Time Bandits: Criterion Collection
January 22, 2015
The early 1980s was a fertile time for fantasy films with the likes of Excalibur (1981), Dragonslayer (1981) and Conan the Barbarian (1982) among others. Time Bandits (1981) came out of Terry Gilliam being unable to get his passion project Brazil (1985)...
The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou: Criterion Collection
May 27, 2014
There’s always a certain amount of trepidation when a filmmaker like Wes Anderson, known for making intimate and personal films, starts making movies on a more ambitious scale – bigger budgets and movie stars in an attempt to appeal to larger audience...
The Lone Ranger
January 14, 2014
Johnny Depp and director Gore Verbinski’s first collaboration was on the surprise box office success that was Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl (2003). They worked together on two subsequent sequels, Dead Men’s Chest (2006) and...
Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides
November 8, 2011
Despite wrapping up the numerous narrative threads in the third Pirates of the Caribbean film (2007), its massive commercial success pretty much assured another installment in this popular franchise. The only question would be who from the last film would...
Captain America
August 29, 2011
Before Bryan Singer’s X-Men (2000) film demonstrated the artistic and commercial potential of some of their titles, it seemed like Marvel Comics didn’t care how they were adapted to the big screen. And so, we had horrible misfires like Howard the...
The Superman Motion Picture Anthology (Blu-Ray)
June 17, 2011
With every new format comes the chance to release box-sets of classic movies once again; those movies that, regardless of whether we’ve seen them a thousand times or whether we already own them on numerous formats, they become must have purchases. Indiana...
Yogi Bear (Blu-Ray)
April 8, 2011
Yogi Bear, or, Is A Bear Shit In The Woods? It’s fair to say that the dearly departed William Hanna and Joseph Barbera had a knack for creating memorable cartoons characters. The list is as long as your arm – Top Cat, Hong Kong Phooey, Wacky Races,...
Doctor Who – The Complete Series 5 (Blu-Ray)
December 2, 2010
Taking over the much coveted role of ‘The Doctor’ in Doctor Who is always going to be difficult for any actor, no matter how confident or experienced they may be. For Matt Smith however, it was doubly, triply difficult because he a) had to take over...
The Sorcerer’s Apprentice
December 2, 2010
With The Sorcerer’s Apprentice (2010), producer Jerry Bruckheimer was associated with a rare box officer underperformer. While doing well overseas, the film failed to capture a large audience in North America. Even before its release, the film was plagued...
The Brothers Bloom
October 21, 2010
It was with high expectations that I slipped Bloom into my DVD player. After all, Rian Johnson had made the excellent Dashiell-Hammet-in-high-school Brick, one of the coolest indie films of the past few years. Would Bloom have the sharp dialogue, excellent...