Here are our latest reviews of films on DVD.
Reviews of Classic Films
Atlantic City
Cole Smithey @ ColeSmithey.com
- Excerpt: “Atlantic City” is full of compact social editorializing that elevates its seemingly run-of-the-mill trappings into something sublime by way of its emotionally dependent characters. The depth of this drama lies in how deeply you feel for these individuals.
Jane Eyre (1944)
M. Enois Duarte @ High-Def Digest.com
Lola
Jamie S. Rich @ Criterion Confessions
- Excerpt: Demy sees his heroine as more than just a pretty object for men to desire, but an example of what that desire forces women to do in order to survive. Lola pushes and pulls as necessary to maintain control, accepting the male gaze and bending it as it suits her.
Mr. Smith Goes to Washington
Kristen Lopez @ Journeys in Classic Film
- Excerpt: Mr. Smith Goes to Washington is a classic which lives up to the reputation around it.
Picnic at Hanging Rock
Tony Dayoub @ Cinema Viewfinder
- Excerpt: HANGING ROCK is a subtler and kinder expression of burgeoning womanhood than the darker, more overt THE BEGUILED in which Clint Eastwood’s introduction into a similar environment causes the all-female staff and students to lose their heads over his presence.
Pink Flamingos
Cole Smithey @ ColeSmithey.com
- Excerpt: John Waters’s second movie not only set the low bar for just how gross a midnight movie could be in 1972, “Pink Flamingos” remains to this day the most cogently transgressive and anarchic film ever made.
Red River
Tony Dayoub @ Cinema Viewfinder
- Excerpt: Intentional or not, consider RED RIVER the first shot across the bow of traditional, personality-driven Hollywood acting by the New York-based Actors Studio proponents of the Method.
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
Bethlehem
Peter Nellhaus @ Coffee Coffee and more Coffee
The End of Time
Gregory J. Smalley @ 366 Weird Movies
- Excerpt: The overall result—abstract and meandering, sometimes deep, sometimes pretentious, beautiful but frequently slow as molasses—is definitely not for all tastes.
A Fantastic Fear of Everything
Gregory J. Smalley @ 366 Weird Movies
- Excerpt: The movie has bursts of creativity, but never develops the consistently crazy energy it needs.
Home Video Hovel: We’re in the Movies: Palace of Silents & Itinerant Filmmaking
Aaron Pinkston @ Battleship Pretension
The Scalphunters
- Excerpt: Though the action doesn’t quite match up to the progressive ideas, 1968’s The Scalphunters makes for an interesting entry in the revisionist Western genre. Sydney Pollack directs Burt Lancaster and Ossie Davis as a cowboy and an escaped slave who clash over ideas about where they each rank in society, but who end up realizing that their individual survival generally hinges on many of the same things.
Sympathy for Mr. Vengeance
Peter Nellhaus @ Coffee Coffee and more Coffee
Transcendence
M. Enois Duarte @ High-Def Digest.com
Transcendence
M. Enois Duarte @ High-Def Digest.com
Other Reviews from 2012 and earlier
Dead Kids
M. Enois Duarte @ High-Def Digest.com
Doctor Dolittle (1967)
Rick Aragon @ Rick’s Cafe Texan
- Excerpt: Somehow, I find it fitting that Doctor Dolittle is about animals, given that the film is a gigantic turkey.
The Final Terror
M. Enois Duarte @ High-Def Digest.com
Flatliners
M. Enois Duarte @ High-Def Digest.com
Frightmare
M. Enois Duarte @ High-Def Digest.com
The housemaid (1960)
Dennis Schwartz @ Dennis Schwartz Movie Reviews
Judex (1916)
Dennis Schwartz @ Dennis Schwartz Movie Reviews
Kiki
Dennis Schwartz @ Dennis Schwartz Movie Reviews
Many Wars Ago
M. Enois Duarte @ High-Def Digest.com
Othello
Rick Aragon @ Rick’s Cafe Texan
- Excerpt: … it is clear that it is a filmed play, which in itself is not a bad thing given the caliber of the performances.
Phone Call From a Stranger
Kristen Lopez @ Journeys in Classic Film
Rise of the Planet of the Apes
Blake Howard @ Graffiti With Punctuation
The Shanghai Gesture
Roderick Heath @ Ferdy on Films
- Excerpt: Sternberg’s time and place is not the real Shanghai of the 1930s, but his imagination’s conjured nexus of mystique and depravity.
Son of the Bride
Carlos del Río @ El rincón de Carlos del Río [Spanish]
- Excerpt: El hijo de la novia es una película preciosa, divertida y encantadora.
