Here are our latest reviews of films on DVD from 2011 and earlier.
Anything Else
Edwin Davies @ A Mighty Fine Blog
- Excerpt: The main thing that holds the film back from being a genuinely good, even great film is, unfortunately, Jason Biggs’ performance. I say unfortunately because I do think that Biggs is a charming actor who does his best, but he struggles to balance the artificial, postmodern aspects with the scenes of Jerry actually interacting with the people in his life.
Blindspot: The Birds
- Excerpt: A monthly series where I finally watch films I should have seen ages ago. This month, Hitchcock’s classic is front & centre.
Conan the Destroyer
Patrick Bromley @ F This Movie!
Enemy of the State
Tim Brayton @ Antagony & Ecstasy
- Excerpt: As a simple thriller that wants only to excite and intensify, it’s one of the better ones that the late ’90s produced.
The Extraordinary Adventures of Adele Blanc-Sec
- Excerpt: Luc Besson fails to capture the magic of either Jean-Pierre Jeunet or Steven Spielberg. His mash-up plays like a cheap knock-off.
Falling for The First Time: Risky Business
- Excerpt: Once in a while, I get movie fans to watch pop culture classics for the first time to see if they’re as good as our nostalgia would have us believe. This month, my friend Nik watched Risky Business for the first time.
The Fan (1996)
Tim Brayton @ Antagony & Ecstasy
- Excerpt: A roughly-assembled, mean movie: flashes of solid genre filmmaking keep it from being a wash, but it’s really not much fun at all.
GoldenEye
Dustin F @ Movies About Gladiators.com
- Excerpt: Brosnan revitalizes the Bond franchise after a six-year hiatus.
Hollywood Ending
Edwin Davies @ A Mighty Fine Blog
- Excerpt: Allen struggles with a role that requires a lot of slapstick, something which he was adept at when he was in his 30s but which, at the age of 66, he was not terribly well suited for. However, his inability to see and the numerous misunderstandings that result from that are the main driving force of the movie.
License to Kill
Dustin Freeley @ Movies About Gladiators.com
- Excerpt: Dalton’
Lost in Translation
Tim Brayton @ Antagony & Ecstasy
- Excerpt: Depicts a very specific mental state too shaded and delicate for most movies to feel comfortable approaching it.
Niagara
- Excerpt: Henry Hathaway’s hybrid crime drama Niagara is a sexually potent, psychologically thrilling mix of melodrama and hardboiled action. Marilyn Monroe sizzles as the scheming wife of a troubled vet, played with both sadness and menace by Joseph Cotten.
Posse From Hell
Dennis Schwartz @ Dennis Schwartz Movie Reviews
Reds
Roderick Heath @ Ferdy on Films
- Excerpt: Reds is an impressive film in many respects, long and spacious and intelligent. Like many filmmakers of his age and era, Beatty consciously reflected the radical-chic bohemia of the ’60s, his own grounding, through depictions of historical parallels. Moreover, he aims with impudent ambition to demonstrate why Reed’s rise to status as a hero of Soviet history was a peculiarly American achievement, fuelled by bright-eyed zeal and hope for the future, and a certain love of pugnacious display and competitiveness.
Rock ‘n’ Roll Nightmare
Tim Brayton @ Antagony & Ecstasy
- Excerpt: If you can’t be delighted both at the cosmic ineptitude and at the phenomenally innocent enthusiasm with which it is executed, I cannot help you.
Sleepless in Seattle
Sleuth (1972)
Rick Aragon @ Rick’s Cafe Texan
- Excerpt: The film is dominated by two brilliant performances by two brilliant actors.
Sleuth (2007)
Rick Aragon @ Rick’s Cafe Texan
- Excerpt: It’s unfortunate that…the end result could be so dull, idiotic, and a sheer waste of everyone’s time and talents.
Summer and Smoke
- Excerpt: There is hardly any chemistry between the romantic leads, largely because Laurence Harvey is not a very charismatic antihero. He paints a portrait of the rebel as a stuffed shirt. Which, to be fair, means the actor is operating at pretty much the same speed as the rest of the production.
A Time For Dying
Dennis Schwartz @ Dennis Schwartz Movie Reviews
To Save a Life
Paulo Peralta @ CinEuphoria [Portuguese]
The Truman Show
Betty Jo Tucker @ ReelTalk Movie Reviews
The urse of the Jade Scorpion
Edwin Davies @ A Mighty Fine Blog
- Excerpt: The Curse of the Jade Scorpion isn’t a bad film, but it is a film which is frustratingly close to being much, much better.
Verboten!
Dennis Schwartz @ Dennis Schwartz Movie Reviews
Walk Away Renee
Gregory J. Smalley @ 366 Weird Movies
- Excerpt: ‘… a touching, if meandering, tribute to a gentle soul whose misfiring neurons have trapped her in an eternal childhood.”
