Reel Reviews - Official Site

Well, this one definitely flew under the radar.  After its initial premiere at the 2021 Sundance Film Festival, Mass quietly made its festival rounds, then only to be played in a very few select theaters, until finally in December, it got a VOD release, and now, to the thanks of Bleeker Street, we finally are  ...

Read more: Mass (2021) - Blu-ray Review

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  ...

Read more: Dirty O'Neil (1974) - Blu-ray Review

“The mob doesn’t think. It has a mind of its own.” In 1933, some loud-mouthed man with a tiny mustache and a weird haircut rose to power in the country of Germany. His name, I believe, was Adolf Hitler. You may have heard of him, no? Well, he established a dictatorship to replace ...

Read more: Fury (1936) - Blu-ray Review

Perhaps one of, if not the most important film movement in cinema’s history is that of the French New Wave, that made its audacious emergence in the late 1950’s and lasted until about the late 1960’s. Throwing out every rule of the dominating studio system, this movement took to the streets  ...

Read more: The Celebration: Criterion Collection (1998) - Blu-ray Review

Jack Hill is BACK in a BIG way! For anyone who “hates” on exploitation film auteur Jack Hill’s The Swinging Cheerleaders for its objectification of women – namely cheerleaders – there’s a need for a brief lesson in film and cultural history.  Made during the 1970s, Hill’s movie was a very ...

Read more: The Swinging Cheerleaders: Arrow Video 2K Restoration (1974)

“You stinkin’ rat!” For crime flicks, High Sierra, directed by Raoul Walsh, is indeed a watershed moment as the gangster pictures of the 1930s gave way to the fatalism found in Film Noir, which would dominate the 1940s.  Making spectacular use of its locations ...

Read more: High Sierra: Criterion Collection (1941) - Blu-ray Review

Eddie Brock has a BIG secret! It takes a couple of views, but Venom: Let There Be Carnage is a fun, fast-paced flick that, easy to swallow, gets straight to the point as Eddie Brock (Tom Hardy) continues to live with the unwanted shape-shifting symbiote known as Venom (also voiced by ...

Read more: Venom: Let There Be Carnage - 4K Ultra HD Blu-Ray Review

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! ...

Read more: Monster From Green Hell: The Film Detective Special Edition (1957) - Blu-ray Review

Metallic hands and dark glasses!  There can be only one Dr. Gogol!   Maybe it is the warning that is issued as the film begins in total blackness or maybe it is the way that Peter Lorre is lit and filmed throughout this horror film, but Mad Love absolutely works its twisted ways in a modern viewing and ...

Read more: Mad Love: Warner Archive Collection (1935) - Blu-ray Review

In just five short years since the much-maligned Spider-Man 3, Marvel’s Spider-Man gets the rebooted remake in Marc Webb’s thrilling The Amazing Spider-Man.  While, before seeing the picture, one could argue the rationale of such a move on Columbia’s part, the necessity however becomes  ...

Read more: The Amazing Spider-Man 1 & 2 4K Ultra HD Blu-Ray Set (Limited Edition) - Review

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  ...

Read more: An American Werewolf in London 4K Ultra HD Blu-Ray Limited Edition (1981) Review

If we are to believe the film’s promotional materials, namely its poster which asks “Who Made Tony Soprano,” then The Many Saints of Newark is an origin story for the fictional gangster played by James Gandolfini in David Chase’s groundbreaking, award-winning HBO drama series ...

Read more: The Many Saints of Newark - 4K UHD Blu-ray Review

Lon Chaney as Quasimodo.  Need I say anymore?  I don’t really think so, but I’ll flex.  The Hunchback of Notre Dame is a certified REEL CLASSIC of silent, cinematic horror and it begins right there with Chaney’s performance as the deaf, half-blind, hunchbacked bell-ringer of the famous Cathedral of ...

Read more: The Hunchback of Notre Dame: 4K Restoration (1923) - Blu-ray Review

Exploitation flicks don’t get any nastier than this!  You've been warned.  If there is any thread of humanity left within you, you'll just stop reading now and go about your day.  Nothing to see here. Still here?  Goooooood.  Then you already know just how absolutely AWESOME this film is and, yeah, there's plenty to see.  I don't know  ...

Read more: Thriller: A Cruel Picture (1973) - Blu-ray Review

It’s Spencer Tracey and Katherine Hepburn. Are you sold on it yet? No? Alright, let’s talk: When you think about Tracey-Hepburn films, Frank Capra’s 1948 State of the Union is certainly not as revered or remembered in the way that Woman of the Year, Adam’s Rib, or even Guess Who’s  ...

Read more: State of the Union (1948) - Blu-ray Review