DVD Review: Towelhead
Few would question Alan Ball’s talent. He wrote the Oscar winning screenplay for American Beauty (2000), and created and produced the popular television series’ Six Feet Under and True Blood for HBO. Ball made his directorial debut with one of the more controversial films in recent memory, Towelhead. While Ball may have intended to make […]
DVD Review: American Teen
In an effort to make a year-long documentary about high school seniors, director Nanette Burstein (On the Ropes, The Kid Stays in the Picture) reviewed more than 100 different schools in the pre-production process, and ten schools replied, agreeing to participate. After she interviewed incoming seniors at all 10, she chose Warsaw. The film, American […]
Blu-ray Review: The Day the Earth Stood Still
Released only six years after the end of World War II, The Day the Earth Stood Still is widely considered one of the best science fiction films ever made. Director Robert Wise’s 1951 plea for world peace still resonates after all these years. Producer Julian Blaustein set out to make a film that illustrated the […]
Blu-ray Review: The Women
Writer/director Diane English is best known for creating the television series Murphy Brown, which ran from 1988-1998. After years of working in television, English decided to make her big screen directorial debut with The Women. The film is based on Claire Boothe Luce’s 1936 stage success of the same name, and was subsequently made into […]
Blu-ray Review: The X-Files, I Want to Believe
Contrary to the opinions of many others, I thought The X-Files: I Want to Believe was a very good movie. Directed by Chris Carter, and written by Carter and Frank Spotnitz. Unlike the first film, the plot does not focus on the series’ ongoing extraterrestrial-based “mytharc” and instead works as a standalone thriller/horror story, similar […]
Blu-ray Review: Jingle All the Way (Family Fun Edition)
In a departure from his usual role as an action star, in 1996 Arnold Schwarzenegger took a stab at making a Christmas movie, Jingle All the Way. Arnold stars as Howard Langston, a successful businessman that always tells his retail clients that they are his “#1 customer” when on the phone. A type”A” personality, Howard […]
DVD Review: The Day the Earth Stood Still (2 Disc Special Edition)
Released only six years after the end of World War II, The Day the Earth Stood Still is widely considered one of the best science fiction films ever made. Director Robert Wise’s 1951 plea for world peace still resonates after all these years. Producer Julian Blaustein set out to make a film that illustrated the […]
Blu-ray Review: Home Alone – Family Fun Edition
For a lot of people, Home Alone has become a part of their holiday tradition. I can’t believe it’s been almost twenty years since Home Alone hit theaters. Back in 1990, I thought the film was enjoyable, but I wasn’t caught up in the hysteria that surrounded the film’s star, Macaulay Culkin and his infamous […]
Blu-ray Review: The Chronicles of Narnia – Prince Caspian [3-disc DisneyFile Collector’s Edition]
The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian is based on Prince Caspian, the second published novel in C. S. Lewis’s fantasy series, The Chronicles of Narnia. It is the second in The Chronicles of Narnia film series, following The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe (2005). Work on the script began before […]
Blu-ray Review: The Heartbreak Kid
Ben Stiller’s quick to DVD version of The Heartbreak Kid is a prime example of why Hollywood sometimes needs to think twice about doing a remake. The Heartbreak Kid was originally done by Elaine May back in 1972 in a funny, sympathetic manner but in 2007, Ben Stiller and the Farrelly brothers made an unsympathetic […]