1.85:1 Widescreen

Memorial Day (Blu-ray)

Posted in Disc Reviews by J C on May 28th, 2012

“It’s Memorial Day. What am I supposed to remember?”

Happy Memorial Day, everyone! When I saw that I would be reviewing a movie called Memorial Day, I was afraid Garry Marshall had made another one of his awful ensemble romantic comedies — ala Valentine’s Day and New Year’s Eve — that stars everyone in Hollywood…and Hector Elizondo. Thankfully, this film is simply an (overly) earnest dedication to the men and women who have served in the Armed Forces, as well as their families.
Read More

The Secret World of Arrietty (Blu-ray)

Posted in Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on May 24th, 2012

Buy at Amazon.com

“It’s funny how you wake up each day and never really know if it will be one that will change your life forever. But that’s what this day was. The day I left the city to spend a week in the house where my mother grew up. A day I’ll never forget.”

The Secret World Of Arrietty comes from the collected works of English writer Mary Norton. The first book, The Borrowers, introduced us to the Clock family. They were a race of tiny humans known as Borrowers. They lived beneath the floorboards of normal-sized humans and lived off the things they could “borrow” from the human family.
Read More

Mimic 3 Film Set (Mimic / Mimic 2 / Mimic 3) (Blu-ray)

Posted in Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on May 8th, 2012

Buy at Amazon.com

“Every insect lives for just one purpose: Survival of its own kind.”

In 1997 Guillermo del Toro made his first English-language film. Mimic was based on a rather creepy short story by Donald A. Wollheim. Unfortunately, for del Toro and film fans everywhere, the director had more than his fair share of struggles with the studio powers that be, and he never really had the chance to make the movie he really hoped to make. The result is certainly an atmospheric and interesting film, but one wonders what the movie might have been like if del Toro had had his chance to make his own movie.
Read More

The Front Line (Blu-ray)

Posted in Disc Reviews by J C on May 3rd, 2012

Buy at Amazon.com

In terms of major conflicts involving the United States, the Korean War has sort of gotten the short end of the cinematic stick with American audiences. Most people can easily rattle off their favorite movies dealing with World War II, the Vietnam War or the U.S. Civil War, but when it comes to the Korean War the options are comparatively more limited. Off the top of my head, there’s M*A*S*H, the original Manchurian Candidate, and Don Draper suffering one of the most famous cases of identity theft. (I realize Mad Men is a TV show, so forgive me for reaching.)
Read More

We Bought a Zoo (Blu-ray)

Posted in Disc Reviews by J C on April 12th, 2012

Buy at Amazon.com

– “I have a question for you. You’re some random guy from the city, no one in the zoo community has ever heard of you. You know nothing about animals and you moved into a dump…why did you buy this place?”
– “Why not?”

Following the death of his beloved wife, Benjamin Mee does what any reasonable man would do under the same circumstances: he quits his job and moves his family into a zoo. I suspect you’ll enjoy this movie a lot more if you simply shrug your shoulders and say, “Why not?”
Read More

Alvin and the Chipmunks: Chipwrecked (Blu-ray)

Posted in Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on April 12th, 2012

Buy at Amazon.com

“They’re gonna rock the boat”

The Chipmunks began life oddly enough as a singing group, of sorts. They were the brainchild of struggling songwriter Ross Bagdasarian and were named after the three chief executives at Liberty records. His own alter ego David Seville’s name came from his World War II Army station in Spain. The Chipmunks first appeared in a 1958 record called The Witch Doctor, but wouldn’t officially become The Chipmunks until later that year when The Chipmunks Christmas Song was released. It is for that Christmas music that I most remember the group. They first appeared as puppets on The Ed Sullivan Show.
Read More

Kate and Leopold (Blu-Ray)

Posted in Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on April 11th, 2012

Buy at Amazon.com

Holy chick flicks, Batman! Aye, the torture! Even all of the previews on this disc are chick flicks. There are very few that I can stand. Mostly, because they do not follow the usual chick flick script. Will this one be one I can get behind? I guess we will see. If anything I can get behind watching Hugh Jackman for a few hours. Though, looking at the cover, I prefer him as Wolverine. Oh yes. Enough drooling, on with the show.
Read More

Astonishing X-Men – Dangerous

Posted in Disc Reviews by Michael Durr on April 10th, 2012

Buy at Amazon.com

I have read more than my fair share of comic books. In recent years, I made the jump into graphic novels which are basically the same thing with a fancy cover. There is also another trend that I have seen from time to time in the last several years, digital comics on dvd (and occasionally blu-ray). The concept of taking a comic, adding voices, sound effects and a little motion and coming out with a product that can reach new and old audiences. Let us take a look at Astonishing X-Men: Dangerous.
Read More

