DVD Reviews

Where to go and what to do with the sequel of a movie that got its traction from an evil villain turned into lovable hero? That’s the ultimate challenge faced by the makers of Despicable Me 2 which picks up where the original left off - with former(?) super-villain ...

In a summer chock-full of underwhelming tentpole features, superhero misfires, and a general box office malaise threatening to change how movies are made, it’s refreshing to find a bit of relief in the least likely of places: a film that stars Jennifer Aniston - the sweet ...

Horror movie convention gets turned on its bloody head with You’re Next, the latest visit to the home invasion slasher. Though the setup is a familiar one with the proverbial herd of sacrificial lambs converging on an isolated house for a family reunion, it’s what ...

Perhaps the timing of Riddick, the sequel to Pitch Black and The Chronicles of Riddick is a stroke of genius.  After all, it’s a literal dead season for movies and there is just little of great interest out in theaters right now. Perhaps it is just having ...

Oscar-nominated director Denis Villeneuve teams up with Oscar nominees Hugh Jackman and Jake Gyllenhaal in Prisoners, a twisting thriller that – while involving – is not nearly as smart as the screenplay thinks it is.  For the careful observer, much of Prisoners is ...

Alfonso Cuarón's Gravity is a masterpiece of sound and vision.  It achieves – in a crisp 90 minutes – everything that any filmmaker in love with the medium sets out to achieve.  Few attain it and most never produce a film as marvelous as the very Kubcrickian ...

Robert Rodriguez’s Mex-ploitation saga continues with the batshit crazy antics highlighted in Machete Kills.  While the print critics prematurely hammer nails into the character’s coffin, no amount of bullets can kill Danny Trejo.  He may be older and bit more stiff ...

Captain Phillips, the latest film to cover the tragic events surrounding the 2009 hijacking of the American container ship Maersk Alabama off the coast of Somalia, has Paul Greengrass all over it. The one-time documentarian who applied his kinetic style to two ...

Alan Taylor’s Thor: The Dark World might feel - with its Anthony Hopkins-narrated beginning concerning a war with elves – a bit like the next installment of The Hobbit but when it comes down to it, Marvel’s second trip through the Norse mythology is indeed magical ...

The heart of America – the real America that is – should be viewed in hard-bitten black-and-white photography.  Director Alexander Payne (Sideways, The Descendants) knows this about his Omaha birthplace and – while merging the brilliance of About Schmidt ...

The comets are coming!!  The comets are coming!!  Science fiction gets satirized in writer/director Thom Eberhardt’s fantastic Night of the Comet.  Released the same year as David Lynch’s Dune and 2010, this entry into the genre was – while the reviews were ...

Director John Carpenter does director Howard Hawks.  Call Assault on Precinct 13 the premiere urban western because, in the era before the action movie craze, that’s exactly what this lean and mean to the extreme movie is. In what amounts to an updated ...

Scream Factory, an imprint of Shout! Factory, and its love affair with writer/director John Carpenter continues with the release of Showtime’s anthology of horror, Body Bags.  Comprised of three short films – two directed by Carpenter and one directed by  ...

Tom Holland’s 1985 vampire in your neighbourhood jaunt was a really enjoyable, of its time, funny and scary composite of a movie. It has a cult following, and in many people’s eyes, is a classic from a very fertile and brave era of filmmaking. A sequel followed a ...

Being an Australian, I remember American history not being a voraciously covered subject in school or of enormous interest to the general population thereafter. But there are some events that transcend continents, and embed themselves even in the disinterested ...

The Horror Show, directed by James Isaac, has an interesting release history.  Critically panned, the film was eventually released overseas as the third film in the House series although it has nothing to do with a haunted house.  Weird, right?  The producers ...

Writer/director George A. Romero (The Night Of The Living Dead series) might have made his name with the undead but he doesn’t always wear the horror helmet.  With Knightriders, a King Arthur-style Renaissance Fair movie complete with jousting on ...

When RED, the sleeper hit comedy of 2010, opened, the over-50 audience finally has something to cheer for.  So did the all the young turks.  That’s certainly an accomplishment when the most of the cast sports AARP cards and walkers. Based off the limited  ...

Having never even seen one episode of A&E’s Duck Dynasty, I went into this Blu-ray set knowing only two things about it: rich rednecks and camouflage.  I am now 46-episodes educated into what makes The Robertson clan so attractive to television viewers ...

Como estan, beetches?Anchorman: The Legend of Ron Burgundy is one of those comedies – like Animal House, This is Spinal Tap, Caddyshack, and Hot Rod – that only gets better the more times you watch it.  It rewards the repeat viewer with its never-ending ...

On its surface, American Hustle is the story of one of the most extraordinarily damning scandals of the ‘70s. But beneath that grimy facade of sleazy con-men, corrupt politicians, and oily FBI agents, is the powerful love story between Irving Rosenfeld (Christian Bale) ...

Inside Llewyn Davis – while being focused on the Greenwich Village scene of the early 1960s – is a timeless masterpiece of sound and vision and perfectly relevant in today’s absurd world.  Yes, I said that the period film is, in fact, timeless. It is further proof ...

An American Werewolf in London has never been equalled for this reviewer in the 31 years since its release. No werewolf film since has come close to matching its combination of scares and offbeat humour. The experience of laughing your ass off and then jumping ...

Disney’s Pirates of the Caribbean dream team of Johnny Depp, director Gore Verbinski, screenwriters Ted Elliott and Terry Rossio, and producer Jerry Bruckheimer go for broke in their adaptation of The Lone Ranger and trip all over the place with an uneven ...

The world didn’t know it needed a remake of The Shaggy Dog. But the Disney studio churned one out, anyway, in 2006. It belongs on a long list of their updates including That Darn Cat, The Parent Trap and Freaky Friday. However, there’s one original movie that can ...

The creepy crawlies get deep B-movie fried in director Mike Mendez’s Big Ass Spider! - a flick as non-nuanced as it is devotion to the whole party schlock atmosphere of the drive-in movies of yesteryear.  While it sports a better polish than most tongue-in-cheek ...

Quack!  Quack!  With the controversy (really?!) over patriarch Phil Robertson’s (shocking?!) comments safely tucked inside a crevice in the recent past, A&E rolls out Season 4 of America’s favorite bearded family. Season 4?  Already? ...

Some still argue to the death that Robin Hardy’s The Wicker Man is the Citizen Kane of horror movies.  Watching Lionsgate’s recently released “Final Cut” version of the film (a blu-ray debut for the title), it’s hard to disagree with the legion of fans still in an uproar ...

The creative stories of H.P. Lovecraft make for some relatively spotty film adaptations.  Only one – The Re-Animator –makes for recommended viewing.  The rest have moments of tasty goodness but – if I don’t know your tastes – I would hesitate to recommend them ...

You know their voices you just don’t know their names.  If you listen to records by The Rolling Stones or Sting, their voices are as familiar to you as your favorite pair of jeans.  Merry Clayton, Darlene Love, and Lisa Fischer are backup singers and, while talent does ...