DVD Reviews

MPAA Rating: Not rated by the MPAA
Director: Frank Lloyd
Writer: Talbot Jennings & Jules Furthman and Carey Wilson
Cast: Clark Gable; Charles Laughton; Franchot Tone
Official Site: warnerblu.com
Genre: Classic | Adventure
Memorable Movie Quote: "When you're back in England with the fleet again, you'll hear the hue and cry against me. From now on they'll spell mutiny with my name."
Release Date: November 22, 1935
Own it on Blu-ray: November 16, 2010.
Mutiny on the Bounty [Blu-ray Book]

25th Anniversary Ultimate Collector's Edition

Director: Richard Donner
Writer: Chris Columbus
Cast: Sean Astin; Josh Brolin; Corey Feldman
Genre: Family | Adventure
Memorable Quote: "Dad! Dad! It's my marble bag. The Fratelis forgot to check it. I emptied out all of my marbles and put the jewels in. We don't have to leave the boon docks!"
Tagline: They call themselves "The Goonies." The secret caves. The old lighthouse. The lost map. The treacherous traps. The hidden treasure. And Sloth... Join the adventure.
Release Date: June 7, 1985
Blu-ray Release Date: November 2, 2010

The Harry Potter franchise, film by film, usually leaves me momentarily satisfied. The films - while never truly resonating with me - usually don’t disappoint with a narrative that simply refuses to fulfill its own imagination. They also don’t...

MPAA Rating: Not rated by the MPAA.
Director: Buster Keaton
Writer: Jean C. Havez & Joseph A. Mitchell & Clyde Bruckman
Cast: Buster Keaton; Kathryn McGuire; Joe Keaton
Genre: Classic; silent
Memorable Movie Quote: "We are lost! He is sending for the world's greatest detective - Sherlock Jr.!"
Release Date: April 21, 1924
Blu-ray Release Date: November 16, 2010.

There’s a scene in George Tillman Jr’s Faster which says everything you need to know about the movie.  Actually, it’s just a shot.  Maybe two seconds in length, too.  The camera is positioned behind the glass of the MPH...

MPAA Rating: PG-13 for crude material including suggestive references, language and some male rear nudity.
Director: Dennis Dugan
Writer: Adam Sandler, Fred Wolf
Cast: Adam Sandler; Salma Hayak; Kevin James; Chris Rock
Genre: Comedy
Memorable Movie Quote: "You know they have a chemical in the pool that turns urine blue."
Tagline: Boys will be boys... some longer than others.
Release Date: June 25, 2010
Blu-ray Release Date: November 9, 2010.

MPAA Rating: Not rated by the MPAA
Creators: Gerry Anderson, Sylvia Anderson
Cast: Martin Landau, Barbara Bain and Nick Tate
Genre: Adventure | Sci-Fi
Tagline: The Future Is Fantastic!
Memorable Movie Quote: "How can you value life if you do not fear death?"
Release Date: September 5, 1975
Blu-ray Release Date: November 30, 2010.

There’s no reason I can provide this review with to justify in you, dear reader, the absolute enjoyment I have for this film.  I know enough about film to recognize that The Warrior’s Way isn’t a great film in the pantheon of filmmaking.  There’s nothing wholly...

MPAA Rating: PG-13 for seuences of action violence throughout, and brief strong language.
Director: James Mangold
Writer: Patrick O'Neill
Cast: Tom Cruise; Cameron Diaz
Genre: Action | Adventure
Memorable Movie Quote: "No, actually, I shot the first pilot then he accidentally shot the second pilot. It's just one of those things."
Release Date: June 23, 2010
DVD Release Date: November 30, 2010

Two of Hollywood’s most glamorous and cherished heartthrobs team up for what will likely go down as one of the year’s most disappointing misfires. All the blame for The Tourist’s shortcomings can’t be placed on the beautiful little shoulders of...

MPAA Rating: R for some sexual content.
Director: Sofia Coppola
Writer: Sofia Coppola
Cast: Bill Murray; Scarlett Johansson; Catherine Lambert
Genre: Drama | Romance
Memorable Movie Quote: "I tried taking pictures, but they were so mediocre. I guess every girl goes through a photography phase. You know, horses... taking pictures of your feet."
Release Date: October 3, 2003
Blu-ray Release Date: December 7, 2010.

