As a film reviewer, it is almost embarrassing to admit that I have viewed none of the films created by directors in the French New Wave.  In my defense, I can offer that this “new wave” took place before I was born, and that by the time I was able to cultivate a taste for movies, many of the “new wave’s” inventiveness had already been co-opted by others.

This led me to two important questions I hope to answer in my review.  Firstly, if subsequent movies have taken advantage of a once-new filmmaking technique, does this make the originating movies any less relevant?  And secondly, can entertainment value survive in what is considered “experimental” cinema?  Although films can have artistic merits on their own, they must still be accessible to the common movie viewer.  Read the full story

The pairing of Jack Lemon and Walther Matthau was a staple of 70’s and after the two had basically been declared retired from acting; they headlined Grumpy Old Men together. Surprisingly it became a financial success and was received fairly well among critics. The film gave new life to their careers and the pair went on to make a series of films together, including a sequel to ‘Grumpy’; Grumpier Old Men. How do the two films hold up on Blu-ray and is this double-feature release a worthy representation of the milestone in these actors’ classic filmography?

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One of my favorite memories of when the VHS format gave way to DVD was when a great list of catalog titles were re-released on DVD, and usually at an extremely attractive price.  Not only did it allow the collector to quickly build a collection, it also gave them the benefits of higher quality audio and video of movies they loved. Read the full story

Horror films have been a big part of movie making since its earliest days, nothing is more exciting than going into a movie and letting your imagination run away with implausible horrors that still make you wonder… what if? In the early 1900’s it was Dracula, Nosferatu, Frankenstein, The Phantom of the Opera, etc. The thought of such villains lurking around in our world could really get our hearts racing. Then mid century the thrills started to change. Terrestrial horrors, demonic plague, and of course end of times. Legends like Vincent Price and Alfred Hitchcock made their way into our imaginations, finding new ways to leave us startled. Read the full story

Angel Heart was a great representation of neo-noir, however it’s also a film that weds both horror and mystery together in a way that is both unique and very entertaining. Showcasing Mickey Rourke’s young talent and having one of De Niro’s more eclectic performances, does Angel Heart rise above the abundant horror thrillers of its time or does it go over the top? Lets see… Read the full story

Air America is loosely based on Christopher Robbin’s non-fiction book, by the same name. It follows the CIA financed airline that transported supplies and weapons throughout the Vietnam war. The film detaches from the book and follows more along the lines of political satire and covers subjects such as the drug trade. Read the full story

“Two Yoots. What is a Yoot?” Asks the Judge. “I am sorry Your Honor, youths, 2 youths.” replies Vinny. That is just but one of the many funny scenes in My Cousin Vinny, a 1991 comedy making its high def debut on Blu-ray. My Cousin Vinny is one funny movie, which is just as funny today as it was when it was released in 1991. Some comedies don’t hold up all that well over time, especially those with more period sensitive humor. Not so with My Cousin Vinny which remain fresh 18 years later. How does it look on Blu-ray? Unfortunately, not as good as I had hoped. Read the full story

While to some this nostalgic flick of SNL’s (Saturday Night Lives) better days has been lost in the archives of time, I have been hoping that it would someday see the shelf of my Blu-ray collection. Let’s face it, love it or hate it Wayne’s World is a classic and its intently sarcastic tone has delivered some classic lines and moments. While Wayne’s World wasn’t the first SNL sketch to make its way to the big screen it was the first to receive mostly positive reviews and actually gross a very respectable amount of money. Spawning a sequel and even video games, and propelling Bohemian Rhapsody back into the Billboard charts, it’s hard to deny the status of Wayne’s World as a classic in the comedy archives. Read the full story

Bueller….Bueller. Those two words, spoken with Ben Stein’s characteristic monotone, really brought back memories. I hadn’t seen Ferris Bueller’s Day Off in what seems like ages. The film was released in 1986 and was a film that I really enjoyed in the theater all those many years ago. Gee, time has really flown by! Has it really been that long? I was curious to see just how well the film would hold up all these years later and how it would look transferred to high def on Blu-ray. I am pleased to report that it holds up quite well as a film and even better, looks great on Blu-ray. Read the full story

Captain Planet.  That’s what some of my coworkers call me as I’m always on the lookout for discarded plastic bottles and aluminum cans that others throw away when the recycling bin is but a few steps farther.  Yup, champion of the environment.  That’s me.  So when I came across a documentary earlier this year about sharks, I was ecstatic.  To see sharks in their natural habitat in high definition would be a wonderful thing.  Without further ado, I made my online purchase of the film known as Sharkwater. Read the full story

Bathing in blood and dominating Romania some six centuries ago, I assure you Vlad the Impailer would never have guessed his legacy would live on in this light. Rooting back to Bram Stoker’s original novel, our imaginations have been captivated by the blood thirsty creatures of the night, based in name upon Vlad, also known as Vlad Dracula. In film there has been a real hit and miss streak with the vampire genre, usually conforming to a teenage hack and slash plot and falling short of all expectations. But there have been a few gems along the way, 1922’s Nosferatu, 1992’s Bram Stoker’s Dracula, 1931’s Dracula, and of course, the topic of this review, 1994’s Interview with the Vampire. I’m not going to beat around the bush on this one, Interview with the Vampire is probably the best Vampire movie of the past twenty years, and I’ll tell you why. Read the full story

Not too long after we thought we had seen the last of Indiana Jones following his Last Crusade, George Lucas had an idea. Like The Grinch, it was an wonderful, awful idea. Hard at work in his lair deep inside the Evil Empire, Lucas pounded away at the script that could please only himself. The result was something called Indiana Jones And The Saucermen From Mars. Exuberant over his own misguided genius, he showed it to his fellow Indy masterminds. Predictably to anyone not named Lucas, neither Ford nor Speilberg thought very much of the idea. Read the full story

Movies about parodies and spoofs seem to be a dime a dozen. Really, for me it all started back with Kentucky Fried Movie and Amazon Women on the Moon. It then went onto the likes of Airplane and The Naked Gun. Of course, within the past 8 years, the onslaught of parodies has flooded the movie market. This time around it is Meet the Spartans, a take off of the hit movie, 300. Read the full story

Out For Justice is a classic Steven Seagal action flick set in the mean streets of Brooklyn. Seagal plays a cop named Gino who has seen the ups and downs of the neighborhood, but has done his best to keep it safe and running as smooth as possible. His childhood adversary, turned criminal scum (William Forsythe), has turned the streets into a war zone leaving a huge trail of dead bodies in his wake. Seagal decides to ?take care of him? personally rather than bringing him to justice. Read the full story

Where do you start with a film like The Untouchables? I suppose you start at the beginning. This has to be the best script David Mamet has ever written. The highly stylized vision of 1930 Chicago utilizes as much of the myth as it does the fact. After all, we want our mobster dramas larger than life. For rights issues the film claims to be based on the 1959 Robert Stack television series; however, all of the participants admit the result is completely unique and original. Read the full story

Other than seeing bits and pieces of this film on TV over the past few years its been quite some time since I saw this film in its entirety. Like with most movies from the past I openly welcomed the chance to check out Coming to America and see if it lived up to what I remembered. Read the full story

Director George Miller’s follow-up to his own 1979 hit Mad Max is proof that not all sequels are inferior to their originals. If anything, this brutal sci-fi action film is even more intense and exciting than its predecessor, although the state of its post-apocalyptic world has only become worse. Several years after the deaths of his wife and child, Max (Mel Gibson) has become a nomad, wandering an Australian outback that has fallen into tribal warfare conducted from scattered armed camps. Read the full story