Here are our latest reviews of films on DVD.
Reviews of Classic Films
Lolita (1997)
Cole Smithey @ ColeSmithey.com
- Excerpt: [VIDEO ESSAY] Although it is considered sacrilege in some circles to say this, Adrian Lyne’s 1997 film version of Vladimir Nabokov’s controversial 1954 novel is a vast improvement over Stanley Kubrick’s beloved 1962 standard.
Recent Home Video Releases
Absolute Beginners
Kristen Lopez @ Awards Circuit
The Black Stallion
- Excerpt: For some, The Black Stallion will be a fascinating discovery from an era in American cinema that continues to yield new treasures, and for those already familiar with Ballard’s entrancing vision, Criterion’s generous helping of supplements goes a long way in contextualizing the achievement.
Elsa & Fred
Diego Salgado @ Guía del Ocio [Spanish]
Gangs of Wasseypur
Peter Nellhaus @ Coffee, Coffee and more Coffee
Howling II: Your Sister is a Werewolf
M. Enois Duarte @ High-Def Digest.com
Reckless
Peter Nellhaus @ Coffee, Coffee and more Coffee
State of Grace
Kristen Lopez @ Cinema Sentries
The Vincent Price Collection II
M. Enois Duarte @ High-Def Digest.com
Other Reviews from 2012 and earlier
Bound for Glory (1976)
Dennis Schwartz @ Dennis Schwartz Movie Reviews
Down to Earth (1947)
Kristen Lopez @ Journeys in Classic Film
The DUFF
Jerry Roberts @ Armchair Cinema
- Excerpt: What is most uncomfortable about this movie is that the DUFF designation exists at all. It is explained to Bianca that she is a DUFF, but instead of casting away such a label, she attempts to embrace it. It’s a dysfunctional idealism that the movie doesn’t really know what to do with, and it’s strapped to a character who wouldn’t fit such a hateful label in the first place.
Foolish Wives
Roderick Heath @ Ferdy on Films
- Excerpt: Foolish Wives is much stranger and denser than its sexy melodrama essentials suggest, as Erich Von Stroheim’s pitch-black humour and fascination with transgressive urges constantly eat at the frame.
Gett: The Trial of Viviane Amsalem
Marilyn Ferdinand @ Ferdy on Films
Hot Tub Time Machine 2
Jerry Roberts @ Armchair Cinema
- Excerpt: Hot Tub Time Machine 2 illustrates the fundamental problem with comedy sequels. It has a brand name so no one involved in the production feels the need to try. They’ve taken the smallest ideas from the first and ramped it up with cruel and inhumane jokes involving male genitalia and homophobia at the lowest possible level. This is the kind of bad movie that ruins your day.
Housebound
Daniel Lackey @ The Nightmare Gallery
King Kong (1976)
Rick Aragon @ Rick’s Cafe Texan
- Excerpt: Yes, in so many ways King Kong 1976 goes wrong. However, there is a great pleasure in watching it, like a flawed experiment that produces its own offbeat beauty.
The Loft
Jerry Roberts @ Armchair Cinema
- Excerpt: I’d rather stab myself with a fork then watch this movie again. The Loft is a wretched piece of garbage, an exercise in misery dealing with five people that you don’t want to spend five minutes with and throwing them around like they’re fallen heroes.
Maggie
Jerry Roberts @ Armchair Cinema
- Excerpt: It is possible that Maggie may be the best misfire of the year. It’s a thriller that doesn’t ultimately work, but you almost feel the need to applaud the effort. Odd to say, but that’s kind of refreshing. In a year that is offering us a vast minefield of movies in which no one even tried – Taken 3, Paul Blart 2, Unfriended, The Longest Ride – here is a genre film that works hard to give us something new.
Maps to the Stars
Jerry Roberts @ Armchair Cinema
- Excerpt: Moore manages to keep a flat script afloat, but the basic problem with Maps to the Stars is that it feels dated. Had the movie been made 25 years ago it might have had some punch, but nowadays with Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, E!, TMZ, trashy reality shows, and all manner of shallow media news entities that scream celebrity gossip from the rooftops, nothing here seems all that shocking.
Once a Thief
Stacia Kissick Jones @ She Blogged By Night
Patton
Rick Aragon @ Rick’s Cafe Texan
- Excerpt: In terms of history and biography, (Patton) may not be without flaws. Then again, I think General Patton would be the first to agree that when the legend becomes fact, print the legend.
Shiva
Marilyn Ferdinand @ Ferdy on Films
Solaris
Donald Jay Levit @ ReelTalk Movie Reviews
To Take a Wife
Marilyn Ferdinand @ Ferdy on Films
Wake of the Red Witch
Roderick Heath @ This Island Rod
- Excerpt: The result is left perched between two poles, of paperback novel romantic adventure and genuinely Conradian saga of interior drama revealed through exterior travails…
