Latest DVD Reviews

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The Escape Artist (1982)

Offers plenty to appeal to children and adults, and the clever ending delivers one more treat to pay off the story's tricks.
Return to the Batcave: The Misadventures of Adam and Burt (TV) (2003)

Fans of the series will be hooked, if not thoroughly delighted, and others may prove unable to resist the train-wreck spectacle...unabashedly cheesy but 100% mesmerizing.
creature comforts—The Complete First Season (TV) (2003)

"The Great British Public" says the darndest things....creature comforts tickles most effectively in its small doses, but its cleverness and craft are undeniable.
No Direction Home: Bob Dylan (2005)

Fans will be positively enthralled at the well-preserved nuggets, and neophytes will understand the fuss over the musician and the man.
Taxi—The Complete Third Season (TV) (1980)

Sometimes resembled a weekly Neil Simon play...but James Brooks' celebrated brilliance with emotional storylines also justified experiments in the absurd and satirical.
Frasier—The Complete Sixth Season (TV) (1998)

Frasier was a series that enjoyed dabbling in farce, and the sixth season includes some relatively simple farcical gestures...as well as full-blown efforts.
Cheers—The Complete Seventh Season (TV) (1988)

A typical season of Cheers, which is to say 'excellent.'
Enterprise: The Complete Third Season (TV) (2003)

Occasionally hit the heights of Trek feature-film action, and often used the plot to ask the moral questions that have been Trek's raison d'être on TV.
Enterprise: The Complete Second Season (TV) (2002)

Repetition is what sent longtime Trek fans packing...[but the] season does muster a number of good episodes...while maintaining its high quality of production value.
Enterprise: The Complete First Season (TV) (2001)

Many Season One stories flounder through familiar-feeling alien-encounter and spatial-phenomena plots, but just as many episodes stand out for their creative energy.
The Beautiful Country (2005)

If Moland is a bit more interested in romantic melodrama than anthropology, the plight of the refugee still makes the intended emotional impact.
Cirque du Soleil: Anniversary Collection—1984-2005 (DVD Box Set) (2005)

A bargain for lovers of splashy, outre entertainment.
Saint Ralph (2005)

Light lessons about pain, endurance, and commitment...Likeable to a point, but in the end, Saint Ralph winds up incredible, manipulative, and strictly for the choir.
Bad News Bears (2005)

Profanity does not a creatively satisfying comedy make....slim characterization and an overfamiliar premise...[relegate] Bears to lazy, hazy, summer-daze mediocrity.
2046 (2005)

Rapturous cinema of the senses...proves once again that nobody does swoony romantic longing, and heartache, like Wong Kar-Wai.
Save the Tiger (1973)

Lemmon turns in showy, theatrical work that's appropriate to the not-terribly subtle film around him, but the whole enterprise is one that's best avoided...
Mysterious Skin (2005)

Araki embraces the mysteries of human sexuality with a refreshing lack of hysteria and a brace of empathy.
Heights (2005)

Diverting and well-acted...There are eight million stories in the naked city, and Heights is five of them.
Jumanji (1995)

Like the rest of Johnston's oeuvre, Jumanji puts vivid characters through paces that will quicken any child's pulse.
Mad Hot Ballroom (2005)

Though Agrelo blunts the competitive drama by visually excluding the opposition, the kids' talent and infectious spirit carries the day for Mad Hot Ballroom.
Bad Timing (1980)

Exemplifies the rich, acquired taste of the Roeg film.
Oliver! (1968)

Makes an epic impact, fully exploiting cinema to chase the intensity of a live musical while also allowing time for intimate expression of character.
Lady in White (1988)

Far from perfect, but what it lacks in finesse, it makes up in shaggy-dog charm....the fun is in the journey.
YES (2005)

Few filmmakers could be consciously redolent of Moliere, Dylan Thomas, and James Joyce and pull it off, but apparently writer-director Sally Potter is first in that class.
Star Trek: Nemesis (2002)

Tinkers around with an intriguing premise but with little creative facility for dialogue or structure...[splits] the difference between fans and neophytes, impressing neither.
Batman (1943)

Columbia Pictures' Batman is just about as good as the next serial, which spells plenty of two-fisted fun.
Winter Solstice (2005)

Something that's increasingly rare: a stringently subtextual drama....when they finally arrive, the epiphanies are small ones.
Schultze gets the blues (2005)

Defiantly slow-paced, Schultze gets the blues embraces a neglected subject: the wanderlust of the retiree.
Batman and Robin (1949)

Though rudimentary by ordinary film standards...diverting entertainment for innocent youngsters.
Sahara (2005)

As Hollywood actioners go these days, this one's quite tolerable in its guilty-pleasure way. Feel free to saddle up.
Witness (1985)

Humanizes the conflict of peace versus the arguable necessity of violence.
My Left Foot: The Story of Christy Brown (1989)

Inspiration is inherent in Brown's story, but Sheridan, co-screenwriter Shane Connaughton, and Lewis refuse to sanctify him.
Francesco, giullare di Dio (a.k.a. The Flowers of St. Francis) (1950)

Though Roberto Rossellini's Francesco, giullare di Dio...tells stories of a Roman Catholic saint, it should not be branded merely as a religious film.
3-Iron (2005)

Kim Ki-duk's happily unhinged drama comfortably occupies the middle ground between his baroque thriller The Isle and his meditative Spring, Summer....
Ghostbusters II (1989)

Bottom line: with Murray on fire and enough clever dialogue to rival its predecessor, Ghostbusters II is good enough to put post-milennial comedy to shame.
Ghostbusters (1984)

Dan Aykroyd's inventive comedy concept for Ghostbusters attracted an all-star comedy team to bust out an classic of mainstream '80s cinema.
Horem pádem (Up and Down) (2005)

Weaves the politics of borders into the comedy of human frailty...seasoned with the everyday absurdities of artificial social boundaries.
North By Northwest (1959)

Thrilling, funny, and romantic; it elevates popcorn adventure to art...defines the ideal use of star power....[and] marries deadly intrigue to out-and-out delight.
In My Country (a.k.a. Country of My Skull) (2005)

A wasted opportunity to tell in filmic terms two important histories: the crimes of apartheid and the love with which they were answered.
Batman Begins (2005)

The ne plus ultra of comic-book films...an appropriately tough movie, busy but efficient, rich and thoughtful, and ornamented with visual appeal and exciting action.

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