• Blu-ray Review – The Veil

    1958’s “The Veil” is known as the show that never aired. Only one episode of the program managed to be seen at the time, with production complications preventing the whole thing from finding release. Over the years, efforts have been made to bring to the show to the public, trusting in the appeal of an anthology series about the supernatural, hosted and starring Hollywood legend Boris Karloff, who worked his natural way with screen intimidation to offer viewers a peek at what “lies behind the veil.” The episodes basically all touch on the same idea, delivering chilling tales of ghostly encounters, soaking up the bewilderment of characters seeking answers to the unexplainable. And there’s Karloff at the center of it all, sharing intros and outros in front of a roaring fire, presenting the bizarre (albeit in mild form) with ideal thespian emphasis, also contributing fine performances for a series that contains a lot of capable acting. “The Veil” has its high and low points, but it’s largely consistent with weirdness and drama, creating an interesting “weekly” journey into the mysteries of the world and the desperation of agitated characters. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

  • Blu-ray Review – George A. Romero’s Resident Evil

    We live in a world where seven “Resident Evil” movies exist (another one is due out later this year). It’s a horror/action franchise that’s managed to endure rough critical assessment and uneven box office returns over the years, but brand recognition is mighty, with the video game adaptation managing to pull in viewers no matter the quality of the productions. This cinematic universe is largely credited to writer/director Paul W.S. Anderson, who oversaw the creation of first chapter (released in 2002) and continued on throughout most of the series. However, Anderson and his highly debatable creative talents only arrived when production company Constantin Film attempted to make a “Resident Evil” feature with George A. Romero, the man behind “Night of the Living Dead.” Romero helped to establish the zombie subgenre, and his work inspired Capcom to create a video game that highlighted frights with the undead and the monstrous. “George A. Romero’s Resident Evil: The Documentary of the Unmade Film” investigates this aborted take on the franchise, with co-writer/director Brandon Salisbury examining the evidence left behind from Romero’s days on the project, putting together an understanding of creative and tonal directions ultimately ignored by Anderson. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

  • Film Review – 72 Hours

    Kevin Hart makes comedies where his characters are put in wild situations and they generally scream and flail their way out of them. “72 Hours” is the latest addition to his oeuvre, once again playing an overwhelmed man trying to make sense of his worsening situation, but for this round of slapstick and yelling, there’s an age component, as the screenplay (credited to four people) takes on generational divide to help add to the pressure facing the main character. The offering is meant to be a wild ride, but it’s also directed by Tim Story, who’s spent his career making painfully mediocre comedies (including “Ride Along,” “Shaft,” and last year’s “The Pickup”), and his streak continues here. “72 Hours” endeavors to be a raunchy good time with crazy situations of conflict and confusion to work through, but the production isn’t exactly aiming high with the material, which follows the usual in R-rated entertainment, putting Hart out front to help sell a painfully unfunny film. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

  • Film Review – Her Private Hell

    Nicolas Winding Refn once seemed to be on track for a very promising career. An intense visual storyteller, Refn scored a major career success with 2011’s “Drive,” eventually following it up with two atmospheric efforts (2013’s “Only God Forgives” and 2016’s “The Neon Demon”) that couldn’t match the creative and commercial success of his breakthrough endeavor. And then he stopped making movies. Refn moved over to television, making three shows of little renown, and after a decade away from filmmaking, he’s back with “Her Private Hell,” which hopes to return the helmer to the Lynchian ways of his past achievements, only now all the mystery is shapeless and unstimulating. “Her Private Hell” is a glossy offering of style without a moment of drama to hold it together. Refn gets lost in his pursuit of cinematic artistry, delivering a picture that’s a long, painful sit and indulgent to the extreme. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

