Demoniacs:
French arthouse horror king Jean Rollin really went off the rails with this 1974 head-scratcher. Not only does the director ignore his standard story, (childlike pair of girls finds enclave of vampires) but he also makes a movie to which you need to pay attention if you want to understand it. (All of his other films are impossible to understand whether you pay attention or not.) Rollin's palette full of style is still in effect, however, and most of his favorite tropes are along for the ride. The Demoniacs, over time, has become rather comic, so if you're in the mood for some campy, sexy, macabre fun - or you're a Rollin fanatic - his creepy girls will give you a run for your money.

Hailed by Video Watchdog honcho Tim Lucas as "a Poe-like study of guilt and revenge" The Demoniacs can undeniably fit into that comparison. A small band of lazy, landlubber pirates lure ...Read the entire review

THE PROGRAM

With the release of "The Avengers" Lionsgate as well as Marvel are wisely ensuring there are enough secondary outlets for new and old fans alike to get their fix of the legendary team. Following up their release of the "Ultimate Avengers Collection," "Marvel Animated Features: Three Film Collection" collects three previously released animated features for comic book connoisseur consumption. "The Invincible Iron Man" and "Planet Hulk" reside on disc one (a flipper disc) of this two-disc release and will be the most familiar faces for viewers, with the second disc's "Doctor Strange: The Sorcerer Supreme" likely being the first time non-comic book lovers are introduced to this fascinating and underutilized Marvel figure.

THE FILMS

THE INVINCIBLE IRON MAN

Produced around the same time as the dismal "Ultimate Avengers" films, "The Invincible Iron ...Read the entire review

THE MOVIE:

Canadian war vet Jim Bankley (Lee Patterson) is killing time in England as a prizefighter when he finds out that an old pal from the army is in town. Buddy (Robert Arden) used to give Jim work as a heavy on the post-War black market, and now that he's hooked up with Italian mobster Rico Francesi (Martin Benson, Goldfinger), he can get Jim into the local racket. It sounds good, but Jim has a weird moral code. He doesn't mind fixing a dog race or beating up a guy, but he draws the line at killing. He ignores his natural suspicions when the cops come looking around the Francesi office for info on the murder of the brother of his ex-girlfriend (Rona Anderson), and before he knows it, Ji...Read the entire review

Less heartstrings for Hazel here...and more out-and-out laughs. Shout! Factory is back with Hazel: The Complete Third Season, a 4-disc, 32-episode collection of the hit NBC sitcom's 1963-1964 season. Starring Shirley Booth, , Don DeFore, Whitney Blake, and Bobby Buntrock, Hazel won't ever top a list of best TV sitcoms, but it's expertly produced, written and performed, with stage and screen legend Booth effortlessly charming as head-down, arms-pumping maid Hazel. No extras for these admittedly up-and-down, rough transfers.

In a small, well-heeled suburban New York State town, live-in maid Hazel (Shirley Booth) runs the show at the Baxter residence. Nominal lady-of-the-house Dorothy "Missy" Baxter (Whitney Blake), who has nothing to do with the actual keeping of the house, is an interior decorator who has a rather sumptuous work studio out back. Hazel was Dorothy's maid whe...Read the entire review

You little private dick. Warner Bros.' own M.O.D. (manufactured on demand) service, the Archive Collection, continues to mine their Hanna-Barbera Classic Collection, a vast storage vault of vintage H-B material, with the release of Inch High Private Eye: The Complete Series, a 2-disc, 13-episode gathering of the one season cartoon that originally aired on NBC's 1973 Saturday morning line-up. Voiced by H.R. Pufnstuf's Lennie Weinrib, with able support from pros John Stephenson, Don Messick, and Kathy Gori, Inch High Private Eye may not be "classic" H-B, but it holds up fairly well 40 years later, with a solid (if derivative) premise that yields some fun visual gags that nostalgic fans and their small fry should enjoy. No extras for this sharp, good-looking transfer.

