Here are our latest reviews of films on DVD from 2010 and earlier.
Adventures in Babysitting
- Excerpt: Though it can be embarrassing to admit some of the movies we considered favorites in our youth, my enduring love for Adventures in Babysitting involves no shame. Sure, this is a silly bit of escapism that cynical adults who did not grow up in the 1980s might easily declare contrived and far-fetched. No serious film historian or critic has ever singled out this film as one of the great works of its time. And yet, I love it so.
The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes (1939)
The Arsenal Stadium Mystery
John J. Puccio @ Movie Metropolis
- Excerpt: The movie has more than a few good qualities, most notably the presence of Leslie Banks as the wonderfully droll police inspector. He pretty much makes the show.
The Big Lebowski
Betty Jo Tucker @ ReelTalk Movie Reviews
The Bourne Supremacy
Kenneth Morefield @ 1More Film Blog
- Excerpt: It’s not that every new movie needs to be read as a commentary on the United States’ military involvement in Iraq, but when the main character spends the last thirty minutes of a movie trying to put himself in a position where he can apologize to a woman whose family was the victim of his sanctioned violence, it is hard not to use his actions as a jumping off point for talking about America’s ambivalence at being the last superpower.
Bunraku
Bus Stop
Dennis Schwartz @ Dennis Schwartz Movie Reviews
Down By Law
Dusty Somers @ dustysomers.com
Forever Marilyn
- Excerpt: Five Marilyn Monroe films come to Blu-ray for the first time in this seven-disc box set.
The Freshman (1925)
Full Metal Jacket
John J. Puccio @ Movie Metropolis
- Excerpt: Full Metal Jacket may not be the best film Kubrick ever made, but it’s still Kubrick, meaning it’s better than almost anything else in cinema.
The Great Madcap
Carson Lund @ Are the Hills Going to March Off?
- Excerpt: The Great Madcap is the second of Luis Buñuel’s commercial Mexican efforts (following the light musical Gran Casino) and the first to point convincingly towards Buñuel’s future, even if it’s a somewhat rigid and lopsided screwball comedy, a film with only fractions of the satiric bile and mad logic he dropped in L’âge d’or and would eventually unload later in his career.
Jaws
John J. Puccio @ Movie Metropolis
- Excerpt: You’re gonna need a bigger TV if you want to enjoy “Jaws” in all its glory. (Blu-ray edition)
The Last Days of Disco
Dusty Somers @ Cinema Sentries
The Legend of Lylah Clare
Dennis Schwartz @ Dennis Schwartz Movie Reviews
Lobster Man From Mars
- Excerpt: Got no money? Want to make a hit film? Seen The Producers? Then, like the producer in this film, you might think that investing in a bad movie is a good move – or, like its directors, you might gamble on telling that story again. Lobster Man From Mars wears its low budget on its sleeve. This never looks as clever as it hopes but, largely by accident, it still succeeds in entertaining.
The Lodger: A Story of the London Fog
Rich Cline @ Shadows on the Wall
- Excerpt: This silent film is far more textured and expressive than almost any police thriller in recent memory. And the BFI’s restoration is simply gorgeous
Man On Wire
Stephen Carty @ Flix Capacitor
May
Gregory J. Smalley @ 366 Weird Movies
- Excerpt: It’s an above average horror outing sporting superior performances, but it’s not a revolutionary genre movie; and, given the film’s socially ghoulish first two thirds, there is a sense of a missed opportunity to do something truly special.
Metropolitan
The Misfits
Tim Brayton @ Antagony & Ecstasy
- Excerpt: Such a fantastic acting showcase that it’s easy to lose sight of the fact that a top-shelf talent like John Huston directed.
The Philadelphia Story
Donald Levit @ ReelTalk Movie reviews
The Prince and the Showgirl
Dennis Schwartz @ Dennis Schwartz Movie Reviews
Romy and Michele’s High School Reunion
- Excerpt: A perky, upbeat comedy full of ’80s music and essentially transplanting one of ’90s television’s funnier characters is not easy for me to dislike and I can appreciate if you classify Romy and Michele as harmless fun. It basically is, as long as you have a generous definition of “fun” and are not genuinely hurt by poor structure, stupid jokes, or paper-thin storytelling.
Singin’ in the Rain
Sound of Noise
Gregory J. Smalley @ 366 Weird Movies
- Excerpt: If David Lynch directed the Swedish cast of STOMP in an action-comedy, I think it might go a little something like this…
Spaceballs
- Excerpt: If someone had to make a Star Wars spoof, one of the more agreeable people to do so was Mel Brooks. In the 1980s, Brooks was, as he is now, revered as comedy royalty. He had already put his spin on classic horror (Young Frankenstein), westerns (Blazing Saddles), Broadway (The Producers), silents (Silent Movie), Hitchcock (High Anxiety), and epics (History of the World: Part I). Spaceballs gave him a chance to have fun with the blend of state-of-the-art science fiction with classic matinee adventure that had made George Lucas richer and more powerful than he ever could have imagined.
The Spy Who Loved Me
Tim Brayton @ Antagony & Ecstasy
- Excerpt: The best combination of japery and seriousness, without descending into the clowning that would be a part of all but one of Moore’s subsequent adventures [as Bond].
Story of a Prostitute
Dennis Schwartz @ Dennis Schwartz Movie Reviews
Tarzan Escapes
Dennis Schwartz @ Dennis Schwartz Movie Reviews
Terminator: Salvation
Rick Aragon @ Rick’s Cafe Texan
- Excerpt: Bale brings his Batman intensity (occasionally along with his Batman voice), but John Connor is almost an afterthought.
The Thin Red Line
Stephen Carty @ Flix Capacitor
The Thing
Stephen Carty @ Flix Capacitor
Total Recall (1990)
Tim Brayton @ Antagony & Ecstasy
- Excerpt: Minor Verhoeven, well-above-average Schwarzenegger, and as well-made as any action movie from around the turn of the 1990s you could name.
Walking And Talking
Joshua Brunsting @ The CriterionCast
X-Men Origins: Wolverine
Rick Aragon @ Rick’s Cafe Texan
- Excerpt: The main problem is that this ISN’T an origin story in the same way Batman Begins or Iron Man are. It’s just a routine action film, right down to the clichés.
