DVD Talk DVD Reviews https://www.dvdtalk.com/reviews/list/DVD Video DVD Talk DVD Review RSS Feed en-us Pushing Hands (Blu-ray) Blu-ray https://www.dvdtalk.com/reviews/review/75315 Tue, 26 Jul 2022 23:25:37 UTC Recommended

The Movie:

Ang Lee's career has taken a number of odd twists and turns over the years, as he's shifted from indie darling to world-class filmmaker to idiosyncratic technical craftsman. Most viewers looking at Lee's most recently released film, Gemini Man, and his first completed feature, Pushing Hands, would have trouble identifying them as the work of the same director.

Pushing Hands, newly remastered and reissued on Blu-ray, was made several years after Lee had graduated from NYU film school, but one could be forgiven for assuming that this 1991 release was a feature-length thesis project. Pushing Hands is well-made for a low-budget indie, but it is overly studied a...Read the entire review

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Center Stage (1991) (Blu-ray) Blu-ray https://www.dvdtalk.com/reviews/review/74847 Fri, 25 Jun 2021 14:01:04 UTC Highly Recommended

The Movie:

Ruan Lingyu is touted as the "Greta Garbo of China" on the box for the 1991 film Center Stage from director Stanley Kwan. Watching Kwan's deconstructed biopic of Ruan, however, one might think more immediately of a doomed early Hollywood starlet whose unfortunate exploits became fodder for one of Kenneth Anger's Hollywood Babylon books. Ruan committed suicide in 1935, at age 24, seemingly to escape from malicious gossip in the press. In the process, she became a legend.

Kwan's film examines Ruan's short time as a top box office star and the love triangle that was her undoing. Rather than tell a straight rise-and-fall story, Kwan juxtaposes dramatized vignettes from Ruan's life with modern-day interviews, film clips of actual Ruan ...Read the entire review

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The Killing Floor (Blu-ray) Blu-ray https://www.dvdtalk.com/reviews/review/74603 Tue, 15 Dec 2020 21:42:52 UTC Recommended

The Movie:

The 1984 fact-based drama The Killing Floor looks at the struggle to unionize the Chicago Stockyards in the late 1910s. The main character is Frank Custer (Damien Leake), a black man from the southern U.S. who travels with his best friend Thomas (Ernest Rayford) in search of war-time work. Frank is assigned to mop up the blood from the stockyard kill floor but realizes that the only way to move up is to become a butcher. Union man Bremer (Clarence Felder) sees Frank's quiet but insistent drive and figures he's the kind of man they need to join the union and convince the other black workers to join as well.

Scripted by playwright Leslie Lee (based on a screen story by Elsa Rassbach and adaptation by Ron Milner) and directed by Bill Duke (Read the entire review

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Mr. Topaze (aka I Like Money) (Blu-ray) Blu-ray https://www.dvdtalk.com/reviews/review/74595 Mon, 07 Dec 2020 19:53:59 UTC DVD Talk Collector Series

Mr. Topaze (1961) is a real curiosity. It's the only movie directed by Peter Sellers, who also stars, and for decades all but impossible to see. The film received mixed reviews and flopped at the box-office, and apparently Sellers himself had all theatrical prints withdrawn and destroyed. The original camera negative apparently no longer exists or is otherwise inaccessible. The British Film Institute eventually located Sellers's personal 16mm reduction print, and two faded 35mm theatrical prints were used for its 2K mastering.

The movie is an adaptation of Marcel Pagnol's play Topaze, already filmed seven times prior to Sellers's version, including twice by Pagnol himself, in 1936 starring Arnaudy, and twenty years later in a version starring Fernandel. Sellers's version is most unusual: superficially it resembles other "little" British comedies of the period, and was marketed along si...Read the entire review

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L\'Innocente (Blu-ray) Blu-ray https://www.dvdtalk.com/reviews/review/74458 Fri, 14 Aug 2020 21:32:03 UTC Highly Recommended

The Movie:

Released internationally in 1976, the period drama L'Innocente (The Innocent) was the final film of Italian director Luchino Visconti, known for sumptuous and sensual work like The Leopard and Death in Venice. The film is based on the 1892 novel by Gabriele D'Annunzio, which has also been known in English as The Intruder or The Victim. These alternate titles are more thematically on-the-nose once we understand to whom the title refers, but one can still find agreeable ambiguity in determining which character in the story is the innocent, which is th...Read the entire review