The Finkerton Detective Agency, 1973. Diminutive detective Inch High (voi...Read the entire review

The Movie:

Directed by Paolo Cavara in 1976, Plot Of Fear starts off like a Giallo but soon turns into a strange police thriller with some liberal doses of kinky sex and nasty murders thrown in to keep things interesting. The story follows a cop name Lomenzo (Michele Placido), who would soon make quite a name for himself as a director) who gets involved with a series of homicides in which the killer leaves at the scene of the crime an illustrated page from a children's book. Lomenzo reports to a few higher ups within the department (played by Tom Skerritt and Eli Wallach) but in his spare time, he boffs his foxy black supermodel girlfriend but is intrigued by a woman named Jeanne (Corinne Clery) who he meets seemingly completely by chance one day in the elevator of the building he lives in. When things head south with his girlfriend he and Jeanne strike up an interesting relation...Read the entire review

THE PROGRAM

With the release of "The Avengers" capping off a run of five build-up films, it's no shock that a company would want to take advantage of the buzz by dusting off some old Avengers related material that might be fresh to newer fans. "The Ultimate Avengers Collection" gathers three related animated films "Ultimate Avengers," "Ultimate Avengers 2" and "Next Avengers" in a two-disc release with the first two titles occupying the first disc.

THE FILMS

ULTIMATE AVENGERS

Released in early 2006, "Ultimate Avengers" draws inspiration from Mark Millar's comic series "The Ultimates" a retelling of the origins of the classic Marvel team. The film runs an inconsistent 72-minutes beginning with the origin of Captain America before flashing forward decades later as S.H.I.E.L.D director Nick Fury is tasked with defending the Earth from an alien invasion by r...Read the entire review

Novelist Louis Joseph Vance's character Michael Lanyard, aka the "Lone Wolf," a suave jewel thief-turned-private eye, had been adapted for the screen as early as 1917, and silent-era Lone Wolf movies included a series of late-1920s features starring Bert Lytell. But the better-remembered Lone Wolf movies began in 1935, when Melvyn Douglas played him in The Lone Wolf Returns. Francis Lederer came next, in The Lone Wolf in Paris (1938), but the series really became a ongoing series once actor Warren William came aboard. He starred in nine Lone Wolf movies, before illness forced him to turn the part over to Gerald Mohr and, finally, Ron Randell, in the last Lone Wolf movie to date, The Lone Wolf and His Lady (1949).

In another one of those baffling marketing decisions, Sony Pictures' Choice Collection is reintroducing Lone Wolf to audiences with an entertaining but rather average e...Read the entire review

The Main Event:

Fans of wrestling in the eighties knew that where the WWF (now WWE) had Wrestlemania, the WCW had Clash Of The Champions, the difference being that these were events on par with the WWF's pay-per-view flagship fiesta but shown on regular cable TV on TBS. The event, which was intentionally scheduled to air on the same night as Wrestlemania IV, first appeared under the NWA league banner on March 27, 1988 and continued through 1997 when the last entry in the run aired on August 21. WCW took over for the fourth event and it appeared as a WCW event for the rest of its run.

WWE Home Video have opted to compile a 'best of' collection that wrangles up what someone somewhere considers to be the cream of the crop - and thus we have this release, The Best of WCW Clash of the Champions . What most fans will quickly realize just by skimming over the match listing is that...Read the entire review

Requiem For A Vampire:
Sometimes I wonder if French auteur Jean Rollin, as a Euro-Horror icon, wasn't just coasting on the strength of racy lobby cards. I first caught wind of the master through such stills from his 1982 release, The Living Dead Girl. Provocative title? Check! Picture of a hot naked blond woman covered in blood? Check-a-roonie! However, those who are familiar with his work know things aren't exactly as aggressive as Rollin's lobby cards might make you think. You need to have a seriously open mind, probably tons of caffeine, and a dedicated appreciation for cinema with a capitol 'C' if you want to penetrate Rollin's obtuse horrors, including Requiem For a Vampire, which nicely features much of Rollin's kinky quirks and quixotic work.