Greetings, Programs! Ah, the magic of a child with a quarter at the arcade. You remember. The sweaty palms. The seemingless endless GAME OVER and CONTINUE? screens. The flashing lights.  Journey – fronted by Steve Perry - on the ...

MPAA Rating: R for horror violence and for language.
Director: Guillermo del Toro
Writer: Guillermo del Toro
Cast: Ron Perlman; Federico Luppi
Genre: Horror | Drama
Memorable Movie Quote: "He thinks it will help him live longer."
Release Date: May 1994
Blu-ray Release Date: December 14, 2010.

On the surface, The King’s Speech plays like another obligatory Oscar-season melodrama rife with weighty performances, lofty prestige and convictive import. It is all that. But deeper within its soul, where few filmmakers have the courage - much less...

MPAA Rating: This title not rated by the MPAA
Director: Albert Parker
Writer: Douglas Fairbanks
Cast: Douglas Fairbanks; Billie Dove; Anders Randolf
Genre: Classic | Silent | Adventure
Tagline: The Love Story of a Bold Buccaneer
Release Date: March 8, 1926
Blu-ray Release Date: December 14, 2010.

MPAA Rating: PG-13 for sequences of action/violence and shootings, and for language.
Director: Brett Ratner
Writer: Jim Kouf
Cast: Jackie Chan, Chris Tucker; Tom Wilkinson; Chris Penn
Genre: Comedy | Action
Official Site: www.warnerblu.com
Memorable Movie Quote: "This is the LAPD. We're the most hated cops in all the free world. My own mama's ashamed of me. She tells everybody I'm a drug dealer."
Tagline: Two cops. One is all talk. The other is all action.
Release Date: September 18, 1998
Own it on Blu-ray: December 7, 2010.
Rush Hour [Blu-ray]

MPAA Rating: PG for brief rude humor, mild language and action.
Director: Rob Letterman
Writer: Joe Stillman, Nicholas Stoller
Cast: Jack Black; Jason Segal; Emily Blunt
Genre: Comedy | Adventure
Tagline: Black in the new big.
Memorable Movie Quote: "There's a guy who claims to have the secret to the Bermuda Triangle."
Release Date: December 25, 2010
Blu-ray Release Date: Not yet on Blu-ray/DVD.

MPAA Rating: This title not rated by the MPAA
Director: Peter Shin
Writer: David A. Goodman, Seth MacFarlane
Cast: Seth McFarlane; Alex Borstein; Seth Green; Mila Kunis
Genre: TV | comedy | animation
Memorable Movie Quote: "A long time ago... when you could actually go to Mexico on vacation"
Blu-ray Release Date: December 21, 2010.

Alejandro González Iñárritu is on roll. In just a few short years, he’s gone from just a fresh young face on the burgeoning Mexican filmmaking scene, to an old guard captain who, along with his paisanos Guillermo del Toro and Alfonso Cuarón ...

MPAA Rating: R for strong disturbing violence, language and some sexuality.
Director: Mikael Håfström
Writer: Stuart Beattie
Cast: Clive Owen; Jennifer Aniston; Vincent Cassell
Genre: Drama | Thriller
Tagline: Some lines should never be crossed.
Memorable Movie Quote: "If you brought that shank in here, it's *pre-meditated* murder. The law don't care who you kill."
Release Date: November 11, 2005
Blu-ray Release Date: December 28, 2010.

Director: Dominic Sena
Writer: Bragi F. Schut
Cast: Nicolas Cage; Ron Perlman; Claire Foy

Well, it’s January and sometimes that’s all you need to know about the quality of the releases being dumped onto the unsuspecting public.  Occasionally, like with the Underworld series, Hollyweird finds an eager audience hungry for their brooding darkness, but mostly the January releases just suck air and whatever money they can from an unsuspecting public.  Unfortunately, in spite of its fun-looking trailers, Season of the Witch, directed by Dominic Sena, is a total bust.  From beginning to end, this witchy monster-of-the-week movie is exactly the quality of its subject: an abominable beast.

