DVD Talk DVD Reviews https://www.dvdtalk.com/reviews/list/DVD Video DVD Talk DVD Review RSS Feed en-us The Blob (Blu-ray) Blu-ray https://www.dvdtalk.com/reviews/review/74055 Tue, 22 Oct 2019 14:07:26 UTC Highly Recommended

The Movie:

Chuck Russell's 1988 remake of The Blob (co-written by Russell and Frank Darabont) takes place in the small Colorado town of Arbeville where everyone at the local high school is consumed with preparing for various sports events. So consumed are they and all around them, that no one seems to notice when a meteor comes hurtling out of the sky and lands nearby.

That same night, a football player named Paul Taylor (Donovan Leitch) is out on a date with a foxy cheerleader named Meg (Shawnee Smith). While driving around, they crash into a homeless guy who runs into the middle of the road in front of them. This is more than just a simple case of ‘man gets hit by car', however, once they take the poor old dude to the hospital, they learn that the gooey mess on his hand has literally taken on a life of its own… and it's hungry. Or at least it seems hungry, once it dev...Read the entire review

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The Harder They Come: Collector's Edition (Blu-ray) Blu-ray https://www.dvdtalk.com/reviews/review/73979 Tue, 27 Aug 2019 16:02:52 UTC Highly Recommended

The Movie:

Early in The Harder They Come, the Jamaican gritty crime melodrama legendary mostly for its spectacular Reggae soundtrack, co-writer/director Perry Henzell's naïve country boy protagonist Ivan (Jimmy Cliff) has just arrived in the city with big dreams of becoming a recording artist and zero money and resources to achieve it. In between begging random rich people for work, he happens upon a movie theatre that's showing the original Django. As Franco Nero pulls the minigun out of the coffin and fills an entire platoon of bad guys full of lead in that infamous scene, Henzell flash cuts to the Jamaican audience hooting and hollering in support of the anti-hero.

These cuts are revisited during vital moments in the climax, yet this time it's Ivan who's the anti-hero. Henzell lays out the thesis for his film right then and there, while also showcasing why he ris...Read the entire review

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Universal Horror Collection: Vol 2 (Murders in the Zoo / Strange Case of Doctor Rx / Mad Doctor of Market Street / Mad Ghoul) (Blu-ray) Blu-ray https://www.dvdtalk.com/reviews/review/73942 Mon, 05 Aug 2019 17:15:46 UTC Recommended

Shout! Factory's Universal Horror Collection: Volume 2 is a four-feature boxed Blu-ray set certain to test the patience and wallet of even the most ardent fans of ‘30s-‘40s horror movies. Universal, the label from which Shout! licensed these titles, already repeatedly gouged fans with mix-and-match collections that had them essentially buying the same movies over-and-over again.

If, say, you like Wolf Man movies for this reason bought their Blu-ray of Abbott and Costello meet Frankenstein in 2012, and then The Wolf Man, and then Frankenstein: Complete Legacy Collection in 2016, you'd be repurchasing those two earlier titles in order to see Frankenstein meets the Wolf Man, House of Frankenstein, and House of Dracula, all featuring hapless Lawrence Talbot (Lon Chaney, Jr.). But then let's say you also wanted a copy of She-Wolf of London and ...Read the entire review

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No Solicitors DVD Video https://www.dvdtalk.com/reviews/review/73714 Mon, 18 Mar 2019 19:38:45 UTC Recommended

This one was a decent surprise- while the cover makes it look like another low-budget "torture porn" horror movie, it's actually more of a dark comedy which is apparent from the ironically sunny opening. The concept is certainly fun- the victims here are all people who came up and rang the doorbell to sell or push something, often interrupting dinner or whatever was going on. The Cutterman family even has a "No Solicitors" sign clearly above their doorbell, but these people had to ring it anyways so it's hard to feel too sorry for them.

