Here are our latest reviews of films on DVD.
Reviews of Classic Films
The Apu Trilogy
Jamie S. Rich @ Criterion Confessions
Breaker Morant
- Excerpt: Classic Blu-ray review
Catch My Soul (1974)
- Excerpt: The long-unseen 1974 “Othello”-inspired musical is finally on DVD.
Don’t Look Back
- Excerpt: Classic Blu-ray review
The Empire Strikes Back
Tim Brayton @ Antagony & Ecstasy
The Honeymoon Killers
- Excerpt: Classic Blu-ray review
Ikiru
- Excerpt: Classic Blu-ray review
Jamie S. Rich @ Criterion Confessions
- Excerpt: Ikiru goes to plenty of emotional depths and ponders the darkness with an unflinching courage; yet, it is never dull, much less morose. You’d think watching an old man waiting to die would feel a little bit like death itself, but Takashi Shimura has a sympathetic face and an undeniable screen presence that makes it impossible not to watch and wait to see how it turns out.
In Cold Blood
Jamie S. Rich @ Criterion Confessions
- Excerpt: Anyone who thinks we’ve become desensitized to film violence hasn’t seen this movie recently.
Kwaidan
- Excerpt: Classic Blu-ray review
Return of the Jedi
Tim Brayton @ Antagony & Ecstasy
Two Women
Rick Aragon @ Rick’s Cafe Texan
- Excerpt: Two Women is the most solid proof possible that Sofia Loren is a legitimate actress. This is one of the most moving, heartbreaking, emotionally shattering performances I’ve seen from any actress, let alone one known for her extraordinary beauty.
The Wind
Rick Aragon @ Rick’s Cafe Texan
- Excerpt: The Wind may perhaps not be the last great silent film made, but it is no doubt one of the last great silent films made. Breathtaking visually, with an absolutely stunning performance from Lillian Gish, The Wind is a most fitting swan song to silent films.
Recent Home Video Releases
Don’t Look Back
- Excerpt: In its more discordant passages, the film exposes the idea that perhaps the intimate access so longed for by inquisitive audiences isn’t something to be desired, that in peering behind an artist’s hip public image one is bound to find just a human underneath, at which point the aura has partly diminished.
The Mask
Peter Nellhaus @ Coffee, Coffee and more Coffee
- Excerpt: For most cinephiles, the selling point of The Mask is the contribution of Slavko Vorkapich. Known for his montages, primarily during the “Golden Age” of Hollywood, Vorkaphich’s contribution here is listed as writing the dream sequences.
The Quay Brothers: Collected Short Films
Laura Clifford @ Reeling Reviews
- Excerpt: The films, influenced by middle European writers and composers, museums of the bizarre and asylums, are far from literal adaptations, wondrous in their dreamlike, sometimes nightmarish, worlds.
Shadow on the Wall
Kristen Lopez @ Journeys in Classic Film
Other Reviews from 2014 and earlier
Crocadyke Dundee
Dangerous Men
Ghost Story
- Excerpt: Horror completists who can stand the too-deliberate pacing, big swings in tone, and clunky editing, should be compensated by newcomer Alice Krige’s sexy, scary turn and some standout visual work by masters Albert Whitlock, Jack Cardiff, and Dick Smith — all anchored by the incongruous sight of four legendary Hollywood performers (Fred Astaire, Melvyn Douglas, Douglas Fairbanks, Jr., and John Houseman) headlining an R-rated 1980s shocker.
Robinson Crusoe on Mars
Southwest Passage
Dennis Schwartz @ Dennis Schwartz Movie Reviews
- Excerpt: Routine but entertaining gimmicky 3D shot western.
This Island Earth
James Jay Edwards @ FilmFracture
- Excerpt: Cinema Fearité Presents ‘This Island Earth’ – The Late Rex Reason’s Most Iconic Performance
