Tom Cruise and Christopher McQuarrie have become a new power team in Hollywood. After writing the Cruise flick Valkyrie, then both writing the screenplay for and directing Jack Reacher and serving as writer once more on the underappreciated Edge of Tomorrow, Cruise (who has served as producer on all the Mission: Impossible movies) decided it was time to bring "McQ" (Tom's nickname for the director, not to be confused with McG) onboard his big franchise, and the relationship worked so well, McQ directed not only wrote and directed this sequel, but this summer's follow...Read the entire review

After JJ Abrams gave a much needed boost to the franchise with Mission: Impossible III, Director Brad Bird (best known for his animated work as director of The Incredibles and The Iron Giant) had a fairly big burden on his hands. Could he raise the bar from where JJ left off in his last movie? Well, not only does Bird (with help from star Tom Cruise and a story by Josh Appelbaum and André Nemec) meet expectations, he surpasses them - bringing fans what is arguably the best movie in the series.

What makes Mission: Impossible - Ghost Protocol so much fun is that not only does each scene in the plot seem ...Read the entire review

The Mission: Impossible films have turned into a series that is just as popular with audiences as the exploits of Jason Bourne or Jack Ryan, if not James Bond himself. But things weren't always pointing to a successful series. While the Mission: Impossible movies have always done well at the box office, the first two entries received rather mixed reviews from the critics, although Director John Woo's 2000 follow-up is a little more reviled that the original film.

This 4K release of Mission: Impossible marked the first time in a while (perhaps as much as a decade) that I sat down to watch the first movie again. I remember having a mixed reaction to it the first time I saw it, but watching it again with lower expectations, it's a pretty good yarn...Read the entire review

The genesis of Dynasty begins not in Denver, Colorado, in January of 1981, but out in Dallas, Texas, in the spring of 1980. That's when primetime soap Dallas put a bullet in its dastardly lead character and "Who Shot J.R.?" fever took off not just in the United States, but all over the world. ABC wanted a piece of that audience, so the king of TV producers, Aaron Spelling, took on Richard and Esther Shapiro's idea of another oil-rich family with another morally vacant patriarch: Blake Carrington. Actor George Peppard was originally cast in the role, but bowed out - reportedly because he didn't want to play a bad guy every week on national TV. The part was re-cast, this time with John Forsythe who came into the character with a directive: he wasn't going to ...Read the entire review

The brainchild of J.J. Abrams and one of the first movies to be directed by Matt Reeves, Cloverfield takes a Godzilla premise and combines it with the "found footage" movie concept that titles like The Blair Witch Project made so popular. The concept probably shouldn't work, but thanks to the creative minds behind the camera (and, let's be honest, the sort of 9/11 paranoia that the movie induces - being set in the heart of New York City), the movie is a tension-filled rollercoaster and holds up well even though it has been a full decade since its original release (yes, it has been that long).

The storyline is designed according to what Roger Ebert used to call the "Dead Teenager Mo...Read the entire review

There's that old movie saying, "They don't make 'em like they used to." In the case of Cadillac Man, that's probably a good thing - not that any major studio would be likely to green-light a script similar to the one we find here in today's social environment. Not only does this black comedy feature a plot about a man with a automatic weapon taking hostages at a car dealership, but every major male character in this film is sexist to one degree or another, none more so than our lead character, car salesman Joey O'Brien (Robin Williams).

Joey is the stereotypical car salesman - a guy so desperate to make a sale, he'll give his business card to a widow at a funeral (which he does to Elaine Stitch in a brief cameo in the opening scene of the movie). If there's ...Read the entire review

I'm now convinced that Gary Oldman can play any part thrown at him. From Lee Harvey Oswald to Dracula to George Smiley, Oldman disappears into his characters and you forget you're watching someone act and believe you're watching the person he's playing. That's never been more true of Oldman in the role of Winston Churchill in Darkest Hour. In a role that almost certainly will result in his first-ever Oscar, Oldman becomes Churchill and it's far more than a simple impersonation - he embodies all the qualities (both the good and the bad) of one of Great Britain's...and indeed, the world's...greatest leaders.

Director Joe Wright's latest movie only covers about a month of Churchill's life, but in many ways these are the most important days of his existence. It ...Read the entire review

Ray Donovan is one of those shows that has always been good, but has never quite been good enough to be mentioned alongside the best shows on television. All that changes with Season Five, in which the showrunners make a bold decision to off one of the lead characters - resulting in the kind of drama and emotional impact that most TV series only dream about having.