Eric Roberts is Dr. Lewis Cutterman, just recognized as the nation's top brain surgeon. He's quite the professional. His wife Rachel (Beverly Randolph) is a nurse at his hospital, and she's always cheerful. But they have a secret- a secon...Read the entire review

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River Runs Red DVD Video https://www.dvdtalk.com/reviews/review/73657 Thu, 14 Feb 2019 21:41:25 UTC Skip It



Director: Wes Miller
Starring: Taye Diggs, George Lopez, John Cusack
Year: 2018

I adoringly follow John Cusack both cinematically and politically, but I have limits on both fronts, and it seems like we just reached the point down the film road where, if he's gonna pull over here, I'm staying in the car. He doesn't always choose the best projects, but then he drops something like Love & Mercy and you feel glad you stuck by his side all these years. On the flip side, sometimes he costars in River Runs Red for no other reason that you can discern other than money, because you know that's the only way they could get you to show your face in something...Read the entire review

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Truth or Dare (Syfy; 2017) DVD Video https://www.dvdtalk.com/reviews/review/73373 Fri, 12 Oct 2018 15:03:46 UTC Skip It

The Film:


Despite the iffy visual effects and a few larger-than-life performances, I'm a pretty big fan of the movie Jumanji, in which four people are forced to finish a game while every roll of the dice creates real-world, deadly obstacles for them to endure. While designed for children and older audiences, there's a certain caliber of suspense and terror emergent from that concept that works regardless of the intended audience, partly in anticipation of what's to come and partly in how the players adapt to their new challenges. It might be kind of unusual to compare a ‘90s kids adventure film to the likes of bloody, R-rated contemporary film l...Read the entire review

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Shock Wave DVD Video https://www.dvdtalk.com/reviews/review/72803 Fri, 16 Feb 2018 14:54:23 UTC Highly Recommended

The Movie:

The Hong Kong bomb squad flick Shock Wave is a nearly nonstop barrage of setpieces. Car chases, wild shootouts, and, of course, explosions abound. Sometimes these elements appear in separate scenes, but often they arrive clumped together. Writer-director Herman Yau, whose career runs the gamut from the grossout horror of Ebola Syndrome to the mainstream martial arts of The Legend Is Born: Ip Man, is clearly a restless soul. This restlessness benefits this film greatly, as Yau is constantly adding new wrinkles to his narrative that make what might...Read the entire review

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Me...Jane (And More Stories About Girl Power!) DVD Video https://www.dvdtalk.com/reviews/review/71335 Fri, 30 Sep 2016 20:14:47 UTC Rent It

Scholastic and Weston Woods Studios have co-produced hundreds of lightly animated and live-action short features based on popular kids' books during the last few decades, and chances are good that your children have seen one or more at school, home, or online at some point. From well-known classics like Curious George (not the PBS series), Where the Wild Things Are...Read the entire review

]]> Noah's Ark DVD Video https://www.dvdtalk.com/reviews/review/70702 Tue, 22 Mar 2016 13:01:08 UTC Rent It

Noah's Ark:
Smart, lush photography of amazing landscapes belies modernized family relationships in this weirdly powerful humanist melodrama. Starring David Threlfall as builder of the ark, and featuring roundly earnest, well-tempered performances all around, Noah's Ark takes a tack opposite that of Russell Crowe's high-concept Noah, trading a very brief deluge for a sort-of Middle East circa-3000 BCE version of Eight Is Enough, and it works.

Noah's Ark Refresher: Noah had three sons, probably lived in Egypt, lived to 500, and built a giant boat to carry all the Earth's animals safely through a big flood, per God's instructions. Writer Tony Jordan and director Kenny Glenaan take liberties with scriptural details (I...Read the entire review

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Life DVD Video https://www.dvdtalk.com/reviews/review/70699 Tue, 22 Mar 2016 00:13:50 UTC Rent It



Director: Anton Corbijn
Starring: Robert Pattinson, Dane DeHaan, Joel Edgerton
Year: 2015

Brilliant pieces don't always fit together to form a beautiful puzzle, and such is the case with Life, a film whose entirety does not live up to its parts. Anton Corbijn is coming off what is by far his greatest movie, A Most Wanted Man. Robert Pattinson has moved far past his brooding vampire character with a stellar performance in The Rover. Dane DeHaan proves with every project to be an enigmatic presence who is here to stay. Joel Edgerton is possibly the hottest ticket in Hollywoo...Read the entire review

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Punk's Dead: SLC Punk 2 DVD Video https://www.dvdtalk.com/reviews/review/70698 Mon, 21 Mar 2016 12:29:04 UTC Skip It

The Movie
Punk's Dead: SLC Punk 2 is a failed coming-of-age story and Odyssey-inspired tale about a mopey goth kid who goes on a road trip with two mohawked and spiked friends and accomplishes nothing in the way of achieving an objective or growing as a character. The three principle characters have a tangential connection to the better-developed characters of the first SLC Punk film. One of the movie's biggest weaknesses centers around the absence of most of the ensemble that made the first movie far more engaging.

