The Crown and the Dragon: The Paladin Cycle:
That's a title only a low-budget fantasy movie could support. It's a weird symptom of such films, as if the writer figured that loading up the title with as many words as possible would give the script more credibility. But hey, in this case, though the movie does indeed live somewhere plenty far south of the mega-budget line, it's actually an engaging, satisfying watch. The only weird thing is that it's also some type of Harlequin Romance, rather than a straight-ahead swords and sorcery movie.

Serious portents as the movie begins; dozens of bloody, dead, chain-mail-clad warriors lay in the surf, limbs drifting with the tide. A voice intones the horrors of the fire-breathing dragon, and the need for a Paladin to come save the day. It doesn't happen quick enough for the one living warrior standing in the surf, though, who throws his arms wide in ...Read the entire review

The Movie:

If you're on the fence about becoming an anti-semite, I sincerely hope you won't get your hands on a copy of Jewtopia, because you'll end up filling out your application to the neo-nazi party before the end credits are over. The infamous 1940 anti-semitic Nazi propaganda film The Eternal Jew propagated less vile stereotypes about Jewish people. The Westboro Baptist Church thinks Jewtopia is too harsh on its negative portrayals of Jews.

Thank you ladies and gentlemen, I'll be here all week, don't forget to tip your waiter, unless you're the stereotypical cheap Jew "hilariously" made fun of in this movie. If that's the case, then endlessly complain about your food like an entitled douche bag, turn your waitperson's night into a living hell and reward them by not tipping.

Jewtopia was based on a play that was apparently successful enough within off-Broadway circles t...Read the entire review

Deltora Quest is an anime series created in2007 bystudio OLM, Inc. Based upon the popular children's book series writtenby Britishauthor Emily Rodda, this anime adaptation had one season whichcomprised the entiretyof the author's storyline across 52 episodes. The series became asuccess inJapan and an additional batch of episodes was produced that was notdirectlyrelated to the original author's work and which brought the series to65episodes.

When it came time to adapt the series into anEnglishlanguage version, the dub created for Deltora Quest removed theadditional episodes produced and returned the series to concludingwhere theoriginal material indicated. The dubbed version runs through to w...Read the entire review

Please Note: The stills used here are taken from the DVD portion of Ernest & Celestine.

The Movie:

In the animated charmer Ernest & Celestine, a mismatched pair forge an unlikely friendship as fugitives in a watercolor-dappled world - what's not to love about that? Arriving on DVD and Blu Ray in both its original French and a good English-language dub, Ernest & Celestine is another visually splendid winner from GKIDS, the distributors responsible for importing similar Euro-animated features like The Secret of Kells, Read the entire review

The Film:

If the second Easy Money / Snabba Cash film Hard to Kill was an uninspiring gangster thriller elevated by some interesting subtext and character work, this third entry, Life Deluxe is the same thing minus all of the subtext and most of the character. Although all three were adapted from the novels by Jens Lapidus, each entry in the film series has been tackled by a new director (Daniel Espinosa, Babak Najafi, and now Jens Jonsson), adding to the already substantial odds that a franchise is an exercise in diminishing returns. Disappointingly, Jonsson only appears interested in making an efficient thriller, which is problematic considering he brings little to no directorial innovation to the genre or series, and his script is ...Read the entire review

Although Joel Kinnaman has struggled to find a breakout role in the United States (his RoboCop was more of a hit elsewhere than here, and "The Killing" probably wouldn't have been killed twice if it were more than a cult hit), he's the star of his homeland's Snabba Cash series, based on a series of books by Swedish author Jens Lapidus (retitled Easy Money over here). The first film followed his character, Johan "JW" Westlund, an economics student sucked into the criminal underworld while trying to finance his high-class lifestyle. At the end of the film, he was carted off to prison, having been forced into a corner by a number of double-crosses and betrayals.

