blu-ray reviews

Matt Hough Escape to Witch Mountain Blu-ray Review A typical Disney fantasy-adventure circa 1975, John Hough's Escape to Witch Mountain offers moderately paced thrills with middling special effects of the era to fashion a family friendly romp that younger kids will find more appealing than...

Matt Hough Miss Hokusai Blu-ray Review An episodic, arty look at the life of O-Ei, the daughter of noted 19th century Japanese artist Katsushika Hokusai, is recounted through lovely pastel animation and with some surprisingly adult situations on tap in Keiichi Hara’s Miss Hokusai. [review]...

Matt Hough Chilly Scenes of Winter Blu-ray Review Annie Hall: meet your kissing cousin: Joan Micklin Silver’s Chilly Scenes of Winter, a bittersweet romantic comedy featuring lovers who meet, have a fun few months together, and part with the male side of the equation desperately and...

Matt Hough Shut In Blu-ray Review A modern variation on the dark, old house thriller, Farren Blackburn's Shut In provides a lot of smoke and mirrors to mask its inadequacies but to little purpose: this is a threadbare scare picture that only the most naïve would succumb to. [review] Read more.

Matt Hough Interiors Blu-ray Review A fractured family several of whom are on the brink of self-destruction comes into focus in Woody Allen’s stark Interiors. [review] Read more.

Matt Hough Kiss of Death (1947) Blu-ray Review A film noir classic with two indelible star performances and a more domestically-focused story than usual for the genre, Henry Hathaway’s 1947 Kiss of Death remains a fine, imminently viewable achievement. [review] Read more.

Matt Hough Rules Don't Apply Blu-ray Review After more than a decade and a half away from the cameras, Warren Beatty returns to produce, direct, write, and star in Rules Don’t Apply, a bizarre and uneven fantasia on the life of unconventional billionaire Howard Hughes right before his...

Matt Hough Incarnate Blu-ray Review To its credit, Brad Peyton’s Incarnate makes a play for a new take on demonic possession and exorcisms, and that’s the most interesting aspect of this otherwise tepid and unsatisfying horror programmer. [review] Read more.

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Matt Hough Moonlight Blu-ray Review A coming of age story simplistically told and yet filled with complex emotions which are often observed but not conveyed with words, Barry Jenkins’ Moonlight offers a memorable exploration of a character in three distinct stages of his life. [review]...

Matt Hough Son of Flubber Blu-ray Review For those who didn’t get enough of the magical flubber and its eccentric inventor in Walt Disney’s hilarious The Absent-Minded Professor, the man and his inventions return in Son of Flubber, a typically weaker if nevertheless entertaining sequel to...

Matt Hough Doctor Strange 3D Blu-ray Review Marvel has once again dipped into its seemingly bottomless bag of superheroes to forge yet another epic comic book adventure in Doctor Strange. [review] Read more.

Matt Hough Manchester by the Sea Blu-ray Review Recovering from a devastating loss varies from person to person, and no better example of that can be found than in Kenneth Lonergan’s shattering Manchester by the Sea, an intimate character study so exact and so detailed that it’s impossible...

Matt Hough Nocturnal Animals Blu-ray Review Thought-provoking, achingly personal, and sophisticatedly designed films like Tom Ford’s Nocturnal Animals don’t come along every day. [review] Read more.

Matt Hough Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown Blu-ray Review Pedro Almodovar’s Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown mixes slapstick farce with a more serious undertone to its comic shell to offer what may be the first screwball dramedy. [review] Read more.

Matt Hough Priceless Blu-ray Review A very mediocre thriller, Priceless, despite having its heart in the right place advocating for the end of human trafficking and a regeneration of respect for women, lacks basic suspense and logical narrative development. [review] Read more.

Matt Hough Bleed for This Blu-ray Review A seemingly accurate if not always compelling portrait of never-say-die fighter Vinny Pazienza, Ben Younger’s Bleed for This brings yet another real-life boxer’s life to the big screen. [review] Read more.

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Matt Hough His Girl Friday Blu-ray Review Combining the rapid-fire stage treatment of the classic newspaper comedy The Front Page with a modification which altered the original characters now butting their way through a battle-of-the-sexes farce, Howard Hawks’ His Girl Friday ranks among...

Matt Hough The Edge of Seventeen Blu-ray Review Kelly Fremon Craig’s The Edge of Seventeen is an angst-filled teen dramedy that’s darker in mood and tone than other popular movies that focus on the cloudy, mystifying time of adolescence. [review] Read more.

Richard Gallagher The Bullet Train Blu-ray Review It is impossible to watch the 1975 Japanese film The Bullet Train (aka Shinkansen daibakuha) without concluding that it was the inspiration for the 1994 blockbuster Speed. The Bullet Train, which in some respects is superior to Speed, was...

Matt Hough Almost Christmas Blu-ray Review Not particularly original but certainly filled with laughs and tears appropriate to a seasonal holiday dramedy, David E. Talbert’s Almost Christmas scores its myriad effects in spite of itself. [review] Read more.

Matt Hough Loving Blu-ray Review For such discriminatory miscegenation laws which had been on the books for centuries to be struck down by a historical Supreme Court ruling, Jeff Nichols’ Loving which deals with the case never goes for the big fanfares or explosive cinematic treatment one...

Matt Hough Desierto Blu-ray Review A cat-and-mouse thriller with some ugly and unsettling political overtones, Jonas Cuaron’s Desierto achieves many of its obvious goals without delving very deeply into the motivations behind them. [review] Read more.

Matt Hough The Take Blu-ray Review Originally titled Bastille Day, James Watkins’ The Take is a small gem of an action picture. [review] Read more.

Matt Hough Frank & Lola Blu-ray Review A brooding excursion into obsessive love and revenge, Matthew Ross’ Frank & Lola has indie film written all over it: a small cast, a few interiors in Paris and Las Vegas, and a psychological examination of tortured souls that piques the interest but...

Matt Hough Stanley & Iris Blu-ray Review Martin Ritt’s Stanley & Iris isn't the masterpiece that tighter, more succinct writing and more intensively portrayed emotions might have made it, but it's a quiet cinematic gem of some dramatic force and containing such beauty that it can't be...

Matt Hough Masterminds Blu-ray Review Numbskull comedy can be hard to pull off, and Jared Hess’ Masterminds works in only fits and starts, but what’s funny is very funny, and what’s dumb is, well, awful. [review] Read more.