bar when it comes to Women in Prison flicks, this ...

Psychological. Shocking. Suspenseful. And downright BEAUTIFUL to look at. The Alfred Hitchcock Classics Collection II release in Ultra 4K is a DEFINITIVE release for some of the most thrilling classics from the master of the macabre. Seriously, there is no flaw to be seen in both the  ...

The first impression I get from writer/director Christos Nikou’s Apples is that it bears a strong resemblance to that of the films by fellow Greek director Yorgos Lanthimos. Blending deadpan, black comedy with a degree of tragedy, Nikou, like Lanthimos, is keen on showing the awkward  ...

Fresh from the success of 1978’s Halloween, director John Carpenter returns to horror and its star Jamie Lee Curtis for his follow-up feature film. The Fog is a supernatural horror flick that is heavy on atmosphere and creativity and, in spite of its age, its creepy vibe and physical make-up effects  ...

You say want sex and violence?  Well, the Masked Mutilator has EXACTLY what you are looking for.  Just be respectful because this house parent will definitely kick your ass ...

Tampering with evidence?  Bullying witnesses?  Doctoring voice recordings?  Just what won’t the mob do?!  Looks like it is all in play in 1957’s Chicago Confidential, written by Robert T. Marcus, which is now on blu-ray thanks to Kino Lorber’s ongoing Film Noir: The Dark Side of  ...

Is it ever too late to start over? So, what would you do if your father came out of the closet at the age of 75 years old? Well, if you’re writer/director Mike Mills, you make a movie about it. And while this is might sound like some cheap shot of exploiting the oppression that his father endured ...

Sometimes box office bombs deliver payloads years after their release.  Scream Factory, releasing Space Truckers on blu-ray with new featurettes, know this and offer audiences another chance to hitchhike alongside Dennis Hopper, Debi Mazar, and Stephen Dorff as they seek an astronomical  ...

From sea to shining sea!  That’s the attempted reach of 1951’s The Raging Tide, yet another film noir offering highlighting the streets and alleys of San Francisco.  With steely-eyed direction from prolific director George Sherman (Larceny, The Sleeping City) and ace cinematography from Russell Metty (The Stranger, Touch of ...

Hey Ho, Let’s Go! Thank God for Paul Bartel (who plays Mr. McGree, the music teacher) at Vince Lombardi High School in this 1979 cult classic. According to Rock n Roll High School’s production history, it was his idea to bring The Ramones on board this teenage comedy. Originally, the ...

Visual Vengeance and Wild Eye Releasing have STUCK IT again with the release of L.A. AIDS Jabber, a shot on video horror flick which is a bit more serious than it lets on to be. Oh, and don’t worry, that taste in your mouth for even considering this title washes away quite easily, especially when  ...

In a role he was… ahem, born to play, Nicolas Cage plays Nick Cage in Tom Gormican and Kevin Etten’s The Unbearable Weight of Massive Talent, the pair’s earnest love letter to who else but… Nicolas Cage ...

Hard-boiled and crackling with stark intensity, Los Angeles after dark is always an exciting place.  Especially with all the femme fatales walking the streets. Whether it be out on the street or gazing out the window of your home, the air of unpredictability is always lurking ...

Bloody Muscle Bodybuilder in Hell is one wild ride through independent trash cinema. It is ugly and brutal, plunging sharpened knives deep into the necks of its audience from the very beginning and begging us to look away. We don’t, though. Gorehounds never do, which is why watching the main  ...

Based around a single make-or-break heist, The Asphalt Jungle is known in the halls of film noir thrillers as the first ever caper flick and, honestly, this brilliantly scripted offering is more than deserving of its praise and its legacy, which is why the Criterion Collection has added it to their list of  ...

We all have that one childhood memory that haunts us to this very day. For me it was the sudden rattling of trash cans, tools, and boxes as everything came crashing down in my parents’ carport when I came home late one night as a young teenager ...

Rude and crude, The Necro Files have been opened! Ready to do the Devil’s work? Wild Eye Releasing and Visual Vengeance are as The Necro Files, a satanic shot on video nudie-fest from 1997, gets its blu-ray debut. I mean, sure, these films are horrible looking and full of horrible content, but what blu-ray do you know rewards viewers with their very own condom? That’s right. This is probably the only one with that surprise inside ...

Are there two sides to everyone? One good and simple. The other…bordering on evil perhaps. And does this “evil” side live in all of us just waiting to be unleashed? While attending church one morning, Dr. Jekyll (Spencer Tracy) witnesses a man - once a good, upstanding citizen – turn  ...

The man with the hat is back!  And this time in 4K.  Complete with a sparkling new HDR-10 and Dolby Vision 4K transfer with state-of-the-art Dolby Atmos for the best sound quality possible, Paramount offers fans of Harrison Ford’s Indiana Jones a 4-movie Steelbook collection, with  ...

Writer/director Neil Marshall doesn’t always get the respect he so admirably deserves. It seems that Hollywood has put all their eggs in Neill Blomkamp’s basket. Marshall, who has yet to fail my expectations, continues to deliver behind the scenes in Game of Thrones but to truly appreciate  ...

"Ya wanna dance, Mike Doyle?!" The hills!  The fog!  The slick city streets!  The atmosphere is on point as Johnny Stool Pigeon opens and that’s thanks to cinematographer Maury Gertsman, who shot Singapore, the first offering in this set from Kino Lorber ...

“You kill my cat, I’ll blow your head off.” There’s a white jaguar loose on a big boat. Nic Cage is on board. What else do you need to know? If you are a fan of Cage, then you are going to love this spirited take on ...

Famed writer/director/producer Roger Corman is not one to let a trend pass without notice and monetary capitalization. Still looking to mine the Star Wars vein of golden riches and fortune and glory in 2980, he mounted his most expensive production and put together a creative team (which included  ...

Pear smuggler Matt Gordon (played wonderfully by Fred MacMurray) has returned to the scene of his heartbreak: Singapore.  Cue the lush heartstrings!  The drama!  The crimes!  And, oh, the Casablanca influences as Singapore, with boat and schooner whistles blaring in the distance instead  ...

“Try to look more bereaved.” This isn’t how funerals are supposed to go. Or is it? Offering something arguably more realistic and touching than any other mopey, water-works-filled funeral sequence/movie we have seen before, Juzo Itami’s The Funeral does anything BUT try to make ...