Tom and Jerry: In the Dog House

Posted in Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on March 27th, 2012

Buy at Amazon.com

In the 1930’s and 40’s MGM was trying to get in on the lucrative animation game. The field was dominated at the time by Warner Brothers with their Loony Tunes shorts, and of course, the iconic cast of animated characters coming out of the Walt Disney Studio. For years they had failed to find the right property to take advantage of the market. It wasn’t until the team of William Hanna and Joseph Barbera approached the studio with their first project that the times did change, at least a little, for the fledgling animation department at MGM.
Read More

Wizards (35th Anniversary Edition) (Blu-ray)

Posted in Disc Reviews by M. W. Phillips on March 26th, 2012

Buy at Amazon.com

“Ohh. Oh, Fritz? Fritz, get up for God’s sake! Get up! They’ve killed Fritz! They’ve killed Fritz! Those lousy stinking yellow fairies! Those horrible atrocity-filled vermin! Take that! Take that! They killed Fritz!!!”

Ralph Bakshi is probably best known for his x-rated animated adaptation of R. Crumb’s Fritz the Cat, the first animated film to receive an x-rating from the Motion Picture Association of America and still turn into the most successful independent animated feature of all time. When his second and also x-rated animated feature, Heavy Traffic, a blacker than coal satirical comedy
Read More

Hugo (Blu-ray)

Posted in Disc Reviews by David Annandale on March 17th, 2012

Buy at Amazon.com

In the 1930’s, the orphaned Hugo Cabret (Asa Butterfield) lives in the access tunnels of the Gare Montparnasse in Paris, winding the clocks, making sure that no one knows his guardian uncle has long-since gone AWOL, and filching bits and pieces of mechanisms that will allow him, he hopes, to repair the automaton he keeps in his living quarters. This is his last connection to his deceased father, and his dream is that the repaired machine will grant him a message from the beyond.
Read More

Immortals (Blu-ray)

Posted in Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on March 16th, 2012

Buy at Amazon.com

“When this world was still young, long before man or beast roamed these lands, there was a war in the heavens. Immortals, once thought incapable of death, discovered they had the power to kill one another. Lost in the war was a weapon of unimaginable power: The Epirus Bow.”

I know there are a lot of you out there who can’t wait for the huge 300 sequel: 300 The Battle Of Artemisia. You might even have your calendar circled for the Clash Of The Titans remake sequel Wrath Of The Titans, also on the horizon.
Read More

Gurozuka

Posted in Disc Reviews by David Annandale on March 8th, 2012

Buy at Amazon.com

A group of high school girls heads off into the woods to make a movie for their film club. What only the two organizers know is that they are heading for the site of a previous film club’s massacre. Their shoot descended into madness, with a participant in a deigan mask killing all the others, and the whole thing was recorded on tape. It isn’t long after the girls arrive that things start to go wrong, and it seems that history might be repeating itself.
Read More

To Catch a Thief (Blu-ray)

Posted in Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on February 29th, 2012

Buy at Amazon.com

To Catch A Thief is not typical Alfred Hitchcock territory, but then again, it really is. It’s not a terribly suspenseful film coming from the acclaimed “Master of Suspense”, nor is it at all a frightening film even though it was directed by one of horror’s genius minds. What really is scary, however, is how close to a different film this almost was. Cary Grant had exiled himself into retirement. If you can believe his statements at the time, he was concerned that the moviegoing public was pretty much sick of seeing him and preferred the younger actors just then coming of age.
Read More

The Fatboy Chronicles

Posted in Disc Reviews by William O'Donnell on February 19th, 2012

Buy at Amazon.com

Jimmy is a clinically overweight teen who is starting high school. He is immediately the target for relentless bullying but tries ignoring his classmates’ tormenting by focusing his attention on losing weight and trying to win over a girl he fancies in his classroom.
Read More

Annie Hall (Blu-ray)

Posted in Disc Reviews by Bob Ross on February 10th, 2012

Buy at Amazon.com

This April will mark 35 years since Woody Allen emerged as a world-class comic filmmaker. Although Annie Hall was his seventh feature (if you include the voice-over spy-spoof What’s Up, Tiger Lily?, which you certainly should), and although Allen already had a sizable group of admirers (including this longtime fan), his 1977 mainstream smash gave him commercial clout and a little something called the Best Picture Academy Award.
Read More

Shark Night (Blu-ray)

Posted in Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on February 2nd, 2012

