Tag: Studio Film Blu Ray Review
Criterion Collection: Love Affair (1939) | Blu-ray Review
If there’s any film which really conjures an ‘empire state of mind,’ it’s Leo McCarey’s 1939 romantic tearjerker, Love Affair. Strangely, despite an intensely...
Written on the Wind (1956) | Criterion Collection Blu-ray Review
Despite having directed several dozen films across a career which ranged from 1930s Germany to late 1950s Hollywood, Douglas Sirk is best remembered for...
Lighted Fools of Yesterday: The Grass Isn’t Always Greener in Sirk’s Neglected Drama “There’s Always Tomorrow” | Blu-ray Review
When one ponders the filmography of Douglas Sirk, one languishes in his successful meditation on stifled American lives in his 1950s soapy melodramas, the...
I Ain’t Afraid of No Ghost(s): Beck Storms Castle’s Camp Classic with Thir13en Ghosts (2001) | Blu-ray Review
There was a time when it appeared there might be an onslaught of remakes plundered from the often fun, often risible filmography of B-movie...
Surrender the Pink: Deutch’s Debut a Dated Vintage “Pretty in Pink” (1986) | Blu-ray Review
The films of John Hughes and the resulting compendium of actors who starred in them, lovingly remembered as the Brat Pack, define a particular...
Daughters of Darkness: Losey’s Neglected, Eccentric Psychodrama “Secret Ceremony” Resurrected | Blu-ray Review
“It’s Time to Speak of Unspoken Things,” read the tagline for Joseph Losey’s 1968 psychodrama Secret Ceremony, a bizarro bit of tawdriness about two...
Criterion Collection: Leave Her to Heaven (1945) | Blu-ray Review
“I’ll never let you go,” Gene Tierney’s Ellen Berent coos to her husband/victim in the 1945 melodrama film-noir Leave Her to Heaven. It’s a...
Criterion Collection: Bamboozled (2000) | Blu-ray Review
That Spike Lee remains one of the true provocative soothsayers of cinema should come as no surprise, yet it’s an epiphany for those reconsidering...
One Flew Over the Butcher Shop: Altman’s Klutzy Crafting of “Beyond Therapy” (1987) | Blu-ray Review
The 1980s were a difficult period for Robert Altman, stumbling into the decade with two high profile projects, HealtH and Popeye, both poorly received....
Dog Days Are Over: Lee Examines Conflict and Crisis in “Summer of Sam” | Blu-ray Review
Without a doubt, Spike Lee is one of the most notable contemporary American filmmakers of the last thirty years. His masterpieces, uneven as some...
When the Walls Can Talk: Forbes’ Forgotten “The Whisperers” Finds New Breath | Blu-ray Review
British director Bryan Forbes is perhaps best remembered for his iconic American horror film The Stepford Wives, which became a genre classic and entered...
Criterion Collection: The Story of Temple Drake (1933) | Blu-ray Video Review
“Women will understand!” read one of the many various taglines associated with The Story of Temple Drake, the pre-code rape and revenge talkie the...
Stranger Danger in Lumet’s Troubled Romantic Thriller “A Stranger Among Us” (1992) | Blu-ray Review
One of the few misfires of director Sidney Lumet’s extensive and impressive filmography, his 1992 romantic thriller A Stranger Among Us finds itself recuperated...
Scott Steers Through Stormy Weather in Tepid Family Action Film “White Squall” (1996) | Blu-ray Review
The 1990s were a troubling period for Ridley Scott. After starting off on a high note with the iconic melodrama Thelma & Louise (1991),...
Criterion Collection: Now, Voyager (1942) | Blu-ray Review
It ends with one of cinema’s most quotable lines of dialogue, as a chain-smoking Bette Davis slyly slows a Paul Henreid in his lukewarm...
Cop Shop: Siegel Crafts a Template with Widmark in Dated Cop Drama “Madigan” (1968) | Blu-ray Review
Kino Lorber refurbishes two B-side tracks from the filmography of Don Siegel, exemplifying both the highs and lows of his penchant for contemporary crime...