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2 Films by Claude Sautet (César et Rosalie / Les choses de la vie) (Blu-ray) Blu-ray https://www.dvdtalk.com/reviews/review/74395 Tue, 07 Jul 2020 13:47:51 UTC DVD Talk Collector Series

Film Movement's 2 Films by Claude Sautet serves as an excellent introduction to the French director and screenwriter. I confess that while Sautet's crime drama Classe Tous Risques (1960) remains a personal favorite, I was only vaguely aware of his later films. But clips from several appear in Bertrand Tavenier's documentary My Journey Through French Cinema and piqued my interest. Film Movement's earlier release of Sautet's superb Max and the Junkmen (Max et les ferraileurs, 1971), starring the late Michel Piccoli and Romy Schneider, furthered that growing interest, and these new releases - Les choses de la vie (1970) and César et Rosalie (1972) - are about equally good, if in different ways. This release is subtitled "Starring Romy Schneider," as she's in both films, albeit more of a supporting part in the earlier one. Piccoli dominates Les choses de...Read the entire review

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Corpus Christi (Blu-ray) Blu-ray https://www.dvdtalk.com/reviews/review/74390 Mon, 06 Jul 2020 14:04:38 UTC Recommended

The Movie:

I do not dive into Polish cinema often; I think the last time I did was when Kieslowski's Three Color Trilogy hit Criterion. But when your film shares the same name as a town in Texas and is nominated alongside an eventual Best Picture Oscar winner and a pseudo-autobiographical film by Almodovar, it sort of warrants a closer look.

Corpus Christi is written by Mateus Pacewicz and directed by Jan Komasa. It tells the story of Daniel (Bartosz Bielenia), a convicted murder serving time in juvenile detention for the crime. During his imprisonment he finds religion, and his record prevents him from seeking a life in the priesthood. Once released he works a...Read the entire review

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L'Important C'Est D'Aimer (Blu-ray) Blu-ray https://www.dvdtalk.com/reviews/review/74362 Mon, 15 Jun 2020 14:19:06 UTC Recommended

The Movie:

Director Andrej Zulaswki's 1975 drama features a fantastic cast of Eurocult regulars cast against type and allowed to really ‘become' their characters thanks to a tight script and some great characterization. It's a grim story about the dangers of overpowering passion and crazed obsession, and it makes for considerably more intense viewing than its artsy reputation would likely have you believe. Then again, Zulawski is no stranger to horror...

The film follows a depressed man named Servais Mont (Fabio Testi) who makes a living as a photographer. His life changes forever when he meets an actress named Nadine Chevalier (Romy Schneider) who finds him in his apartment not doing well. Nadine specializes in sex films where she earns a living by frequently getting naked in front of the camera. He immediately feels for her and decides he'll try and help her find a more legiti...Read the entire review

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Serie Noire (Blu-ray) Blu-ray https://www.dvdtalk.com/reviews/review/74339 Thu, 28 May 2020 14:10:28 UTC DVD Talk Collector Series

The Movie:

Years and years ago (maybe in the mid-'00s?), I had a co-worker tell me I should put down the Elmore Leonard book I was reading and pick up Jim Thompson instead. I plowed through a half-dozen books in a matter of weeks. I was hooked.

Naturally, I also checked out the famous film adaptations of Thompson's hard-boiled work: The Getaway, The Grifters, Coup de Torchon (based on Pop. 1280). They were all pretty great without entirely nailing the gritty, ho...Read the entire review

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Alastair Sim's School for Laughter (Hue and Cry / Laughter in Paradise / The Belles of St. Trinian's / School for Scoundrels) (Blu-ray) Blu-ray https://www.dvdtalk.com/reviews/review/74332 Fri, 22 May 2020 14:16:21 UTC Highly Recommended

Yet another excellent boxed set of classic British films - they're coming out in droves from several labels this year - Alastair Sim's School for Laughter: 4 Classic Comedies is a title that's a bit misleading. Hue and Cry (1947) isn't really a comedy, but rather a boy's adventure-thriller with humorous aspects. Further, Sim's participation in that, as well as Laughter in Paradise (1951) and School for Scoundrels (1960) are supporting roles; put together, he probably has less than 90 minutes of screentime. Only in the fourth film of the set, The Belles of St. Trinian's (1954) does Sim really have the leading role(s), and that one only because Margaret Rutherford couldn't/wouldn't appear in the film, resulting in Sim playing two parts. Sim, however, is in excellent form in all of these movies, which vary from good to excellent. The transfers, likewise, and all but one ...Read the entire review

