DVD Reviews

The magic in the kingdom is still there, mateys. Yo ho! Directed by Norwegians Joachim Rønning and Espen Sandberg (Kon-Tiki) and written by Jeff Nathanson, Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Men Tell No Tales moves swiftly, energized by the new blood involved in the project. ...

Fist Fight is the laziest and sloppiest “comedy” to come out of Hollywood in recent memory.  Mean-spirited and brutal, the film simply kills any and every chance it has at successfully being funny thanks to the over-the-top violence it embraces as two unhinged teachers ...

Well, that’s more like it. Warner Bros. entry into a shared universe of super heroes on film has been a lot more miss than hit. I, admittedly a lifelong DC Comics’ reader, have grown tired of the comparisons made between Marvel’s output and everyone else’s ...

Leave it to LEGO to get Batman right. Forget DC’s cinematic universe of disappointments, man, because at this point in the game all they have is Wonder Woman.  Will Arnett’s vocal characterization of The Dark Knight is exactly what the stalled franchise needs after the two ...

…in which Nietzsche, forever staring into that damned abyss, is proven right once again.  It is us!  It is us! ...

As the undead do, Universal’s stable of legendary monsters rises from the cloak of darkness in the form of The Mummy, which is to be the first chapter in what the studio is calling the Dark Universe, its very own version of a cinematic franchise. Hey, Disney, Warner, and others  ...

Jackie Burke (Robert De Niro) has fallen on hard times lately. He used to star in a hit sitcom, at the height of his comedy career. But now he barely gets by, relying on occasional nostalgic comedy shows and loans from his exasperated brother (Danny DeVito). During one ...

“Face it, Tiger.  You just hit the jackpot.”  It’s the line Mary Jane says to Peter Parker when, in the comic book, he first sets eyes on her.  It’s sort of how I feel after watching this movie.  We. Just. Hit. The. Jackpot. om Holland is the full package.  He is both Peter Parker and Spider-Man ...

Hello, Oscars!  Allow me to introduce you to your first 2017 contender for Best Picture, Best Director, and Best Actor at the next Academy Awards.   War for the Planet of the Apes is THAT good ...

You can keep your Kate Beckinsale.  Move over Milla!  It’s official.  Charlize Theron is the Wonder Woman we need.  With Atomic Blonde, Theron becomes THE female action star by which all others should be measured against.  The character she plays, Agent Lorraine Broughton of  ...

The pigtails.  The big, buggy eyes.  That wretched smile.  That damn doll is back.  And she’s ready for her turn to guide you through a funhouse of holy hell. Annabelle sits in the gathering darkness of a closed closet.  A little girl stands on the other side of the door ...

Screenwriter Taylor Sheridan concludes his American frontier trilogy with Wind River, a suspenseful murder mystery set in the snow-covered barrens of Wyoming. Sheridan burst on the scene with his blistering essay on the epidemic of violence along the Texas/Mexico border with ...

He wields a magical sword and a stylized sense of swagger.  He’s King Arthur for the hipsters and he’s hoping to make a big splash on blu-ray.  Fingers crossed or whatever ...

Director Andrew Muschietti and screenwriters Chase Palmer and Cary Fukunaga do something very interesting with their big screen adaptation of Stephen King’s hugely popular novel It. They take the thrills and chills of horror and, rather than use them as a cheap means ...

Now, this is how you build a franchise...with sock puppets ...

“C’mon you apes, you wanna live forever?!” ...

Director Matthew Vaughn likes to get people talking.  Recall, if you will, Kick-Ass and the choice vocabulary uttered by Chloë Grace Moretz as Hit Girl.  It’s his thing, you know.  Well, audiences are going to be talking about the hot bedroom action in his new film for months.  It’s a great ...

The DC Comics & Warner Bros. Animation co-production venture is already a very successful enterprise and, with Gotham by Gaslight coming soon, they continue to be of interest.  Comic book fans have a lot of animated features to celebrate over the years.  They were  ...

Happy Death Day should have been good. Groundhog Day redone as a teen slasher horror? Are you kidding me? Count me in! The opportunity to watch a miserable prig of a person on the receiving end of the perfect comeuppance... over and over. A circular loop of bloody ...

This is the story of a man who says just about everything that comes into his head. Wilson is a brutally honest middle-aged misanthrope (Woody Harrelson) who longs for a family, after friends move away and his father’s death leaves him all alone. Luckily it turns out he  ...

Some seventeen films into the MCU, one marvels (see what we did there?) at the sheer volume and consistency of their output in the last decade. There isn’t a single entry in this shared universe that this reviewer hasn’t liked. They’re not all home runs, and, if I think of my ...

Seven years later….

DUN-DUN-DUNNNNN!!!! ...

Hi-Ho Silver!

There aren’t many films as flawless in tone, performance, and spirit as The Philadelphia Story.  From beginning to end, director George Cukor’s film is perfectly balanced with charm and wit and, of course ...

There is but one artist who could create a passionately unsettling love story between a mute woman and a freakishly real-looking merman and make it feel so entirely personal that it practically drips with relatable emotion.  One artist.  And he is the mighty Guillermo del Toro ...

Wow.  Wow. Wow.  And, again, WOW. If the side-by-side comparisons at the end of this movie don’t convince you of James Franco’s deep understanding of the wacky world of writer/director Tommy Wiseau, then I don’t know what will. The Disaster Artist isn’t mockery. ...

“This is not going to go the way you think.” –Luke Skywalker. Never has a line from one of these films so succinctly encapsulated the adventure you are about to witness. This second part of the third trilogy of the Star Wars saga is going to take your expectations and throw  ...

2017 has been something of a marquee year for Stephen King cinematic adaptations, with TV scoring big on Gerald’s Game, 1922, and Mr. Mercedes, and It breaking records on the big screen. (Note: The Dark Tower was a big stumble.) So although this year is a few shy of Misery’s 30th anniversary ...

The filmmaker whose body of work has often touched on near perfection, suffers a considerably significant stumble with his latest film called Downsizing. Alexander Payne, who explored the sharp contrasts of flawed people dealing with the most difficult of situations in  ...

Heist films are well trodden genre this century, with many a bankable name and director taking various stabs at them with varying degrees of success. The ones that have stood out in the past couple of decades seem to possess a couple of key ingredients: relatable or interesting ...

Period pieces such as these can have a hard time in the modern cinematic landscape, so one must come loaded for bear to make a mark. What tends to resonate with modern audiences, apart from the usual commercially considered trappings Hollywood always considers ...