Here are our latest reviews of films on DVD.
Pre-2022 Film Reviews
About Schmidt (2002)
Dan Stalcup @ The Goods: Film Reviews
- Excerpt: While traces of Payne’s signature caustic perspective remain, there is a clear tonal shift toward sentiment and humanism not present in his earlier work.
Citizen Ruth (1996)
Dan Stalcup @ The Goods: Film Reviews
- Excerpt: Dern infuses Ruth with such baffled humanity that her continual self-sabotage has both a comic and dramatic resonance to it. Payne writes all of the film’s characters with insight into their contradictions.
Election (1999)
Dan Stalcup @ The Goods: Film Reviews
- Excerpt: Much of what makes this early phase of Payne’s career so blistering and clever is his wizardry at tonal manipulation.
Hamlet (1996)
Dan Stalcup @ The Goods: Film Reviews
- Excerpt: More important than Branagh the title actor or even Branagh the director is Branagh the steward of Shakespeare to a modern audience.
Household Saints (1993)
- Excerpt: Adapted by director Nancy Savoca (Dogfight) and her husband and filmmaking partner, Rich Guay, from the 1981 novel by Francine Prose, Household Saints chronicles the lives of three generations of Italian-American women in New York’s Little Italy and their different viewpoints on everything from food to family to faith—especially faith.
The Nightmare Before Christmas (1993)
Dan Stalcup @ The Goods: Film Reviews
- Excerpt: Director Henry Selick breathes so much life into this eerie tale, taking an aesthetic defined by producer Tim Burton and exploding it into a visual carnival.
The Passion of Martin (1991)
Dan Stalcup @ The Goods: Film Reviews
- Excerpt: The Passion of Martin balances a variety of comedy and drama tones, unafraid to undercut its bleakest moments with bursts of dark humor, and vice versa.
Promising Young Woman (2020)
Dan Stalcup @ The Goods: Film Reviews
- Excerpt: There’s very little shading or depth to the #MeToo reckoning… The very nature of Cassie’s scheme is anti-cathartic; to what purpose, I’m not sure.