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Their Finest Hour: 5 British WWII Classics (Blu-ray) Blu-ray https://www.dvdtalk.com/reviews/review/74295 Fri, 24 Apr 2020 14:36:37 UTC DVD Talk Collector Series

Similar to Anchor Bay's British War Collection DVD set from 2005, Film Movement's Their Finest Hour: 5 British WWII Classics is a superb set of titles, some heretofore available only as imports, either region-free or region "B" encoded, with extras from those releases ported over here. The Anchor Bay set included Went the Day Well? (1942), The Cruel Sea (1953), The Dam Busters (1954), The Ship That Died of Shame (1955), and The Colditz Story (1957), while Film Movement's set include When the Day Well?, The Dam Busters, and The Colditz Story but with Dunkirk and Ice Cold in Alex (both 1958) in place of the others. The transfers are great and the extras copious, making this a must-have set, even for those already in possession of the earlier Anchor Bay DVD set.

Read the entire review

]]> Whisky Galore! & The Maggie (Blu-ray) Blu-ray https://www.dvdtalk.com/reviews/review/74279 Fri, 03 Apr 2020 15:30:35 UTC DVD Talk Collector Series

Film Movement's welcome release of two classic Ealing Studios comedies arrives more than a dozen years after they were last seen as part of Anchor Bay's Region 1 DVD Ealing boxed set. Both are set in rural Scotland, and both are directed by Alexander Mackendrick (The Man in the White Suit, The Ladykillers), one of the primary auteurs of Ealing whimsy.

The Maggie is like a distant ancestor of Bill Forsyth's wonderful Local Hero (1983). Both are fish-out-of-water tales about American businessmen bemused by a very different way of life in rural, working-class Scotland. In The Maggie, American airline executive Calvin B. Marshall (Paul Dou...Read the entire review

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The Beatles: Made on Merseyside DVD Video https://www.dvdtalk.com/reviews/review/74272 Thu, 26 Mar 2020 13:45:01 UTC Recommended

Back in DVD's glory days, when stores were overflowing with them, you would often have to watch out for so-called "music" discs that were actually not authorized by the artists and didn't include any music from them- instead just containing interviews of anyone remotely associated that they could find. Many of these discs were about the Beatles- in fact some of the very first budget titles out were "Alf Bicknell's Beatles Diary" and "Beatles Celebration". Today the supply of discs in stores is not as plentiful, but a few of these titles still make it out. Checking out "Made on Merseyside" I was expecting it to be that sort of disc, but I've had enough long-time interest in the Beatles that it might still be worth watching.

This focuses on the very early years of the grou...Read the entire review

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Gregory's Girl (Blu-ray) Blu-ray https://www.dvdtalk.com/reviews/review/74230 Tue, 03 Mar 2020 15:44:27 UTC Highly Recommended

The Movie:

Scottish filmmaker Bill Forsyth is an unassuming magician. His films, of which there are sadly too few, weave a spell out of ordinary life that makes it seem more wonderful and odd than it probably is. In his recent review of Forsyth's international success Local Hero, DVD Talk's own Stuart Galbraith IV states that that film "beguiles most who have seen it, but pinpointing exactly why it's so uniquely disarming isn't so easy."

The same holds true for Forsyth's recently reissued 1980 film Gregory's Girl, a teen comedy that's both utterly typical and highly unusual. It's a bit crude, but not so much that you would get offended. It's a bit ...Read the entire review

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Fritz Lang's Indian Epic (The Tiger of Eschnapur & The Indian Tomb) (Blu-ray) Blu-ray https://www.dvdtalk.com/reviews/review/74158 Mon, 06 Jan 2020 15:52:25 UTC DVD Talk Collector Series

Director Fritz Lang's "Indian Epic," actually two feature films, The Tiger of Eschnapur (Der Tiger von Eschnapur) and The Indian Tomb (Das Indische Grabmal, both 1959) are visually spectacular, often startling color fantasies, difficult to describe because they were anomalies of their time. Combined, they remake the two-part 1921 German film The Indian Tomb, based on Thea von Harbou's 1918 novel, which she and Lang had adapted. Lang had hoped to direct that version, but the project was instead assigned to the more experienced Joe May. May eventually emigrated to Hollywood, where he mostly made forgettable genre films like The Invisible Man Returns and the somewhat better House of the Seven Gables (both 1940).

