DVD/Blu-ray Reviews

Fuck the great outdoors, man. I’m staying inside forever.  Cub, the debut feature of Flemish filmmaker Jonas Govaerts, is as violent and as desperate as an overnight Cub Scout camping trip should NEVER get. Throw out any preconceptions you might have about boy scouts ...

Occurring in an alternative world in which magic was once fact in British history, this seven-part mini-series from the BBC recounts the story of how real magic made its glorious return into the world thanks to two competitive magicians in the early 1800s. Stylish and slick and operating ...

There is something insane about spending time with anyone outside of the inner family circle. Think about it. Hell, some people struggle with spending time with their own spouse and children. If we break spending quality time with strangers we call family or friends down to ...

Chronicling Friday the 13th’s tenure in popular culture, Crystal Lake Memories is an entertaining documentary that is as eye opening as it is extensive.  There really should be no questions left to ask as it comes its conclusion after 400 minutes of Jason-themed analysis ...

Scott Cooper’s Black Mass wants to be a steely-eyed monster of a gangster flick. It isn’t quite that, though. The film, while not disappointing, is best described as a procedural pit of darkness in which a pretty awful criminal, one James “Whitey” Bulgar, gets the quasi-reverential  ...

If people are STILL complaining about the lack of quality female-centered stories and NOT watching Marvel’s Agent Carter then something is seriously wrong with them. Marvel Studios has answered the call with this smartly-written eight-part series that turns an interesting   ...

Remember when actor/director Kenneth Branagh used to draw fiery criticisms for his lengthy and highly-charged adaptations?  The monumental mounting of Shakespeare’s unabridged version of Hamlet, visualized for the 19th Century, had a mix of people running toward and away ...

I know someone who refuses to watch any movie more than once. After my second viewing of Inherit the Wind (1960), I think she might have the right idea. The first time I watched this classic, the performances of Spencer Tracy, Gene Kelly and Fredric March really impressed  ...

God bless Burgess Meredith.  I mean really.  God bless him.  Whether cantankerous, goofy, or playing a booklover facing a world without people and spectacles, his performances dramatically elevates the material.  Here, in Michael Winner’s atmospheric The Sentinel, his  ...

Writer/director Nancy Meyers (The Parent Trap, Something’s Gotta Give) takes on the American generation gap and mixes in clichéd beats of gender role reversal in her latest called The Intern, a film which would come and go without much notice were it not for the surprising chemistry  ...

When Olive Films announced that they would be releasing Republic's The Invisible Monster, a 12-part serial from 1950, on blu-ray my excitement shot through the roof.  Audiences (myself included) would finally be able to see the  the Phantom Ruler in all his HD glory ...

John Carpenter’s Christine is a masterpiece.  There.  I said it.  There’s simply no other way to put it.  Criminally underrated by damn near every critic, its release this week on blu – thanks to Sony Entertainment – offers me the opportunity to argue for its reconsideration as  ...

Writer/director Eli Roth (Cabin Fever, Hostel I & II, and Aftershock) might just need to be crowned the new King of Putrid.  A self-confessed connoisseur of gore and Grindhouse alum, Roth’s work in the genre is living proof that the exploitation flick is not forgotten and definitely ...

Wow.  To think it was just earlier this week that I wrote about how gruesome Eli Roth’s The Green Inferno is and why that graphic repugnance is much needed in our uber-safeguarded world.  Following in step with that line of thought comes director Denis Villeneuve   ...

Director Eli Roth (Cabin Fever, Hostel, The Green Inferno) turns his back on gore with his take on Peter Traynor’s 1977 exploitation movie Death Game.  Knock Knock is, at once, a much better film than its predecessor and, as far as home-invasion flicks go, a much more  ...