Highly Recommended First released in Great Britain as Expos and in the United States as Trauma , the now-titled House on Straw Hill (1976) is an extremely minor, muddled erotic thriller with slight horror movie elements, and notable only as the lone British film on the original list of “Video Nasties” compiled by the Department of Public Prosecution. Severin Films’ new Blu-ray presents it …
Recommended The Movie: For as much I have generally railed against the work of Melissa McCarthy, and think that in between her television work in Mike & Molly and her more recent movie work in Identity Thief , I just do not get or understand the reason for her success, little more than everyone gets a laugh out of watching the big girl fall down. But she comes back to one of the causes of her …
Rent It THE FILM: Click an image to view Blu-ray screenshot with 1080p resolution. British import I Give It a Year is part successful bawdy comedy and part tiresome romantic melodrama. Rose Byrne makes anything better, but so much of Director Dan Mazer’s film rests on its unimpressive romantic-comedy foundation that the final result crumbles into a bore
Recommended A surprisingly risqu sex farce-musical starring Danny Kaye, Gene Tierney, and Corrine Calvet, On the Riveria (1951) was the second and at times word-for-word remake of Folies Berg re de Paris (1935), which starred Maurice Chevalier, Merle Oberon, and Ann Sothern in the same parts. The first remake, made in-between, was That Night in Rio (1941), with Don Ameche, Alice Faye, and Carmen …
Recommended THE FILM Please Note: The images used here are from promotional material provided by The Cohen Media Group and are not taken from the Blu-ray edition under review. I’m prepared to accept that smart, crowd-pleasing French filmmaker Fran ois Ozon ( 8 Women , Swimming Pool ), whose work I’ve often enjoyed and appreciated, is middlebrow, a skilled and intelligent writer/director whose …
Recommended THE FILM: Click an image to view Blu-ray screenshot with 1080p resolution. Solid voice talent and animation raise The Croods slightly above similar mid-tier animated flicks. Nowhere near as polished as the best efforts from Disney and Pixar, The Croods is still an appealing family adventure from DreamWorks Animation.
Recommended Please Note: The stills used here are taken from promotional materials and other sources, not the Blu-ray edition under review. The TV Series Coming off its sixth year on the Cartoon Network’s Adult Swim, Robot Chicken arrives on Blu Ray with its herky-jerky satirical mojo basically intact.
Rent It THE FILM: Click an image to view Blu-ray screenshot with 1080p resolution. Nicolas Winding Refn and Ryan Gosling re-team for Only God Forgives , a beautifully shot, vacuous and violent film about a drug dealer avenging his brother’s murder
Rent It THE FILM: Click an image to view Blu-ray screenshot with 1080p resolution. I had only seen bits and pieces of Kevin Hart’s standup work on YouTube before viewing Kevin Hart: Let Me Explain , which presents his complete 2012 performance at Madison Square Garden. Hart uses the venue to riff on his recent divorce, worldwide tour, romantic relationships and everyday challenges as a newly …
Rent It The Movie: Danish thriller A Hijacking arrives on Blu Ray closely aligned with the theatrical release of Tom Hanks’ docudrama Captain Phillips . Coincidence? Perhaps Magnolia was hoping to capitalize on some of the hype from the Hanks film, but this one presents a darker, less dynamic take on the rash of ocean hijackings off the coast of Somalia soaking up the headlines in recent years …