DVD Reviews

Rated: PG for some action/peril, mild language and brief smoking.
Runtime: 112. mins.
Director: Jay Russell
Writer: Robert Nelson Jacobs (screenplay); Dick King-Smith (book)
Cast: Ben Chaplin; Bruce Allpress; Eddie Campbell; Peter Corrigan ... complete cast
Tagline: Every big secret starts small.
Genre: Adventure/ Family/Fantasy
Memorable Quote: "Don't worry. I'll take care of you" ... more quotes
Release Date: December 25, 2007
DVD Release Date: April 8, 2008

When it was first announced that Piranha, the 1978 original spoof of Jaws, which was directed by Joe Dante, written by John Sayles, and produced by Roger Corman was going to be remade, an audible groan was heard from the masses.  This would never work so...

One of the few genres of film that this reviewer has never been able to stomach too easily is the romantic comedy. Not because he doesn’t like to see people fall in love, then misstep, find their way back from disaster, and make it in the end, but because ...

The bookish virgin.  Two selfish friends.  The obsessed psychiatrist.  A babysitting job on October 31^st.  And The Shape.  Halloween, masterfully directed by John Carpenter, is considered – some 35 years after its release – a classic film of sound and vision ...

MPAA Rating: PG-13 for violence, brief language, some sexuality and drug content.
Runtime: 145 mins.
Director: Steven Spielberg
Writer: Scott Frank
Cast: Tom Cruise, Colin Farrell, Samantha Morton
Genre: Action | Sci-fi
Memorable Movie Quote: "Fi Most memorable quote: "You're under arrest for the future murder of Sarah Marks."
Release Date: June 21, 2002
DVD Release Date: April 10, 2010

Rated: R for language.
Runtime: 93 mins.
Director: Oliver Hirschbiegel
Writer: Dave Kajganich (screenplay); Jack Finney (novel)
Cast: Nicole Kidman; Daniel Craig; Jeremy Northam.
Tagline: Do not trust anyone. Do not show emotion. Do not fall asleep.
Genre: Action / Drama / Horror / Sci-Fi
Memorable Quote: "We'll watch over each other, make sure we don't fall asleep."
Release Date: August 17, 2007

Rated: PG-13 for violence, language, horror images, slime and gore.
Runtime: 120 mins.
Director: Paul W.S. Anderson
Writer: Paul W.S. Anderson (story) and (screenplay)
Cast: Sanaa Lathan; Raoul Bova; Lance Henriksen....complete cast
Genre: Horror/Thriller/Action
Tagline: Whoever wins... We lose.
Memorable Quote: "You ugly son of a bitch!"

Born from the pages of a Texas Monthly magazine article, Bernie tells the story of gregarious assistant funeral home director Bernhardt Tiede (Jack Black) and wealthy widow Marjorie Nugent (Shirley MacLaine). But more than it is the tale of the curiously improbable ...

With Salmon Fishing in the Yemen, director Lasse Hallström and writer Simon Beaufoy cast a wide net for offbeat, quirk and whimsy. And while the odd title may suggest they’re on the right track, clearly something was lost in the adaptation from comic ...

They populate the TV airwaves like tenement cockroaches, but it’s been a while since a sharp legal thriller has graced the big screen… and even longer since Matthew McConaughey has done anything worth...

Rated: R for strong graphic violence and some language.
Runtime: 122 mins.
Director: Ethan Coen; Joel Coen
Writer: Ethan Coen; Joel Coen from a novel by Cormac McCarthy.
Cast: Tommy Lee Jones; Javier Bardem; Josh Brolin; Woody Harrelson ... complete cast
Tagline: There Are No Clean Getaways
Genre: Crime / Drama / Thriller/Western
Memorable Quote: "1958. It's been traveling twenty-two years to get here. And now it's here. And it's either heads or tails. And you have to say. Call it." ... more quotes
Release Date: November 9, 2007

John Wayne who?  Seriously.  My father might have raised me with a healthy smattering of Wayne films every Sunday afternoon until I was ten, but this film makes the Rooster Cogburn of my youth simply fade into the sunset. It seems the Coen ...

Rated: R for strong violent content, language and some sexuality/nudity.
Runtime: 103 mins.
Director: Louis Leterrier
Writer: Luc Besson
Cast: Jet Li; Morgan Freeman; Bob Hoskins; Kerry Condon... complete cast
Tagline: Serve No Master.
Genre: Thriller/Action/Drama
Memorable Quote: "sweet is good"

Riffing on Alfred Hitchcock’s one-take experiment with Rope, Silent House presents horror aficionados with a spellbinding tale of tension that works more often than it doesn’t during its “real” 88-minutes.  The crack-shot camera work is all hand-held ...

