Here are our latest reviews of films on DVD.
Reviews of Classic Films
Bay of Angels
Jamie S. Rich @ Criterion Confessions
- Excerpt: Jeanne Moreau’s Jackie is a classic femme fatale. And Bay of Angels is essentially a crime film without any actual crime.
The Big Chill
Tony Dayoub @ Cinema Viewfinder
- Excerpt: …THE BIG CHILL was an impactful film that started the conversation in middle America that, for better or worse, has evolved into today’s culture wars
Born Yesterday
- Excerpt: Judy Holliday is a delight, a master of physical comedy and also a killer with both slow burns and quick witticisms. It’s that most wonderful of romantic movies where the object of affection seduces the audience at the same time as the folks in the movie.
Cleo from 5 to 7
Cole Smithey @ ColeSmithey.com
- Excerpt: During Varga’s 13-chapter story, Cleo sheds her self-and-societally-imposed disguises toward exposing her true identity. “Cleo” isn’t even her real name.
First Men in the Moon
Steve Biodrowski @ Cinefantastique Online
- Excerpt: A 50th Anniversary Celebration of Ray Harryhausen’s 1964 adaptation of H.G. Wells
Fitzcarraldo
- Excerpt: The film confirms that dreamers and their obsessions can give us otherwise unimaginable moments of pure beauty.
Grace Kelly Collection
Tony Dayoub @ Cinema Viewfinder
- Excerpt: …with a grand total of only 11 movies in a film career that only spanned 5 years, who knows what Kelly was truly capable of with more seasoning.
Tell Your Children
Paulo Peralta @ CinEuphoria [Portuguese]
Wild Strawberries
Cole Smithey @ ColeSmithey.com
- Excerpt: “Wild Strawberries” is a thematically abundant film that fluidly condenses a lifetime’s worth of experience into succinct cinematic fragments under Ingmar Bergman’s complex construction of abstract corollaries.
Recent Home Video Releases
Curtains
Peter Nellhaus @ Coffee Coffee and more Coffee
The Den
Laura Clifford @ Reeling Reviews
- Excerpt: Cowriter (with Lauren Thompson)/director Zachary Donohue puts a new spin on the ‘found footage’ genre with this incredibly clever and creepy film that delves into our worst online fears.
Dragonwolf
Peter Nellhaus @ Coffee Coffee and more Coffee
Insomnia
Love in the City
Peter Nellhaus @ Coffee Coffee and more Coffee
Radio Days
Kristen Lopez @ Awards Circuit
Radio Days
Jordan M. Smith @ IONCINEMA.com
- Excerpt: Not just nostalgic about the musical hits and dapper outfits of the radio golden age, Radio Days sets out to recognize the lasting impression the first form of true mass media has left on modern society with whimsical mirth. Allen is rarely this authentically sentimental, and his sappiness is balanced with style and wit that rank the film among the auteur’s finest.
Scanners
Spinning Discs: A Hard Day’s Sale
- Excerpt: New Criterion discs reviewed.
Other Reviews from 2012 and earlier
Arch of Triumph
- Excerpt: Set in Paris just before World War II, Arch of Triumph stars Ingrid Bergman and Charles Boyer as two refugees on the run who find solace in one another, only to have it jeopardized by the same circumstances that brought them together. Lewis Milestone directs everything with the same gloomy perspective, creating a dour romance that goes on too long and never really gives audiences something to root for.
Backdraft
Tim Brayton @ Antagony & Ecstasy
Candice Breitz: ‘Him + Her’
- Excerpt: Bretiz’s Meryl Streep/Jack Nicholson piece might be one of the most fascinating studies on screen acting, star performance, and the incalculable wealth of gender roles and stereotypes embedded within the characters the stars play.
Deadly Eyes
M. Enois Duarte @ High-Def Digest.com
Devil Doll
Steve Biodrowski @ Cinefantastique Online
- Excerpt: Crude but effective variation on the ventriloquist dummy scenario.
