Here are our latest reviews of films on DVD.
Reviews of Classic Films
3 Women
Gregory J. Smalley @ 366 Weird Movies
- Excerpt: Tucked away on the long stretch of nowhere between “Persona” (1966) and “Lost Highway” (1997) lies 3 Women, the 1970s iteration of cinema’s recurring dream about sliding identities.
Alexander Nevsky
Dennis Schwartz @ Dennis Schwartz Movie Reviews
Being John Malkovich
Mathieu Li-Goyette @ Panorama-cinéma [French]
The Birds
Jerry Roberts @ Armchair Cinema
- Excerpt: After 50 year, it just doesn’t fly
City of Pirates
Donald Levit @ ReelTalk Movie Reviews
The Crimson Kimono
- Excerpt: Samuel Fuller’s 1959 hardboiled crime drama “The Crimson Kimono” tackles expected subjects like sex and murder, but as part of a larger narrative about race and the basic connection between human beings. In this case, a Japanese American police detective played by James Shigeta falling in love with the white witness Victoria Shaw, and him having to learn to stop worry about the prejudicial monsters he imagines under the bed and allow his passions to catch fire.
Foreign Correspondent
Jamie S. Rich @ Criterion Confessions
- Excerpt: It’s worth noting that Hitchcock actually made the movie for an American studio, and he considered it the first where he got to express himself fully. It’s long been held that Hollywood was ahead of the curve in working to convince Americans of our need to stand with our European allies in World War II, and there is perhaps no more irrefutable example of that than “Foreign Correspondent”.
Ghostbusters
Roderick Heath @ Ferdy on Films
- Excerpt: The business of commercialism as the new inescapable paradigm in the go-go ’80s is a key conceit in Ghostbusters, echoing outwards into life, as the boys’ company logo is also the film’s advertising image and the idea of paranormal battle as just another home service industry gave the film’s inimitably bouncy theme tune, by Ray Parker Jr, its refrain.
Godzilla vs. Biollante
Tim Brayton @ Antagony & Ecstasy
It’s a Mad Mad Mad Mad World
The Loving Story
Donald Levit @ ReelTalk Movie Reviews
RoboCop (1987)
Tim Brayton @ Antagony & Ecstasy
RoboCop 2
Tim Brayton @ Antagony & Ecstasy
RoboCop 3
Tim Brayton @ Antagony & Ecstasy
Teeth
Gregory J. Smalley @ 366 Weird Movies
- Excerpt: Writer/director Mitchell Lichtenstein chooses to play the concept (mostly) as a straight horror movie. Since the other possibility would be to go for a horror/comedy hybrid that would inevitably degenerate into juvenile genitalia jokes, his choice seems like it should be the correct one; but based on the results here, I’m not so sure this material wouldn’t have played better with more icky genital wackiness…
Titus
- Excerpt: Julie Taymor’s extravagant production of “Titus”, one of Shakespeare’s more obscure plays, stands some fifteen years on as a singular creation. It is audacious and colorful and brilliantly realized.
Recent Home Video Releases
Fists of Legend
Peter Nellhaus @ Coffee Coffee and more Coffee
Gasland Part II
- Excerpt: “Gasland Part II”, in a lot of ways, feels like the same old ground. Josh Fox’s continuation of his Oscar-nominated documentary sells audiences on much of the same types of anecdotes that made his first film so infuriating and important. That doesn’t make the information any less vital…
Lost in Thailand
Peter Nellhaus @ Coffee Coffee and more Coffee
Pizza
- Excerpt: I like to think of myself more as a curator of Indian films that a critic, my job is to point out the ones that have the potential to push beyond the Indian diaspora and into the eyeballs if the film geek community. In that vein, I have found a winner in Karthik Subbaraj’s Pizza.
Wadjda
- Excerpt: An 11-year-old girl in Saudi Arabia, wearing sneakers and a T-shirt with the words I’m a Catch!” printed on it in large font, is helping her mother in the kitchen when she plainly declares that she wants a bike.”
Other Reviews from 2011 and earlier
The Assault
Jerry Roberts @ Armchair Cinema
- Excerpt: Just as effective as ‘United 93’.
Better Off Dead
Patrick Bromley @ F This Movie!
Cocksucker Blues
Jerry Roberts @ Armchair Cinema
- Excerpt: Still notorious, not exactly groundbreaking.
Dear John
Jerry Roberts @ Armchair Cinema
- Excerpt: That’s Enough, Nicholas Sparks!
Easy Money
MaryAnn Johanson @ FlickFilosopher.com
- Excerpt: Easy Money is a smart, affecting, slow burn of a movie, a spectacular example of Nordic noir. The sequel suffers by comparison, though.
New World (Shinsekai Story)
Peter Nellhaus @ Coffee Coffee and more Coffee
The Promised Land (1975)
Dennis Schwartz @ Dennis Schwartz Movie Reviews
Rambo: First Blood Part II
Patrick Bromley @ F This Movie!
Tomorrow Night
- Excerpt: Louie’s fans will probably want to give it a peek — if for no other reason, than to appreciate how far he’s come.
Trancers
Patrick Bromley @ F This Movie!
We Need to Talk About Kevin
Jerry Roberts @ Armchair Cinema
- Excerpt: http://www.armchaircinema.com/Reviews/WeNeedToTalk.html