The character who says goodbye isn't a spoiler, as it's revealed in the Season Five premiere: it's Abby Donovan (Paula Malcomson), the wife of Ray (Liev Schreiber), who had a breast cancer scare in Season Four, although that's not what kills her. Season Five begins in the aftermath of her passing, and one of the big mysterie...Read the entire review

Dean Devlin can't possibly expect us to take Geostorm seriously, can he? The writer/producer/director of the movie, best known for producing some of Roland Emmerich's big-budget flicks such as Independence Day and Godzilla, goes out on his own this time around, and the results are "stunning" to say the least...as in stunningly bad. About 30 minutes into my viewing, I had to ask myself if this was all some sort of joke from Devin, as the movie is not just "bad," but seems to be intentionally trying to be that way - throwing every movie cliché in the book at the viewer.

Geostorm stars Gerard Butler (who, after Read the entire review

I have either the advantage or disadvantage of catching up with Blade Runner 2049 now, after last fall's critical onslaught of raves for this sequel/reboot and after the movie underplayed at the box office (with a budget of $150 million, it made only $92 million in North America, although it nabbed an additional $167 million overseas). So who was more right about this movie - the critics who loved it or the moviegoers who stayed away? Honestly, they're both a little right and both a little wrong. Blade Runner 2049 is a good movie, but it's far from the masterpiece that it has been made out to be. The story is far too thin to justify the film's lengthy run time, and the ideas addressed here have already been addressed before - back in the original 1982 movie...Read the entire review

So few studio movies come along these days that are truly original (if they're not sequels or reboots, most of the time they're based on books), when one does we sometimes never give it the credit it deserves. Because of its hefty price tag (estimated to be at about $165 million), Interstellar was never considered a runaway hit at the American box office (grosses of $188 million), although it made enough overseas ($489 million) to turn a profit for Paramount. Released a few weeks before Thanksgiving in 2014, it was gone from a lot of theaters by Christmas of that year and is rarely at the top of the list when discussing director Christopher Nolan's best movie...but it happens to be mine, despite some issues I have with it.

Written by Nolan and his brother, J...Read the entire review

I'll begin this review with a confession: I didn't care much for 1995's original Jumanji. Despite the presence of the talented Robin Williams, I thought the film - with all its rampaging rhinos, deadly spiders, and knife-throwing monkeys - was far too scary and violent for its PG (that's right, not even a PG-13!) rating and wasn't all that appealing. However, when the trailers for this 2017 update of Jumanji came out (officially titled Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle, and appropriately rated PG-13 this time around although less scary), I thought the creators had come up with a creative update to the original and was looking forward to seeing if they had pulled it off. The good news is that this new Jumanji is one of the rare reboots/sequels th...Read the entire review

It has taken far too many films to get there, but Warner Bros./DC finally seems to have found the right formula for success. Building on both the good and the bad that has come before it, Justice League isn't quite a home run, but it manages to finally give us something to cheer for when it comes to the world's greatest superheroes - including one whom they finally get right after three attempts (I won't say any more than that here).

The movie begins not long after Batman v Superman left off. The world is without its Kryptonian hero, and things have gone from bad to worse. Martha Kent has the bank foreclosing on her farm, Lois Lane is writing fluff pieces because she has lost her drive for serious journalism, and Bruce Wayne is combing the globe looki...Read the entire review

Al Gore is both the best thing and the worst thing to happen in the fight against global warming. The best because before his 2006 movie, An Inconvenient Truth (which won the Academy Award for Best Documentary Feature), there wasn't a whole lot of public knowledge about exactly what global warming (or "climate change" if you will) was - at least among your "average Joe" citizen. But he's also been the worst because, due largely to his political background, only half of Americans tend to believe anything that comes out of his mouth, despite the facts and figures he brings to the table.

