Here are our latest reviews of films on DVD from 2011 and earlier.
Abu, Son of Adam
John Nesbit @ Old School Reviews
- Excerpt: graceful, gentle reminder about basic human goodness
All the Boys Love Mandy Lane
Patrick Bromley @ F This Movie!
Bananas
Edwin Davies @ A Mighty Fine Blog
- Excerpt: It’s willfully, deliriously daft, but also probably the part of the film that makes the most sense as satire since, at its heart, the scene is about the rabid paranoia of Cold War America, treated as something which is truly deranged and farcical.
Black Sunday
Caravaggio
Paulo Peralta @ CinEuphoria [Portuguese]
Centurion
Roderick Heath @ Ferdy on Films
- Excerpt: Centurion, although fast-paced and structured with elegant simplicity, is also littered with some of the most arresting and well-framed images in recent cinema.
Circle of Danger
Dennis Schwartz @ Dennis Schwartz Movie Reviews
Death Race 2000
Tim Brayton @ Antagony & Ecstasy
- Excerpt: A movie that has a little bit of everything, and it’s easily the best version of itself that could possibly be put together.
Electric Button
Peter Nellhaus @ Coffee Coffee and more Coffee
- Excerpt: Even though Tanada is a fan of the Farrelly brothers, the banter between Mayama and Tadokoro reminded me more of some Hollywood comedies from an earlier era.
From Dusk Till Dawn 2: Texas Blood Money
Paulo Peralta @ CinEuphoria [Portuguese]
The Front Page
Edwin Davies @ A Mighty Fine Blog
- Excerpt: Of the various adaptations, Milestone’s is one of the weaker efforts, but it still stands as an interesting landmark in the evolution of comedy on film. It feels very much like it was made at a time when people were still figuring out how to make sound and movement work together seamlessly, in the process creating films which were dependent on script and chemistry to make up for the perfunctory execution.
The Life and Times of Hank Greenberg
- Excerpt: The Life and Times of Hank Greenberg easily emerges as the definitive documentary on a compelling subject you may or may not already know about. No interest in baseball or history is needed to appreciate this human and accessible portrait and celebration of an admirable hero who triumphed over adversity.
The Life of Emile Zola
Donald Levit @ ReelTalk Movie Reviews
Madadayo
Edwin Davies @ A Mighty Fine Blog
- Excerpt: It would take a psychoanalyst to parse out every possible meaning of the final dream sequence, but emotionally, there is a sense of quiet wonder at the beauty of ever-shifting light, one which just feels right as the final image left by a man who spent over five decades shaping light so beautifully.
A Man Escaped
Matthew Lucas @ From the Front Row
- Excerpt: There are few films in the history of cinema that can claim to be as suspenseful or as nail-biting as Robert Bresson’s 1956 masterpiece, A Man Escaped.
Miami Connection
- Excerpt: Somewhere at the intersection of So Bad They’re Good and Unintentionally Funny on our little Venn Diagram are the bad movies ideal for group viewing — films that can only be braved in numbers, and whose ham-fisted dramatics and tin-eared dialogue become fodder for years of random quotes and inside jokes. And in this spirit, Flavorwire brings you a new feature, monthly recommendations for Bad Movie Night.
Mildred Pierce
Edwin Davies @ A Mighty Fine Blog
- Excerpt: While Mildred Pierce is, on the surface, a mix of noir and melodrama, it’s primarily concerned with sex, in both senses of the word, and class.
On Her Majesty’s Secret Service
Dustin Freeley @ Movies About Gladiators.com
- Excerpt: The most, and rightfully, overlooked film in the Bond franchise.
Once More, With Feeling!
- Excerpt: Solid performances make the tepid Once More, with Feeling! fairly watchable, even if the movie never really gathers the steam its plot requires.
Ship of Fools & Lilith
- Excerpt: Stanley Kramer’s at sea drama is not the most enduring of films and makes for quite a laborious watch today, but it does hold interest for a number of reasons, among them it being the final film of Vivien Leigh. Lilith falls more in line with today’s tastes and fairly easy to enjoy on its own merits in addition to its fascinating parade of talented young actors with long careers ahead of them.
Stray Dog
Dennis Schwartz @ Dennis Schwartz Movie Reviews
Strictly Ballroom
- Excerpt: Strictly Ballroom, the first film written and directed by Baz Luhrmann, makes its Blu-ray debut. The timing is opportune for a number of reasons.
The Suitor
Jamie S. Rich @ Criterion Confessions
That Obscure Object of Desire
Gregory J. Smalley @ 366 Werid Movies
Variety Lights (1950)
Dennis Schwartz @ Dennis Schwartz Movie Reviews
Weekend (1967)
Dennis Schwartz @ Dennis Schwartz Movie Reviews