This second film picks up a few months after the events of the original. JW has been on his best behavior in prison, developing a stock market computer program for one of his old college friends. He's actually so ready...Read the entire review

THE MOVIE:

I love it when a movie surprises me. Any time I watch a film that refuses to be pigeon-holed and insists on zigging when I expect it to zag, it earns a measure of my respect. With that in mind, it gives me a great deal of pleasure to say that Resolution is one of the most surprising movies I've seen in a long time. It is a horror film built around a very human relationship. It's funny, creepy and endlessly creative. It is the thing you should be watching right now instead of sifting through my broken prose aimed at convincing you to do the same.

Still here? Alright, let me try to convey the film's charms while being as vague as possible about its mechanics (you deserve a spoiler-free experience). It's about two friends Mike (Peter Cilella) and Chris (Vinny Curran) who used to be close but drifted apart in the last few years. A lot of that has to do with Chris' ...Read the entire review

In the past few years (probably thanks to the internet), nerd culture has steadily shifted into the mainstream. Unavoidably, this leads to the point where nerd culture then becomes the subject of its own forms of pop culture, including sitcoms, reality television, and movies. The problem with this is that, unless nerd culture is incidental to the story, that culture is going say something about nerds. Although nerd culture in and of itself (comic books, tabletop gaming, fantasy novels, etc.) is nothing to be ashamed of, there are social tendencies that tend to take root in inclusive, tight-knit communities like fandom, which are -- and, look, I write for a DVD review site, so I'm speaking as much about myself as any reader -- worthy of criticism. It puts filmmakers in a tricky position: if their commentary has any substance, it can't pander to nerds, but if the filmmakers are trying to appeal to that a...Read the entire review

Please Note: The screen shots used here are taken from the DVD portion of Approved for Adoption.

The Movie:

The 2012 French feature Approved for Adoption accomplishes the nifty hat trick of taking a specific, highly personal story and making it universal. Combining traditional and CGI animation, documentary footage and evocative live action shots, it tells the story of Jung, a Korean-born graphic artist who grew up as an adoptee in a Belgian suburb. While it failed to bowl me over like similar adult-oriented animated fare such as Waltz with Bashir and Persepolis, it's impossible not to be charmed by the impressionistic collage of thoughts put forth by Jung and co-director Laurent Boileau.Read the entire review

Theanimeseries production of Zatch Bell isbased upon the popular manga series that is known as Konjikino Gash!! in Japan, which was both written and drawn byMakoto Raiku and which became published within a weekly shonen mangamagazine.The anime adaptation has been directed by Tetsuji Nakamura (who hadpreviouslydone some work on the Digimon anime).Fans of long action-packed anime series with a lot of zany charactersandbattle will find the series offers a lot to the longtime fans of theshonengenre.

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The Series:

I like long-running fighting anime. DragonBall Z is a much-loved favorite, I look forward to every new One Piece release, and shows like Naruto, Yu Yu Hakusho and Bleach take up a lot of room on myanime shelves. Year ago I reviewed ADV's first releases of Knights of the Zodiac, an editedversion of the popular Japanese show SaintSeiya. I didn't care for it, and even when I started coveringthe non-edited ADV releases I disliked the show. ADV went belly upbefore they could release the entire series (they only put out thefirst 60 episodes) but now, a decade later, Cinedig...Read the entire review

THE MOVIE:

I'm on a roll here. The Facility is my second movie in a row to feature a group of characters under threat of turning into blood-thirsty rage zombies. There I go throwing around the z word as if it doesn't carry a legacy (baggage?) with it. Okay fine, the folks in The Facility may not technically be zombies. They're more like the kissing cousins of the infected in 28 Days Later or the recently viewed Antisocial. Replace rage monkeys and social media with a highly experimental drug and you'll have a fair idea of the path this film follows.

The film begins with the convergence of seven strangers on the titular facility which is a medical testing ground for new drugs. They all come from different walks of life. Some...Read the entire review

The Movie:

Abel Ferrara's 1981 rape/revenge film Ms .45 (also known as Angel Of Vengeance) follows the story of a young woman named Thana (played by Zoe Lund credited here as Zoe Tamerlis, who was obviously quite young when the picture was made), a pretty young woman who works in the fashion district of Manhattan. Thana is incredibly shy and doesn't talk, she communicates only through her body language or by writing notes. One night after work, she stops at the grocery store and then heads back to her small apartment. On the way home, she's raped by a gun toting masked assailant (played by director Abel Ferrara credited here as Jimmy Laine) in an alleyway. Once the deed is done, she makes her way to her apartment where a second armed assailant rapes her at gun point. While he's on top of her she manages to hit him in the head and knock him down, and then she grabs an iron and...Read the entire review

