DVD and Blu-ray Reviews
Blu-ray Review: Battle: Los Angeles
- by Kevin Blumeyer 4 Comments
- Posted June 13th 2011 at 11:32 PM
I never saw Battle: Los Angeles in theaters so after watching this Blu-ray I was left wondering what went wrong. So I revisited the almost unanimously praised first trailer. Now I get it. The trailer was effective because it had absolutely no dialogue. It makes a lot of sense because the film looks great and [...]
Read the ReviewBlu-ray Review: Jean-Pierre Melville's 'Le Cercle Rouge' (Criterion Collection)
- by Brad Brevet 1 Comment
- Posted June 10th 2011 at 1:42 PM
It's amazing how your perspective on movies changes the more you see and the more you open your mind to different kinds of films. In June 2009 I bought Jean-Pierre Melville's Le Samourai as a blind buy. I loved it, and it remains my favorite Melville film to date. Since then I have seen Le [...]
Read the ReviewBlu-ray Review: Pale Flower (Criterion Collection)
- by Brad Brevet 1 Comment
- Posted June 9th 2011 at 1:55 PM
Reviewing Masahiro Shinoda's Pale Flower is not an easy task for me. I wasn't even aware of the Japanese New Wave movement before watching it, but once I learned it drew from similar inspirations as the French New Wave I wasn't in the least bit surprised considering the one name that never escaped me while [...]
Read the ReviewBlu-ray Review: Ingmar Bergman's 'Smiles of a Summer Night' (Criterion Collection)
- by Brad Brevet
- Posted June 8th 2011 at 12:44 PM
I'm a big Ingmar Bergman fan and for that reason alone I enjoyed Smiles of a Summer Night. With some directors you just feel a connection, you get their jokes, you share similar wonders and question the same things. I love his approach to religion and questions of mortality. However, this film doesn't really deal [...]
Read the ReviewBlu-ray Review: Jonathan Demme's 'Something Wild' (Criterion Collection)
- by Brad Brevet 1 Comment
- Posted June 7th 2011 at 9:19 AM
Sometimes it's interesting to just try and figure out why a film is included in the Criterion Collection. While mainstream audiences may be aware of Criterion releases, I think it's safe to say the Collection is still primarily known for bringing us classic works from the likes of Kurosawa, Bergman, Godard, Melville, Malle, Bunuel, etc. [...]
Read the ReviewBlu-ray Review: Catherine Breillat's 'Fat Girl' (Criterion Collection)
- by Brad Brevet 6 Comments
- Posted June 6th 2011 at 1:45 PM
I have a feeling if I were to sit down with Fat Girl writer/director Catherine Breillat and begin questioning her regarding her film it would ultimately end in a stalemate. I get the impression I've learned a lot about the highly touted auteur simply by watching one of her films and the minimal number of [...]
Read the ReviewBlu-ray Review: A Clockwork Orange (40th Anniversary Edition)
- by Kevin Blumeyer 1 Comment
- Posted May 31st 2011 at 9:09 AM
A Clockwork Orange (40th Anniversary Edition) QUICK THOUGHTS: I was so freaked out by A Clockwork Orange the first time I tried to watch it (I was probably in sixth grade at the time) that I shut it off within the first ten minutes and didn't return to it until last year. I've been in [...]
Read the ReviewBlu-ray Review: 'I Am Number Four'
- by Kevin Blumeyer
- Posted May 24th 2011 at 11:27 AM
I Am Number Four QUICK THOUGHTS: I Am Number Four follows a very human-looking alien played by Alex Pettyfer as he travels around Earth and adopts names like "John Smith" in an attempt to stay under the radar of another race of aliens that strangely look an awful lot like Pettyfer's character from Beastly. Being [...]
Read the ReviewBlu-ray Review: Blow Out (Criterion Collection)
- by Brad Brevet 3 Comments
- Posted April 26th 2011 at 11:31 AM
Blow Out (Criterion Collection) QUICK THOUGHTS: On Criterion Blu-ray with a beautiful high definition transfer and an appropriately crisp DTS-HD Master audio track, this was my first time seeing Brian De Palma's Blow Out and I enjoyed it immensely. A Criterion audience will especially find this a perfect fit for their collection as it speaks [...]
Read the ReviewBlu-ray Review: Kes (Criterion Collection)
- by Brad Brevet
- Posted April 19th 2011 at 9:16 AM
Kes QUICK THOUGHTS: Just who is Ken Loach? What are his films about? Why is he so highly regarded? Honestly, I can't answer these questions without any great amount of knowledge, but after watching Criterion's treatment of Loach's second feature film, Kes, I'm beginning to have a greater understanding of the man and why Loach [...]
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