Here are our latest reviews of films on DVD from 2011 and earlier.
Amelie
Gregory J. Smalley @ 366 Weird Movies
- Excerpt: … twice as tickly and almost as substantial as the bubbles rising off a glass of Dom Perignon.
Anatahan
Dennis Schwartz @ Dennis Schwartz Movie Reviews
The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford
- Excerpt: An even better film than the more lauded No Country For Old Men
Come out and Play
- Excerpt: Creepy, troubling idea drains away through a gaping plot hole
The Deathmaker
Carson Lund @ MUBI: The Daily Notebook
- Excerpt: Until a brief appearance of two prison guards and a final-act injection of a young victim and a visiting doctor, The Deathmaker distills its ensemble to three members, one of whom never utters a word: Prof. Dr. Ernst Schultze (Jürgen Hentsch), death-row inmate Fritz Haarmann (Götz George), and a passive, unnamed scribe (Pierre Franckh). The film is a series of lengthy dialogues—some taking the form of conversations, others resembling confessionals and ruthless depositions—between Schultze and Haarmann, the infamous child murderer that was first loosely dramatized in Fritz Lang’s M.
From Russia with Love
Dustin Freeley @ Movies About Gladiators.com
Goldfinger
Dustin Freeley @ Movies About Gladiators.com
- Excerpt: Goldfinger is the first film that gives us what we knew of Bond for the first forty-five years.
Guilty
- Excerpt: A visceral thriller that pushes your “injustice” buttons
India: Matri Bhumi
Dennis Schwartz @ Dennis Schwartz Movie Reviews
The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp
Tony Dayoub @ Cinema Viewfinder
- Excerpt: …representative of Powell and Pressburger’s disregard for conventional storytelling, structured as a complex flashback with digressive tonal shifts galore. If one can assign any overriding emotion to COLONEL BLIMP it is wistfulness. In this way it reminds me a lot of a deeply flawed picture that’s still very dear to me, Orson Welles’ THE MAGNIFICENT AMBERSONS (1942).
M
Jamie S. Rich @ Criterion Confessions
- Excerpt: The Munich Film Archive print of M represents the film in its most complete form, quite possibly the edit that Lang originally intended. Though the running time is not much longer than the version Criterion released in 2004, it is substantially different in that the newly discovered nitrate has allowed the restoration team to fix jittery cuts and drop-outs and maintain a more consistent picture throughout.
Monsieur Verdoux
Jamie S. Rich @ Criterion Confessions
- Excerpt: It’s not exactly a gutbuster, but Monsieur Verdoux has a jaunty likability that works in concert and in opposition to its murderous intent, and proves as impressive and thought-provoking as Chaplin’s previous effort, The Great Dictator.
On Approval
- Excerpt: ailed as one of the best films of 1944, On Approval is an intelligent, witty comedy featuring two British couples trying to get it together over a month on holiday, trying to decide if marriage is right for them. Clive Brook not only adapted the material and directed the film, but he also stars as George, the down-on-his-luck Duke of Bristol and a drinker with the sharpest of tongues.
The Order
Paulo Peralta @ CinEuphoria [Portuguese]
The Sandlot
James Plath @ Family Home Theater
- Excerpt: Is there a better way to kick off baseball season . . . other than PLAYING baseball?
Tabu: A Story of the South Seas
Dennis Schwartz @ Dennis Schwartz Movie Reviews
Ti-mine, Bernie pis la gang…
Jean-François Vandeuren @ Panorama-cinema.com [French]
We Can’t Go Home Again
Dennis Schwartz @ Dennis Schwartz Movie Reviews
A Wednesday
Kathy Gibson @ Access Bollywood
Winnie the Pooh: Springtime with Roo
Tim Brayton @ Antagony & Ecstasy
- Excerpt: Aggressively and obnoxiously telegraphs its intention to only impress and entertain very small children. Indiscriminate ones.
