DVD Reviews

When most people hear the word “history,” they think of a dry, boring subject full of dull facts to memorize. But that’s not the impression you get from Denial, based on the true story of a historian in the 1990s who takes on a Holocaust denier in court. Deborah Lipstadt (Rachel Wiesz)  ...

The rhinos are back! And so are the laughs, as we have the rare sequel that actually works because it dares to do something a bit different with our expectations. Not that anything in Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle is all that intelligent, mind you, but the charm from the  ...

To this day, there remains something insanely special about director Brian De Palma’s Carrie.  It is based on the once-discarded novel by Stephen King, but was painstakingly adapted for the screen by Lawrence D. Cohen.  Cohen got everything about King’s first novel right  ...

The horror genre is going to some interesting new places of late. With the recent critical and box office success of last year’s Get Out, the acceptance of last month’s intoxicating mind trip Annihilation, and now with A Quiet Place’s rousing world premier at Austin’s SXSW  ...

Look, if this is THE END of the Insidious series, then okay, I can live with it. After all, Insidious: The Last Key gives Lin Shaye (as parapsychologist Dr. Elise Rainier) more room to shine than ever before. She does, too. Even if the script and the directing is bit of a dullard, she  ...

Rampage is really big. And really dumb. And, yes, really fun. The film works because NEVER EVER does it take itself seriously. How could it?! After all, this is a film whose only requirement is that it have a giant lizard (er, alligator), a giant wolf, and a giant ape pulverizing buildings into ...

It begins with The Temptations. You know the groove. The high-hat and then the bass guitar; both working to dig deeper.   Papa Was a Rolling Stone, after all. And while the groove sets in, we see – with retro credits flashing upon the screen – actress Taraji P. Henson as she suits ...

And the late-career action hero rebirth of Liam Neeson successfully concludes with The Commuter.  That’s right, folks, this is it for Neeson.  Well, that’s if he is to be believed.  Is The Commuter the high note it needs to be for such an announcement?  Not really.  It is, at its  ...

The must huggable and snuggable bear is back spreading optimism as if it was marmalade itself! Paddington (voiced again by Ben Whishaw) returns in this brilliant sequel that both kids and adults will absolutely love. Paddington 2, directed again...

Cary Grant. Irene Dunne. Together again or – if we are speaking chronologically – for the very first time as The Awful Truth, being originally released in 1937. It is, as film historians recognize, a cinematic match made in Heaven as these two talented individuals run circles around each other ...

Because you don’t mess with Cher. Just ask director Lasse Hallström or Frank Oz, who was first originally hired to take over the reigns from Hallström before he, too, was booted. And then there is Emily Lloyd. Poor Lloyd got dropped so suddenly (due to Cher’s whim about ...

Like the Basket Weaving 101 class offered to help fulfill those elective credits in college, Life of the Party should have been a slam dunk. Just put the funny person in funny situations, roll camera, cut, print, and go to the bank. But there’s a reason I’m not a filmmaker. And it’s the same ...

Much of the fun and joy of watching a Star Wars movie these days comes not from discovering something new, but rather from revisiting everything old with a new set of eyes. Whether the original series of sequels and prequels or within the Star Wars Story ‘tweeners,  ...

It can’t be easy to emote well under a face full of prosthetics, but Jacob Tremblay does a great job doing just that in Wonder. Based on the bestselling children’s novel by R. J. Palacio, Wonder tells the story of 10-year-old August “Auggie” Pullman. In many ways, Auggie’s like a ...

Hey, Meatsicle! Get your ass some popcorn and go to the show this weekend. Another round of great comic book sendoffs has been sent to theaters and you don’t want to miss this shit. At all.  ...

By the 1980s, cinema was in well and truly in the post Star Wars world. Its monster success and permeation into the cultural zeitgeist still looms large over movies today. Like any profitable venture, those left bobbing about aimlessly in the wake of such a phenomenon try to ride that  ...

In which Katniss Everdeen gets down and dirrrty...but you still won't care.  From Russia with Love this spy game is not.  Red Sparrow is a spy movie that should work. It has a very talented cast and the story, about a former Russian ballerina who ...

What if all this autonomous technology and cybernetic artificial intelligence stuff we’ve so ardently allowed to slowly creep into our lives suddenly went haywire and began crashing cars, recording our conversations, and sending our most private discussions to random people in  ...

Because crime is a family affair. I’m not going to say that we needed an Ocean’s 11 spin-off. All I am going to say is that, as an avid fan of Steven Soderbergh’s style-centric comedic heist films starring George Clooney, Brad Pitt, and Matt Damon, I am just thrilled to see the franchise ...

At least the filmmakers got the character right. Fist pumping all the way out of the theater this March, that was my big takeaway from this reboot. Finally, a Lara Croft film that felt EXACTLY like the character should. She just needed a better storyline. Maybe next time, right? ...

You know you’ve just watched a bad movie when the post-credits video montage of the real characters who inspired the story is the best part of the entire ordeal. That’s exactly the case with Tag, a film inspired by the real-life story of a group of middle-aged men who’ve been playing an ...

In the post-Thanos world of the MCU, it’s nice to be welcomed into the comforting arms of a film we can simply sit back and enjoy. And that’s certainly the case with Ant-Man and the Wasp, a fast-paced, funny, superhero romp that is light on emotion and heavy on humor ...

Amputees attack! If you are reading this then you are probably wondering if Dwayne Johnson’s new action flick is as yet another brainless actioneer.  Skyscraper is EXACTLY that.  Dumb.  Stupid.  Shameless. The movie, defying gravity and logic time and ...

Foundations need to be shaken. Whatever happened to man’s best friend?  Isle of Dogs, written and directed by Wes Anderson, has the answer and it comes into focus via stop-motion.  This is Anderson’s second stop-motion feature but it might ...

So many movies have been made about inspiring teachers, you wonder what’s left to say about them. But the indie drama Miss Stevens tells a fresh new story about a very human, flawed English teacher named Rachel (Lily Rabe from American Horror Story) who connects  ...

If there’s anything to be said about the Mission: Impossible franchise it is that it lives up to its name by continuing to defy the odds with its little game of self oneupmanship – each new installment seemingly doing the impossible by keeping the franchise alive, viable, and  ...

The end of the summer season is upon us, Moviegoers.  What better way to celebrate the last hurrah of silliness then with a mega-sized shark causing all sorts of chaos at the cinema?  True, The Meg – about a 75-foot-long prehistoric shark known as the Megalodon ...

Born from the pages of a short story, bottle fed on the milk of science fiction, raised on a road trip, and nurtured in the loving bosom of family drama, the new movie Kin is a curious but frustrating conglomeration of many genres. Certainly an ambitious undertaking from filmmaking ...

When it comes to matters of horror, religion will always be mined.  Life and death and the quest for what’s on the other side, right? The Nun, the latest spinoff from The Conjuring series, has been spooking people with its trailers for quite some time.  The film; however ...

Throughout A Star is Born, Bradley Cooper’s character growls out the lyrics “Maybe it’s time to let the old ways die” with a crooning intimacy that lays the familiar groundwork for what’s at play in his film about two stars passing in the night; one fading away, the other  ...