DVD Reviews

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...

The musical genre of film cannot get any better than with George Cukor’s excellent screen adaptation of My Fair Lady.  Stephen Sondheim declares it victorious in the musical comedy department and, to this day, people still sing its praises ...

MPAA Rating: R for bloody horror violence and gore.
Runtime: 125 mins.
Director: Joe Johnston
Writer: Andrew Kevin Walker and David Self
Cast: Emily Blunt; Benicio del Toro; Anthony Hopkins ... complete cast
Tagline: Hang six Summer 2007.
Genre: Horror
Memorable Movie Quote: "Your brother's body was found in a ditch. He'd been torn to pieces. "
Release Date: February 12, 2010
DVD Release Date: Not yet on DVD.
Distributor: Universal Pictures

And, with this release, Spielberg makes good on his promise to never revisit his classic films and tweak them with newly-minted special effects, additional footage, and whatever PC changes modern times dictate. For its blu-ray release E.T. The Extra Terrestrial ....

MPAA Rating: R for bloody violence and pervasive language.
Runtime: 112 mins.
Director: Neill Blomkamp
Writer: Neill Blomkamp & Terri Tatchell
Cast: Sharlto Copley; Nathalie Boltt; Jason Cope ... complete cast
Tagline: You are not welcome here.
Genre: Sci-Fi
Memorable Quote: "At least they're keeping them separate from us." ... more quotes
Release Date: August 14, 2009
DVD Release Date: Not yet on DVD.
Distributor: Tri-Star Pictures

Think you know westerns?  If you haven’t seen High Noon, then you are two boots short of a genuine cowboy outfit.  In 1952, this “little” film defied the genre and saved all its bullet-slinging action for the final few moments.  And what of the rest of the film?  ...

Your choices are: (a) Ambitious (b) Pedestrian (c) Quaint.  Circle one of the words and you could anchor a review of Moontrap, written by Tex Ragsdale, around it.  For this review, it works best if I take elements from all three words because the flick is all about the gooey  ...

Rated: PG for battle sequences and frightening moments..
Runtime: 140 mins.
Director: Andrew Adamson
Writer: C.S. Lewis (novel) & Ann Peacock (screenplay)
Cast: Georgie Henley; Skandar Keynes; William Mosely
Memorable Quote: If it's a war Aslan wants, it's a war he shall get.
Tagline: The beloved masterpiece comes to life December 9.
Genre: Action/Adventure/Family
Opens: December 9, 2005
Studio: Buena Vista Pictures

Timeless is one of the many adjectives you could use to describe.  Beautiful is another.  There is a soul-stirring joy that washes over a person while watching Walt Disney’s Beauty and the Beast.  Perhaps because this ...

MPAA Rating: PG for fantasy action/violence involving scary images and situations, and for a smoking caterpillar.
Runtime: 108 mins.
Director: Tim Burton
Writer: Linda Woolverton
Cast: Johnny Depp; Mia Wasikowska; Helena Bonham Carter
Tagline: You've got a very important date.
Genre: Family/Fantasy

Walt Disney’s 1951 take on Lewis Carroll’s beloved children’s books never got the praise the film deserved from most critics.  Sure, it doesn’t follow the books down to the letter and, yes, it barely...

Time has not been kind to Mary Lambert's adaptation of Stephen King’s Pet Sematary.  Wait.  Another lousy Stephen King movie, you ask?  Big surprise, I know, as there are a ton of them.  More so than there need be for source material that is so ...

Rick Rosenthal's Halloween II isn’t the best release in the series but, with its workmanlike earnestness, the minor dip in glossy quality isn’t a complete undoing.  It holds up better than most slasher sequels.  Besides, measure the original release both in reception and ...

MPAA Rating: R for strong language and disturbing images.
Director: William Friedkin
Writer: William Peter Blatty
Cast: Ellen Burstyn; Linda Blair; Max Von Sydow
Genre: Horror
Memorable Movie Quote: "...from this creature of God! Be gone! In the Name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit!"
Release Date: December 26, 1973
Available on Blu-ray/SD, On-demand: October 5, 2010. Also now available FOR DOWNLOAD on iTunes for the First Time with Bonus EXTRAS (Behind the Scenes and Talent Interviews).