So, have you got your art-house hats on? Popcorn with nutritional yeast and balsamic vinegar? Then let's begin. Requiem - ...Read the entire review

Its characters are familiar medical drama types and its storylines are somewhat predictable, but Monroe (2011-present) otherwise is so well made that it hardly matters. The program, created and written by playwright Peter Bowker (Blackpool/Viva Laughlin, Occupation) and starring the always interesting James Nesbitt (Occupation, Murphy's Law, The Hobbit) as a cocky neurosurgeon, grapples simultaneously with myriad thought-provoking issues of consciousness, the soul, identity, and family, among other things.

Acorn Media's Monroe - Series 1 includes all six of season/series one's 46-minute episodes, on two single-sided, dual-layered discs. The shows, in 16:9 enhanced widescreen, look and sound great, though nitpicky videophiles may object to the show's visual scheme, which employs an extremely shallow-focus effect most of the time.

Read the entire review

]]> DVD Video http://www.dvdtalk.com/reviews/read.php?ID=56219 Mon, 21 May 2012 13:50:17 PDT Highly Recommended

Solid Hammer "mini-Hitchcock" outing, perfect for a rainy Saturday matinee. Sony's Sony Pictures Choice Collection, their re-monikered M.O.D. (manufactured on demand) service of hard-to-find library cult titles (originally known as Columbia Classics), has released Die! Die! My Darling!, the 1965 U.K. chiller titled Fanatic overseas, starring the divine Tallulah Bankhead, the gorgeous Stefanie Powers, Maurice Kaufman, Peter Vaughan, Yootha Joyce, and Donald Sutherland (in what is surely one of his worst performances). Die! Die! My Darling! was released on disc by Columbia back in 2003, and by all appearances, Sony has used the same original materials for this transfer. So...why the need to re-release this particular Hammer outing when other titles even now are M.I.A. on DVD? Still, Die! Die! My Darling! itself is a satisfying (if now low-key) shocker, so ...Read the entire review

]]> DVD Video http://www.dvdtalk.com/reviews/read.php?ID=53947 Mon, 21 May 2012 04:02:52 PDT Skip It

The Movie:

The Museum of Wonders is an Italian flick, which tells the story of a dwarf named Marcel who owns and operates a circus, but falls in love with a dancer named Salome, who upon finding out of his inheritance, conspires to have him killed. When the rest of the performers in the circus find out, they team up for some sweet revenge on those who would do harm to Marcel.

I had seen the trailer before reviewing the film and was sort of blown away with the visuals. This, unfortunately, is where my like for the film begins and ends. The Museum of Wonders is a giant soap opera. Seriously, it plays like one. You've got the studs and the beautiful women who croon and moan over past and present loves, and whatnot. The film takes place entirely at the circus or in the set that has been built to look like one.

I understand budget limitations, but maybe if the story had not...Read the entire review

]]> DVD Video http://www.dvdtalk.com/reviews/read.php?ID=56217 Mon, 21 May 2012 04:02:22 PDT Highly Recommended

THE PERFORMANCE:

Trying to think of a way to review Patton Oswalt: Finest Hour, a film documenting the comedian's uproarious routine from his 2011 tour, the fact that there's little to talk about other than Oswalt and his material reminds me that the stand-up comedian puts him/herself into a much more naked and vulnerable situation than most other performers. I've long been convinced that successfully funny narrative films are more difficult to pull off than dramas; there are so many fewer safety nets and so much more subjectivity involved, and there are no saving graces or ways of compensating left if you can't make 'em laugh. But at least in a film, you have the chance to do retakes and rewrites and employ editing to get your laughs. And even a sing...Read the entire review

]]> DVD Video http://www.dvdtalk.com/reviews/read.php?ID=54914 Sun, 20 May 2012 16:54:19 PDT Rent It