While collaborating, Lang and Harbou embarked on an affair while she was still married to actor Rudolf Klein-Rogge. She divorced him and married ...Read the entire review

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Heroes Shed No Tears (Blu-ray) Blu-ray https://www.dvdtalk.com/reviews/review/73902 Wed, 10 Jul 2019 21:29:22 UTC Recommended

The Movie:

Directed by John Woo in 1986, just before he'd come to international acclaim for his bullet ballet masterpieces Hardboiled and The Killer, Heroes Shed No Tears may lack the poetry of his better pictures but it still makes for a fun time at the movie.

The story follows Chan Chung (Eddy Ko), a tough hired by the government of Thailand to lead his rag-tag group of Chinese mercenaries on a mission to put an end to a local drug problem. Their mission is to cross a border or two and capture, then return to Thailand, the general behind the drug smuggling going on in the area. The men make their way to the target and, after a showdown, make their escape with him only to be followed no just by his troops but a small Vietnamese army whose leader is out to get revenge against Chung… and things all go south from there.

Somewhat famously recut and even p...Read the entire review

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I Am Not a Witch DVD Video https://www.dvdtalk.com/reviews/review/73645 Mon, 11 Feb 2019 19:04:41 UTC Recommended

In present-day Zambia, fear of witches remains high: the public identifies women they believe to be witches, and those women are put into public service by the government, working in the fields with white ribbons attached to big spools preventing them from running away. They are also a tourist attraction, sitting politely for tourists (especially foreigners) who want to gawk and take pictures of these mysterious and supposedly dangerous people. Things change when nine-year-old Shula (Margaret Mulubwa) is charged with witchcraft and put into service, expected to render guilty verdicts in local court cases. Before long, the huckster government agent in charge of Shula's care, Mr. Banda (Henry B.J. Phiri) is exploiting her in order to make money, unaware that Shula increasingly recognizes the unreasonable and unfair paranoia that have changed the course of her life forever.

I Am Not a Witch is ...Read the entire review

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Bent (Blu-ray) Blu-ray https://www.dvdtalk.com/reviews/review/73638 Thu, 07 Feb 2019 16:56:00 UTC Recommended



Director: Sean Mathias
Starring: Clive Owen, Lothaire Bluteau, Brian Webber
Year: 1997

Sean Mathias directed one feature film, Bent, and what a way to come in/go out. We've seen countless Holocaust stories turned into movies, both unbearable truth and shocking fiction, and we'll see countless more; Hollywood knows that it's a genre that stirs us into action and that we've shown no signs of giving up on supporting. And I don't fault audiences for that; this era is definitely history we dare not forget, and I applaud directors for keeping it in focus, no matter how many times they go back to the well or how easy it may be to elicit emotion from these tales. But Mathias brings us something we think we understand from a d...Read the entire review

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La Boyita (aka The Last Summer of La Boyita) DVD Video https://www.dvdtalk.com/reviews/review/73580 Mon, 14 Jan 2019 18:56:59 UTC Recommended

Jorgelina (Guadalupe Alonso) has not yet entered puberty, but her curiosity about the changes that are going to happen to her have already taken hold. She steals medical books from her parents and peeks at the diagrams and pictures of women's bodies until she can't stand to keep looking, and she is alternatively fascinated by and infuriated with her older sister, Luciana (Maria Clara Merendino), who has already started getting her period and goes to the beach to try and spend time with boys. All Jorgelina wants is to spend another fun summer playing in the trailer on their property known as La Boyita, but when it's clear that isn't going to happen, she decides to spend the summer at her father's house out in farm country. There, she meets a young man named Mario (Nicolas Treise), working as a farmhand on his father's farm. Jorgelina is attracted to Mario, lying in her wading pool and whispering his nam...Read the entire review

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The Third Murder (Blu-ray) Blu-ray https://www.dvdtalk.com/reviews/review/73576 Mon, 14 Jan 2019 18:56:59 UTC Highly Recommended

The Movie:

At first blush, the 2017 law thriller The Third Murder looks like an anomaly in the career of director Hirokazu Kore-eda, who tends to specialize in atypical family dramas like the acclaimed Still Walking and Like Father, Like Son. But there is a detectible kinship between The Third Murder and Kore-eda's newest film, still playing in arthouses: Shoplifters (which is great, by the way). While Shoplifters returns Kore-eda to the world of unusual family dynamics, both films eventually confront the gulf between real...Read the entire review

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Confessions of a Young American Housewife / Sin in the Suburbs / Warm Nights Hot Pleasures (Blu-ray) Blu-ray https://www.dvdtalk.com/reviews/review/73428 Wed, 31 Oct 2018 16:43:40 UTC Recommended

The Movies:

Film Movement continues their line celebrating the work of Joe Sarno with this latest entry in the ongoing series.