Where the first SLC Punk movie (1998) possessed an authentic feel for the era of early '80s hardcore punk and its outcast denizens, SLC Punk 2'S characters are so mired in the commodification of the subcultures they use to outline their identities that there is nothing at stake. Their identification with a seemingly non-mainstream youth culture as an expression of disenfranchis...Read the entire review

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Little Dead Rotting Hood DVD Video https://www.dvdtalk.com/reviews/review/70557 Tue, 23 Feb 2016 05:17:48 UTC Skip It

Little Dead Rotting Hood:
Man I want to write this review as a poem. It wouldn't take that long to read, which would be appropriate, because there's not much to the movie anyway. It would go something like this:

And I would give
Dead Rotting Hood some kind of prize
for that name alone
because it's a good and clever name
which the movie is not
(good or clever, that is)
but it does have
what every movie wants
a 20-foot-tall werewolf
to take your hard earned cash

And there you have it. Slap a Skip It rating there at the bottom and call it a day. Rotting Hood comes from The Asylum, notorious purveyors of spoof titles, many of which are previewed before the main attraction unspools. This accomplishes one thing; all the crappy previews for things like Sharknado 3 let you know you're about to watch a crap movie. But, at least T...Read the entire review

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Meadowland DVD Video https://www.dvdtalk.com/reviews/review/70556 Tue, 23 Feb 2016 05:17:48 UTC Rent It



Director: Reed Morano
Starring: Olivia Wilde, Luke Wilson, Giovanni Ribisi
Year: 2015

Stories of loss necessitate a skilful touch when creating or adapting them for the screen. For one, a tragic death is not something we have all experienced, not something we can all understand, is more often something we refuse to contemplate unless we are unlucky enough to have it happen to our family. In that way, this is a subject that we don't want to discuss, which creates a unique challenge. Secondly, tragic dramas are depressing, it's as simple as that, so a director & his cast must relay the inherent emotions without ruining their audience's collective evening. It's not a genre that can be chosen out of hand, nor is it simple t...Read the entire review

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The Keeping Room (Blu-ray) Blu-ray https://www.dvdtalk.com/reviews/review/70535 Wed, 17 Feb 2016 18:05:17 UTC Highly Recommended

The Keeping Room opens with a slightly surreal yet obviously meaningful image. A woman, walking along a road alone, encounters a hulking, ferocious dog in her path. The dog barks and growls, attempting to intimidate her, but the woman simply barks back. Sadly, standing her ground isn't enough. Moments later, disillusioned soldier Henry (Kyle Soller) emerges from a carriage parked further down the road, kills the fleeing female passenger, and then kills the woman standing in front of the dog. The film may be set in a relatively lawless time, near the end of the Civil War, but for women (and for black Americans -- both the woman who encounters the dog and the carriage driver are black), not much has changed since then: the threat of violence at the hands of men is everywhere.

Written by Julia Hart (one of the rare Black List entries to more or less live up to the hype), The Keeping RoomRead the entire review

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Extraordinary Tales (Blu-ray) Blu-ray https://www.dvdtalk.com/reviews/review/70505 Mon, 08 Feb 2016 03:57:46 UTC Recommended

I confess to snapping up Extraordinary Tales (2013), an animated feature adapting five classic stories by Edgar Allan Poe, because of its highly unusual cast. In one of his last roles, Christopher Lee narrates The Fall of the House of Usher; an old recording of Béla Lugosi accompanies The Tell-Tale Heart; Julian Sands narrates The Facts in the Case of M. Valdemar; director Guillermo del Toro tackles The Pit and the Pendulum; and, finally, director-producer Roger Corman is credited as the voice of Prince Prospero in The Masque of the Red Death.

A Luxembourgian-U.S.-Spanish-Belgian co-production, the film is a real mixed bag. Visually it's often very striking but awkwardly and oddly assembled. The Blu-ray looks and sounds great, however, and includes lots of extra features.

