DVD Talk Collector Series THE FILM Please Note: The images used here are taken from the 2005 DVD edition , not the Blu-ray disc under review. The opening credits of Otto Preminger’s Laura come up over an instantly captivating, then eternally unforgettable piece of cinematic iconography: A painted portrait of the title character (Gene Tierney, whom the film’s producer, Fox’s (in)famous Darryl F …
Skip It The Movie: There was some local interest among my friends regarding the film Playing for Keeps .
Highly Recommended THE FILM I must confess to never having seen director Joseph Losey’s mid-career debacles (or masterpieces; depends on whose take you listen to) Modesty Blaise (1966) or Boom! (1968), but judging from what I’ve read and heard regarding those films, Losey — an expat German who fled the Nazis and made films in the U.S., the U.K., and France over a long and unusually varied …
Recommended Like Network and several other films before and since, Paul Michael Glaser’s The Running Man (1987) seemed far-fetched decades ago…but it hits a little closer to home these days.
Highly Recommended THE MOVIE: Please Note: The stills used here are taken from promotional materials, not the Blu-ray edition under review. The 1941 winner of the Best Picture Oscar, How Green Was My Valley is one of John Ford’s nostalgic tributes to a foreign land and a foreign time. Narrated from a modern vantage point, but set in a Welsh mining village at the outset of the 20th Century, the …
Recommended I feel the need- the need for- 3D? Well, color me surprised. I had heard a couple years ago that Top Gun was going to be re-released in converted 3D, and I immediately thought that would be an extremely pointless endeavor
Recommended THE SHOW: Please Note: The stills used here are taken from the series’ promotional materials, not the Blu-ray edition under review. When I first watched The Hour sometime back, I actually thought it was a one-off. It seemed fairly self-contained and complete as a miniseries.
Highly Recommended THE MOVIE: Please Note: The stills used here are taken from promotional materials, not the Blu-ray edition under review. It’s rare to find a film as sincere and assured in its emotional intent as Ann Hui’s celebrated A Simple Life
Rent It In 10 Words or Less Back on Blu, empty on extras Reviewer’s Bias* Loves: The Monster Squad , Team-Up Flicks, ’80s movies Likes: Kids Adventures, Stan Winston effects Dislikes: Rights issues Hates: Missing out on existing extras The Story So Far… The Monster Squad is an underrated late-’80s action/horror-comedy pitting a team of kid horror-movie buffs against the classic Universal …
Recommended Throughout his career—and increasingly since 1999’s Magnolia —director Paul Thomas Anderson’s films have been hard to pin down. 2007’s striking There Will Be Blood (reviewed on Blu-Ray and DVD ) depicted a self-absorbed man and his pursuit of petroleum and profit