Wilder Concocts an Affair to Remember in Underrated A Foreign Affair (1948) | Blu-ray Review
One of a handful of Billy Wilder’s underrated films is the dark romantic comedy A Foreign Affair (1948), which was filmed in the bombed-out...
Malone’s the Angel in the Centerfold of Sirk’s High-Flying The Tarnished Angels (1957) | Blu-ray Review
There remains a dearth of unappreciated titles from German émigré Douglas Sirk’s lengthy filmography, which basically includes anything outside of his seminal Hollywood melodramas...
Love is Darkness in French-tinted Noir from Joseph H. Lewis’ So Dark the Night (1946) | Blu-ray Review
For his follow-up to the box-office success My Name is Julia Ross, Joseph H. Lewis turned to the French countryside for So Dark the...
Much Ado About Marriage in Pevney’s Firefox (1955) | Blu-ray Review
Like nearly all of director Joseph Pevney’s films, 1955’s Foxfire has been more or less forgotten, despite starring Jane Russell. It’s a pity considering...
The Cookie Crumbles in Altman’s The Gingerbread Man (1998) | Blu-ray Review
From the B-side of Robert Altman’s filmography is his 1998 attempt at neo-noir with The Gingerbread Man, based on an original screenplay by John...
Political Pleasures in Potter’s The Farmer’s Daughter (1947) | Blu-ray Review
Few of director H.C. Potter’s films seem to have endured the tests of time, at least as far as influence. Despite having directed several...
Same Song Different Dinosaur in Bayona’s Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom | Blu-ray Review
While it took in over a billion dollars globally, nearly half of that at the domestic box office, J.A. Bayona’s addition to Spielberg’s dino...
Lange at the Farm – Part 2 in “A Thousand Acres” (1997) | Blu-ray Review
A highly compromised and ultimately disappointing adaptation of Jane Smiley’s Pulitzer-Prize winning novel A Thousand Acres seems to have been a grueling experience...
Lange at the Farm – Part 1 in “Country” (1984) | Blu-ray Review
The 1984 melodrama Country exists as a minor yet notable footnote in the limited but prolific filmography of Jessica Lange. Her first role following...
Carpenter Gets Mouthy with Inventive “In the Mouth of Madness” (1994) | Blu-ray Review
In the continued resurrection of several forgotten and neglected titles by John Carpenter (which included recent Blu-ray released of Village of the Damned, Memoirs...
Walsh Gets Wacky in ‘The Revolt of Mamie Stover’ (1956) | Blu-ray Review
In hindsight, something as tawdry and salacious as The Revolt of Mamie Stover seems to have been enhanced by the severe restrictions of the...
Carpenter’s Nowhere to Be Seen in his Memoirs of an Invisible Man (1992)
John Carpenter’s first entry in the 1990s, Memoirs of an Invisible Man, plays like the death knell of the genre icon’s impressive career, marking...
Cukor Goes Crazy with A Bill of Divorcement (1932) | Blu-ray Review
A dated romantic melodrama based on a 1920s play by Clemence Dane (who won a Best Screenplay Oscar in 1945 for Alexander Korda’s Vacation...
Wise Gets Going with Cat People in a False Sequel The Curse of the Cat People (1944) | Blu-ray Review
An oddity amongst oddities from the annals of producer Val Lewton, 1944’s The Curse of the Cat People is an early example of Hollywood’s...
The Reincarnation of Peter Proud | Blu-ray Review
British import J. Lee Thompson was perhaps most revered in the 1950s and 60s, competing in Cannes (the Diana Dors headlined Yield to the...
Tuesday Blus: Stayin’ Alive with Larry Cohen | Blu-ray Review
As far as devious killer babies go, Larry Cohen’s seminal It’s Alive trilogy is, alongside Roman Polanski’s Rosemary’s Baby (1969), a cornerstone of the...
Tuesday Blus: Spoils to the Victor in Vidor’s Ruby Gentry (1952)
Had Ruby Gentry been penned several years earlier, it would have most likely been swooped up as a star vehicle for Joan Crawford, especially...
