Here are our latest reviews of films on DVD.
Reviews of Classic Films
The Adventures of Goopy and Bagha
Dennis Schwartz @ Dennis Schwartz Movie Reviews
The Big City (Mahanagar)
Dennis Schwartz @ Dennis Schwartz Movie Reviews
Branches of the Tree
Dennis Schwartz @ Dennis Schwartz Movie Reviews
A Brief History of Time
Jamie S. Rich @ Criterion Confessions
- Excerpt: Based on Stephen Hawking’s book of the same name, as well as his similarly titled memoir A Brief History, Morris’ film is a concise and fascinating biography of the brilliant astrophysicist that engages with the man’s life by accepting that the product of his work is as essential to his story as any of the life events that led to him becoming who he is.
Foreign Correspondent
Tony Dayoub @ Cinema Viewfinder
- Excerpt: …this is a proto-action film, a forerunner of the type of blockbuster that rules the summer box office today.
The Lady from Shanghai
Tony Dayoub @ Cinema Viewfinder
- Excerpt: Welles acknowledges the story makes little sense in the bizarre, unrealistic way he frames character actors like Glenn Anders, Ted de Corsia and Everett Sloane (as Hayworth’s rich, crippled husband), all enlarged in the foreground like some Jim Steranko comic book panel.
The Long Day Closes
Sean Axmaker @ Turner Classic Movies
- Excerpt: This remembrance of 1955 Liverpool has been recreated in a studio, where Davies’ control has enabled an idealized recreation of his past, designed and art directed to a perfection possible only through the glow of memory.
The Lower Depths
Donald Levit @ ReelTalk Movie Reviews
Pete Walker: Two Feasts of Flesh
Peter Nellhaus @ Coffee Coffee and more Coffee
The Sandpiper
Stacia Kissick Jones @ Spectrum Culture Online
Sikkim
Dennis Schwartz @ Dennis Schwartz Movie Reviews
Straight-to-Video Horror Masterpieces of the 1980s
Anton Bitel @ Grolsch FilmWorks
The Swimmer
Peter Nellhaus @ Coffee Coffee and more Coffee
Tess
Tony Dayoub @ Cinema Viewfinder
- Excerpt: Though, on the surface, among the most genteel of Polanski’s films, TESS is among the most spiritually violent of his oeuvre if one really thinks about it.
What Price Hollywood?
- Excerpt: What really makes What Price Hollywood? sustainable, however, is that it manages to have its cake and eat it, too. Like the best behind-the-scenes exposés, Cukor’s film loves and hates its subject. He subverts the emerging tropes even while revelling in them.
Yesterday Girl
Dennis Schwartz @ Dennis Schwartz Movie Reviews
Recent Home Video Releases
+1
Gregory J. Smalley @ 366 Weird Movies
- Excerpt: …a glitzy pic, with lots of pretty lights and taut female flesh to distract you, but sadly the sophomoric questions it poses don’t go much deeper than “would you make out with yourself if you were kinda hot?”
Frozen
Saving Mr. Banks
Spinning Discs: Mad Worlds
- Excerpt: New and recent home video reviews.
Wadjda
Sean Axmaker @ Turner Classic Movies
- Excerpt: Filmmaker Haifaa Al Mansour uses the simple story as our entry into a complex culture and a pointed perspective on how women are treated in Saudi society, which makes Iran look downright enlightened in its restrictions on the rights of women.
Other Reviews from 2012 and earlier
The Agony and the Ecstasy
M. Enois Duarte @ High-Def Digest.com
L’Ennui
Paulo Peralta @ CinEuphoria [Portuguese]
Freelancers
Amir Siregar @ Flick Magazine [Indonesian]
Hairspray (1988)
Gregory J. Smalley @ 366 Weird Movies
- Excerpt: This is one of [John] Waters’ most beloved films (admittedly, by a different demographic than the one that worships at the idol of “Pink Flamingos”) because his genuine fondness for the era and its naively idealistic teenagers comes through on the screen.
In Their Room: Berlin
Paulo Peralta @ CinEuphoria [Portuguese]
The Muppets
MaryAnn Johanson @ FlickFilosopher.com
- Excerpt: What is a Muppet? Is it something one is born? Is it something one chooses? Is it a state of mind? Is it a lifestyle?
Samson and Delilah
M. Enois Duarte @ High-Def Digest.com
The Slumber Party Massacre
M. Enois Duarte @ High-Def Digest.com
Vanishing Waves
Gregory J. Smalley @ 366 Weird Movies
- Excerpt: Made for about 1.5 million dollars, but looking much more expensive, “Vanishing Waves” is a literal head-trip that explores what it might be like to travel into someone else’s mind.