Confessions Of A Young American Housewife:

Like Abigail Leslie Is Back In Town, Joe Sarno's Confessions Of A Young American Housewife finds the director working with a stable of talent that will probably be better known to those with an affinity or appreciation for seventies XXX films than more traditional exploitation fare.

The film focuses on a married couple, Carol (Rebecca Brooke) and her husband Eddie who enjoy swinging with another married suburban couple, Pete (Eric Edwards) and his wife Anne (Chris Jordan). These four happily spend their spare time swapping partners and boinking one another to their hearts' content. Things are going swimmingly for these armchair orgy enthusiasts until Carol's widowed mother, Jennife...Read the entire review

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Between Land & Sea DVD Video https://www.dvdtalk.com/reviews/review/73413 Tue, 30 Oct 2018 16:07:30 UTC Recommended

Between Land and Sea DVD Review

BetweenLand and Sea is a documentary feature exploring the world ofsurfing with a group of dedicated, passionate surfers from Ireland'scoast of County Clare. The film is produced by Anne Mcloughlin andJamie Lee D'Alton. This is a personal and reflective documentarywhich has some unique and interesting insights into the dreams and...Read the entire review

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Scarlet Diva (Blu-ray) Blu-ray https://www.dvdtalk.com/reviews/review/73367 Tue, 09 Oct 2018 20:49:18 UTC Recommended

The Movie:

Anna Battista (played by writer/director/actress Asia Argento) is a twenty-four-year-old actress born in Italy who star is on the rise in the international film scene of the early 2000s. She's got a reputation of promiscuity, self-destructive behavior and nihilism. In an attempt to be taken more seriously as an artist, she decides to write and direct a movie based on her on life entitled Scarlet Diva, a film that she also intends to star in, essentially playing herself.

After completing some work in Rome, she wins an award at a film festival in Milan and then heads to Paris where her friend is involved in an unhealthy and abusive relationship. From here, she winds up in Los Angeles and finds herself in a problematic situation involving a predatory film producer named Mr. Paar (Joe Coleman) who is much higher up on the industry ladder than she. Eventually she falls f...Read the entire review

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You Will Be Mine (2009) DVD Video https://www.dvdtalk.com/reviews/review/73329 Fri, 21 Sep 2018 14:52:26 UTC Skip It

Marie (Judith Davis) is looking forward to her first semester at a prestigious music conservatory, where she will learn to hone her piano skills with some of the best mentors in France. To save money, she has arranged to move in with her childhood best friend Emma (Isild Le Besco), who has a spacious studio apartment near the school, and who has lived alone since her father passed away. It seems like a perfect arrangement, until it becomes clear that Emma has sexual feelings for Marie that border on psychotic, and Marie quickly finds herself trying to hide from Emma, escaping first with her classmate boyfriend Sami (Johan Libereau), and then back home for a spell, only for Emma to lure Marie back into her psychological and emotional spider web.

You Will Be Mine is a psychosexual thriller with some interesting ideas lingering at the fringes, but one which fails to buck the basic genre trappin...Read the entire review

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Bye Bye Germany DVD Video https://www.dvdtalk.com/reviews/review/73284 Fri, 31 Aug 2018 11:55:43 UTC Rent It

Bye Bye Germany DVD Review

ByeBye Germany takesplace post-war and focuses on the lives of several Holocaustsurvivors who are trying to raise money to leave behind Germany andenter the United States. It's actually a comedy-drama exploring thecharacters turning point to try and live a better life again. Thefilm is from director Sam Garbarski (Vijay and I).

DavidBermann (MoritzBleitbreu) leads the way for the group attempting to leaveGermany. He has several ideas for how to raise the money to saygoodbye to Germany for good. Each individual ends up sellingoverpriced linen. They essentially become...Read the entire review

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Time to Die (Blu-ray) Blu-ray https://www.dvdtalk.com/reviews/review/73137 Tue, 03 Jul 2018 13:25:27 UTC Highly Recommended

The Movie:

Time to Die (Tiempo de Morir; 1966) is the debut feature of Mexican iconoclast director Arturo Ripstein (Deep Crimson). Ripstein was barely 22 when he directed the film, but he was already working with first-rate material. Time to Die's script was penned by two of the 20th century's most acclaimed Spanish-language novelists, Gabriel García Márquez and Carlos Fuentes.