Read the entire review

]]> The World of Kanako (Blu-ray) Blu-ray https://www.dvdtalk.com/reviews/review/70468 Mon, 01 Feb 2016 16:51:43 UTC Skip It

To preface the following review, there will be people who enjoy The World of Kanako, and although I am not one of them, I'm not out to moralize or judge the parameters of other people's taste. I say that because Kanako isn't just a bad movie, but a rotten one, filled with despicable scummy characters who do despicable scummy things, and the movie lingers on it, immerses itself in it, like a pig rolls in its own excrement. I'm no prude -- I've seen plenty of violent and dark movies filled with plenty of reprehensible characters whose actions are sadistic and monstrous. What happens in Kanako isn't the issue, it's the nihilistic and cruel way director and co-screenwriter Tetsuya Nakashima executes everything that really made me uncomfortable.

Although they have not seen each other in years -- since the night he discovered the man she was having an affair with, crashed his ca...Read the entire review

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The Look of Silence (Blu-ray) Blu-ray https://www.dvdtalk.com/reviews/review/70002 Sun, 10 Jan 2016 23:48:24 UTC Highly Recommended

The Movie:

After seeing Joshua Oppenheimer's film The Act of Killing, based on the mass killings of Indonesia in 1965 and 1966, one could not fault Oppenheimer for wanting to go towards lighter fare; damn near anything could have been considered lighter cinematic fare for him. But he's said in numerous interviews that it was his intent to make two films about the killings, and the second one, The Look of Silence, is as stunning, perhaps moreso, than the first film.

Where The Act of Killing follows those on the Indonesian death squads of this time, The Look of Silence focuses on a different viewpoint of the events. The center of the film is Adi Rukun, an optometrist who lives in Indonesia. His older brother was one of the victims of those killings, and Oppenheimer had managed to captur...Read the entire review

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Bottoms Up DVD Video https://www.dvdtalk.com/reviews/review/70223 Fri, 18 Dec 2015 13:18:28 UTC Skip It

In 10 Words or Less
Hey there's lots of butts in oh my God, why?

Reviewer's Bias*
Loves: A curvy lady, documentaries
Likes: Best Week Ever
Dislikes: Butt culture
Hates: Unstructured documentaries

The Movie
Bottoms Up in no way buries the lede. Right off the bat, it's a parade of backsides gyrating across the screen. Big, bouncing buttocks filling your screen. It's obvious where this movie is coming from, and that's a deep appreciation for the butt (and a perspective from the black community.) The film establishes the history of the cheeks, using music videos as a guide to behinds in popular culture, leading up to their explosion courtesy of Sir Mix-a-lot's "Baby Got Back" and 2 L...Read the entire review

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War Pigs (Blu-ray) Blu-ray https://www.dvdtalk.com/reviews/review/70216 Tue, 15 Dec 2015 21:17:42 UTC Rent It

The Movie:

2015's War Pigs, directed by Ryan Little, takes place towards the end of the Second world War. Here we meet Lieutenant Jack Wosick (Luke Goss) an officer still mourning the loss of his best friend, Sergeant McGreevy (Chuck Liddell) when their mission turned south. If his recent track record isn't so hot, Wosick is nevertheless chosen by Major Redding (Mickey Rourke) to put together a team of tough guys for a mission that will take them behind enemy lines in France. Why? So that they can find out if the stories about the Nazi's really have developed a high tech missile launcher like some intelligence reports are indicating. If they have, it could shift the tide of the war.

Wosick enlists the aid of Hans Picault (Dolph Lundgren), a French Foreign Legion officer who has defected from the German side due to his disagreements with Hitler's plans. Hans helps Wosick train ...Read the entire review

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The Falling DVD Video https://www.dvdtalk.com/reviews/review/70081 Mon, 16 Nov 2015 13:02:19 UTC Recommended

The Falling:
Girls become women, and the whole world trembles. The Falling brings a nuanced, musical magic to the historical subject. Featuring sweet, natural performances, humor, rhythmic pacing, sumptuous photography and a fantastic soundtrack, writer/ director Carol Morley's latest feature trades her powerful documentary past (Dreams Of A Life) for an evocative future in feature dramas.

