DVD Reviews

This life can be a long, rambling walk down a twisting highway.  Just ask Mr. Frank Mansfield (Warren Oates), the “junior birdman” who dreams of a cockfighting championship while he puts others to the side in his quest for the title.  ...

Tom Hanks does grumpy in A Man Called Otto, the American remake of the Oscar-nominated Swedish film called A Man Called Ove from a few years back. Though certainly not the first actor who comes to mind for a role featuring the most cantankerous old man this side of Gran  ...

"I've got my head. I've lost my leopard!" As far as screwball comedies go, the pairing of Cary Grant and Katharine Hepburn was probably seen as an odd choice in 1938. She didn’t have a hit film and Grant, hitting his comedic stride, was just coming off of The Awful Truth to ...

It’s TOTAL DESTRUCTION DAY!  Break out the party favors!  I meant the Geiger counters.  Gather the women ‘round and tell them the news: the sooner they have kids, the better for all of mankind!   Wait.  What?  Welcome to the paranoid world of ...

It seems impossible that there was any year where I didn’t see Chevy Chase litter his house with enough Christmas lights to be seen from space. But I was in fact fourteen when this now Christmas staple debuted in 1989 (a stellar year for classics of the future). Being a little Aussie, the concept  ...

The comedic timing.  The charisma of all involved.  The breaking of the fourth wall.  Hollywood’s definitive leading man!  What’s not to love about Mr. Blandings Builds His Dream House as Cary Grant takes his physical comedy and his mannerisms from the office to home construction woes ...

Can we talk about Super Fly’s opening for a minute?  Street shot and completely on the - pardon the pun - fly, this engaging opening is one hell of a way to open Super Fly, the late Gordon Parks, Jr. (Three the Hard Way, Aaron Loves Angela) film.  Right away, we are caught up in the  ...

What a month! Not only did I get to extol the virtues of The Lost Boys on UHD this Halloween, but what should arrive in the mail but Tom Holland’s equally classic 1985 vampire flick, Fright Night. The 80s is known for many classic horror flicks, most of which—including this one—have been remade ...

A psychological thriller in which Boris Karloff does NOT play a creature of the night?  Say it ain’t so?!  But it’s true.  Isle of the Dead, produced by the legendary Val Lewton, concerns itself with that which haunts Greek nightmares: the Vrykolakas and this female vampire is certainly NOT  ...

Spellbinding science fiction doesn’t get any more outrageous than it does here in The Brain Eaters, a 61-minute schlocky shocker from the Drive-In era of B-flicks.  This is what happens when Small Town, America finds itself at the center of a UFO invasion!  Hide the jars of pickles, Ma and  ...

“Please let me keep this memory, just this one.” What do you get when you combine the weird and innovative nature of a Charlie Kaufman script with the daring visuals of director Michel Gondry? Obviously, the only answer is the cult classic Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind. With its totally ...

Madness.  Mayhem.  And, of course, MURDER.  This is what follows the anti-archetype characters of M.  It is a thriller that is meant to unsettle the viewer with its hunt for a serial killer, making it an unforgettable REEL CLASSIC ...

Hey, BU-DDY.  Eric is out for blood.  And, really, who can blame him?!  Disfigured when some greedy commercial real estate developers set fire to his house in order to build a mall over it, Erik now hides himself in the air ducts and the subterranean passageways, cutting anyone who dares cross  ...

1989 would see the last of a trilogy of films that Halloween fans now dub The Thorn Trilogy. This would be the last Halloween film to feature the character of Jamie Lloyd (not played by Danielle Harris sadly) and the first sequel to bring back original Halloween kid Tommy Doyle (with Ant Man  ...

The new comedy starring Anne Hathaway and Rebel Wilson called The Hustle is an almost identical remake of the 1988 classic comedy Dirty Rotten Scoundrels which starred Michael Caine and Steve Martin - itself a remake of Marlon Brando’s Bedtime Story. I say “almost” because  ...

Beginning with an explosion which levels a poppy field, Cleopatra Jones is one bad mutha!  Drug trafficking is about to get the red light thanks to her blazing guns. With an undefined beauty and a ...

“That’s what it is all about: rust and decay, ya know. But within that are warm houses and cars.” Originally released in November of 1999, American Movie, director Chris Smith’s documentary about Wisconsin-based filmmaker Mark Borchardt’s trials in getting his feature length independent  ...

Suspicions!  Accusations!  It’s all on the screen in this minor film noir classic.  The Suspect arrives on blu-ray thanks to Kino Lorber and I, as a fan of Laughton’s performances, couldn’t be happier ...

Dirty O’Neil, released during the same year as The Swinging Cheerleaders and The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, is yet another on wild romp through exploitation flicks.  It is essentially about the love life of a small-town cop.  Filled to the bring with backseat action, corny one-liners, and lots  ...

“You either are a star or you ain’t. And honey, I am.” Every once in a while, there is a movie that comes along that leaves you completely awestruck. A cinematic feat that leaves you in a perpetual state of amazement and wonder of how the film was even pulled off. And let me tell you, Babylon is one of those movies. Most similar to his beloved ...

One wouldn’t normally equate Cary Grant with a family movie about adoption and the drama which lies therein, but perhaps that’s why Room for One More (also known as The Easy Way) lingers with viewers.  Grant, playing one half of The Roses, never gets time alone as his house is filled  ...

The “Brother Man from the Motherland” returns to settle yet another score!  Can you dig it? Funked up by Isaac Hayes’ incredible score and theme, Richard Roundtree is back in action as Harlem P.I. John Shaft in this trio of signature blaxploitation offerings from directors...

The more things change, the more they stay the same. The Munsters originally ran from 1964 to 1966 and, as it was often cheap and messy, the humor came across in fits and starts as monster caricatures tried to impersonate traditional mother and father roles found in American sitcoms ...

“She’s afraid of the big bad wolf.  Tra la la la laaaaaa.” It Happened One Night remains a phenomenal romantic comedy.  After all these years, this pre-code American film - which was made when being a reporter was idolized and the screwball comedy was only just hitting its stride - still hits all the perfect notes as ...

Stop Motion animation addicts rejoice!  Monster from Green Hell has been unleashed and, for those few seconds of stop motion glory, it’s worth it! ...

In which Producer Harve Bennett and Director Nicholas Meyer climb aboard the USS Enterprise, adding a revenge element to the classic crew as the consequences of an episode in the original series entitled “Space Seed” comes full circle. It is, in fact, 1967 meeting 1982 and the scenario works  ...

The Marx Brothers are coming! The Marx Brothers are coming!  Well, after a bit of exposition that is as Casablanca (and others like that film) get a big kiss-off thanks to the parody on display throughout the 86-minutes that make up A Night in Casablanca.  This REEL CLASSIC might not be the ...

An American Werewolf in London begins with Blue Moon howling across the speakers while pastoral settings flicker by.  It isn’t until we get to “Written and Directed by John Landis” before we see any signs of life and it is a truck full of sheep, with two young American backpackers, David (David  ...

Ah, yes, the American Dream. It’s what has attracted countless immigrants to the land of opportunity, right? But shortly after arriving, there are so many instances in which said immigrants face the harsh reality that the American Dream seems to be a myth. This type of reality, while seldom told ...

It’s hard to conceive in this era of remakes that some redos in the history of cinema go on to become classics in their own right. For genre fans, John Carpenter’s The Thing is often cited as a prime example. For comedy, however, Billy Wilder’s beloved cross-dressing romp, Some Like It  ...