Highly Recommended The Movies: The eternally gorgeous Audrey Hepburn may not have been the most versatile of movie stars, but she certainly had “It” – that elusive quality known as charisma. Arriving on the scene as a sophisticated waif in a sea of voluptuous curves, she charmed audiences with a cultured, genial image full of inherent contradictions
Highly Recommended Wow, what a surprise! If you've suffered through as many public domain movies from the 1930s as I have, films produced and distributed by small, long-defunct and forgotten companies, you'll know that the vast majority are quite dreadful, and normally only the cheapest of home video distributors (e.g., Alpha Video) will release them at all, typically with terrible video …
Highly Recommended Salvador Blu-ray Review Oliver Stone has made a name for himself as apoliticalfilmmaker with an agenda to portray American history (and indeed thehistory ofthe world) through his unique perspective. The filmmaking of Stone isundoubtedly political in nature and he is one to create a variety ofcinematicportraits with a keen sensibility unlike most other filmmakers
Highly Recommended The Movie: As far as enjoyment and appreciation of Michael Moore's films go, it pays to approach them as visual essays rather than completely objective documentaries. They are obviously out to make a point, everything from the fact that Moore narrates his own documentaries with a deft ear for wit and irony, as well as some of the clever editing choices made in order to bring …
Rent It The Collection: Although this newly released DVD set from stand-up comic and actor Richard Lewis has been titled Bundle of Nerves , it might have been more appropriate to call it Bundle of Crap I Found Lying Around My House . This new title would better speak to the lack of cohesion and consistency of the four selections spread across these two DVDs, as well as providing the only …
Skip It Che! Blu-ray Review Director Richard Fleischer's Che! ( Tora! Tora!Tora! ) is probably best left forgotten. The concept of thefilm is tofocus upon revolution leader Che Guevara during the period of Che'sarrival inCuba during the mid-1950's to his death following an ambush in 1967.The storyis partially told as a dramatic narrative with some emphasis onshowcasingparts of the Cuban …
Recommended I didn't much care for Run Silent Run Deep (1958) when I first saw it during the early days of DVD. Part of the problem was MGM's unimpressive video transfer, which was in unenhanced 1.66:1 widescreen.
Rent It The Movie: The trailer for 1962's Taras Bulba boldly proclaims, “Now, add a motion picture to the wonders of the world!” While “wonder” isn't a word I'd use on this panoramic tale of 16th century Russian warriors conquering in battle and in love, it's suitably impressive drama – and somewhat entertaining (at least in the first half), despite being served up with equal amounts of …
Recommended The Movie: Gary Cooper stars in 1951's sort-of-western (southeastern?) Distant Drums , an independently produced action thriller that plops a small group of soldiers in the middle of the Florida Everglades during the Second Seminole War. Forced to cope with the harsh swamp, while dodging hungry gators and murderous Seminoles, the soldiers trudge their way back to their ship after …
Highly Recommended The Originals Season 1 Blu-ray Review The Originals is a spin-off series baseduponcharacters created and introduced in The Vampire Diaries , andit is acreation of writer Julie Plec, who is the head-writer and showrunner ofbothseries. The concept of the show revolves around a group of charactersreferredto as being the 'originals' – i.e.