THE FILM:

Dan Geller and Dayna Goldfine's documentary Something Ventured, which focuses its attention on the inner workings of venture-capitalist investing and upstart-startup entrepreneurship, is a cipher-like piece of work that, offering much information but little perspective, depends very much on context for its meaning and worth. And that context, at this point, is extremely ambivalent: On the one hand, we live in a time where widespread economic uncertainty and failure might conceivably put a damper on some people's approving, eager curiosity about or enthusiasm for the big roulette table of startups, investments, and public offerings that are the film's more or less exclusive focus. On the other, the mythology of the self-made, creative billio...Read the entire review

]]> DVD Video http://www.dvdtalk.com/reviews/read.php?ID=55266 Sun, 20 May 2012 15:24:50 PDT Recommended

The Movie:

Some films play that much better after many years have passed and you can understand the context in which they were made; Paramount's gritty 1950 melodrama The Lawless is one of them. The film deals with contemporary racial prejudice in a small farming town, but you have to believe that its real message was laid between the lines. Think about it - this was made at a time when anti-Communist hysteria was at its peak. Although it contains no references to "reds" or Russians, its cautionary theme about the dangers of mob-mentality run amok reflects what a lot of Hollywood (and the rest of the U.S.) was thinking but probably not brave enough to say outright.

The Lawless (not to be confused with the recent Shia LeBouef flick Lawl...Read the entire review

]]> DVD Video http://www.dvdtalk.com/reviews/read.php?ID=56179 Sun, 20 May 2012 05:23:27 PDT Recommended

The sale of most of Miramax's library to Lionsgate has proved a bit of a match made in heaven for both studios. Lionsgate spent years doing most of their business on DVD rather than in theaters, packing their vault with thousands of titles meant for Blockbuster shelves...many of which were not very good. With the Miramax buy, Lionsgate gets hundreds of true prestige titles that they can sell at bargain-bin prices, resulting in a long list of high-profile, low-cost Blu-Rays, and quadruple features like this, the Nicole Kidman 4-Film Collection, which pairs two of LGF's own movies (Rabbit Hole and Dogville) with two of their new purchases (Cold Mountain and The Others).

Kidman's demeanor has an icy quality to it -- not a flaw or complaint by any means, but likely a factor in her landing a higher rate of period pieces than some big-name actresses. As such, her particip...Read the entire review

]]> DVD Video http://www.dvdtalk.com/reviews/read.php?ID=55036 Sun, 20 May 2012 05:23:27 PDT Rent It

THE PROGRAM

I'll cut to the chase, "Marvel Anime: X-Men" is not a revolutionary step-forward in superhero animation, nor is it a crushing failure a la Marvel's prior straight-to-DVD animated films. Running 12, 20-minute episodes, the series is another installment in Marvel's new anime experiment, which also tackles Iron Man, Wolverine, and Blade. When I first heard of this experiment, I suspected the project was intended to serve a two-fold purpose: introduce superhero fans to the anime style and most importantly, draw in anime fans willing to try any new series once and hopefully, hook them on Marvel characters. As a superhero fan first, "X-Men" is a crushing bore of a series, barely resembling what I know to be the legendary super group; however, the minor anime fan in me, sees a clich d but effective series that might have stood better without a coat of comic book paint.

Read the entire review

]]> DVD Video http://www.dvdtalk.com/reviews/read.php?ID=54554 Sat, 19 May 2012 13:51:42 PDT Highly Recommended

"Poirot does not like things he cannot explain."