Tuesday Blus: A Child is Waiting in Najafi’s Action Ms.-Fire | Proud Mary (2018)
If blaxploitation had been granted the opportunity to morph into characterless soap opera, it would have been a movement populated by the likes of...
Tuesday Blus: Dwansong – Allan Dwan & Gloria Swanson X2 from the Roaring 20s
It’s impossible to avoid mention of Gloria Swanson when ruminating on the early days of American cinema, a film and fashion icon who was...
Tuesday Blus: Hawn Gets Heard in Harris’ Melodrama Deceived (1991)
Arriving in the midst of Goldie Hawn’s last real prolific period in the early-to-mid 1990s, the Damian Harris (son of actor Richard Harris and...
Tuesday Blus: Insidious Fourtune for Robitel’s Franchise Entry
Scaring up one-hundred-and-sixty-million for its final worldwide box office take, the fourth installment of the James Wan originated franchise, Insidious: The Last Key was...
Tuesday Blus: Henri-Georges Clouzot’s Inferno & Delmer Daves’ The Hanging Tree
This week’s edition of Tuesday Blus includes the following titles:
Henri-Georges Clouzot's Inferno (2009)
Film Review: ★★★½/☆☆☆☆☆
Disc Review: ★★★★/☆☆☆☆☆
After Dante Alighieri but before Dario Argento and...
Tuesday Blus: Intermezzo, Blade Runner: 2049 & Mark Felt: The Man Who Brought Down the White House
This week’s edition of Tuesday Blus includes the following titles:
Intermezzo (1939)
Film Review: ★★★/☆☆☆☆☆
Disc Review: ★★★/☆☆☆☆☆
It’s a tale as old as time, more vintage than...
Tuesday Blus: Stanley Kramer’s Not as a Stranger & Andy Muschetti’s It
This week’s edition of Tuesday Blus includes the following titles: Not as a Stranger (1955) – Kino Lorber, The Taking of Beverly Hills (1991)...
Tuesday Blus: Max Ophüls’ Letter from an Unknown Woman, Nolan’s Dunkirk & Bigelow’s Detroit
This week’s edition of Tuesday Blus includes the following titles: Dunkirk (2017) - Warner Bros., Detroit (2017) - Twentieth Century Fox, Letter from an...
Cop-Out (1967) | Blu-ray Review
Belgian film-noir staple Georges Simenon remains a genre stalwart thanks to his enduring status in his native country and France, where his indefatigable detective...
Wild Bill (1995) | Blu-ray Review
Mid-way through the 1990s, maverick auteur Walter Hill returned to the undiluted Western template mythos (something which underlined nearly all his directorial efforts) with...
Night Moves (1975) | Blu-ray Review
Released between a pair of revisionist Westerns (1970’s Little Big Man and 1976’s The Missouri Breaks), Arthur Penn’s 1975 neo-noir Night Moves remains an...
The Long Riders | Blu-ray Review
Having conspicuously professed that every film he’s ever done has been a western, genre revivalist auteur Walter Hill’s own observation can perhaps be applied...
The Mummy | Blu-ray Review
American cinematic drivel is becoming more of a tried and true import infecting international theater chains, as evidenced by the latest attempt of Universal’s...
Criterion Collection: La poison (1951) | Blu-ray Review
Groucho Marx once drolly remarked, “Marriage is a wonderful institution, but who wants to live in an institution?” Such is the state of the...
Criterion Collection: Lost in America (1985) | Blu-ray Review
Smack dab in the middle of the age of excess, Albert Brooks’ third directorial feature Lost in America (1985) opened theatrically, a satirical...
Criterion Collection: The Breaking Point | Blu-ray Review
A superb classic begging for a proper recuperation, Michael Curtiz’s 1950 title The Breaking Point finally gets the release it deserves courtesy of the Criterion Collection....
The Crimson Kimono (1959) | Blu-ray Review
Samuel Fuller finished out the 1950s with the underappreciated noir The Crimson Kimono, a film which perhaps spins its wheels on an even bigger...