Regardless, it's hard to deny that Gore's 2006 movie brought the environment front and center, and it's been...Read the entire review

In 1997, Director Paul Verhoeven's Starship Troopers hit the big screen with all signs that it would be a huge theatrical hit. With great special effects, attractive young actors, and Verhoeven's satirical take on militarism, the movie was an instant favorite with many viewers. Sadly, that wasn't enough. A harsh critical reaction and backlash to the movie quickly sunk any lasting box office power it may have had. After a strong opening weekend, the film sank like a rock and while it didn't do poorly enough to qualify as a "bomb" for the studio (TriStar Pictures), it certainly was considered one of that Fall's bigger theatrical disappointments. A theatrical sequel was never in the cards for this...Read the entire review

In 2017, actor Kyle MacLachlan suddenly became a hot commodity again thanks to the return of Twin Peaks, so it made sense that Warner Bros. would dust off 1987's The Hidden and give it a Blu-ray issuance, even if only as part of their "Archive Collection" line (which are MOD, or "manufactured on demand", meaning they might be hard to track down at your local brick and mortar store, so ordering online is probably the route to go here). This movie takes on a bit of an extra Twin Peaks connection due to the fact that MacLachlan was quoted this year as saying that he based much of his Twin Peaks' "Dougie" character on the character he played in The Hidden.

At first glance, the film is typical 80's sci-fi/horror fare. It starts off with a...Read the entire review

Edgar Wright, the director behind the popular zombie parody Shaun of the Dead and the cult film (although box office disappointment) Scott Pilgrim vs. the World, tackles the heist/crime genre with his latest title, Baby Driver. And while this movie delivers everything one would hope for in terms of fast car chases and big shootouts, the biggest surprise with Wright's movie is that it's actually a musical...that's right, a musical! And a darn good one at that.

Now, don't worry, Baby Driver isn't a musical in the traditional sense of the word. Lead characters don't burst out into show tunes at any given ...Read the entire review

For those of you under the age of 40 or thereabouts, it's kind of hard to explain what home entertainment was like back in the early 1980s. Yes, HBO was around, but there weren't a whole lot of us who had it yet. Our evening's choices on TV were limited to the "big three" networks (ABC, NBC, and CBS) and PBS if we wanted to watch the news, children's entertainment, or a documentary. VCRs hadn't yet stormed their way into every home in America, so after a movie closed its run at the local cineplex (there weren't many of those, either - most theaters had a single screen), your only shot of seeing it again (short of a re-release) was on television.

Because of the above, viewings of theatrical films on broadcast TV weren't "filler" (as they are today), but an event. Yo...Read the entire review

I'm not a fan of schmaltzy dramas on TV (or on the big screen for that matter), so even when I heard from friends how good This is Us was, I kept thinking, "Nah, not for me." I did not see one minute of one episode when Season 1 aired on NBC, and I probably would have never watched an episode had this DVD set not become available for review. I'll be honest, I thought this might be the opportunity to knock the series down a few rungs by giving it a fair critique. Now I find myself in the position where I have to admit I was wrong to have skipped it. This is Us is great television, and even though it's intentionally manipulative, it's also fantastically entertaining.

However, as anyone who has seen this series will tell you, it's really hard to talk abo...Read the entire review

While I'm drawn to any type of movie as long as it has a good script and good acting in it, I've always held a place in my cinematic heart for stories about broken people. Be it a disability, bad luck, or just happenstance, there's always something fascinating about watching characters who haven't figured it out yet on the big screen. Certain Women is a movie like that - telling three stories featuring three women who suffer one of the biggest maladies known to humankind: Loneliness.

Laura (Laura Dern) is a tort lawyer in a small Montana town with a client (Jared Harris) who got injured on the job and can't seem to accept the fact that the small settlement he already accepted from his former company bars him from seeking any other legal relief. He constantly...Read the entire review

Hail to the king! Ashley James Williams ("Ash" to friend and foe alike) returns for a second season of bloody fun in Starz's Ash vs Evil Dead, and it doesn't disappoint. While Season 1 was a wonderful surprise and immensely entertaining, Season 2 outdoes its predecessor in gore, humor, and creativity. It's groovy, baby.

The first season of this series ended with Ash (Bruce Campbell) and his younger companions Pablo (Ray Santiago) and Kelly (Dana DeLorenzo) making a truce with the evil Ruby (Lucy Lawless), turning the Necronomicon (aka "Book of the Dead") over to her in exchange for allowing the three of them to retire in peace to Jacksonville, Florida. Well, that deal didn't last l...Read the entire review

The original Guardians of the Galaxy was one of the most pleasant surprises of the summer of 2014. It was a movie based on one of the lesser-known comic book teams in the Marvel Universe who turned into perhaps the most lovable big-screen characters of the various Marvel movies to date. The highly anticipated sequel is bigger in almost every way, not the least of which is the amount of money Disney has sunk into the budget. Why then does is seem so much smaller?

