Latest DVD Reviews

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Caché (2005)

Haneke's exploration of willful ignorance, guilt, and history takes hold, and doesn't quite let go when the lights come up.
The Passenger (a.k.a. Professione: reporter) (1975)

As usual, Antonioni's pace is langorous, but The Passenger is never less than compelling.
Frasier—The Complete Seventh Season (1993)

Miraculously fresh after seven seasons on the air, Frasier continued to spin complicated farcical situations and....expertly brought the Daphne-Niles relationship to a boil.
Dr. Katz: Professional Therapist: Season One (TV) (1995)

Arguably, the more satisfying elements of the series were its miniaturized sitcom elements, which in their way did The Bob Newhart Show one better in their low-key, true-to-life ramblings.
Sgt. Bilko—The Phil Silvers Show—50th Anniversary Edition [DVD Box Set] (1955)

Served up a solid-gold sitcom character in Silvers' conniving Master Sergeant Ernest G. Bilko.
I Love Lucy—The Complete Sixth Season [DVD Box Set] (1956)

The alpha sitcom of the fifties and forever more, I Love Lucy went out, without ceremony, at the top of the ratings heap.
National Treasure (2004)

It's bad news when a Bruckheimer movie makes one downright nostalgic for The Rock...
Banshun (Late Spring) (1949)

Late Spring exemplifies Ozu's rich, mature style, an apparent stylelessness of patient, lifelike rhythms, unobtrusive camerawork, and credibly subtle performances.
Tokyo-Ga (1985)

Wenders bops around Tokyo with the assurance of a skilled filmmaker, and emerges with an understated but certainly curious sociological postcard of '80s Tokyo.
The Andy Griffith Show—The Complete Sixth Season [DVD Box Set] (1965)

The sixth season proved there was still life in the now-classic sitcom...[and] Knotts shows up in an Emmy-winning return appearance.
The White Countess (2005)

[The] soft-glowing facade always seems more real to Ivory than harsh reality...represent[s] our own attempts to stave off reality with the romantic projections of cinema.
Snoopy, Come Home (1972)

Charlie Brown: "I have a philosophy that tells me no matter how bad things get, they will always turn out good in the end." Lucy Van Pelt: "That's not a philosophy—that's stupidity." The born...
A Boy Named Charlie Brown (1969)

The appeal of Schultz's pop philosophy hasn't faded in forty years: this kind of sincerity can't be faked.
Au revoir, les enfants (1987)

As ever, Malle's sensitivity is supreme and his delicate style evocative.
Lacombe Lucien (1974)

The collaborationist anti-hero finds Malle instantly broaching a cultural taboo, compounded when the traitorous young man forces himself into a sexual relationship with a not-entirely unyielding girl named France.
Le Souffle au coeur (Murmur of the Heart) (1971)

In all their messiness, here are love, sex, society, and family, met with cleansing laughter.
South Park—The Complete Seventh Season (TV) (2003)

As Parker and Stone see it, you can't laugh without first dropping your jaw.
De Zaak Alzheimer (a.k.a. Memory of a Killer) (2005)

The sympathy toward the obvious evil of a contract killer never flies...Still, the clever central gimmick and a streak of sly humor lift [the] film, just barely, a cut above.
Capote (2005)

Radiating serpentine self-absorption, Philip Seymour Hoffman embodies a youthful Truman Capote.
South Park—The Complete Sixth Season (TV) (2002)

Thorough skewerings of celebrity foibles and fearless campaigns on taboo subjects.
Elizabethtown (2005)

A character plans out a 42-hour-and-11 minute journey accompanied by a 16-CD soundtrack....Elizabethtown feels every bit as long and music-saturated...
Buster Keaton Collection (DVD Compilation) (2006)

Keaton's Columbia shorts inspire a certain amount of sympathy and ruefulness at a star's misuse, but also inspiration as Keaton occasionally spins gold out of chaff.
Oliver Twist (2005)

With intelligence and style (inspired by the art of Gustave Doré and Francisco Solé), Polanski makes a rewarding contribution to Dickens' legacy on screen.
La Bête humaine (1938)

[Renoir's] expertise behind the camera--and his driving curiosity for human constructs and human nature...elevate La bete humaine to an unforgettable filmic experience.
Bubble (2006)

Sincere performances--under the director's sympathetic eye--allow humanity to overshadow the machinery of plot.
Asylum (2005)

In the callused hands of director David Mackenzie...the rigorously tough-minded Asylum lives up to its potential as a modern masterpiece of psychological terror.
Hustle & Flow (2005)

Howard's work as Djay is sort of dazzling, but his character's unrelentingly selfish behavior makes audience identification an uphill battle.
The Five Pennies (1959)

A bit of a sprightly-tragic mess, but if one doesn't try to sum up its parts, it's plenty entertaining in a nostalgic, old-movie way.
Ferris Bueller's Day Off (1986)

A next generation Eddie Haskell, Ferris Bueller redefined "cool" misbehavior for Generation X....Hughes has a knack for memorable set pieces. [new DVD review]
Sueño (2005)

So good-natured and well-intentioned (showcasing as it does up-and-coming Latino bands) that it's tempting to overlook its significant narrative flaws.
Cartoon Adventures Starring Gerald McBoing Boing (DVD Compilation) (1950)

Rhyming narration and highly-stylized disproportionate designs distinguished the theatrical cartoon[s]....colorful divertissements for kids.
Warui yatsu hodo yoku nemuru (The Bad Sleep Well) (1960)

A startlingly relevant 'social problem film' (shakai-mono)--of its time and our own--and an existential melodrama by way of Hamlet.
Après vous... (2005)

Pierre Salvadori's consistently engaging Après vous... begins with an interesting situation and complicates it into delightfully excruciating farce.
The Short Films of David Lynch (DVD Compilation) (2002)

From whence comes a filmmaker as original and strange as David Lynch?
Airplane! (2005)

Unprecedented nonsense that--fashions aside--will remain timeless comedy cinema. [new DVD review]
DumbLand (WWW) (2004)

"Dumbland is a crude, stupid, violent, and absurd series. If it is funny, it is funny because we see the absurdity of it all." —David Lynch What happens when a world-class film director thro...
The Miracle of Morgan's Creek (1944)

Stands out for its sheer audacity of subject matter and its sustained emotional-roller-coaster effect: it's quite possibly the most high-strung movie ever made.
The Red Tent (1971)

An unusual and rich blend of epic film and memory play.
The Truman Show (1996)

[A] hugely entertaining dramatization of Plato's "Allegory of the Cave"...a fable that would be relevant 50 years earlier and no doubt will remain relevant 50 years hence.
The Glass Shield (1995)

The film's ambition makes Burnett's occasional overstatement easy to forgive.

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