Lydia (Maisie Williams) and Abbie (Florence Pugh) are two teenagers enjoying a tight bond at an English girls' school in 1969. Abbie, all effortless beauty and unaffected self-confidence, makes the leap into womanhood with a boy, opening an inevitable rift between herself and Lydia. As Lydia deals with her anger, she begins a regimen of inexplicable fainting, an historic form of hysteria, which becomes very public as it begins to overtake others at the school. Morely provides shocking twist...Read the entire review

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Paranormal Island DVD Video https://www.dvdtalk.com/reviews/review/69924 Wed, 21 Oct 2015 02:28:23 UTC Skip It



Director: Marty Murray
Starring: Randy Wayne, Briana Evigan, Ben Elliot, Sarah Karges
Year: 2014

I've looked around, and I'm not the first to mention this when critiquing Paranormal Island, but it's such a giant, horrible, stupid distraction that it deserves extra attention: this film claims that a straight beats a flush. Now, a little context. To explain how a particular island got to be so damned paranormal, audiences are transported back in time to an era of unobstructed crime. Two men gamble in a bar built in the middle of a lake, forfeiting deeds to property as ante. Well, one man lays down a flush, thinking that he's won. The other, with coy leisure, lays down a straight and speaks the following line; "a strai...Read the entire review

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4Got10 (Blu-ray) Blu-ray https://www.dvdtalk.com/reviews/review/69872 Tue, 13 Oct 2015 01:12:52 UTC Skip It

The Movie:

Directed by Timothy Woodward Jr., 4Got10 beings out in the desert where a man named Brian Burns (Johnny Messner) wakes up. He's been shot, he's hurt bad, but he's in better shape than the dozen or so corpses laying around him. Unfortunately, he has no idea what happened or how he got to be where he is. He starts poking around and finds a van with four million in cash inside and then a second van full of cocaine, but not before he sees Sheriff Olson (Michael Pare) shoot down a rookie cop. When he does, Brian responds in kind, surprising the sheriff and blowing his ear off. He leaves him for dead and splits with the money and the drugs.

What Olson didn't count on was payback. See, the rookie cop he shot dead is related to a cartel box named Mateo Perez (Danny Trejo) and he will stop at nothing to get his revenge. On top of that, a tough talking DEA agent named Bob Roo...Read the entire review

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Misery Loves Comedy DVD Video https://www.dvdtalk.com/reviews/review/69065 Sun, 20 Sep 2015 20:44:54 UTC Recommended

The Movie:

When the documentary Comedian, with Jerry Seinfeld and Orny Adams, was released thirteen years ago, it was a fairly significant revelation to fans of stand-up comedy. It offered the opportunity (in Seinfeld's segments) to see some famous comics hanging out and discussing the kind of work that went into crafting a joke or a chunk or an hourlong set. Even for someone who watched hours of stand-up on cable for years, this glimpse into the mechanics and the craft of stand-up was an eye-opening surprise.

Things have changed significantly in those thirteen years. The AristocratsRead the entire review

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The Connection (Blu-ray) Blu-ray https://www.dvdtalk.com/reviews/review/68998 Sat, 19 Sep 2015 17:04:35 UTC Highly Recommended

The Movie:

Rare is the movie these days that can carve out its own mythos on the back of an existing one and make it even remotely entertaining effort. Rarer still is the movie that attempts to do same on the back of a revered or even highly memorable previous film, at least if you exclude the Marvel Cinematic Universe. And in The Connection, we get a movie that not only accomplishes this, but does so with ease, resulting in one of the better films in recent memory.

The film is directed by Cedric Jimenez, and he co-wrote it with writing partner Audrey Diwan. The premise of the film, whether deliberate or not when it was being written, was that it served as a flip side of sorts to William Friedkin's classic The French Connection, though while The Connection is ‘loosely ...Read the entire review

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Tooken DVD Video https://www.dvdtalk.com/reviews/review/69422 Thu, 30 Jul 2015 11:26:02 UTC Skip It

In 10 Words or Less
Taken spoof lacks a very particular set of skills

Reviewer's Bias*
Loves: A good spoof
Likes: Reno Wilson
Dislikes: Laura Leigh's voice; easy, obvious jokes
Hates: Friedberg.Seltzer spoofs

The Movie
When I first came across Tooken, I made the very acceptable assumption that it was yet another entry in the Jason Friedberg/Aaron Seltzer canon, after a few years of quiet from the spoof-makers, which followed a pair of mostly-ignored efforts in The Starving Games and Vampires Suck. However, they have nothing to do with this one (instead releasing their own version, the terribly-titled Who the F#@K Took My Daughter?, later this year--one of TWO...Read the entire review

