Here are our latest reviews of films on DVD.
Reviews of Classic Films
Black God, White Devil
Cole Smithey @ ColeSmithey.com
- Excerpt: [VIDEO ESSAY] “Black God, White Devil” is a cinematic call for the audience to reject all political and religious doctrine in favor of an individual liberty at one with nature, something you could call sustainable.
Bringing Up Baby
Cole Smithey @ ColeSmithey.com
- Excerpt: Howard Hawks’s “Bringing Up Baby” is the go-to example of screwball comedy that critics and film-lovers reference most as the definitive model of the genre.
Gilda
Donald Jay Levit @ ReelTalk Movie Reviews
Lemonade Joe
Gregory J. Smalley @ 366 Weird Movies
- Excerpt: Communist propaganda, surreal Czech sensibilities, and an honest appreciation for the entertainment value of early Hollywood films collide to create a homegrown retro-Western musical spoof that could almost have come from the mind of Guy Maddin.
Libeled Lady
The Lovers on the Bridge
Gregory J. Smalley @ 366 Weird Movies
- Excerpt: The bravura sequence that everyone remembers shows the lovers drunkenly dancing across the bridge as fireworks burst behind them, with the music changing from a polka to a waltz to a rocker every couple of seconds. It’s the kind of scene a movie can hang its hat on, and a director can make a reputation with.
Man Bites Dog
Cole Smithey @ ColeSmithey.com
- Excerpt: [VIDEO ESSAY] Self-reflexive social satire rarely comes with such a hilarious fury of black humor as it does in this ingenious mockumentary about filming a serial killer’s pursuits.
Panique
Reform School Girls
Cole Smithey @ ColeSmithey.com
- Excerpt: [VIDEO ESSAY] Although critically scorned and criminally overlooked, co-writer/director Tom Desimone’s punk rock-inspired indie sexploitation flick has it all.
Spirited Away
Cole Smithey @ ColeSmithey.com
- Excerpt: [VIDEO ESSAY] Animation legend Hayao Miyazaki’s divinely imaginative display of madcap surrealism is virtuosic in this episodic coming of age classic.
The Sword of Doom
Donald Jay Levit @ ReelTalk Movie Reviews
Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?
Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars
Recent Home Video Releases
Bridge of Spies
- Excerpt: Now on Blu-ray.
The Challenge
Peter Nellhaus @ Coffee, Coffee and more Coffee
- Excerpt: Among his handful of Hollywood films, The Challenge may cause some eye rolling on the part of those viewers who at least know Toshiro Mifune from his work with Akira Kurosawa.
I Knew Her Well
Jamie S. Rich @ Criterion Confessions
- Excerpt: I Knew Her Well is sumptuous and seductive. Though it seems long forgotten, this hidden gem of mid-60s cinema has been unearthed at last.
Jellyfish Eyes
Jamie S. Rich @ Criterion Confessions
- Excerpt: Jellyfish Eyes is a bit like a live-action Pokemon.
Kansas City Confidential
- Excerpt: Now on Blu-ray.
Ostia
Peter Nellhaus @ Coffee, Coffee and more Coffee
- Excerpt: Some of the same story elements would also be found in Pasolini’s first film as a director, Accatone, which starred Pasolini’s “discovery”, Franco Citti, with Sergio Citti lending a hand to keep the dialogue representative of the Roman slums of that time.
The World of Kanako
- Excerpt: Now on Blu-ray.
Other Reviews from 2014 and earlier
As Tears Go By (1988)
Jared Mobarak @ Jared Mobarak Reviews
- Excerpt: While the romance between Wah and Ngor is authentic in its stolen glances and gradual increase in passion, it’s also a secondary dream. It’s who he wants to be, but also an escape from what he is.
Children Without Parents (2013)
Jared Mobarak @ Jared Mobarak Reviews
- Excerpt: Whether Type-A personalities like Matt and Tanya, passive followers like Casey, or attention-grabbing clowns like Pat–the equation is mostly the same across the board. Sometimes siblings must come back together to remember why it was they initially split apart.
Collateral
Kenji Fujishima @ Brooklyn Magazine
Hospital Massacre
James Jay Edwards @ FilmFracture
- Excerpt: Cinema Fearité Presents ‘Hospital Massacre’ – Spend Valentine’s Day At The Worst Hospital In The World
The Last Rites of Joe May
Marilyn Ferdinand @ Ferdy on Films
- Excerpt: The Last Rites of Joe May is full of small, telling moments that paint a picture of a place, a time, and especially a man whose life amounted to something after all just in the telling of it. Dennis Farina’s tour de force performance is an appropriate legacy for a great actor who shared his soul and passion to the end of his life.
New York Lately (2009)
Jared Mobarak @ Jared Mobarak Reviews
- Excerpt: What occurs here can only be described as life–an authentically portrayed trajectory of twenty-somethings moving one step forward and two steps back until the reality of who they are and where they want to be reconcile together.
Piranha 3DD
Paulo Peralta @ CinEuphoria [Portuguese]
Reprisal!
Dennis Schwartz @ Dennis Schwartz Movie Reviews
- Excerpt: A superior message Western about blatant Indian hatred.
Salome, Where She Danced
Kristen Lopez @ Journeys in Classic Film
Shopping (1994)
Jared Mobarak @ Jared Mobarak Reviews
- Excerpt: What won me over, though, is Billy’s ghost-like journey walking alone. All those other characters provide him sounding boards to act tough and cool against and it’s fun to watch because he does infectious charm like few others, but his introspective looks by himself are what grab you.
Sirocco
Roderick Heath @ This Island Rod
- Excerpt: Sirocco, which is usually read simply as an attempt to revisit Casablanca’s success, in fact works assiduously to pull apart the mythological power of the earlier film, whilst portraying a conflict of peculiar contemporary relevance…
What Happened, Miss Simone? (2015)
Jared Mobarak @ Jared Mobarak Reviews
- Excerpt: Many people are shown getting hurt along the way, but it’s difficult not to believe their pain was worth it. Nina was that important.
