Film.com DVD Blog

DVD Alternatives to This Weekend's Theatrical Offerings

Fri, 03 Jul 2009 06:17:00 PDT

We all know how it is. You'd like to get out to see a new movie this weekend, but all those fireworks aren't gonna shoot themselves off, and there are too many hot dogs to be eaten anyway. But you can have something close to that blockbuster experience on the road with the proper application of DVDs. In fact, you might even be able to one-up everyone else at the watercooler come Monday, because while they're saying, "Hey, did you check out Public Enemies?" you can respond, "No, I saw some of…

DVD Review: Two Lovers -- Joaquin Phoenix's Final Role Finally Hits DVD

Wed, 01 Jul 2009 12:45:00 PDT

Touted as Joaquin Phoenix's final film performance (whether or not it actually is, of course, remains to be seen), Two Lovers finally makes its way onto DVD after a limited theater run. Directed by James Gray (who worked with Phoenix twice before in The Yards and We Own The Night), this is a dark, Dostoyevski-inspired drama about a very broken man trying to get over the love of his life when two distinctly different loves enter simultaneously. Gwyneth Paltrow is the equally damaged, drug-abusing…

DVD Review: Number 10 a Worthy Historical Find

Tue, 30 Jun 2009 09:40:00 PDT

There is nothing more intimidating on a DVD pile than the thick box set of a 27-year-old British television series chronicling a moment in time for seven different foreign heads of state. 351 minutes of staged teleplay about prime ministers ranging from the Napoleonic Era to the Roaring '20s (which were not so roaring in Merry Old England.) Doesn't that just get your blood pumping? Doesn't that get the synapses firing? I mean, it sure sounds to me like watching Michael Bay cranked to 11 on a…

DVD Review: Apollo 11 an Uninteresting Flashback

Tue, 30 Jun 2009 09:46:00 PDT

Apollo 11: A Night to Remember is a DVD I hope to soon forget. As a lifelong nerd and astronomy lover, I have long dreamed about the stars and the mysteries they hold. The key to unlocking those mysteries lies in exploration -- by man as well as machine. Ever since I was little I have found myself watching the launches -- and the tragedies -- on television. So when this DVD chronicling the BBC's coverage of the Apollo 11 mission came my way, I got very excited. My only memories of Apollo 11 are…

DVD Review: Killshot Wastes Mickey Rourke, Diane Lane, and Our Time

Mon, 29 Jun 2009 09:35:00 PDT

In January, a movie starring two Oscar nominees adapted from a novel by Elmore Leonard, who wrote the books that became Get Shorty, Jackie Brown, and Out of Sight, opened in Arizona. In five theaters. And played for two weeks, bringing in a domestic total gross of $18,643.

Just four months later Killshot is out on DVD, and the question has to be: Is it really that bad? Pretend-it-never-happened bad? Bury-it-in-Flagstaff bad?

Mickey Rourke plays a half-Native American hit man for the Toronto…

Blu-Ray Review: Gran Torino

Fri, 26 Jun 2009 13:45:00 PDT

Considered by many to be Clint Eastwood's acting and directorial masterpiece (so far), as well as both the extension and final evolution of his Dirty Harry and Wild West gunslinger personas, Gran Torino is a brilliant, bad-ass Eastwood ride. It's the true-grit tale of a politically incorrect old coot coping with changing times who discovers kinship amongst his displaced yet resilient Hmong neighbors, as well as a haunting reflection on the American Dream in decline. (Read our full-length film…

DVD Alternatives to This Weekend's Theatrical Offerings

Fri, 26 Jun 2009 13:28:00 PDT

We all know how it is. You'd like to get out to see a new movie this weekend, but those pesky mental messages from the Allspark filling your head are compelling you to take a mysterious trip around the world. But you can have something close to that blockbuster experience on the road with the proper application of DVDs. In fact, you might even be able to one-up everyone else at the watercooler come Monday, because while they're saying, "Hey, did you check out that new Transformers movie?" you…

DVD Review: My Dinner With Andre - Criterion Collection

Tue, 23 Jun 2009 09:21:00 PDT

Just two guys and a table.

My Dinner with Andre will forever be known as the film that consists only of two hours of dinner conversation, yet never becomes boring. What at first might seem an artsy exercise quickly becomes a fascinating investigation of diverging personal philosophies, from the inside out. After ten years of working together, playwright Wallace Shawn and theater director Andre Gregory developed a film script by editing transcripts of their own conversations. The actor-writers…

Blu-Ray Review: Friday the 13th Part 3

Tue, 23 Jun 2009 09:13:00 PDT

Of all the Friday the 13th films, the third is unabashedly my favorite. Cheesy, gimmicky, but seven different kinds of fun, this is the film that seems to best get what the series was to become. Spectacle. Bloody, base spectacle. Friday the 13th Part 3 (or Part 3-D) was the first and only part of the series to be made in 3-D. This is what makes it great and also what hamstrung it in terms of quality -- it is not a good film by any stretch of the imagination. The second film in the series is…

Blu-Ray Review: Friday the 13th Part 2

Mon, 22 Jun 2009 10:40:00 PDT

Here's a little piece of trivia that all but the best horror buffs tend to forget: Horror icon Jason Voorhees doesn't actually appear and kill people until the second film of the series. Remember, if you will, that the first Friday the 13th is entirely about Jason's mother getting revenge on the camp counselors that let Jason drown because they were too busy smoking the reefer and fornicating to watch the little monster swim. With the success of the first film, a second was a sure thing, but…