Here are our latest reviews of films on DVD.
Reviews of Classic Films
The Crowd
Rick Aragon @ Rick’s Cafe Texan
- Excerpt: When I finished The Crowd, I did not get the sense that there was any ‘downbeat’ ending. If anything, I finished The Crowd not with a sense of despair, but with a sense of hope.
Greed
Rick Aragon @ Rick’s Cafe Texan
- Excerpt: Even in this ‘short’ version, Greed remains of the greatest silent films and among the Great Films in All Cinema, its visual impact and story of the corrupted nature of man still powerful and relevant today.
I Am a Fugitive From a Chain Gang
Rick Aragon @ Rick’s Cafe Texan
- Excerpt: I Am A Fugitive from a Chain Gang is a devastating picture, and I think it is one of the best examples of using sound in early talking pictures.Modern filmmakers take note: THIS is how a message gets delivered.
Kwaidan
M. Enois Duarte @ High-Def Digest.com
London After Midnight
Rick Aragon @ Rick’s Cafe Texan
- Excerpt: Judging the reconstruction, London After Midnight isn’t a bad picture, certainly elevated by Lon Chaney’s dual performance.
Star Wars – Episode One: The Phantom Menace (1999) / Episode Two: Attack of the Clones (2002) / Episode Three: Revenge of the Sith (2005)
Roderick Heath @ Ferdy on Films
- Excerpt: I was and still am bewildered by the level of invective the prequel trilogy receives. In some ways, I even prefer those films today.
Recent Home Video Releases
Assassination
Peter Nellhaus @ Coffee, Coffee and more Coffee
Dont Look Back
Jordan M. Smith @ IONCINEMA.com
Lost Lost Lost & Walden
Jordan M. Smith @ IONCINEMA.com
Monty Python and the Holy Grail
- Excerpt: A fresh look at the ultimate mock epic, after the Python method has been assimilated into the cultural DNA, reveals the subversive spirit of this bloody and cynical Arthurian deconstruction.
The Sentinel
M. Enois Duarte @ High-Def Digest.com
Tales from the Crypt: Bordello of Blood
M. Enois Duarte @ High-Def Digest.com
Troll / Troll 2
M. Enois Duarte @ High-Def Digest.com
Other Reviews from 2014 and earlier
Don’t Drink The Water (1969)
Dennis Schwartz @ Dennis Schwartz Movie Reviews
Enemy
- Excerpt: Good, unsettling fun
Flying Disc Man From Mars (Blu-ray)
- Excerpt: Admittedly uninspired serial shenanigans, but Republic’s expertise at this point in the genre’s timeline guarantees at the very least an entertaining meat-and-potatoes outing.
The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies – Extended Edition
M. Enois Duarte @ High-Def Digest.com
The Hunger Games: Mockingjay Part 1
Hugo Gomes @ Cinematograficamente Falando … [Portuguese]
Medium Cool
Jamie S. Rich @ Criterion Confessions
- Excerpt: Haskell Wexler was already an accomplished cameraman in 1969 when he picked up the device for himself to write and direct Medium Cool, a film that dissects his own vocation while also challenging the social mores of the late 1960s and the role media was playing in the shifting cultural landscape. The technique he employed was audacious, combining cinema verité with the emerging gonzo American style, predicting both 1970s Hollywood filmmaking and the more current intersection of citizen and celebrity.
Motel Hell
James Jay Edwards @ FilmFracture
- Excerpt: Cinema Fearité Presents ‘Motel Hell’ – A Movie That Will Scare The Laughs Right Out Of You
The Night Walker / Dark Intruder Horror Double Feature
The Paper
- Excerpt: The inside-baseball feel of the newsroom material (co-writer Stephen Koepp did time in the trenches) is what makes ‘The Paper’ sing. It’s a script steeped in delicious jargon: “wood,” “slammer,” “wet break,” “perp walk,” “spaghetti shots” (don’t ask); the crackling energy, offhand humor, and sly one-upmanship of the editorial meetings is sheer joy.
Quantum of Solace
Hugo Gomes @ Cinematograficamente Falando … [Portuguese]
Red Hollywood
Mathieu Li-Goyette @ Panorama-cinéma [French]
River of Fundament
Kenji Fujishima @ Brooklyn Magazine
Rocky IV
- Excerpt: This doesn’t just seem like a movie from a later era. It seems like a movie from another universe.
Skyfall
Hugo Gomes @ Cinematograficamente Falando … [Portuguese]
Spring Breakers
Hugo Gomes @ Cinematograficamente Falando … [Portuguese]
Star Wars: Episode I – The Phantom Menace
Tim Brayton @ Antagony & Ecstasy
Tar
Hugo Gomes @ Cinematograficamente Falando … [Portuguese]
Voodoo Man (Blu-ray)
- Excerpt: Dreamy silliness from the vaults of Monogram horror, starring a trio of classic horror icons: Bela Lugosi, George Zucco, and John Carradine. Plenty of cheapjack black-and-white atmosphere, a weirdo dream-like pace, and some surprisingly funny moments.
West
- Excerpt: Worth seeking out