Here are our latest reviews of films on DVD from 2011 and earlier.
Assault on Precinct 13
Patrick Bromley @ DVD Verdict
M. Enois Duarte @ High-Def Digest.com
The Beauty of Devil
- Excerpt: [Rene Clair] and co-writer Michel Kelber concoct some deviously clever machinations in the battle of wills, and Simon makes Mephistopheles into a black-hearted trickster behind the manner of a clown, taking pleasure in corrupting what was once a soul dedicated to truth and discovery.
The Best Years of Our Lives
- Excerpt: By all rights, the 1946 homecoming drama The Best Years of Our Lives (Warner, Blu-ray) should have been another well intentioned film left to the dated dustbins of history, but World War II vet William Wyler (working from an original Robert Sherwood script) put more soul into this picture than anything else in his career.
Chairman of the Board
Patrick Bromley @ F This Movie!
Godzilla Raids Again
Tim Brayton @ Antagony & Ecstasy
- Excerpt: The human story, though a little on the prosaic side, is simple enough and sweet enough that it feels like a complement to the monster action, rather than a distraction.
Gunda
Kathy Gibson @ Access Bollywood
Humanity and Paper Balloons
Dennis Schwartz @ Dennis Schwartz Movie Reviews
Lifeforce (1985)
Nuno Reis @ SciFiWorld Portugal [Portuguese]
- Excerpt: Em segundo o realizador conseguiu dar a visão certa a uma história que podia tomar um rumo demasiado erótico, ou terrorífico ou mesmo científico. Com o balanço ideal entre os três, criou um produto que agrada a todos os públicos que procurem um destes géneros.
Night of the Comet
M. Enois Duarte @ High-Def Digest.com
La Notte
- Excerpt: This was one of the films that inspired Pauline Kael’s “Come-Dressed-as-the-Sick-Soul-of-Europe Parties” essay, a portrait heavy on the Antoni-ennui of beautiful people narcotizing themselves on small talk, cocktails and sex.
The Right Stuff
- Excerpt: Philip Kaufman’s adaptation of Tom Wolfe’s acclaimed portrait of the original NASA astronauts is *the* American epic of the last great frontier and a genuinely romantic take on the first generation of space cowboys.
Rodan
Tim Brayton @ Antagony & Ecstasy
- Excerpt: An entertaining, well-made monster movie with absolutely nothing on its mind.
Schoolgirl Report #11
Peter Nellhaus @ Coffee Coffee and more Coffee
Shadow of a Doubt
Stacia Kissick Jones @ Spectrum Culture Online
Street of Shame
- Excerpt: ‘intriguing and even funny at times, with Yasumi in particular, but it does still, like many of this group of films, really struggle to find its own life’
The Thin Man
Cole Smithey @ ColeSmithey.com
- Excerpt: Long before Ian Fleming’s James Bond became cinema’s longest-running and most successful franchise, Dashiell Hammett’s Thin Man books laid their foundation with a “retired” private detective and his up-for-anything wife.
The Three Faces of Eve
- Excerpt: As [Joanne] Woodward transforms from the timid, quiet housewife Eve White to the brazen, confident, sexually aggressive Eve Black and back again, and her entire body seems possessed by these two (and, later, three) broken pieces of a fractured personality.
Velvet Goldmine: 15 year anniversary
Joseph Proimakis @ Popaganda.gr [Greek]
- Excerpt: ? e?e??e?? pa??f?as? t?? Todd Haynes ??a t? ??? ?a? t?? µ??e? t?? David Bowie, ??e??e? µ??µ?s? de?aet?a st? d??st?µa.
The Visitor
- Excerpt: You’ll likely you ask yourself just what you’re watching several times during 1979’s “The Visitor.” Whether that’s a good or a bad thing is a matter of opinion, and there’s a chance you’ll change your mind on the subject once or twice.