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I Am Big Bird: The Caroll Spinney Story DVD Video https://www.dvdtalk.com/reviews/review/68996 Thu, 30 Jul 2015 00:02:10 UTC Recommended

For more than 40 years, Caroll Spinney has hidden inside a stuffy, eight-foot yellow suit with no eye holes, using his hands and feet to bring Sesame Street icon Big Bird to life (he also portrays Oscar, but doesn't actually sit inside the trash can)....Read the entire review

]]> Fight of the Living Dead DVD Video https://www.dvdtalk.com/reviews/review/69270 Sat, 11 Jul 2015 20:30:58 UTC Skip It

Fight Of The Living Dead:

5:38 in: System-wide failure begins. Victim's throat torn out. Reviewer checks watch. Reviewer's brain torn out.

7:25 in: Reviewer checks watch again. The center will not hold.

15:01 in: Zombies wandering. Some running. Run-time status checked third time.

20:12 in: They want me (brain)dead. 30 minutes to go. Please let it end. Experiment failure.

OK, at 38 minutes, a mild frisson passes through me. Very, very mild, and instantly forgotten. But that's it. How can a 'reality show' about a zombie outbreak be so very boring and un-engaging? Maybe since a zombie outbreak isn't real? Just saying. At any rate, if you go in blind, Fight Of The Living Dead throws you the viewer right into the mix with no information (mainly because you conveniently forgot what was written on the back of the DVD case). You'll be scratching your h...Read the entire review

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Digimon Fusion: Season 1 DVD Video https://www.dvdtalk.com/reviews/review/66873 Fri, 12 Jun 2015 10:21:05 UTC Rent It

Digimon Fusion S1 DVD Review

Digimon Fusion is the sixth series in thelong-running Digimon franchise. The saga featured three seasonarcs. Aswith other Digimon seasons, Digimon Fusion featuresanimationfrom studio powerhouse Toei Animation. Licensed for US distribution bySaban, theseries offers audiences a different storytelling approach to other Digimoncreations as it combines the main conceptual idea of Digimon withsomething much more akin to the Transformers saga.  

What's the concept of this incarnation? In anutshell, Digimonmeets Transformers sums it up. The focus is no longer onDigimonevolving (like on Pokemon) but rather on Digimon being ca...Read the entire review

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Listen Up Philip DVD Video https://www.dvdtalk.com/reviews/review/68826 Thu, 28 May 2015 14:32:26 UTC Rent It

The notion that characters in a movie have to be likable for the movie to be good is nonsense, but for a movie about unlikable people to work, it does have to have something interesting or entertaining to say or reveal about those characters for the viewer to feel like they haven't just spent two hours with a bunch of jerks. Listen Up Philip, written and directed by Alex Ross Perry, focuses on an arrogant, egocentric, needy, angry writer named Philip Friedman (Jason Schwartzman), his crumbling relationship with his girlfriend Ashley (Elisabeth Moss), his new friendship with respected author Ike Zimmerman (Jonathan Pryce), and, later, another relationship with a fellow teacher Yvette Dusart (Josephine de La Baume). There's nothing wrong with focusing on a character like Philip, especially with the characters who aren't so awful surrounding him to break up the monotony of his self-right...Read the entire review

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Amira & Sam (Blu-ray) Blu-ray https://www.dvdtalk.com/reviews/review/67699 Mon, 11 May 2015 16:50:43 UTC Recommended

It's been a month since Sam Seneca (Martin Starr) re-entered society following his third term in Iraq, and he's still not entirely comfortable with modern living. He loses his job as a security guard in the building where his cousin, Charlie (Paul Wesley), works when he locks a couple of drunk employees in an elevator, and his attempt to follow his dream of being a stand-up comedian goes over like a lead balloon. One thing he does do is look up his friend Bassam (Laith Nakli), a translator he knew from one of his tours, to return an important item. When he shows up at Bassam's apartment, he meets Bassam's niece, Amira (Dina Shihabi), an aggressive young Iraqi woman who resents soldiers following her father's death in the war. They don't get along, but Sam still steps in to help out when Amira gets in a bit of trouble with the law while Bassam is out of town, giving Amira a place to stay, where they slo...Read the entire review

