DVD Reviews Archive for July, 2009
Watchmen: Director’s Cut
The theatrical release was a disappointment, but that has nothing to do with the much longer and immensely satisfying Warner Home Video release,Watchmen Director’s Cut. Directed by Zack Snyder, the 186-minute feature is a two-generation epic comic book movie that works on almost every level. It does not have the giddy momentum of the deserved mega…
Read the full article »Wilmington on DVDs: Fast and Furious, Anita O’Day: The Life of a Jazz Singer, Repulsion, and more…
Fast and Furious (One-and-a-Half Stars) U.S.; Justin Lin, 2009 (Universal) Fast and Furious — fourth in the mega-muscle-car-chase, car-crash series that began with The Fast and the Furious back in 2001
Read the full article »Wilmington on DVDs: Coraline, Harvard Beats Yale, 29-29, 2 or 3 Things I Know About Her, Watchmen, Confessions of a Shopaholic, and more…
PICK OF THE WEEK: NEW Coraline (Three-and-a-Half Stars) U. S.; Henry Selick, 2009 (Universal) Other big budget studio movie genres may often seem overblown and underthought, but
Read the full article »Wilmington on DVDs: 12, For All Mankind, This is Spinal Tap, The Haunting in Connecticut, and more…
PICK OF THE WEEK: NEW 12 (Three-and-a-Half Stars) Russia; Nikita Mikhalkov, 2008 12 is a modern Russian version of one of the great virtuoso American melodramas
Read the full article »Wilmington on DVDs: Knowing, Quo Vadis?, Lonely are the Brave and more…
Knowing (Also Blu-Ray) Two Stars U.S.; Alex Proyas, 2009 Apocalypse anyone? Something awful is happening in the world and Nic Cage’s John Koestler is
Read the full article »Waltz with Bashir
The greatest so far untapped potential in all of cinema is the animated documentary. The genre got off to a rousing start with Winsor McCay’s contemporary 1918 depiction of the sinking of the Lusitania, but virtually nothing has followed up that effort beyond a few educational programs such as Frank Capra’s Hemo the Magnificent. In 2008, however, there…
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