Well I can certainly say that this is the first Flemmish film I have ever seen. It was shot in Belgium and the Netherlands, Flemmish being the language spoken in Flanders, the northern part of Belgium, and often referred to as "Belgian Dutch". And assuming that you are as knowledgeable about Flanders as I am, none of that really makes much sense. But regardless, you don't need to know the language to enjoy the film, the point being to watch a movie in its native tongue and experience what another country has to over cinematically. And The Broken Circle Breakdown isn't just another foreign film, it's Oscar-nominated. It may have lost to ...Read the entire review

Digimon has long been one ofmy favorite anime series. The design of the show is unique and it hasbeen able to lead audiences to a creative world which has spawned manyinteresting stories, characters, and inventive elements. Digimon:  Data Squad is thefifth season of the anime series, which acted as a standalone reboot ofsorts that expands the series universe and brings forth both newcharacters and some fan-favorite Digimonfrom the earlier seasons of the show. The series began airing in Japanbetween April 2006 and concluded its run in March 2007 before arrivingon US airwaves during October 2007 and finishing airing in its dubbedversion in ...Read the entire review

The Series:

The four seasons of Australian science fiction series Farscape ran from 1999 through 2003 when it was cancelled before the fifth (and intended to be final) season could be finished (co-producer Brian Henson would finish the series with a mini-series called Farscape: The Peacekeeper Wars but that's a different story). So while the series' time on TV was short, it was long enough that the show developed a pretty sizeable cult following. The series was released on DVD and then on Blu-ray by A&E sometime back, but those sets have been out of print for ages. The rights have now moved over to New Video/Cinedigm, and the series is once again back in print, with all of the extras in tow from the previous releases accompanying the series content.

So what's it all about? Well the series revolves around the adventures of an American astronaut named John Crichton (B...Read the entire review

THE MOVIE:

Cannibalism turns comedic to great effect in this export from New Zealand. Fresh Meat mines laughs from a home invasion scenario by placing a very unusual family at the center of all the mayhem. As a result, we get lesbian schoolgirls, sultry gun-toting women, gangsters in tiny undies and more gore than you can shake a stick at. Also, Jango Fett eats a human heart.

Rina (Hanna Tevita) has a secret. While she was away at her all-girls boarding school, she developed a real fondness for some of her classmates. I'm talking about the sort of fondness that can only be properly expressed by soaping each other up in the communal showers. As luck would have it, Rina's family has a secret of their own. While she was away from home, mom (Nicola Kawana), dad (Temuera Morrison) and little bro (Kahn West) started eating people on the regular. When she comes home for a...Read the entire review

The Movie:

Based on the novel by Franz-Olivier Giesbert and originally known as L'Immortel, director Richard Berry's 2010 film 22 Bullets stars Jean Reno as a man named Charly Matteï. No longer the young man he once was, in recent times he's left his life of crime behind him and decided to spend more time being a husband to his wife and a father to his two children in Marseilles. Shortly after the movie begins, Charly is the victim of an assassination attempt when a gang of masked gunmen pump twenty-two bullets into his body and shoot his dog dead.

Charly is whisked off to the hospital as quickly as possible and the doctors remove the bullets from his bloodied body. Against the odds, he doesn't die in the hospital bed and begins to make a quick and steady recovery. While in the hospital he receives a visit from an old underworld associate from his past named Tony Zacch...Read the entire review

"If the American Dream broke its promise to you, don't worry, we have an answer," says Matthew Cooke, the director / writer of the salaciously-titled documentary How to Make Money Selling Drugs. This slick, breezy production sits down with former dealers, retired law enforcement agents, and celebrity activists to investigate just how easy it really is to buy into one of the world's biggest businesses...as well as discuss how drug prohibition laws set by the United States government just feed the beast, and potential solutions to a problem that does little but perpetuate itself. Paired with Cooke's witty "now you can too!" structure, this is an entertaining sit that simultaneously captures the flashy appeal of becoming a wealthy drug kingpin, without shying away from the dark side.

