Life of the Party was a big surprise to me. I thought it would just be a mother/daughter Back to School riff, which would have been fine, but it is so much more. It’s less about the embarrassment of having your mom in college or the party animal she becomes and more about empowering soon-to-be […]
Love, Simon is a high school comedy so the visuals are mostly campus, suburban home and parties. As familiar locations go they are all polished, glamorous and vibrant Hollywood versions that shine on Blu-ray. The picture is sharp and clear since it’s a brand new movie. But of course you’re not buying Love, Simon for […]
With Ready Player One, Steven Spielberg made Ernest Cline’s virtual reality Oasis even more vivid than we could have imagined reading the book. Now on Blu-ray, it couldn’t look any more real unless we actually jacked in to the Oasis. Watching the Oasis scenes in hi-def looks like the greatest video game that would never […]
When I fell in love with Hong Kong cinema in the ‘90s, I saw the Dragon Inn remake with Donnie Yen. Now thanks to the Criterion Collection I can dig deeper into Chinese cinema with the Taiwanese original, and only my second King Hu film after Come Drink With Me. They were already starting to […]
Memoirs of an Invisible Man was my all time favorite movie from 1992-1993. I thought it was a mesmerizing adventure full of beautifully creative visual effects and a poignant theme about feeling invisible. I’d soon see Pulp Fiction and have my cinematic world blown wide open, but I still love Memoirs. It wasn’t popular enough […]
I’m excited Stallone is continuing the Escape Plan series and bringing Dave Bautista in. They’re making it more about the Breslin Security team, but Stallone is still in it, doing some action on the outside and joining the team for the finale. I mean, it beats doing Escape Plan without Stallone at all. The Blu […]
The 30th anniversary of Coming to America is a good reason to revisit the film. A 30th anniversary Blu-ray came out earlier this month so I went back to Zamunda in HD. In light of Wakanda it’s a good comparison for how they created a fictional African kingdom without CGI. They make a good palace […]
Thanks to an extra bonus episode, season two of Legion will last a week longer on FX. But eventually it’s going to be over and there’ll be nothing to do but wait for season 3. At least you can revisit Legion: Season 1 on Blu-ray and try to find things you missed the first time. […]
The Hurricane Heist is the kind of movie we need. Just think of an outrageous idea and do it. Rob Cohen totally delivered with this one, and people should have appreciated it in theaters. Also, Feist should’ve done the theme song so she could be The Hurricane Feist. They built a whole American town in […]
I’m a little late to my Oscar Blu-rays, but Phantom Thread joins The Shape of Water, Three Billboards Outside Ebbing Missouri and The Post as a fine example of 2017 cinema. It’s great to see 70mm film represented in HD. It’s bright. The subtleties between natural, artificial and firelight are noticeable. The actors look like […]
