DVD Reviews

Part home invasion thriller, part horror, and part social commentary, the only thing more impressive than the number of genre elements at play in Jordan Peele’s newest film, Us, is the total body count. Well, that and the incredible attention to detail the filmmaker pays to every  ...

In order to fully appreciate just how CRAZY Aquaman is, I suggest you being four or five beers deep.  Seriously. DC needs James Wan.  The proof is just how enjoyably bonkers Aquaman is, which Wan directed.  Finally free from the brooding destruction of Zach Snyder’s spin on   ...

2017’s IT adaptation has heralded somewhat of a renaissance of Stephen King based films. The deftly adapted retelling of King’s doorstop novel from the Eighties raked in over 700 million worldwide, so it was no surprise to hear that further re-adaptations were quickly put  ...

The DCEU, if it is even called that anymore, has been making significant strides with its output in the last couple of years—and amazingly WITHOUT its two heavy hitters. Wonder Woman and Aquaman have both made commercial and critical strides that the last few entries involving  ...

The new film starring Sam Rockwell and Taraji P. Henson called The Best of Enemies is about finding common ground and learning to overcome our differences. Certainly a noble idea that could serve us all quite well in these divisive and contentious times. It's just too bad the ...

As a huge fan of Guillermo Del Toro’s 2004 original adaptation of Mike Mignola’s Hellboy, I was disappointed that he didn’t get to round out his trilogy in this universe. But, as with most things that make a buck these days, it was inevitable that someone would take up  ...

Face it, you didn’t go see this film when it was released. The advertisements didn’t sell it well enough, did they? Well, this box office bomb is actually pretty damn good. It might be, for a kid’s movie, too long, but The Kid Who Would Be King has a great message and an even  ...

Eleven years ago, I snorted derisively at the audacity of the newly minted Marvel Studios plans. Without a single hit to their name, a grand plan had been hatched: they would release a litany of films, starring their various characters (that they still had the rights to) and combine  ...

An angry woman scorned eerily stalks the world’s rivers and waterways by night wearing a threadbare wedding gown as she looks for children to drown. This is the subject of the age-old Latin American folktale of La Llorona or “The Weeping Woman” that has fueled the  ...

“Unlikely, but not impossible.” That’s the tagline for this farcical odd-couple comedy called Long Shot which stars Charlize Theron and Seth Rogen. The tagline speaks to the poor odds of a highly successful, physically attractive, 40-something Secretary of  ...

The only thing more difficult than making a feature documentary film may be running a farm. But farmer/filmmaker John Chester does both in his new film, The Biggest Little Farm, a sweet little documentary that chronicles the near-decade-long struggle of he and wife Molly’s plan to leave the city life behind and ...

Whether for good or bad, we were all labeled in high school. And whether we liked it or not, one of the most awkward times of our lives undoubtedly became the indelible forehead stamp that each of us has tried to erase ever since ...

The King has returned - along with 17 other classic Titans - but, hey, long live the King! Continuing the plot of 2014’s Godzilla and 2017's Kong: Skull Island as far as the Monarch Corporation is concerned, Godzilla: King of the Monsters is a creature-centered film that wastes little time in giving ...

Creative writing courses talk about where that spark of an idea can come from, and how to nurture that possibility into something bigger. One of the catalysts most often encouraged is to pose a question. Writers Brian and Mark Gunn have most definitely asked a question in their creation of Brightburn ...

The trailers for Night School looked so promising. With talented comic actors like Tiffany Haddish (Girls Trip) and Kevin Hart, how could they go wrong? Rob Riggle, rapper Fat Joe and Taran Killam of Saturday Night Live fame round out a usually funny ensemble cast, but they can ...

One of the toughest challenges faced by screenwriters when developing a sequel – especially to a wildly popular animated film – is how to best capture the same spirit and vibe of the original while also taking the story and characters we love to new ...

Swing for the lights! I am not sure there is any other film in cinema that screams out AMERICANA as much as The Natural does.  It is steeped in everything that makes AND breaks America. ...

The #metoo movement wouldn’t stand a chance in John Shaft’s world. The most badass private detective to ever don a leather duster gets a modern-day update in Tim Story’s revisit to the Shaft franchise that kicked off the blaxploitation movement back in the early ’70’s ...

Bad news: Toy Story 4 is Pixar’s biggest money grab to date. Good news: This is Pixar, so it never feels like one. It is not a stretch to say that the company couldn’t make a bad movie if it tried. After all, none of its films ...

A good movie always begins with a killer premise. And Yesterday, the new film from director Danny Boyle and screenwriter Richard Curtis has a great one. It takes on the idea of what our world would be like today if The Beatles never existed ...

Making any film is a tricky endeavor, let alone a film in a franchise that shows no duds. Added to which, this latest incarnation has been balanced carefully between ...

Here’s a bit of life advice. Never trust the remote village that no one has ever heard of, especially if it puts on a pagan celebration that even fewer are aware of. I promise, you’ll thank me later for this. ...

Quentin Tarantino’s latest film, Once Upon a Time… in Hollywood has everything you expect in a Tarantino film; extreme violence, black humor, loving tribute, and plenty of pop culture iconography. It’s all there. We’ve become experts at spotting his stylistic trademarks ...

If you’re watching God’s Not Dead: A Light in the Darkness, chances are you already believe in God. Like its two previous installments, God’s Not Dead 3 comes from family friendly studio Pure Flix and stars David A.R. White as Pastor Dave Hill, who had been introduced in ...

Times were so much simpler when the Fast & Furious franchise first got underway back in 2001. The tragic events of 9/11 had not yet complicated our world, $150 million + movie budgets weren't commonplace, and VCR players were the much-coveted electronic  ...

Pokémon Detective Pikachu is a cute movie.  I will give this family friendly flick, directed by Rob Letterman, that, but none of its cute and cuddly chumminess makes up for the fact that this movie doesn’t really know what or where it is.  The buddy picture borrows from all sorts of genres but is supremely ...

Your new favorite monster movie, clocking in at a zippy 75-minutes, will have you stomping your way toward extinction thanks to laughing so damn hard at its rubber-suited antics, its 1980s shock and schlock kicks ...

One of the kids at the center of the new comedy Good Boys confidently tells his two best friends, “It’s a tampon. Girls shove it up their butts to stop babies from coming out.” The object in question is indeed a tampon, they got that part right. But, of ...

Featuring a special needs character in a film is always a risky proposition that has the potential to cross that fine line between exploitation and exposition. ...

When Stephen King’s doorstop novel was adapted for TV in the 90’s, it accomplished what shouldn’t have been possible. King’s novel is a behemoth tome, with dozens of characters, and was one of his truly graphic forays into the horror genre for ...