The film's title is more than just a hook to get people to pick up the DVD; Drugs is actually structure...Read the entire review

The Show:

I was introduced to Lilyhammer over the holidays by my father, who said, ‘I've been wanting to see this show and you should too,' and did so in a way that parents do, which is encouragement with a dusting of guilt if you refuse. But hey, I watched some of it, and there was enough there that made me want to check out more of the show, which brings us to the review that you, dear reader, have clicked on. Cool story, I know.

Admittedly, the premise of Lilyhammer is cause for trepidation. Frank "The Fixer" Tagliano is a mobster in New York, attending the funeral of a comrade. Frank is played by Steven Van Zandt in what appears to be an extension of his role as Silvio from The Sopranos, but I digress. Frank decides that after this event (along with an attempt on his life) that h...Read the entire review

The Movie:

A fascinating and very grim (and yet remarkably colorful) act of cinematic insanity, The Act Of Killing, directed by Joshua Oppenheimer, Christine Cynn and an anonymous Indonesian filmmaker, is a movie unlike any other. It is a work of fierce originality and stark contrasts and a picture that will, if nothing else, provide plenty of food for thought.

In the mid-1960's Indonesia was the setting of some seriously disturbing political upheaval. In 1965, then President Sukarno was taken out of power by Suharto, Anwar Congo and Adi Zulkadry were recruited to lead ‘death squads' that would purge the country of communist sympathizers. As Suharto rose to power and the Communist Party (the PKI) was literally eliminated from the country, up to half a million people were killed. The killings began in Jakarta and soon spread across the country and things quickly spiraled out ...Read the entire review

The Movies:

Bruce Weber is a trip.

For the uninitiated, Weber is the fashion photographer who is best known for his erotically charged ad campaigns for the likes of Calvin Klein and Abercrombie & Fitch. His high-gloss images of body worship and retro-fetishism probably shaped the '80s and '90s-era aesthetic more than anyone else in fashion, making him appear as a calculated purveyor of hard-edged corporate sexiness. As with many people who became mega-successful on carefully crafted imagery (paging Martha Stewart), it makes you wonder what Weber is truly like, as a person. My curiosity was further heightened after seeing him in a recent fashion-related documentary, in which the portly, do-ragged photog held court while relaxing on a beach, surrounded b...Read the entire review

Anyone who's been paying attention to US news over the past couple of years ought to know that Detroit, Michigan can't catch a break. The long-struggling city, once the heart of the American motor industry, finally filed for bankruptcy on July 18th, 2013, citing a debt of up to $20 billion. Highland Park is a real town near Detroit, and Highland Park was actually shot on location, directly tackling the financial crisis facing the area (albeit, pre-bankruptcy). The tragic atmosphere of the city provides most of the movie with a unique poignancy, but it's hard not to wonder if it's basically insensitive to go and make the kind of movie where these serious problems are ultimately dealt with using sitcom-level conflict resolution.

Lloyd Howard (Billy Burke) is the worn-down principal of the high school in Highland Park. Although budget cuts continue to drain the school's already limited resource...Read the entire review

The Series:

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Please Note: The stills used here are taken from promotional materials and other sources, not the Blu-ray edition under review.

The Movie:

When it comes to great painters and the films that document them, the French are on it like fine wine with a plateful of the choicest brie. That fact is never more apparent than with Renoir, a sumptuous 2012 drama from director-screenwriter Gilles Bourdos. This lovely, somewhat meandering biopic offers quite a bit of insight on the famous Impressionist Pierre-Auguste Renoir in the final years of his life. While the film stands out mostly for its lush, travel magazine-esque depiction of Renoir's country estate, its story - of three people mired in a transitional period...Read the entire review

The Film:

Digimon isone of the best children's anime series around and it'sone of those rare series that won the hearts of children and hasmanaged tostay just as meaningful and well-made for that audience over the manyyearssince the original incarnation of the show was completed. This creativeandenergetic anime focuses on a group of ki...Read the entire review