DVD/Blu-ray Reviews

Como estan, beetches?Anchorman: The Legend of Ron Burgundy is one of those comedies – like Animal House, This is Spinal Tap, Caddyshack, and Hot Rod – that only gets better the more times you watch it.  It rewards the repeat viewer with its never-ending ...

On its surface, American Hustle is the story of one of the most extraordinarily damning scandals of the ‘70s. But beneath that grimy facade of sleazy con-men, corrupt politicians, and oily FBI agents, is the powerful love story between Irving Rosenfeld (Christian Bale) ...

Inside Llewyn Davis – while being focused on the Greenwich Village scene of the early 1960s – is a timeless masterpiece of sound and vision and perfectly relevant in today’s absurd world.  Yes, I said that the period film is, in fact, timeless. It is further proof ...

An American Werewolf in London has never been equalled for this reviewer in the 31 years since its release. No werewolf film since has come close to matching its combination of scares and offbeat humour. The experience of laughing your ass off and then jumping ...

Disney’s Pirates of the Caribbean dream team of Johnny Depp, director Gore Verbinski, screenwriters Ted Elliott and Terry Rossio, and producer Jerry Bruckheimer go for broke in their adaptation of The Lone Ranger and trip all over the place with an uneven ...

The world didn’t know it needed a remake of The Shaggy Dog. But the Disney studio churned one out, anyway, in 2006. It belongs on a long list of their updates including That Darn Cat, The Parent Trap and Freaky Friday. However, there’s one original movie that can ...

The creepy crawlies get deep B-movie fried in director Mike Mendez’s Big Ass Spider! - a flick as non-nuanced as it is devotion to the whole party schlock atmosphere of the drive-in movies of yesteryear.  While it sports a better polish than most tongue-in-cheek ...

Quack!  Quack!  With the controversy (really?!) over patriarch Phil Robertson’s (shocking?!) comments safely tucked inside a crevice in the recent past, A&E rolls out Season 4 of America’s favorite bearded family. Season 4?  Already? ...

Some still argue to the death that Robin Hardy’s The Wicker Man is the Citizen Kane of horror movies.  Watching Lionsgate’s recently released “Final Cut” version of the film (a blu-ray debut for the title), it’s hard to disagree with the legion of fans still in an uproar ...

The creative stories of H.P. Lovecraft make for some relatively spotty film adaptations.  Only one – The Re-Animator –makes for recommended viewing.  The rest have moments of tasty goodness but – if I don’t know your tastes – I would hesitate to recommend them ...

You know their voices you just don’t know their names.  If you listen to records by The Rolling Stones or Sting, their voices are as familiar to you as your favorite pair of jeans.  Merry Clayton, Darlene Love, and Lisa Fischer are backup singers and, while talent does ...

“Because I use my right hand, should I never use my left?  This is the question Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde asks viewers and then, with nihilistic precision, explores with dusky shadows and fantastic effects.  What we have in this silent film from 1920 is a mystical look ...

“Give me your money or I’ll bust you up.”  It is this line that forever alters the decision-making of an architect driven to murder. Morbidity goes mad in director Michael Winner’s Death Wish, a revenge flick from 1974 that made Charles Bronson a household name of  ...

There’s a joke somewhere here about the 1980’s, effective entertainment, and Canada, I just can’t seem to put it together just yet.  And even if someone else does it for me, Kevin Tenney’s fear-inducing Witchboard, both written and directed by him, wouldn’t be a part   ...

For fans of ‘50s retro sci-fi silliness, there is no better Blu-ray/DVD combo release to own right now than Shout! Factory’s double feature re-release of the black-and-white 1953 opus The Neanderthal Man paired with long-out-of-print 1956 extravaganza The Beast of ...