The second volume begins with our heroes - Peter Quill (Chris Pratt), Gamora (Zoe Saldana), Drax (Dave Bautista), Rocket Raccoon (voiced by Bradley Cooper), and Baby Groot (voiced by Vin Diesel) - as hired guns for a race of gold-skinned aliens, taking care of a huge monster in order to protect some ...Read the entire review

No Man's Land is a forgotten film from 1987 that stars D.B. Sweeney, Charlie Sheen, and one of the best (and most blatant) product placements for Pepsi that you'll find in a movie. Yes, it's that kind of film, serious and fun at the same time - a mix of hard-edged crime-drama and good ol' practical action pieces and stunts. It's also the kind of movie that really doesn't get made anymore, which makes re-discovering (or, for many of you I'm guessing, discovering for the first time) this film on Blu-ray such a blast.

Sweeney stars as Benjy Taylor, a Los Angeles rookie cop who is recruited by his boss (Randy Quaid) to go undercover to get evidence on a local "chop shop" that's involved in stealing Porsches, including someone who killed an cop already investigat...Read the entire review

Prizzi's Honor was nominated for eight Academy Awards, including Best Picture, Best Actor, Best Director, and - of course - the one award it did win on Oscar night: Best Supporting Actress for Anjelica Huston. Upon its release in 1985, it was praised by many critics as one of the best movies of the year, and although I didn't see it until it hit home video, I remember liking it quite a bit as well. But for whatever reason - most likely because dark satirical comedies are much more commonplace now than they were in the mid 80s - Prizzi's Honor is one of those film that has just not aged all that well. It's probably been about 20 years since I watched the movie (perhaps longer), and I have to confess I find it rather middling now. Still very much a solid movi...Read the entire review

I've always felt that Brian Dennehy was a tremendously underrated actor, so when I saw that Kino Lorber was releasing a movie of his that I've never seen before - 1990's The Last of the Finest - I jumped at the opportunity to take a look. Dennehy has played the villain, the hero, and everything in between over his long career, and here he's giving one of his more noble performances: a police officer putting his life on the line to fight corruption by both local politicians and those within the department he works for.

Dennehy stars as Frank Daly, a married cop with a pair of kids who works for the LAPD. His partners on the force are also played by some very recognizable actors (although they were less recognizable at the time of this movie's release): Bill P...Read the entire review

Ever since his success with the Oscar-nominated The Tree of Life, Director Terrance Malick has been helming what can best be described as "experimental" cinema - movies that are more about visual imagery and overall themes/feelings than they are straightforward storytelling. In fact, Malick's past few films have been noted for not having screenplays at all, instead having his actors the general gist of each scene, shooting tons of footage, and then filling in the gaps of the story by having the performers do voice-over work. Such is the case once again with Song to Song.

Because of this format, viewers are required to piece together much of the plot in their own heads, but the story ...Read the entire review

Had 20th Century Fox known their reboot prequel Rise of the Planet of the Apes was going to lead to a brand-new franchise of hit films, they may have thought about renaming it. For those not all that familiar with these new Apes movies, rest assured that Dawn of the Planet of the Apes is the second, not the first, movie in this new series and - surprise, surprise - it's a sequel that not only lives up to the fun of the first movie, but surpasses it in almost every way.

This sequel begins at least a decade after the last movie ending, with Caesar (once again motion-capture performed by Andy Serkis) now older, with a wife (or the ape equivalent of that concept) and...Read the entire review

Rise of the Planet of the Apes is now known as the first movie in a series of hit films (the third arriving in theaters the week I write this review) reviving one of 20th Century Fox's most popular franchises. What many have forgotten, however, is what a big surprise this movie was when it first hit theaters back in 2011. Fox hasn't had a great track record when it comes to trying to revive/reboot popular brands of which they have creative control (look at the continuing failed attempts with both the Alien and Predator movies), so when the word got out that they were attempting to re-launch Planet of the Apes again (after the disappointing Tim Burton film, most didn't expec...Read the entire review

At the end of Season Three of Ray Donovan, following a shootout with Russian mobsters that left our antihero (played by Liev Schreiber) wounded and his father, Mickey (Jon Voight), on the run, Ray received absolution for his past sins from a Catholic priest who had taken an interest in him in a powerful season finale. Now it's time for Season Four to get underway, and Ray's going to walk the straight and narrow now, right? Think again.

