DVD Reviews

It seems that Marvel Studios can do no wrong, doesn’t it? I mean they bravely come out swinging a few years ago with a roster of characters that the average movie goer doesn’t know, and interweave a multi-film narrative into a multi-billion dollar earner that trounces all  ...

Up until this week, this Roger Corman-produced slasher/comedy was long overdue on blu-ray. It was originally made in 1982 on a shoestring budget and featured as many boobs as it did grizzly power-tool murders. Directed by Amy Holden Jones (who turned down editing  ...

Yes, it’s true that Sabotage is profane, gory, mean-spirited, and violent as hell. In fact, it may very well be one of the most violent mainstream films in decades. It’s like the love child of a grind house slasher and a Sam Peckinpah western. And it’s also true that Arnold ...

Here’s an Under the Skin viewing tip: know that Scarlett Johansson plays an alien who inhabits the skin and clothing of a human female, scours the Scottish Highlands luring unsuspecting male hitchhikers into her nondescript panel van before seducing them to a nearby location  ...

Never before in the history of motion pictures have the changes that happen inside the female body when a girl gets her first period been explained so clearly then in Ginger Snaps, a female-led werewolf movie from the early part of the 1990s. Oh, sure, the werewolf  ...

Marketed as the first film to feature old action dogs Sylvester Stallone and Arnold Schwarzenegger together as top-billed stars in the same film, Escape Plan is not the high-octane action thriller we were led to believe. Ironically however, neither is it the compelling ...

Ron Burgundy (Will Ferrell) is baaaaaaaaack! From truck commercials to actual news takeovers, Anchorman 2 might possible be one of the most overhyped sequels to come around since the Ghostbusters discovered pink slime bubbling beneath the streets of ...

Leonardo DiCaprio comes roaring back – and boy, does he roar – from his lifeless turn in this past Spring’s humdrum The Great Gatsby with a booming performance in The Wolf of Wall Street, which also represents somewhat of a return to form for Martin Scorcese, whose ...

"Every time I try to get out, they pull me back in," screams Al Pacino in The Godfather III.  I now know how he feels.  Honestly, the only way to begin a review of Paranormal Activity: The Marked Ones is with that famous non-haunted quote.  Why? Because ...

The old-school vibe that haunts George Clooney’s Monuments Men is leaving some critics and audiences absolutely cold as stone.  There are a lot of slow fades and a lot of dissolves and plenty of Frank Capra-like charm as curators, architects, and art historians scour Europe  ...

Raise your hand if you thought making yet another movie based on a children’s toy was a terrible idea. And keep it up if The Lego Movie’s trailers did nothing to convince you otherwise that a feature-length movie starring those dastardly little plastic land mines would end  ...

“Dead or alive, you’re coming with me.” When first receiving the news of a new Robocop film, I was a bit skeptical. Reasons being that the original was so cheesy, and so “eighties,” shall we say, that a new film seemed an odd venture. However, upon viewing the fresh ...

Proving that he’s not going down without a fight, 61-year-old Liam Neeson returns for another early year no-brainer action flick (something like six films in as many years) in Non-Stop. This time he’s an alcoholic air marshal receiving threatening texts while on board a  ...

Turn the masculinity to eleven!   I must admit, venturing into 300: Rise of an Empire, I wasn’t skeptical per-say, more curious. However, the curiosity prevented the unwelcomed preconceptions of the mystery I was about to partake, and I’m glad it did. Relatively  ...

Blazing with filmmaker Wes Anderson’s usual zippy energy, your stay at The Grand Budapest Hotel will certainly not disappoint. The madcap movie is a wonderful example of Anderson’s eye for detail and his rapier-wit and, while being his newest and freshest comedy, is  ...

Continuum is the best science fiction show currently on television. It is also probably the best Science Fiction show that you aren’t watching. Currently beginning its third season, Continuum is a Canadian-based import starring Rachel Nichols as Kiera Cameron, ...

Disney is not quite ready to drop the whole “pirate” act - at least not yet. The Pirate Fairy – the fifth in a series of Tinker Bell movie adventures and a prequel to Peter Pan – arrives in stores this Tuesday. It’s not as cinematic as what we’ve come to expect from Disney  ...

It ain’t a Christmas party until someone breaks an iPhone. If that’s true, then the couples in The Best Man Holiday had a crazy good time—they even threw in a smashed iPad, to boot. The rowdy revelers were first introduced to audiences back in 1999, in the romantic comedy The Best Man ...

Gareth Edwards’ Godzilla tears into theaters this coming May so why not the tie-ins into stores and shelves, too?! Originally released in 1963 here in the United States, King Kong vs. Godzilla is simply a must-own for any fan of either monster. This co-production between  ...

The classic feel of an afternoon matinee flick fuels the second of Toho's King Kong pictures. King Kong Escapes had a long gestation period and, while different monster villains were proposed (like Frankenstein), it was finally settled that Kong would battle himself  ...

Norm son-of-a-Gunderson! Another re-release Fargo, the 1996 Coen Brothers black comedy of down-to-earth Minnesota crime, gets remastered in its latest blu-ray release.   This is the film that granted The Coens (Joel directs; Ethan produces; both handle screenplay ...

Once upon a time ago, a movie as massive as Universal’s silent classic The Hunchback of Notre Dame could be made. It is considered one of the most unusual productions of the time period. For decades after its filming, the Universal lot was jammed with the façade of a super   ...

Aging Bad Ass Frank Vega (Danny Trejo) returns to protect his Los Angeles neighborhood from the villains, the heathens, and the drug lords that surround his boxing community center. But this time he has help from a local bodega owner Bernie  ...

“I close this memo with a very earnest plea that you consent to this brief visual pattern to which I gave so many long hard days of work.” That is the closing line in writer/director Orson Welles’ 58-page memo to Universal after finally seeing the studio’s version of his movie.   ...

Leave it to Judi Dench, who squeezes every bit of emotion from each and every closeup in Stephen Frears’ movie, to actually bring a tear to my eye. Philomena is a heart wrenching road trip from Ireland to America and then back to the homeland that is definitely worth taking  ...

And the controversy continues. Violent and heavy on the nudity, Get Carter is a rather mean-spirited revenge flick that earns its reputation alongside Michael Caine’s badass performance as Jack Carter, a man on a mission. He won’t be content until it is completed  ...

From the sharp writing to the clever plotting, The Spectacular Spider-Man – appearing on the Kids' WB programming block of The CW and later on Marvel's sister network Disney XD from 2008 to 2009 – ended much too quickly. Series creators Greg Weisman and Victor  ...

‘She was a chunky girl with pimples on her neck and back and buttocks, her wet hair completely without color.' -Stephen King The story that gave Stephen King to the world has been adapted as a cinematic horror classic once before. Having nearly every horror classic  ...

This May the Toho Company, Ltd – known around the world for their special effects bonanza of man-in-a-rubber-suit monster flicks - strikes back with quite an impressive haul of Godzilla vs. titles for your blu-ray player. While some titles  ...

When the winged menace of Rodan – long thought dead – returns to attack the innocent, who are you gonna call? Godzilla, that’s who! As long as you can guarantee that the mutated dinosaur is on your side. And when you can’t, you better hope to hell that  ...