DVD Reviews

This movie – no, this phenomenon – will change your life.  Permanently. Tommy Wiseau’s The Room, having already earned freakish line-quoting followers in Los Angeles and New York through its communal (and sold out) midnight showings, is now High Definition ...

While far from perfect, Brian Cunningham and Matt Niehoff’s Overtime isn’t the total loss that it easily could have been.  You’ve got a low-budget film starring former WWE superstar Al Snow and a cast of other unknowns battling an alien-virus that turns people into ...

House at the End of the Street (otherwise known as 101 Generic Minutes) is a bad career location for Jennifer Lawrence.  She’s too talented of an actress to get caught up in a supposed suburban horror film that is neither scary nor any good.  A haunted house ...

If you missed the lackluster Stolen in its initial 14 day theatrical run, well, I don’t blame you.  Easy to watch when the brain is switched off, the film is largely a sloppy affair that can’t decide on a silly or sadistic tone. While not a complete loss thanks to the scenery chewed by everyone BUT...

I’m not trying to be funny here, but how many of you heard about The Jazz Singer before you actually saw it?  It turns out the revolution was televised (in a roundabout manner of speaking).  Moving pictures were meant to have sound and, in 1927, the technology ...

Quite simply, Two-Lane Blacktop is the purest road movie to ever exist. Revisiting Monte Hellman’s classic is not unlike listening to remastered Jimi Hendrix on 180 gram vinyl; a mood-altering earnest trip through the countercultural consciousness complete ...

The family tree gets a bit uprooted in the fantastic Hannah and Her Sisters.  Set between two family thanksgivings, this 1986 offering from writer/director Woody Allen is rich in storytelling flow – as the characters take turn narrating the events – and ...

Don’t call it a comeback.  He’s been here for years.  Yeah, I said it.  I couldn’t think of a better opener than quoting a little LL Cool J for you all.  And, listen, it’s deserved.  Arnold Schwarzenegger, last seen firing blanks in The Expendables 2, returns for another ...

With inspired gonzo guffaws and slapdash guerrilla filmmaking stylings, Sleepers is the funniest Woody Allen film to appear before his artistic vision made him a household name.  Allen, a longtime fan of silent clowns like Charlie Chaplin and Buster Keaton, throws ...

Sweat. Dust. Violence. And beer. These are the outback facts of life in Ted Kotcheff’s hard-hitting Wake in Fright.  An Australian film long thought lost due to the ravages of time, Wake in Fright stands proudly alongside Mad Max and Picnic at Hanging Rock as high ....

Ready for something new from Jason Statham?  Something like a romantic comedy?  Look elsewhere.  This is meat and potatoes Statham.  The protagonist of a series of thrillers by the author Donald Westlake, writing under the pseudonym Richard Stark ...

“Gross,” my wife said to me while studying the artwork on Olive Films Blu-ray release of Paramount’s Ticks, a low-budget creature feature from 1993.  It was followed by, “what the hell is wrong with you?” Ticks, to be sure, is my cup of malt-o-meal comfort ...

Bursting with the same joy captured inside Domenico Modugno’s recording of Volare, To Rome with Love continues Woody Allen’s successful European vacation.  The comedy is just shy of the usual laughter and a definite step down from his most successful film ...

The unsettling case of the West Memphis Three gets yet another documentary - that’s four now. But West of Memphis is different. Aside from the passing of time - some 18 years - that has uncovered additional evidence, recanted testimony, and incompetent forensics...

Searching for Sugar Man clocks in a swift 85 minutes but the true story it tells – about an unknown folk-rock artist from Detroit, Michigan who doesn’t even know he’s bigger than Elvis in South Africa – is one you will never forget.  Rodriguez is his name ...

It has been a decade since last we heard from director Walter Hill (The Warriors, 48 Hours) and his latest, Bullet to the Head, offers no explanation for the ten year silence.  No apology needed from the maestro, mind you.  Just sit back and enjoy the one-liners.  Bullet to ...

Well, at least it tries to do something different with the whole superhero genre.  Imagine if DC’s Justice League or Marvel’s The Avengers were fractured and driven apart by one of their villains for all eternity.  Imagine if that villain was Jigsaw from the SAW series ...

It’s been heralded as a minor classic.  It’s also the first movie to showcase zombies – whether the walking dead or just poisoned.  Let’s be honest, though.  It’s far beyond the appropriate time to recognize Victor Halperin’s White Zombie as a masterpiece of horror. ...

Yippee ki yay, double-dipper! It’s Die Hard’s 25^th anniversary celebration but you won’t find much of a party going on here.  The disappointing collection from 20^th Century Fox is essentially the same transfers we’ve seen before, making this only a stop-gap release until ...

Digital or film?  Those are your choices for the future of moviemaking.  Do we fall forward or fall back and rely on the natural look of film to carry us into the future?  Discuss.  Chris Kenneally’s new documentary, Side by Side, is certain to heat up the conversation ...

Easily the best thing about Here Comes the Boom is that its executive producer, Adam Sandler, does not make an appearance.  Designed to be a feel good movie in the vein of Rocky and Warrior, Frank Coraci’s film largely falls flat due to an uneven spread of comedy ...

The anti-hero, the McGuffin, the duplicitous femme fatale, film noir, German expressionism seeping its way into film—these things have influenced movies for longer than this reviewer’s father has been alive, and they’re things that we take for granted because ...

The man behind those Wu-Tang slash and burn head-bobbing beats, the RZA, makes his directorial debut and revitalizes the martial arts genre with a film saturated with ridiculous amounts of blood and high-flying kicks. You will believe a man can fly thanks to ...

Derek Cianfrance, who brought us 2010’s beautifully tragic Blue Valentine, again explores the seamy edges of family dysfunction with his The Place Beyond the Pines that premiered at this year’s Toronto International Film Festival. Only this time, he shifts the ...

Bad hairdos, really large insects, and gore, gore, gore is what you’ll find inside this skin-crawling nest.  Yes, it’s the six-legged bug who gets toasted and then roasted in this creature feature produced by Julie Corman. It’s a ow budget disaster and Scream ...

That’s right, fellow freaks, TerrorVision is back in print!  Finally freed from its VHS prison by the kind folks over a Shout!/Scream Factory, TerrorVision gets coupled with another gory gem from the late 1980’s, Video Dead, for a nasty little double feature that will definitely ...

Poor Renny Harlin. What went down as arguably his best (and certainly most atmospheric) film and intended American debut, Prison, never saw the light of day in what was supposed to be its big theatrical release. Yes, Dead Heat got its slot. Tiny theatres ...

Elia Kazan’s On the Waterfront won 8 academy awards in 1955 and could still win those awards if released, as is, today.  This is more than just a movie.  Kazan’s ability to capture reality is more than just magical; it’s his talent.  On the Waterfront’s verisimilitude is ...

Ladies and gentlemen, in my time as a film reviewer I have journeyed to many a far off foreign place to bring you the news – good or bad – about new, domestic releases.  I have combed the bottom of the barrel; raided your father’s closet; even traversed your ...

What’s big and tall and heading to theaters across the nation?  Jack the Giant Slayer and, yes, it’s every bit as fee-fi-fo-FUN as it should be.  It’s sure to anger the cynical moviegoer with its Princess Bride-esque Fairy Tale vibes.  While the dangerously wrong-headed ...