The film is a revenge western, with shades of Clint Eastwood's future classic Unforgiven, although the tone is closer to a cross between the Read the entire review

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Oh Lucy! (Blu-ray) Blu-ray https://www.dvdtalk.com/reviews/review/73128 Thu, 28 Jun 2018 23:44:29 UTC Highly Recommended

The most obvious label for Oh Lucy! is "midlife crisis drama": a 40-something Japanese office worker falls unexpectedly for a handsome American English teacher, and follows him back to Los Angeles when he unexpectedly leaves. Yet "midlife crisis" doesn't feel quite right for the mixture of tones that the film, the debut feature for co-writer/director Atsuko Hirayanagi, manages to capture and hones in on.

The office worker is Setsuko (Shinobu Terajima), who tries to minimize her presence in a drab office doing some undefined computer work. She receives a call from her niece, Mika (Shioli Kutsuna), asking to meet for lunch, where Mika pitches her a deal: she can't afford to keep taking English classes next door, and she can't get a refund, so maybe Setsuko can take the class in her stead and pay Mika the 500,000 yen enrollment fee. Setsuko is skeptical, but changes her mind when she meets Joh...Read the entire review

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The Great Silence (Blu-ray) Blu-ray https://www.dvdtalk.com/reviews/review/73104 Sun, 17 Jun 2018 15:24:04 UTC DVD Talk Collector Series

The title The Great Silence (Il Grande Silenzio, 1968) is synonymous with The Big Sleep, referring as it does to ignominious nothingness following death. Sergio Corbucci's masterpiece, less famous but superior to his earlier Django(1966), The Great Silence is the bleakest, most pitiless Spaghetti Western ever made. Its downbeat, uncompromising (to say the least) ending all but doomed its commercial chances. Reportedly, at a screening in Italy one cinema-goer was so infuriated he fired his own pistol as the lights came up in the theater.

The prolific Spaghetti genre produced several hundred serviceable time-killers, along with some awful Westerns yet only a handful of masterpieces. Beyond the in-a-class-by-themselves Westerns of Sergio Leone, the pack leaders often were politically-driven polemics, with screenplays by left-wing and communist writer-directors. The ...Read the entire review

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Harmonium DVD Video https://www.dvdtalk.com/reviews/review/73068 Sat, 02 Jun 2018 15:36:55 UTC Recommended

Hamonium is a dark drama from acclaimedwriter-directorKôji Fukada (Hospitalité). It was the winner of the Un Certain Regard JuryPrize at theCannes Film Festival. The film is executive produced by KoichiroFukushima (SweetBean, Fantastic Girls).

The reserved Toshio (Kanji Furutachi) is takenintounexpected life territory when his brother Yasaka (Tadanobu Asano)returns homefrom his lengthy stay in prison to live with his brother, alongsideToshio'swife Akie (Mariko Tsutsui) and their daughter Hotaru (MomoneShinokawa). Toshioaims to give his brother a chance at a new life with his family. Itisn't asimple transition for him or his family but they each inte...Read the entire review

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In Between (aka Bar Bahar) DVD Video https://www.dvdtalk.com/reviews/review/73056 Tue, 29 May 2018 14:49:33 UTC Rent It

When it comes to art that is ostensibly creative or unique, the films that land at a crossroads between culture and cliche are the most complicated to assess. As the old Ebert quote goes, it's not what a film is about, but how the movie is about that subject, but even films that offer a unique cultural perspective or artistic voice, can end up weighed down by the how of familiar story beats or plot devices. In Between is one of those films: a striking feminist statement that no doubt stands out among the films currently being made in Palestine, about Palestinian women, but which also feels somewhat uninspired in terms of the characters and story that debut writer/director Maysaloun Hamoud uses to put that statement onto the screen.

