DVD/Blu-ray Reviews

Opening with a movie-within-a-movie sequence that promises actor Jean Dujardin as George Valentin, Hollywood action star, absolutely will not speak, The Artist, a silent film about Hollywood during the late 1920s as it transitions ...

With a “whatever they’re paying you, I’ll double it” half-baked mentality, Colombiana offers virtually no surprises in the overstuffed female-as-action-star genre that could be so much more than what it currently is.  Actioneer Luc Besson ...

With the current crop of technology pretty much unshackling anyone with a half decent imagination to realize whatever they can dream up, it’s easy to forget that, not so long ago, it wasn’t always the case. In the early 90s, Stephen Spielberg ...

Not since Sylvester Stallone in Rocky has a fighting movie had such an exceptionally profound statement to say to its own era.  Warrior, directed by Gavin O’Connor (Pride and Glory), pits two estranged brothers against each other in an improbable but ...

Awkwardly purposed and haphazardly constructed, Phyllida Lloyd’s biopic The Iron Lady takes a look at one of the twentieth century’s most powerful and influential political leaders, Great Britain’s former Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher. While certainly a significant genre switch for ...

Like its main character, Dee Rees’s Pariah is a fickle chameleon of a film, bearing a skin of many colors reflecting the viewer’s own world view. The coming-of-age drama will likely have a difficult time finding a wide audience as some will perceive it a...

The “found footage” phenomenon hits an all-time low with this budget-friendly piece of horror schlock.  Mixing hand-held footage with scratchy camcorder video, The Devil Inside uses the medium of the stylized mockumentary well, but doesn’t have an ...

With In the Land of Blood and Honey, first-time writer and director Angelina Jolie sets out to bring to the world’s attention the dangers of ethnocentric and nationalistic ideology and the devastating effects of doing nothing about it. While her grim ...

There are two trains of thought barreling toward each other when it comes to Contraband and both share the same track.  One train speeds on a course that suggests actor Mark Wahlberg has outgrown this one-more-big-time-thrill-and-I’m-out-type flick and ...

Opening with a three-minute reminder of where we’ve been with the previous installments, Underworld Awakening, rather surprisingly, soon ditches its celebrated mythology of werewolf vs. vampire and lets the human beings weigh in on the bloody war ...

Traffic, directed by Steven Soderbergh, does more to address the complex topic of illegal drugs in and out of this country than the actual “war” on drugs does. Considering the largely naïve and inadequate government policies since ...

Ever since playing the Albert Nobbs character in Simone Benmussa’s off-Broadway stage short back in 1982, the idea of bringing the story of a woman passing as a man in order to work and survive in 19^th century Ireland to the big screen has been a passion project ...

The Grey is a survivalist’s Holy Bible.  It looks unassuming and, chances are, you’ll roll in to it not expecting much, but – lo and behold – hell hath no fury like humans and their will to live.  It’s a tight story without an inch of flab and, with strong ...

Really good horror is hard to pull off.  It takes restraint, attention to story, and a deft director to handle the many, many mechanics of strong atmosphere.  Director Lucky McKee, behind the camera for The Woman, does exactly that and produces one of the ...

When it was first announced that Piranha, the 1978 original spoof of Jaws, which was directed by Joe Dante, written by John Sayles, and produced by Roger Corman was going to be remade, an audible groan was heard from the masses. This would never work so...