DVD Reviews

Being an Australian, I remember American history not being a voraciously covered subject in school or of enormous interest to the general population thereafter. But there are some events that transcend continents, and embed themselves even in the disinterested ...

The Horror Show, directed by James Isaac, has an interesting release history.  Critically panned, the film was eventually released overseas as the third film in the House series although it has nothing to do with a haunted house.  Weird, right?  The producers ...

Writer/director George A. Romero (The Night Of The Living Dead series) might have made his name with the undead but he doesn’t always wear the horror helmet.  With Knightriders, a King Arthur-style Renaissance Fair movie complete with jousting on ...

When RED, the sleeper hit comedy of 2010, opened, the over-50 audience finally has something to cheer for.  So did the all the young turks.  That’s certainly an accomplishment when the most of the cast sports AARP cards and walkers. Based off the limited  ...

Having never even seen one episode of A&E’s Duck Dynasty, I went into this Blu-ray set knowing only two things about it: rich rednecks and camouflage.  I am now 46-episodes educated into what makes The Robertson clan so attractive to television viewers ...

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 ...

Grateful Dead.  Janis Joplin.  The Band.  Buddy Guy.  What do they all have in common?  Well, other than being fantastic rock bands, artists, and live performers, they once upon a time in 1970 shared the same train as it traveled through Canada and played a series of  ...

For the past decade or so, Kevin S. Tenney’s Night of the Demons has been gaining momentum in the respect department. It launched 2 sequels and worthless reboot starring Edward Furlong but never seemed to get its due respect when it comes ...

Demonic Toys, written by David S. Goyer, is interesting in that your standard police procedural gets gutted by the horrors of children’s toys coming to life. Produced by Charles Band, the man responsible for Puppet Master, Demonic Toys is as hilarious as it is grizzly  ...

Sam Raimi. Do I need to say anything more? This little film has it all: horror, sci-fi, comedy, romance, drama, and superheroes. With Raimi’s knack for detail and energy behind the camera, Darkman is a total blast from my teenage past that hints at things to come from  ...

Exploding with the energy and styling of a 1930’s film noir flick, Russell Mulcahy’s The Shadow is an adaptation that should have been a lot bigger than it actually was upon its release in 1994. Critics killed it. Audiences ignored it. Maybe the marketing was off. Maybe it  ...

When it comes to documentaries, it is my belief that a non-fiction film must have a living and breathing environment that it adheres to. Muscle Shoals, a film by Greg 'Freddy' Camalier, is all about setting and the sound that comes seeping up from   ...

Inspired by the post-apocalyptic weirdness of A Boy and His Dog, Cartoon Network’s Adventure Time: The Complete Third Season arrives on shelves just in time for Spring Break. This 26-episode release – housed inside a die-cut slipcase that mimics one of my  ...

There are plenty of examples in film history of now revered classics not finding their audience upon first release. With so many ‘top’ lists having Alfred Hitchcock’s Vertigo in them, and the reverence it has received for at least the last 30 years, it’s difficult to believe ...

As a lifelong DC comic reader, it was merely an ancillary knowledge of Marvel characters I was aware of. But Thor I was familiar with, and in a cinematic world damn curious as to how to make a blonde-haired ancient Norseman fit into their big screen canon. I was wrong a ...

It’s hilarious to me to hear about people and critics turning their backs on a film they once heralded as a post-modern Bush-era classic. That’s exactly what is happening to Zach Braff’s Garden State. Upon its release in 2004, the film was nominated for the Grand Jury   ...