Highly Recommended The Blue Lagoon (1980) is the story of two children, a boy and girl, marooned on a South Seas island paradise. Completely cut-off from civilization, as teenagers they instinctively learn about love and sex. Although it was an enormous hit, earning ten times its cost, it’s also quite odd in that it was marketed as one kind of film, received by audiences as something altogether …
Skip It “Anger Management” is a sitcom for the FX cable channel starring Charlie Sheen. A brief note at the end of each episode states that it is based on the movie of the same name, but does not show any resemblance. Sheen plays a character also creatively named Charlie who was once a major-league baseball player but had to leave due to his anger issues.
Highly Recommended THE MOVIE: Please Note: The stills used here are taken from the 2002 DVD release of the film, not the Blu-ray edition under review. In the spring of 1990, Disney was pushing Dick Tracy , Warren Beatty’s big-screen adaptation of the iconic Chester Gould comic strip, with a torrent of merchandise and publicity
Skip It THE FILM: Click an image to view Blu-ray screenshot with 1080p resolution. Although it appears to be an honest effort and a carefully planned directorial debut for Brian Klugman and Lee Sternthal, The Words is much less interesting than it realizes.
Skip It Note: The pictures included in this review are not taken from the Blu-Ray and should not be considered representative of the picture quality on the disc itself.
Highly Recommended THE PROGRAM: Please Note: The images used here are from promotional materials provided by Arte Live Web and public-domain photos of St. Thomas Church, Leipzig , and Haussmann ‘s portrait of Bach; they are not taken from the Blu-ray edition under review. In the interest of being upfront before indulging in my superlative-laden recommendation of the new Blu-ray version of Bach’s …
Highly Recommended THE MOVIE: Please Note: The stills used here are taken from promotional materials, not the Blu-ray edition under review. Respected French actor Daniel Auteuil ( Cach ) steps behind the camera for the first time to direct a remake of Marcel Pagnol’s 1940 film The Well-Digger’s Daughter
Highly Recommended I must have first seen Dark Star in 1978 or ’79, four or five years its original theatrical release. Star Wars (1977), of course, had been a big hit, and probably distributor Jack H. Harris thought Dark Star could attract college-age kids starved for more space swashbuckling, or something.
Highly Recommended An old-fashioned adventure about mercenaries uncomfortably set amid present-day African political strife, The Wild Geese (1978) delivers the goods and then some, with plenty of exciting action. The film encountered uninformed protests when it was new wrongly labeling it as fascist, while in America poor distribution sabotaged it from becoming the great success it might …
Highly Recommended THE FILM: Please Note: The images used here are from stills provided by The Criterion Collection and promotional materials, and are not taken from the Blu-ray edition under review. It starts off as postcards and lulls you, with its eye-popping, rich ‘n warm views of Old-World Italy and the Mediterranean, into a wide-open tourist mode — all the better to guide you to some …