There’s a memorable scene about halfway through Blue Valentine in which a young couple playfully performs an impromptu song and dance number – he, strumming the ukulele while warbling the lyrics to Doris Fischer and Alan Roberts’s...

MPAA Rating: PG-13 for intense sequences of violence and action.
Director: Phillip Noyce
Writer: Kurt Wimmer
Cast: Angelina Jolie; Liev Schreiber; Chiwetel Ejiofor
Genre: Action
Memorable Movie Quote: "My name is Vassily Orlov. Today, a Russian agent will travel to New York city to kill the President. This agent is KA-12."
Release Date: July 23, 2010
DVD Release Date: December 21, 2011

MPAA Rating: PG-13 for sci-fi fantasy violence and brief sexuality
Director: Casey Affleck
Writer: Casey Affleck: Joaquin Phoenix
Cast: Joaquin Phoenix; Casey Affleck; Jack Nicholson; Billy Crystal
Genre: Comedy
Memorable Movie Quote: "Do the snow angel, dude. I can reach you, do the @#$%& snow angel. Dude, do the @#$% snow angel. Do the snow angel, man. Do the @#$%& snow angel, dude. Do the @#$%& snow angel!"
Release Date: September 10, 2010.
Blu-ray Release Date: November 23, 2010.

There was a time when a Ron Howard film meant something; a mark of quality, a stroke of genius. The man has an incredible amount of talent and an incredible amount of films under his belt, but – in the last ten years or so...

In what might go down as the most critically polarized film of January 2011, Seth Rogan, star of such crude charmers as Knocked Up, Funny People, and Observe & Report, busts out the superhero mask in his turn as The Green Hornet...

Director: Sergio Leone
Writer: Harry Grey
Cast: Robert De Niro, James Woods, Elizabeth McGovern; Joe Pesci; Tuesday Weld

The story behind the scenes goes like this: master director Sergio Leone actually turned down an offer to direct The Godfather in order to focus on his lengthy adaptation of The Hoods, written by Harry Grey.  It must have been a tough decision. Especially since The Godfather and its sequel came out before his envisioned version of The Hoods saw the light of the day and also because both were hailed by his contemporaries as masterpieces of the medium. The critics and the public were content with their Gangster drama.  They needed no more. Yet, Leone remained relentless in his pursuit of telling the story of “growing up gangster”; he had a vision and it had to be told – even if it took 13 years from the day he turned down Paramount’s generous Godfather offer...

20th Anniversary Extended Cut Edition

Director: Kevin Costner
Writer: Michael Blake
Cast: Kevin Costner; Mary McDonnell; Graham Greene

There is a glorious peace that kicks up around the edges of the frame in Kevin Costner’s Dances with Wolves. It’s a pastoral sense of emotion that is accompanied by John Barry’s brilliant score; it beckons; it whispers; it brings out a feeling of compassion and understanding from its audience. While the film’s major themes might be heavy in thought, suggesting steely-eyed imperialism and national conquest, its little hand tickings are what makes the film run like clockwork. As a result, Dances with Wolves - twenty years later - might just be the most sincere film to ever come from out of the (mostly) deplorable depths of Hollywood.

Director: Philip Seymour Hoffman
Writer: Robert Glaudini
Cast: Philip Seymour Hoffman; John Ortiz; Robert Petrocelli; Amy Ryan

Bringing a stage play to the big screen poses some problems, but mostly it can open the story up in exciting ways – which is exactly what happens with this film adaptation of Bob Glaudini's 2007 stage play. No longer is this a play strictly about “pot heads” in love.  Suddenly, with an embracing of seldom seen New York locations and a story allowed to breathe and to expand, we have a genuine and nuanced film about people in love. Directed by its star, Philip Seymour Hoffman, Jack Goes Boating is a charming and funny film that flows nicely without a single disturbance in its waters.

The Company Men, the debut film of TV veteran John Wells (ER, The West Wing), takes a sobering look at what America went through during the financial and economic collapse of 2008. But whereas the images we watched play out before us on...