A delight...but of course you already knew that. Acorn Media has remastered and repackaged three episodes from ITV1's long, long-running Agatha Christie's Poirot for Agatha Christie's Poirot: Series 4, starring the inimitable David Suchet as Christie's infuriatingly correct sleuth, Hercule Poirot. The featured episodes here, which encompass the series' fourth season (originally airing in the U.K. in January, 1992), are The ABC Murders, Death in the Clouds, and One, Two, Buckle My Shoe. Even the great Poirot might be stymied by the seemingly myriad number of re-packages these Poirots have been put through over the years; however, according to Acorn Media, these transfers are "newly remastered," so double-dipping is at the buyer's discretion (unfortunately, I don't have the older sets to...Read the entire review

]]> DVD Video http://www.dvdtalk.com/reviews/read.php?ID=54724 Sat, 19 May 2012 12:31:55 PDT Highly Recommended

The Show:

 
Why do I watch classic DoctorWho?  The special effects are bad,the stories are sometimes silly, and the villains can over actsomethingawful.  On top of that, it's a kid'sshow.  Then a story like TheHappiness Patrol comes along and Iremember why I like the program:  whenyou're least expecting it, the show can be absolutely brilliant.  This ironic adventure hits all the rightnotes with some social commentary that's definitely present but not soovert asto ruin the story, a creature that's so absurd as to be wonderful, anda chancefor star Sylverster McCoy to act like a clown and have it fit inperfectly.&...Read the entire review

]]> DVD Video http://www.dvdtalk.com/reviews/read.php?ID=56177 Fri, 18 May 2012 04:45:43 PDT Highly Recommended

An exceptional, frequently surprising film, Westward the Women (1952) is an underrated William A. Wellman-directed Western adapted from a story by Frank Capra. Its qualities seem much more Wellman's doing than Capra's, who had wanted to direct it himself with Gary Cooper in the lead, but in any case the picture deserves to be better known. Robert Taylor stars as a wagon master leading 140 women across the 2,000-mile trail from Chicago to California. Taylor is probably this reviewer's least-favorite classical Hollywood star, and even in good movies like Quo Vadis (1951) I tend to find him pretty intolerable, but even he's very good in this.

A Warner Archive Collection manufactured-on-demand release, Westward the Women looks like it might originally have been intended as a standard Warner Home Video DVD release, possibly as part of a larger boxed set, before the market for ...Read the entire review

]]> DVD Video http://www.dvdtalk.com/reviews/read.php?ID=56178 Fri, 18 May 2012 04:45:43 PDT Highly Recommended

THE SHOW:

It takes a selfless comedian to cede the starring role in his own stories to other people. Jo Koy is exactly that kind of comedian. In this hour-long set from the Alex theatre in Los Angeles, Koy gleefully digs through his family history and delivers laughs by telling tales where nothing is off limits (including his son's penis).

After getting a rock star's welcome from an adoring audience (he's Filipino, they're mostly Filipino...coincidence?), he gives us a taste of the advice his mother usually has in store for him. Without spoiling her words of wisdom, this bit does give Koy the opportunity to demonstrate how he likes to mess with drunk girls in bars (don't worry, it's not pervy but it is devilish). He then moves into a segment dedicated to natural disasters, which brings with it one of the highlights of the show as Koy describes experiencing an earthquake with his son...Read the entire review

]]> DVD Video http://www.dvdtalk.com/reviews/read.php?ID=54930 Wed, 16 May 2012 12:47:15 PDT Highly Recommended

The Series:

Suits: Season One is one show that got through my radar. Even when I saw the cover art for the DVD, I was like, "What is this?" I watched a promotional spot and thought, why not? It was one of the best choices I've ever made when reviewing a television show in recent memory!

Suits tell the story of Harvey Spector (Gabriel Macht), a highly successful attorney who hires Mike Ross (Patrick J. Adams) as his associate. The problem is that Mike has no credentials. What he does have is the mutant ability (I kid about the mutant part) to remember and absorb information at a moment's notice. Actually, not only in a moment's notice, but he retains even the most trivial and archaic information from years past. Think of Mike like the Bradley Cooper character Limitless, but without the fantasy aspect of that flick.