Robert Zemeckis could never be accused of resting on laurels or past successes. Despite Romancing the Stone and Back to the Future being two of the 80s’ most successful offerings, Zemeckis wanted to push the boundaries of filmmaking and homage a couple ...

He-man and the Master of the Universe has to be one of the most successful merchandising/entertainment properties to come out of the Eighties there ever was. Every kid in the world clamoured for another episode at the time, and bugged their parents to ...

MULHOLLAND DRIVE PLOT EXPLANATION AND ANALYSIS

SPOILER ALERT! Do not read the following if you haven't seen the movie. It will ruin the experience. Keep in mind, this is just one person's opinion as to what happens in the movie.

These are not my own words. This explanation was derived from reader contributions and lengthy discussions, and in many cases, the grammar and syntax appear here as they were originally written.

Delightfully nostalgic for the unrushed days of 8-bit video innocence, yet finding inspiration in the full-throttle frenzy of today’s first-person shooters, Wreck-It Ralph is what happens when Disney meets Pixar – exactly the quality of film we had hoped for when Mickey ...

Rated: R for strong violence/gore and language.
Runtime: 99 mins.
Director: Neil Marshall
Writer: Neil Marshall
Cast: Shauna Macdonald; Natalie Mendoza; Alex Reid....complete cast
Tagline: Afraid of the dark? You will be.
Release Date: August 4, 2006
Genre: Horror
Memorable Quote: "How do you give a lemon an orgasm? You tickle its citrus!"
Studio: Lions Gate Films

The Oscar for Best Picture is going to be a tight one. If Ben Affleck’s Argo is any indication of the type of films we are going to see this awards season, the race is also going to be a tough one. Argo doesn’t bait audiences with obvious Oscar touches yet it produces powerful scenes ...

MPAA Rating: Not rated by the MPAA.
Director: Charles Chaplin
Writer: Charles Chaplin
Cast: Charles Chaplin; Paulette Goddard; Henry Bergman
Genre: Classic | Comedy
Tagline: Laugh... Cry and Thrill To his Genius... !
Memorable Movie Quote: "Buck up - never say die. We'll get along."
Release Date: February 25, 1936
Blu-ray Release Date: November 16, 2010.

Having run continuously on Broadway for the past 28 years (longer than any in history), Alain Boublil and Claude Michel Schonberg's much-loved stage musical Les Misérables brings a well-seasoned audience frothing for an equally worthy screen adaptation. Enter ...

Famed director Clint Eastwood continues to pound out film after noteworthy film in a career that seems to stretch back into the very beginning of the motion picture industry itself and, while his workmanship is usually top-notch in the craft, his latest ...

Borrowing a riff from Harold Lloyd’s Grandma’s Boy, Buster Keaton perfects the lovable loser’s battle for the girl – a plot line that is still in play in most comedies today - in this 1923 classic from the silent era of filmmaking.  Our Hospitality might have been Keaton’s...

A fan of the pulp era, wonderfully lurid tales told briskly and cheaply from the Depression into the 1950s, this reviewer, like many, latched onto a certain reoccurring character written by an unassuming fellow, long since gone (and under sad circumstances). The character’s name: Conan ...

Marching forward with a madcap frenzy of make-up and special effects, director Tim Burton’s imagination gets more and more far-reaching and out there.  His take on Roald’s Dahl’s famous Charlie and the Chocolate Factory was certainly...

It’s about a maladjusted robot.  He wears clunky footwear, a slick cape, and burns people alive with lasers.  And it’s damn near brilliant.  You see, the brain inside the robot used to belong to a Nobel Prize winning scientist and, well, I’m getting ahead of myself ...

Director: Kieran Mulroney; Michele Mulroney
Writer: Kieran Mulroney; Michele Mulroney
Cast: Jeff Daniels; Emma Stone; Ryan Reynolds

Our imaginations are funny things.  They can drive us forward to meet our destinations or exhaust us with supreme isolation.  Paper Man is about the type of imagination that absolutely crushes its beholder with limiting remoteness for two people, one inside a childless marriage, and the other, inside a local community.  Co-directed by the husband-and-wife team of Kieran and Michele Mulroney, Paper Man waxes poetic with some quasi-heavy themes – writer’s block, lineage, suicide, and death – inside a light-hearted story that doesn’t ask much from its audience.