The Doors
Roderick Heath @ Ferdy on Films
- Excerpt: Oliver Stone’s psychologically superficial treatment of Morrison feels deliberate, partly because Stone clearly wanted to use Morrison as a totemic figure to explore the spirit of an era, an exemplar for a generational and a fatefully schizoid quality in his society.
Dreamwood
Dennis Schwartz @ Dennis Schwartz Movie Reviews
Exodus
Tim Brayton @ Antagony & Ecstasy
Faust (2011)
- Excerpt: Though clearly ambitious, Alexander Sokurov’s Faust left me feeling conflicted. I was overwhelmed by its technique, underwhelmed by what it actually had to say.
El Gusto
Jonathan Richards @ www.jonrichardsplace.com
- Excerpt: The smiles on the faces of these guys as they meet and reminisce, and as they get out their instruments and let the music take them back, is irresistibly infectious. The movie has been much compared to The Buena Vista Social Club, and musically it’s an apt comparison.
Hell Below Zero
Dennis Schwartz @ Dennis Schwartz Movie Reviews
Hercules (1983)
Patrick Bromley @ F This Movie!
The High and the Mighty
Kristen Lopez @ Journeys in Classic Film
- Excerpt: For me, you’re stuck convincing yourself The High and the Mighty is a masterpiece when it really isn’t.
Hush…Hush, Sweet Charlotte
Kristen Lopez @ Journeys in Classic Film
- Excerpt: Everyone casts aside their mantle of perfection to get down and dirty with glorious results.
The Kentucky Fried Movie
Carlos del Río @ El rincon de Carlos del Río [Spanish]
- Excerpt: La calidad es muy irregular, con momentos que no hacen gracia, y otros tan tontorrones que te ríes a carcajadas.
McLintock!
Kristen Lopez @ Journeys in Classic Film
The Nanny
Kristen Lopez @ Journeys in Classic Film
- Excerpt: …there’s just too much of what we’ve watched in previous Davis films of the period.
Ocean Predators – 3D
M. Enois Duarte @ High-Def Digest.com
Old Joy
Paulo Peralta @ CinEuphoria [Portuguese]
One-Eyed Jacks
Tim Brayton @ Antagony & Ecstasy
The Other Love
- Excerpt: The legendary actress [Barbara Stanwyck] stars in The Other Love as a piano player who, while on rest from tuberculosis, is caught in a romantic triangle between the doctor that promises to cure her and the racecar driver that will give her a swift ride out of there. It’s as passionless as it is contrived, wasting a solid lead performance on a mediocre script.
Polar Bears 3D: Ice Bear
M. Enois Duarte @ High-Def Digest.com
Road House
- Excerpt: It might be too reductive to call it an ‘80s artifact; even in the ‘80s, none of this made any sense, so maybe we should deal with ‘Road House’ (which celebrates its 25th anniversary this summer) not as a goofy action movie, but as something akin to science fiction, set in a world without even a passing resemblance to our own, governed by an alien logic.
A Summer’s Tale
Jonathan Richards @ www.jonrichardsplace.com
- Excerpt: In this third of his Four Seasons cycle, the great Eric Rohmer explores, as he so often does, the natural rhythms of young love, with its agonies, awkwardnesses, and ethical dilemmas. There’s a lot of talk, and just as much unsaid. It’s Rohmer.
Sympathy for Mr. Vengeance
M. Enois Duarte @ High-Def Digest.com
The Thing
Tim Brayton @ Antagony & Ecstasy
Throne of Blood
Oktay Ege Kozak @ Oregon Herald
When Harry Met Sally
- Excerpt: To be clear, I like ‘When Harry Met Sally’; I saw it on its initial theatrical release, laughed heartily, quoted its best lines, and revisited it frequently. But in the subsequent years, as I spent more time with the filmography of Woody Allen, I noticed how much of ‘Harry’ seemed… familiar.