Harvey and Mike are bound by this secret, beca...Read the entire review

]]> DVD Video http://www.dvdtalk.com/reviews/read.php?ID=56172 Wed, 16 May 2012 12:47:15 PDT Rent It

THE FILM:

There's a powerful story in the life of Sam Childers, a junkie turned activist for Sudanese orphans, but Machine Gun Preacher, from Monster's Ball director Marc Forster, feels more like a highlight reel of Childers' highs and lows. Gerard Butler gives a committed performance in the lead role, weathering much emotional turbulence, and Forster wastes little time on unnecessary exposition, choosing instead to send Childers to Africa soon after he hits rock bottom. Childers' Jekyll and Hyde personality makes it difficult to completely root for him, and, if Machine Gun Preacher is accurate, Childers is not afraid to combat violence with violence.

Read the entire review

]]> DVD Video http://www.dvdtalk.com/reviews/read.php?ID=56126 Wed, 16 May 2012 04:28:30 PDT DVD Talk Collector Series

More holdups in the Bronx, more Brooklyn-bred fights, more traffic jams in Harlem backed up to Jackson Heights. Car 54, Where Are You? (1961-63), the sublimely silly sitcom created by The Phil Silvers Show/Sgt. Bilko's Nat Hiken, returns for 30 more episodes, The Complete Second Season, its final year.

Despite bizarre behind-the-scenes headaches that have the makings of a great Tim Burton or maybe John Waters comedy, the show itself is unaffected, as funny as ever, even better insofar as its ensemble cast of coarse New Yorkers is richer and loopier than before.

Shanachie Entertainment's all-region first season release was an obvious labor of love, and featured a funny and informative interview (by comedian Robert Klein) with two of the show's last surviving stars, Hank Garrett and Charlotte Rae. This set has an equally beguiling, one-of-a-kind extra feature, plus good video t...Read the entire review

]]> DVD Video http://www.dvdtalk.com/reviews/read.php?ID=54055 Wed, 16 May 2012 04:28:30 PDT Recommended

Reed and Malloy on their last patrol...and just at the right time, too. Shout! Factory, that vigilant defender of vintage television, has finished up what Universal dropped with Adam-12: The Final Season, a 4-disc, 24-episode collection of the NBC police procedural's seventh and last go-around for the 1974-1975 season. Starring Martin Milner and Kent McCord, Adam-12's final season doesn't hold too many surprises for loyal viewers; if anything is different here, it's a small but discernable flagging of energy, both in the scripting and the performances. Still, fans of this genre and particularly of WebbLand's rigid aesthetics will find Adam-12: The Final Season to their liking. No extras in this bare-bones, good-looking set.

Some backgroun...Read the entire review

]]> DVD Video http://www.dvdtalk.com/reviews/read.php?ID=56125 Wed, 16 May 2012 04:28:30 PDT Rent It

The Story of Rock 'N' Roll Comics:
It's hard to know if this documentary is a full-blown case of First Amendment (In)Justice ala The People Versus Larry Flynt or just a fairly interesting story for a limited group of people. The subject of the story, Todd Loren - publisher of Rock and Roll and Revolution Comics - would have you believe the former, even if in action it seems like Loren himself chose to ride the truth train for convenience only. In which case, director Ilko Davidov should have been advised to take his own stand with this movie - to come out swinging either for, or against, Todd. It's advice he seems to have cautiously hedged against. This fundamental lack of mooring, combined with a super-specific, limited market of interested viewers, means that many of you who think you're interested now will wonder later if you're still as engaged.

Detroit-born Loren started his min...Read the entire review

]]> DVD Video http://www.dvdtalk.com/reviews/read.php?ID=55417 Tue, 15 May 2012 18:16:23 PDT Recommended

THE MOVIE:

I'm sure it's possible to dislike Carol Channing, but I'm not sure how. In Dori Berinstein's documentary Carol Channing: Larger Than Life, she strolls Broadway's "Shubert Alley" and points out the theaters nearby where she's played ("There are ghosts," in the Booth Theater, she tells us. "Wonderful ghosts of great actors!"). She comes upon members of the cast for Next to Normal, who have stepped out during their matinee, and says, of the opportunity to perform on Broadway, "We should pay them!" She mentions that she's almost 90, and the young men burst into spontaneous applause; "I don't know why you applaud that, it just happened!" she exclaims. "I had nothing to do with it!"