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Remote Area Medical DVD Video https://www.dvdtalk.com/reviews/review/68536 Wed, 06 May 2015 11:22:48 UTC Recommended

In 1985, Stan Brock was living in Guyana, South America, when he was injured and needed medical assistance. Shortly thereafter, he learned that the closest medical help was 26 days away, on foot. As a result, Brock founded Remote Area Medical, a non-profit healthcare service designed to bring medical professionals to locations where such services are generally not available. Remote Area Medical is a mobile service, stopping in a location for a few days before moving onto another. One thing Brock didn't expect is that over time, RAM's services would become as necessary in the United States as they are in third world countries. The documentary Remote Area Medical focuses on the service's stop in the middle of the American heartland for a weekend, where a number of average folks line up in order to get the only treatment they can afford.

As a film, Remote Area Medical doesn't have much...Read the entire review

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Beside Still Waters DVD Video https://www.dvdtalk.com/reviews/review/67531 Mon, 20 Apr 2015 16:35:10 UTC Recommended



Director: Chris Lowell
Starring: Ryan Eggold, Beck Bennett, Britt Lower
Year: 2013

The Big Chill came out in 1983, the year I was born. In case you haven't seen it, it has become a film that defines a generation; those who were born in the 60s, grew up in the 70s, and made the early 80s the strange & wild time that it was. The story is pretty simple; a group of friends gather for a funeral and stay for a weekend reunion. The characters are what make the movie, the way in which all their lives intersect, and the bonds that hold them all together. Since that film, a recipe has been developed, a friends-back-together formula that's easy to make & easy to fall for. We all feel nostalgia after all, in one form or anot...Read the entire review

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Song One (Blu-ray) Blu-ray https://www.dvdtalk.com/reviews/review/67945 Mon, 06 Apr 2015 11:56:27 UTC Recommended

Song One Blu-ray Review

Song One premiered at the Sundance filmfestival in2014. It is a romantic-drama filled with beautiful music and spirit.The filmis the theatrical feature debut of its writer-director KateBarker-Froyland.Although the film received poor box office results and a mixedcritical response,Song One should stand the test of time as an underappreciatedfilm aboutthe remarkable power of music in the lives of people.

Franny (Anne Hathaway) is a student pursuing a PhDinanthropology who returns home on learning that her brother Henry (BenRosenfield) has been hit by a car and is now in a coma. Franny andHenry had abit of a falling out and hadn't spoken to one another in many monthsbecause ofan argument over Henry's decisio...Read the entire review

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r100 (Blu-ray) Blu-ray https://www.dvdtalk.com/reviews/review/67415 Wed, 11 Mar 2015 13:15:46 UTC Rent It

In 10 Words or Less
50 shades of The Game

Reviewer's Bias*
Loves: Weird movies, meta concepts
Likes: Japanese films
Dislikes: Oddity for oddity's sake, S&M
Hates: Awful facial prosthetics

The Movie
It seems almost appropriate that R100 arrives on home video on the heels of the box-office success of 50 Shades of Grey. The two are somewhat like companion pieces. Anytime I would hear people talk about how shocking the S&M in 50 Shades, I would chuckle. I remarked to a friend that I wished that some budding young Tyler Durden would splice the appropriate scenes from Von Trier's Nymphomaniac into 50 Shades, replacing Jamie Dornan with Jamie Bell, and unreel ...Read the entire review

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Listen Up Philip DVD Video https://www.dvdtalk.com/reviews/review/67285 Wed, 04 Mar 2015 02:02:01 UTC Recommended

The Movie:

Listen Up Philip works like a more artistic and intelligent version of an after school special or a scared straight film for aspiring writers, reminding them that relying only on ego and drive to become successful will only lead to a miserable and pitiful existence. As aspiring writers, we frequently make ourselves believe in the illusion that once we become successful, get that first novel published, have that first option on our screenplay, we will finally receive the admiration and respect we so righteously deserve after years of toiling at our craft without any financial compensation.

However, what we fail to realize is that whatever self-centered and narcissistic qualities our art brings out of us, these negative attributes might be compounded significantly upon even a whiff of success, carrying with it the danger of turning us into insufferable and self-obsessed a...Read the entire review

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