Buy at Amazon.com

Written by Joe Gause

Here we go again! It’s another movie about something dangerous in the water. I’m not gonna lie here, folks, I wasn’t expecting to much out of this one, but to my surprise I enjoyed it quite a bit. So here’s the short and skinny. A bunch of college kids set off to a lake house to enjoy a much-needed vacation. There is a fair amount of drinking and flirting and tomfoolery (always wanted to use that word). Early in the film we discover that Sara (Sara Paxton) has a dark secret with one of the town locals. As the party gets under way, trouble starts to brew in paradise when one of the partygoers gets his arm ripped off by a shark!
Read More

The English Patient (Blu-ray)

Posted in Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on January 31st, 2012

Buy at Amazon.com

Written by Joe Gause

Pass the tissue please! If you plan on watching this movie, I recommend you buy yourself a big box of tissue and be prepared to shed a few tears. This extremely well done post-WWII love story is designed to show you that life doesn’t always have a happy ending. The cast is nothing short of incredible, and the acting is top-notch. Here’s the short and skinny. Count Laszio de Almasy’s (Ralph Fiennes) plane is shot down in the final days of the war. He is badly burned and is in need of special care. Nurse Hana ( Juliette Binoche) volunteers to look after him in an old rundown church. During their time together she discovers that he has had quite a past.
Read More

Good Morning, Vietnam (25th Anniversary Edition) (Blu-ray)

Posted in Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on January 20th, 2012

Buy at Amazon.com

“Goooood morning, Vietnam! Hey, this is not a test! This is rock and roll! Time to rock it from the Delta to the D.M.Z.!”

Since his early days on Mork and Mindy, Robin Williams has been in a lot of movies. Some of them are pretty good films. Others are even downright awful. He does have a habit of going over the top. Ask anyone you might meet for their favorite Robin Williams movie and the answers will most certainly differ. Still, two things are pretty certain.
Read More

Dead Poets Society (Blu-ray)

Posted in Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on January 18th, 2012

Buy at Amazon.com

Written by Joe Gause

What can be said about Dead Poets Society that has not been said before? This is what I consider a landmark in filmmaking. Director Peter Weir demonstrated true vision in the film process to deliver what some call an epic cinematic achievement. Combine that with an all-star cast (though many of them were just starting their careers), and it’s a true work of genius.
Read More

Serendipity (Blu-ray)

Posted in Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on January 13th, 2012

Buy at Amazon.com

It would still be two years before Kate Beckinsale would don her fangs, blue contacts, and black cat suit and become a blip on the radar for the guys among us. Yes, she had done Pearl Harbor, but how many guys thought that was just a romance story that happened to revolve around a particular historic event. Can anyone say Titanic? Serendipity came out the same year as Pearl Harbor, so 2001 was likely the year that Beckinsale really came out, at least to the women in the audience.
Read More

She’s All That (Blu-ray)

Posted in Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on January 13th, 2012

Buy at Amazon.com

Where do I begin? There was this rather formulaic movement that started in the 1990’s and continued to just a few years ago. It was certainly that generation’s version of Animal House. Every generation has them. They typically star teen idols or up and coming young stars and where my generation often placed them in college, these films were all about high school. They tend to take advantage of the cool trends of the time from the present pop culture to the style of music.
Read More

Mr. Popper’s Penguins (Blu-Ray)

Posted in Disc Reviews by Michael Durr on December 28th, 2011

Buy at Amazon.com

When I was a kid, I read a lot of books. The most fond tales of my youth include Sword of Shannara (Terry Brooks), Dear Mr. Henshaw (Beverly Clearly), Charlotte’s Web (EB White) and Mr. Popper’s Penguins (Richard & Florence Atwater). Each one of those books holds special memories and I’ve read each of them at least a few times. Today, we get to explore another one of those treasured books in film form. Enter, Mr. Popper’s Penguins.
Read More

Velvet Goldmine (Blu-Ray)

Posted in Disc Reviews by Michael Durr on December 21st, 2011

Buy at Amazon.com

Most people if they were to look at my music collection would notice one genre more than others. That is glam rock. From the mid 80’s to early 90’s, glam rock was completely in vogue with bands like Bon Jovi, Whitesnake and Motley Crue. However, if you were to read up on your glam history, it actually started in the seventies with groups like the New York Dolls and stars such as David Bowie. Enter the movie, Velvet Goldmine, a fictional look at Brian Slade, better known as Maxwell Demon.
Read More

Another Earth (Blu-ray)

Posted in Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on December 14th, 2011

Buy at Amazon.com

“Within our lifetimes, we’ve marveled as biologists have managed to look at ever smaller and smaller things. And astronomers have looked further and further into the dark night sky, back in time and out in space. But maybe the most mysterious of all is neither the small nor the large: it’s us, up close.”

Another Earth has all the earmarks of a first feature film for director Mike Cahill. It’s also quite obvious that the director is far more comfortable in the documentary style of filmmaking.
Read More

«< 11 12 13 14 15 >»