Here are our latest reviews of films on DVD from 2011 and earlier.
Adventureland
Frank Ochieng @ Yahoo! Voices Movies
- Excerpt: Overall, Adventureland is a refreshing take on “the teen turmoil scene” where the uncertainty and inherent fear of a gifted mind is explored with the legitimacy of doubt and disappointment. Mattola peppers his salient exposition with a potent whimsy of self-conflict in one young man’s bid to grab hold of his wayward meaning for being stagnant.
Allegro non Troppo
Gregory J. Smalley @ 366 Weird Movies
- Excerpt: While “Fantasia” is doubtlessly the more impressive and (I think) the better work, there’s something charming about “Allegro Non Troppo”‘s smaller scale and its cheerful willingness to stand in the giant’s shadow.
Anvil: The Story of Anvil
Frank Ochieng @ Yahoo! Voices Movies
- Excerpt: Well, director Sachaa Gervasi uncovers the obscurity blanket from veteran Canadian metal rockers Anvil and gives them a cinematic salute in the outrageously entertaining documentary Anvil!: The Story of Anvil.
Benvenuta
Dennis Schwartz @ Dennis Schwartz Movie Reviews
Branded to Kill
M. Enois Duarte @ High-Def Digest.com
Dark Angel (a.k.a. I Come in Peace)
Mike McGranaghan @ The Aisle Seat
The Devil’s Backbone
M. Enois Duarte @ High-Def Digest.com
The Earrings of Madame de…
From Up on Poppy Hill
- Excerpt: Blu-ray release was wrested from The Mouse, but has the same set of extras
Ghosts of Girlfriends Past
Frank Ochieng @ Yahoo! Voices Movies
- Excerpt: Formulaic and forgettable, Ghosts of Girlfriends Past hopefully will disappear into thin air unlike the nagging spooky lasses that uneventfully bombard the big screen for an excruciating 100 minutes.
Gun Point
Dennis Schwartz @ Dennis Schwartz Movie Reviews
Hellboy
Tim Brayton @ Antagony & Ecstasy
- Excerpt: It would be quite impossible to claim is that the filmmaker’s love of his subject isn’t apparent throughout every lovingly-crafted frame.
How to Stuff a Wild Bikini
Tim Brayton @ Antagony & Ecstasy
- Excerpt: The fifth of the [AIP beach movies] in just a 23-month span, and it’s not remotely surprising that a long-delayed fatigue kicked in, and hard.
The Human Factor
Stacia Kissick Jones @ Spectrum Culture Online
- Excerpt: Otto Preminger’s The Human Factor is often regarded as one of his least successful films, as bad as the infamous Skidoo (1968), but without the campy appeal. While the film never quite captures the perverse charm of Graham Greene’s novel, it’s still an adept film, with some stellar performances and an uncanny ability to capture fleeting moments of humanism in a world gone numb after decades of abject fear.
Kiss Tomorrow Goodbye
- Excerpt: Kiss Tomorrow Goodbye was directed by Gordon Douglas (Robin and the 7 Hoods) and marked the end of Cagney’s string of famous hoodlums. It’s a doozy of a role to end that part of his career on.
The Macomber Affair
Dennis Schwartz @ Dennis Schwartz Movie Reviews
Niagara
Marilyn Ferdinand @ Ferdy on Films
- Excerpt: In spite of a beautifully haunted performance by Joseph Cotten as a good man driven to the dark side by his bad luck and cheating wife, this film is all about its women. Marilyn Monroe is at her best in this film. She’s a quintessential femme fatale, and little about her sexual manipulation is hidden from view.
The Old Barn Dance
Dennis Schwartz @ Dennis Schwartz Movie Reviews
Penny Serenade
- Excerpt: You gotta love a good bummer, and there’s no bummer quite as good the 1941 tearjerker Penny Serenade. George Stevens quietly cranks the melodrama, taking his characters on a roller coaster that crests over great peaks of joy before descending into unexpected valleys of tragedy.
The Pirate
Stacia Kissick Jones @ Spectrum Culture Online
Prom Night IV: Deliver Us from Evil
Tim Brayton @ Antagony & Ecstasy
- Excerpt: A mildewy little smear of a late slasher film.
Q: The Winged Serpent
Mike McGranaghan @ The Aisle Seat
Red Blood of Courage
Dennis Schwartz @ Dennis Schwartz Movie Reviews
Return to Never Land
- Excerpt: Return adds nothing of value or note to the mythology of Never Land. There wasn’t much to Pan and Hook’s conflict in the original movie and there’s even less this time around.
James Plath @ Family Home Theater
- Excerpt: Maybe this was a film that didn’t need to be made, but parents with small children will be glad that Disney did, because it’s a kinder, gentler trip to Never Land than the original, and a much safer bet for young children.
Savannah
Stacia Kissick Jones @ Spectrum Culture Online
- Excerpt: Savannah is inept filmmaking at its most frustrating, with basic narrative and technical issues that will surely relegate it to dozens of worst-of lists at the end of the year.
Scanners
M. Enois Duarte @ High-Def Digest.com
Scanners II / Scanners III
M. Enois Duarte @ High-Def Digest.com
Schoolgirl Report #10
Peter Nellhaus @ Coffee Coffee and more Coffee
Seconds
Dusty Somers @ dustysomers.com
Shaun of the Dead
Tim Brayton @ Antagony & Ecstasy
- Excerpt: Enough of a pointed study of character that it’s more than just a collection of some of the best and most ridiculous jokes in a generation.
Street Trash
Gregory J. Smalley @ 366 Weird Movies
- Excerpt: Like a dollar bottle of wine, “Street Trash” hits hard, is dizzying fun for a while, and may send the neophyte running for toilet.
Super Capers
Frank Ochieng @ Yahoo! Voices Movies
- Excerpt: Not since the insufferable and inane Superhero Movie has an annoying parody on super-powered heroes been so strained in its convoluted wackiness. Indeed, Super Capers is in need of its own creative rescuing.
Tormented
Gregory J. Smalley @ 366 Weird Movies
- Excerpt: …sports more pluses than minuses, with creepy atmosphere, psychological depth, and spooky bunny suits making up for the occasional storytelling misstep.
True Grit (2010)
Frank Ochieng @ Yahoo! Voices Movies
- Excerpt: Piercing and poetically impish, this millennium-made True Grit may have eclipsed the prior presence of Wayne, Kim Darby, Glen Campbell, Jeff Corey and others because this installment has more zip and zest in its reverence to the caustic consideration of humanity and vengeance.
