Film.com DVD Blog

DVD Alternatives to This Weekend's Theatrical Offerings

Fri, 13 Nov 2009 14:38:00 PST

We know how it is: You'd like to go to the movies this weekend, but you're gonna be busy escaping the end of the world. You can have a multiplex-like experience at home with a collection of the right DVDs. And when someone asks you on Monday, "Hey, did you see 2012 this weekend?" you can reply, "No, I watched all the movies that Roland Emmerich borrowed ideas from instead."

INSTEAD OF: 2012, in which Roland Emmerich destroys Los Angeles, Las Vegas, Yellowstone Park, Washington, D.C., Hawaii,…

DVD Review: Watchmen -- The Ultimate Cut Is This Season's Must-Own DVD Box Set

Tue, 10 Nov 2009 15:24:00 PST

No property has shown off Warner Brothers skill at multiple releases more than this year's slight disappointment, Watchmen. The first DVD's release came while the film was still in theaters, special feature-loaded extras bundled with the incredible motion comic (setting every frame of the comic book to a book on tape reading of the book) and the animated version of the comic book's comic-within-a-comic, Tales of the Black Freighter. Also on the latter disc was a documentary on the…

Blu-Ray Review: Monsters, Inc.

Tue, 10 Nov 2009 10:08:00 PST

Monsters, Inc. represents something of a pivotal moment for Pixar. It was the first time director John Lasseter turned over the reigns, and coming off of Toy Story 2 and A Bug's Life that was probably for the best. Pete Docter (who also went on to direct Up) clearly brought a ton of momentum and innovation to the project. In many ways Monsters, Inc. heralded the second golden era of Pixar, culminating in Finding Nemo and The Incredibles.

The Blu-ray looks amazing, and like everything else Pixar…

Blu-Ray Review: Stargate: The Movie -- 15th Anniversary Edition

Mon, 09 Nov 2009 14:34:00 PST

Fifteen years ago, two cinematic powerhouses came together and teamed up to form a union that would forever become infamous in critical circles but popular on the Hollywood set. Together these two men, Dean Devlin and Roland Emmerich, would produce and direct (respectively) a number of of blockbuster hits that can only be described as spectacle. But before they rocked the world with films like Independence Day (ID4), The Patriot, or even the abysmal Godzilla, these two men would create one of…

DVD Review: March of the Penguins Limited Edition Giftset

Mon, 09 Nov 2009 14:21:00 PST

When March of the Penguins came out in the summer of 2005, a lot of party poopers were eager to scold the film and its fans for anthropomorphizing the Antarctic birds. They don't have human emotions! They only operate on instinct! Stop acting like they're people!

Those spoilsports should just shut up, obviously. People enjoy pretending that animals are just like us. It makes them seem cuter. If a penguin looks like a small fat guy wearing a tuxedo, then we are going to give him a name and…

DVD Alternatives to This Weekend's Theatrical Offerings

Fri, 06 Nov 2009 13:33:00 PST

We know how it is: You'd like to go to the movies this weekend, but you're gonna be busy staring at a big button, arguing with yourself about whether or not to push it. But you can have a multiplex-like experience at home with a collection of the right DVDs. And when someone asks you on Monday, "Hey, did you see The Box this weekend?" you can reply, "No, I contemplated cinematic moral conundrums of a different order."

INSTEAD OF: The Box, Richard Kelly's mysterious thriller about a moral…

Criterion Review: Howards End A Timely Triumph

Fri, 06 Nov 2009 13:38:00 PST

"Live in fragments no longer," proclaims the heroine Margaret Schlegel in the E. M. Forster novel Howards End. Pure artistry defines this 1992 film from director James Ivory, which is as beautiful and timely 17 years later as the day it was released. Dealing with the problems of emotional connectivity in modern life, as well as the damaging effects of lies long lain dormant and the certainty of fate, Howards End is long overdue for a revival.

Two families seem inescapably interconnected as…

DVD Review: Orphan Abandoned on Single Feature DVD

Fri, 06 Nov 2009 13:27:00 PST

If there is one terrible legacy left to us by filmmaking in the '90s, it is the notion of the twist-dependent thriller. After the critical (and box office) success of such films as The Usual Suspects, Lone Star, The Crying Game, and especially The Sixth Sense, films that were constructed entirely around a single, mind-bending, story-changing twist became a hip and interesting way to tell a story. The big GOTCHA! of it, however, left classic storytelling to fall by the wayside, and films often…

Blu-Ray Review: Heat Looks Great, but There's Nothing New to See

Thu, 05 Nov 2009 08:12:00 PST

Fourteen years after Heat brought Al Pacino and Robert De Niro together onscreen for the first time, a new edition comes to Blu-ray. But do you need it?

De Niro plays McCauley, the head of a paramilitary-style robbery crew, with Val Kilmer and Tom Sizemore as his backup and Pacino as Hanna, the cop tracking them down. As the police try to keep up with the crew's intricate schemes, a classic game of hunter and hunted turns back on itself, with a double-crossing sideman and a victim out for…

DVD Alternatives to This Weekend's Theatrical Offerings

Fri, 30 Oct 2009 08:54:00 PDT

We know how it is: You'd like to go to the movies this weekend, but you're still working on putting together your Michael Jackson costume for Halloween; sewing all those sequins onto that glove is taking forever. But you can have a multiplex-like experience at home with a collection of the right DVDs. And when someone asks you on Monday, "Hey, did you see This Is It this weekend?" you can reply, "No, I eased on, eased on down the road instead."

INSTEAD OF: Michael Jackson's This Is It, the…