So yes, she's delightful--charming and funny, and a terrific storyteller (and who else is still around who can tell a story about Edward G. Robinson?). Her persona is comically over ...Read the entire review

]]> DVD Video http://www.dvdtalk.com/reviews/read.php?ID=54893 Tue, 15 May 2012 14:15:41 PDT Skip It

THE FILM:

Those looking for George Clooney should look elsewhere; this Descendents is about a group of nomadic children uniquely immune to the virus that turned the rest of humanity into zombies. A Chilean import from Director Jorge Olgu n, Descendents has some interesting matte-painting backgrounds and low-budget effects, but the film is an exercise in style over substance. With a story that could have been told in 15 minutes and seemingly endless flashbacks to uninteresting plot points, Descendents is dead on arrival.

Read the entire review

]]> DVD Video http://www.dvdtalk.com/reviews/read.php?ID=54661 Tue, 15 May 2012 04:14:53 PDT Highly Recommended

The Movie:
In terms of horror movies, The Shrine has a lot of elements that hearken back to seventies classics of the genre: human sacrifice, devil worship, remote villages populated with extra creepy, backwards locals, even a forest permanently shrouded in ominous fog. Eschewing the easy plot devices, cheap scares and casual cruelty of a lot of modern films, it aims more for a pervasive feeling of dread, and largely succeeds.

Carmen (Cindy Sampson) is a feisty journalist, who's been busted down to cub reporter status after writing an unspecified controversial story. Determined to get back in the big leagues, she shuns the humdrum assignment to investigate why bees are dying off in the Midwest, and instead convinces her boyfriend and photographer Marcus (Aaron Ashmore) and na ve young intern Sara (Meghan Heffern) to jet off to Poland to find out what happened to a missing hiker, ...Read the entire review

]]> DVD Video http://www.dvdtalk.com/reviews/read.php?ID=56123 Tue, 15 May 2012 04:14:53 PDT Recommended

The Movie:

Whips and boots and chaps, oh my ... in covering the ins and outs of the 2008 edition of the International Mr. Leather (IML) competition held annually in Chicago, Michael Skiff's documentary Kink Crusaders sheds some light on a subset of the gay male community that many gay men try to distance themselves from. Sure, the parade of big, burly guys in head-to-toe cowhide might appear somewhat intimidating (and stereotypical) at first, but this doc goes out of its way to prove that devotees of the kink/leather community are not too dissimilar from the rest of us.

Kink Crusaders is a straightforward, modestly produced but never boring mix of interviews and on-scene footage from the competition, which comes across as a mixture of business convention and beauty pageant. The doc explores the 30th edition of the IML, a nice round number and a good excuse to look back on how f...Read the entire review

]]> DVD Video http://www.dvdtalk.com/reviews/read.php?ID=55273 Tue, 15 May 2012 04:14:53 PDT Recommended

The Film:

When passionate film geeks put their brains together at the end of the year and produce countless lists highlighting 2012s biggest cinematic surprises, it wouldn't surprise this writer one bit to see Chronicle on many a one. With only a few episodes of the show Kill Point to his name, director Josh Trank successfully marries a small-scale domestic drama with some big-time visuals, while screenwriter Max Landis (see if you can guess who his dad is) formulates a plot that, while unashamedly a construct of a dozen familiar strands, finds novelty in how it approaches the basic idea of three teenagers obtaining and nurturing superpowers. With unknown Dane DeHaan in the lead, Chronicle is not without significant faults (we'll discuss several of them below) but the old-school appeal of a non-sarcastic film that embraces its outlandish premise is hard to pass up.

Whate...Read the entire review

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