Should anyone feel bad for poor old Ray Harryhausen when a kid rents Jurassic Park instead of One Million Years B.C. – the 1966 film that starred a fur bikini-clad Raquel Welch running away from impressive-looking stop-motion animated dinosaurs? I feel a little sorry for the guy, but his 50-year reign...

Does the Blu-ray release of War Horse match the Oscar nominations and critical acclaim it received?  “Some days are best forgotten; today ain’t one of them.”   War Horse represents a curious entry among the nine films nominated for Best Picture in the 2012 Oscar season.  While dripping...

Does Mission Impossible IV: Ghost Protocol return Cruise to Top Gun status, or do further damage to his once legendary reputation? For many people, a singular decision sends them down a path that determines the rest of their lives.  For Tom Cruise, that decision came in the form of a couch, and...

“In a word, superb” Extremely loud and incredibly close is a great film. It is one of the few movies that can pull your emotions in pretty much every direction and do it without losing the film’s pace. It is very deserving of the two nominations at the Academy Awards, one for Best...

Immortals is an unconvincingly terrible attempt at a worthwhile action flick. There is not one moment in the film where I feel remotely entertained. This 300 knock-off was worse than the 2010 remake of Clash of the Titans (it’s not like they’re any different) and manages to butcher the...

Winner of 3 academy awards during 1999’s Oscars ceremony, Life is Beautiful is a wonderful, touching film that pulls at the heart strings up until the very last frame. Set in Arezzo, Italy during World War II, Guido Orefice (Roberto Benigni), a young Italian Jew arrives in town with hopes of opening...

Jean Renoir’s ‘La Grande Illusion’ is a poetic and poignant mediation on class, the nature of war and the death of the old European order. Aristocratic Captain de Boeldieu, mechanic Lieutenant Marechal and wealthy Jewish banker Rosenthal are all thrown into the mix together as prisoners...

The Descendants is a well-made, touching, and sometimes funny look at the worst kind of death. Death is uncompromising.  When it’s your time, you better have your affairs in order.  To those who know about the slow descent to death, either through witnessing a family member or friend deal with...

Many films have been labeled “ahead of its time” upon initial theatrical release but what can we say when those films eventually feel dated as time passes? As a fan of films from every decade since the early 1900s, I don’t automatically like something more just because a film gets the prestigious...

A feature-laden box set celebrates one of the greatest trilogies ever released. The Bourne Trilogy is a series that defies conventional wisdom. Call it The Hollywood Law of Diminishing Returns, but the theory suggests that the first film in a series is always its best, with each successive release being...

Wallace and Gromit’s World of Invention is the first season of a science themed series aired by BBC television in 2010. The first season contains six, 30-minute episodes, and each is created in the classic stop motion animation you’ve come to expect from Aardman Studios. The series takes...

The Guns of Navarone is a British-American war film made in 1961. Directed by J. Lee Thompson, and starring Gregory Peck, who was best known for his portrayal of Atticus Finch in the film “To Kill a Mockingbird.” The film is based on Alistair MacLean’s 1957 novel of the same name, and centers...

The Muppets’ release to Blu-ray comes ready to play the music and light the lights! I love the Muppets. From my earliest memories of Sesame Street, to The Muppet Show and Muppets Tonight, these insanely funny little puppets have been making me laugh for the better part of my life. I think it’s...

It seems like there was one type of phrase that came to mind during the making of this movie:  “This is not your father’s Three Musketeers”.  In the era of blockbuster filmmaking that audiences now live in and in the wake of somewhat self-aware period action films like Pirates of the Caribbean...

Moviegoers eagerly awaiting Mel Gibson’s long-rumored HANUKKAH movie can now whet their appetites with HOP – the epic story of the rise and fall of the noble Easter Bunny. Filmed in glorious CinemaScope, this 4-hour Cecil B. DeMille-style motion picture features a CGI Charlton Heston as the Easter...