Highly Recommended Flying Tigers (1942) is an impressive, still exciting example of early wartime propaganda. John Wayne, in his first war movie, stars as the leader of a squadron of mercenary pilots fighting the Japanese in the days before (and, late in the film, after) the attack on Pearl Harbor in a picture brimming with war movie clich s.
Highly Recommended The Movie: Growing up in a household with one parent who was an unabashed John Wayne fan, I grew to appreciate his work but in different ways. I have grown to realize that Wayne was a bit of an underrated actor in his time, and with Red River this was one of (if not) his first turn from preconceived notions on his character and how he turns from upstanding protagonist to a …
Recommended The Movie: Not even halfway before it was over, my viewing companion christened MGM’s musical Hit the Deck as the “lamest movie ever.” Ouch. If not exactly a classic of the Singin’ in the Rain sort, this 1955 effort still amuses with a fun, perky cast
Highly Recommended The Movie: Hitting Blu-ray a few short weeks before the 70th Anniversary of D-Day, director Stuart Cooper’s 1975 drama Overlord , which covers the lead-up to that famous battle at Normandy, is decidedly unsentimental, somewhat anticlimactic, yet undeniably beautiful. Starting with deftly edited archive footage from England’s Imperial War Museum, Cooper weaves in newly-shot …
Rent It THE FILM: Click an image to view Blu-ray screenshot with 1080p resolution. The production design, effects and camera work in Director Fedor Bondarchuk’s Stalingrad are top notch; the narrative and characters, less so
Highly Recommended Il Sorpasso Blu Review Il Sorpasso is regarded as one of thefinest of allItalian comedies. Released in 1962, the film was first put intotheaters withlittle fanfare and box-office expectations. The film quickly became anincredible success based on audiences reactions and word of mouth thatthe filmwas something special
Recommended The Movie: Just in time for the 20th anniversary of the character’s first appearance (way back in John Byrne’s Next Men #21 unless you count San Diego Comic-Con Comics #2 , which was Dark Horse Comics’ comic con exclusive released in August 1993), Anchor Bay has reissued the two animated features that were first unleased on Blu-ray in 2007. This seems, however, to basically be the …
Rent It THE FILM: There is little to distinguish Bachelor Party from the horde of 1980s crude comedies except one thing, and it is a doozy: Tom Hanks. Fresh off the success of Splash , Hanks joined a cast of relatively unknowns in Director Neal Israel’s low-budget comedy that is surprisingly light on laughs. If anything, Bachelor Party is an interesting time capsule, and Hanks manages to inject …
Skip It THE FILM: Click an image to view Blu-ray screenshot with 1080p resolution. Michael Caine is the star of the original 1971 Get Carter and stars in this 2000 remake with Sylvester Stallone in the lead as mob enforcer Jack Carter. The original was gritty and exciting; this one not so much.
Recommended The Movie: Written and directed by Alain Robbe-Grillet and released theatrically in 1970, Eden And After is one of the stranger films in the filmmaker’s already bizarre filmography. The beginning of the film is centered around the appropriately titled Eden Caf , a coffee house that attracts a crowd of art students who seem to appreciate its anti-social sensibilities