Ray's descent back into his old ways begins when he begins an association with boxer Hector Campos (Ismael Cruz Cordova), which soon turns south when Ray needs to use his "fixer" skills to get Hector out of a mess that has to do with Hector's half-sister, Marisol (Lisa Bonet), and the fact that Hector has been having an on-aga...Read the entire review

A flop at the box office in 1992 (at least in the United States), Ridley Scott's 1492: Conquest of Paradise remains one of the director's most ambitious and beautifully shot movies, which finally comes to Region A from Kino Lorber in what proves to be a mixed bag in terms of A/V quality. You can read about that in the sections below, but how does the film hold up after 25 years? Better than I expected, to be honest.

I was fresh out of college (with a degree in History, no less) when this film had its theatrical run, so being both a fan of Scott's previous work and a scholar of things past, I remember being interesting in seeing if the movie was going to whitewash Columbus's story or give an accurate depiction of what we knew about him. While Scott more or le...Read the entire review

Well, DC fans can take a collective sigh of relief. Wonder Woman has finally arrived and it's a step in the right direction for the DC Universe of movies, after the rather lackluster trilogy of films that came before, which seemed to get progressively worse with each release: the so-so Man of Steel, the disappointing Batman v Superman, and the barely watchable Suicide Squad. But despite the outcry of joy you heard this past weekend from critics and fans alike, Wonder Woman is just "good", as opposed to great or terrific. Other than the fact that it focuses on a female heroine, it doesn't really break any new ground when it comes to superhero movies; in fact, it falls into the same traps and clichés that so many movies in this genre have fallen into bef...Read the entire review

The Space Between Us probably should have been released with the subtitle "When Good Actors Find Themselves in Bad Movies," because that's exactly how I felt when watching this disappointing endeavor. The plot is aimed squarely at the teen crowd, but the script here would insult most grade-schoolers.

Asa Butterfield stars as Gardner, the offspring of a female astronaut who gave birth to him (and died from complications shortly thereafter) on a manned mission to Mars. The scientist who headed up the mission (and remained back on Earth) is Nathaniel Shepherd (Gary Oldman), and it was his decision to allow the remaining astronauts to raise Gardner on the red planet (unbeknownst to the public back on Earth) instead of abandoning the mission and having everyone r...Read the entire review

I'll confess to having mixed feelings the first time I saw La La Land in theaters. I couldn't understand why a director like Damien Chazelle would make an attempt to revive the dying (if not already dead at the time) movie musical genre by giving audiences a movie that has such a downer ending (which I won't spoil beyond that in this review). I still remember the groans from people walking out of the theater that day with one couples' comment burned into my brain: "Well, that was a huge waste of time."

Now available in the 4K Ultra HD format (as well as Blu-ray, of course) on home video, I was glad I gave La La Land a second chance. I was now able to watch the film for what it is, rather than what I hoped it might be...and this time around, I enjoyed ...Read the entire review

THE MOVIES

It's rare that a movie is known more for its special effects creator than its director or actors, but that's the way it's always been with the work of Ray Harryhausen – whose stop-motion techniques not only thrilled audiences, but inspired many of today's special effects wizards.

The Ray Harryhausen Gift Set is a collection of three of the earliest theatrical movies that Harryhausen worked on: It Came From Beneath The Sea (1955); Earth Vs. The Flying Saucers (1956): and 20 Million Miles To Earth (1957). So while this is far from the definitive Harryhausen collection, it's a good introduction to his work for interested fans who may not already own the films in this set. These are the exact same DVDs that have been released previously by Sony Pictures as individual titles – so if you already own them, there's no need to upgrade to this se...Read the entire review

THE MOVIE

I should start this review by stating that I've never seen the original 8MM movie starring Nic Cage...but I'm not sure that's important, since 8MM 2 seems to have absolutely nothing in common with the first movie, other than the name and some similar sexual themes.

But it wasn't the worst idea in the world for Sony to slap the 8MM name on this direct-to-DVD release, since it's probably given the movie a little more attention than it normally would have gotten. And that's a good thing, because while 8MM 2 isn't going to set any DVD sales records, I found it to be a pretty decent flick...with a solid story, more than a healthy dose of sex and nudity (and this was the Rated version I reviewed...an Unrated one is also available)...and a neat twist ending that even this frequent movie-goer didn't see coming.

A word of warning t...Read the entire review