MPAA Rating: R for war violence and language.
Runtime: 131 mins.
Director: Kathryn Bigelow
Writer: Mark Boal
Cast: Jeremy Renner; Anthony Mackie; Brian Geraghty; Guy Pearce
Tagline: The Hurt Locker.
Genre: War
Memorable Quote: "If I'm gonna die, wanna die comfortable"
Release Date: July 10, 2009
DVD Release Date: January12, 2010.
Distributor: Summit Entertainment

The steely-eyed no-nonsense action thrillers of writer/director John Flynn (Lock Up, Out for Justice) gets their start with cult favorite Rolling Thunder.  Suggesting this film is a classic of the genre is indeed an understatement.  Everything about this fierce gem ...

Spring Breakers is a film about the current “Me” Generation that most members of that said grouping will fail to understand.  Why?  Because consequence and condemnation is not what their unearned sense of entitlement is all about.  Tough words, right?  ...

With the brute force of a fastball and the finesse of a well-aimed curve, Moneyball pops the leather with a triumphant true story about finding worth in uncommon places. That uncommon place in ...

MPAA Rating: PG-13 for language, brief nudity/sexuality, some violence and a drug reference.
Runtime: 128 mins.
Director: Roman Polanski;
Writer: Roman Polanski; Robert Harris.
Cast: Pierce Brosnan; Ewan McGregor; Olivia Williams; Tom Wilkinson
Tagline: The Ghost Writer.
Genre: Drama | Mystery

King Kong Blu-ray Digibook

MPAA Rating: This title has not been rated by the MPAA.
Director: Merian C. Cooper, Ernest B. Schoedsack (uncredited)
Writer: James Ashmore Creelman
Cast: Fay Wray; Robert Armstrong; Bruce Cabot
Genre: Sci-fi | Drama
Memorable Movie Quote: “What’s he think she’s really gonna see?” - Bruce Cabot as Jack Driscoll in King Kong, 1933
Release Date: April 7, 1933
Blu-ray Release Date: September 21, 2010.

MPAA Rating: PG-13 for intense sequences of violence and terror, disturbing images, thematic material and language including some sexual references.
Runtime: 87 mins.
Director: David S. Goyer
Writer: David S. Goyer
Cast: Gary Oldman; Meagan Good; Carla Gugino
Tagline: Evil will do anything to live.
Genre: Horror
Memorable Quote: "Jumby wants to be born now. "
Release Date: January 9, 2009
DVD Release Date: July 7, 2009
Distributor: Rogue Pictures

After an eight year hiatus of major animated theatrical releases, thanks to World War 2 and lower box office returns, Disney would again take a major gamble, as he did with Snow White, and put into production a lavish animated fairy tale at the princely sum of ...

Troma Entertainment, one of the longest-running independent movie studios in United States history, is back in action with the release of Father’s Day, a four-disc set that practically oozes with blood and mayhem.  This over-the-top VHS-inspired Grindhouse ...

To say that the Roger Corman-produced Dinoshark is a bit of letdown is an understatement.  While it is refreshing to know that Corman is back doing what he does best with B-movies, this one is simply a dull excursion into dangerously...

MPAA Rating: R for some nudity, sexuality and brief language.
Runtime: 127 mins.
Director: Avi Nesher
Writer: Hadar Galron & Avi Nesher
Cast: Fanny Ardant; Ania Bukstein; Michal Shtamler ... complete cast
Tagline: The Secrets.
Genre: Foreign/Drama
Memorable Quote: "As Orthodox women, our liberation is more difficult than that of secular women." ... more quotes
Release Date: March 13, 2009
DVD Release Date: This title not yet on DVD.
Distributor: Monterey Media

Brutal is the immediate adjective that comes to mind when watching Takashi Miike’s 13 Assassins.  It’s a gloriously harsh and bloody affair; limbs and heads are hacked off and there are enough scenes of hari-kari to make even...

For the last week we’ve spent three individual articles exploring the history of Quentin Tarantino - his highs and lows, his techniques, trademarks - and now we explore his most recent film to be released - Django Unchained. He continues his quest to rewrite the ...

The age-old debate of nature vs. nurture gets an unsettling examination in We Need to Talk About Kevin, British filmmaker Lynne Ramsey’s adaptation of Lionel Shriver’s best-selling novel of the same name. While the nature vs. nurture discussion typically initiates ...

“A good many dramatic situations begin with screaming,” says Barbarella (Jane Fonda) on her way to save her winged friend.  Such is the reaction many people have to Fonda in the title role of Roger Vadim’s Franco-Italian science fiction flesh for fantasy film from 1968 ...

Beginning with the celebration of the arrival of spring by means of a massive bonfire in the center of town, Frederico Fellini’s Amarcord ignites in a blaze of heavy childhood memories. That’s its purpose. Amarcord literally means...