Salma (Sana Jammalieh) and Laila (Mouna Hawa) are two young Palestinian women who don't fit traditional cultural expectations. Salma is a lesbian DJ who ...Read the entire review

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Jasper Jones DVD Video https://www.dvdtalk.com/reviews/review/73027 Tue, 15 May 2018 12:48:24 UTC Rent It

Charlie Bucktin (Levi Miller) is perplexed when Jasper Jones (Aaron McGrath) knocks at his window in the middle of the night demanding his help. Although Jasper is a classmate and a local, Charlie and Jasper have never spoken to one another, and he is especially shocked when Jasper leads him to the body of Laura Wishart, the older daughter of the town councilor, hung from a tree. Jasper, who is both an Aboriginal and Laura's girlfriend, correctly assumes the police will look at him as the primary suspect. Jasper suspects the real killer is Mad Jack Lionel (Hugo Weaving), a local recluse who is rumored to have murdered a woman years ago. Charlie reluctantly agrees to help Jasper try and catch the killer, a promise that will leave him juggling the mystery, racist fallout from the ongoing Vietnam War trickling toward his best friend Jeffrey (Kevin Long) and his family, the affections of Laura's younger si...Read the entire review

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Bad Lucky Goat DVD Video https://www.dvdtalk.com/reviews/review/73021 Fri, 11 May 2018 14:52:29 UTC Recommended

Siblings Corn (Honlenny Huffington) and Rita (Kiara Howard) are your average brother and sister -- constantly bickering, tormenting one another. Corn dreams of being a musician and getting away from the island and the hotel their parents run, while Rita chats with her friend about cute boys and mostly seems anxious to grow up so that her headstrong attitude gets more respect. While running an errand for their parents, Corn and Rita are thrown into a 24-hour adventure that will take them all over the island, into peril and out of it, when they accidentally run over a wayward goat with the family truck and need to figure out how to get it repaired.

Bad Lucky Goat is a charming but somewhat simple adventure story, anchored by beautiful visuals and plenty of local flavor but showing hints of repetition even across its scant 76-minute running time. As the debut of writer/director Samir Oliveros,...Read the entire review

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The Teacher DVD Video https://www.dvdtalk.com/reviews/review/72898 Mon, 26 Mar 2018 18:18:40 UTC Highly Recommended



Director: Jan Hrebejk
Starring: Zuzana Maurery, Csongor Kassai, Martin Havelka
Year: 2016

My brother-in-law is Czech, and grew up in Communist-era Prague during the 70s and 80s. I texted him while watching this fascinating film to get translations of street signs and propaganda, although the setting here is Bratislava, Slovakia, not the Czech Republic; close enough. He is always on the lookout for Czech or Slovak films, and this one really piqued his interest, as it focuses on a very specific time frame, one which he experienced first hand. But at the same time, this story is an example of the Communist ideal (and abuse thereof) worldwide, a snapshot of what it's like to live under the thumb of a regime that proposes to make...Read the entire review

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My Art DVD Video https://www.dvdtalk.com/reviews/review/72858 Wed, 14 Mar 2018 20:50:59 UTC Highly Recommended

Ellie Shine (Laurie Simmons) is an artist, and she's ready to dive into her next big piece. She's just visited a former student (Lena Dunham) at an art gallery where the student's work is being exhibited, wrapped another semester of teaching, and has lined up a nice location, in the form of a summer house owned by a friend who has offered to let Ellie stay there for the summer. Ellie knows that she wants to work with film on her next project, meaning both filming with a Bolex camera and tapping into the visuals from old movies that she loves so much, but she only discovers upon arriving that the journey will involve some locals, including local actors/landscapers Frank (Robert Clohessy) and Tom (Josh Safdie), as well as John (John Rothman), the laywer relative of one of her students.

My Art is a gorgeous movie, not just starring but also written and directed by visual artist Laurie Simmons....Read the entire review

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Theeb DVD Video https://www.dvdtalk.com/reviews/review/72740 Sun, 21 Jan 2018 23:53:04 UTC Recommended



Director: Naji Abu Nowar
Starring: Jacir Eid Al-Hwietat, Hussein Salameh AL-Sweilhiyeen
Year: 2014

Out of the United Arab Emirates and filmed in Jordan comes Theeb, a film nominated for Best Foreign Language Feature at the 2016 Academy Awards. 'Theeb' means 'wolf' in Arabic, and is the name of our main character, as well as a point of metaphor throughout the movie. You won't fail to be impressed by this look into another world, nor will its impact miss the mark for many. And yet while its differences are its strengths, they are also its weaknesses, the delivery of the story so unlike what we are used to seeing that they catch our attention only to make us feel somewhat unwelcome here.

The Movie

Read the entire review

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