  • Film Review – Motor City

    We last encountered a production that did away with dialogue in the 2023 John Woo picture, “Silent Night.” The concept is revived for the most part for “Motor City,” which has just a sprinkling of verbal exchanges, preferring to dish out its revenge story in a more visual manner, giving the audience a break from exposition to provide a visceral viewing experience. Director Potsy Ponciroli (“Old Henry,” “Greedy People”) is up to the storytelling challenge, putting in the effort to transform the endeavor into a mean machine, and while language isn’t the focus of the offering, pain certainly is, with screenwriter Chad St. John cooking up ways for the characters to experience devastating emotions and horrific physical encounters. “Motor City” isn’t the tightest feature around, but it packs a punch when necessary, trading words for deeds in a movie that enjoys taking on a dramatic challenge to bring something a little different to viewers. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

  • Film Review – The Dink

    Pickleball comedies have been popping up in 2026, with producers attempting to cash in on a sport that’s long past its initial trendy phase. Unfortunately, these endeavors have elected to hire actors such as Kevin Farley (“Pickleball”) and Kevin Sorbo and Dean Cain (“Pickleball Pete”) to bring the funny, and don’t feel bad if you’ve never heard of these movies. Screenwriter Sean Clements and director Josh Greenbaum (“Barb and Star Go to Vista Del Mar”) hope to go a little bigger with pickleball exploration in “The Dink,” which puts actor Jake Johnson to work portraying an accident-prone tennis pro forced to find his way back to glory via a sport he doesn’t respect. There’s actually not a lot of pickleball in the feature, but there’s a decent amount of charm, as Greenbaum has a fine cast eager to play with one another, while co-star Mary Steenburgen manages to steal the whole thing with her special presence, giving the film some heart to go with its silliness. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

  • Film Review – Kill Code

    In 1984, when David Lynch’s “Dune” was released in theaters, Universal Pictures panicked at the last minute, ordering the distribution of terminology sheets for ticket-buyers, giving those new to author Frank Herbert’s world a chance to learn more about weapons, vehicles, and planets while settling into their seats. There’s no such help with “Kill Code,” with writer/director Justin Price electing to create a complicated sci-fi actioner, yet he refuses to explain much of anything he introduces. The endeavor is not just confusing, but willfully bewildering, hitting viewers with all kinds of world-building and multiple characters, forgoing the usual in introductions and explanations. Such a puzzling approach could work in an offering that encouraged deeper inspection, but “Kill Code” (which was shot four years ago) is bottom of the barrel moviemaking, with Price hoping complexity will help to obscure dismal performances and AI-shellacked visuals. It doesn’t, and, good heavens, it’s quite a challenge to sit through this terrible film. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

  • 4K UHD Review – Body of Evidence

    As a musical artist, Madonna remains one of the most iconic performers around. She’s enjoyed incredible success over the course of her career, but she was especially white hot as the 1980s drew to a close, riding the triumph of her “Like a Prayer” album into the 1990s as controversy and attention increased, giving her the media’s undivided attention. Madonna risked it all to continue pushing boundaries, with 1992’s “Erotica” attempting to stir up more trouble for the singer as she entered a hypersexual phase of her career. The record did fine, but sales were noticeably down, and Madonna was also determined to keep working on an acting career, hoping to sell herself as a viable dramatic entity while previously performing in pictures that suggested otherwise. 1993’s “Body of Evidence” was part of the “Erotica” era, giving Madonna her own erotic thriller after the success of 1992’s “Basic Instinct,” attempting to deliver the ultimate in heat for director Uli Edel (“Last Exit to Brooklyn”). And the star puts on quite a show in the endeavor, working with screenwriter Brad Mirman’s imagination for softcore events and kink play for suburbanites, portraying a femme fatale on trial for the murder of her lover. “Body of Evidence” has Madonna willing to go where the writing leads, but she’s certainly not a commanding presence in an already clunky, awkward picture. Heat isn’t present here, and legal entanglements are often less appealing, adding another misfire to Madonna’s odd acting oeuvre. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

  • Blu-ray Review – Boys Go to Jupiter

    Julian Glander gets a little weird for his feature-length directorial debut, “Boys Go to Jupiter.” It’s an animated offering of absurdity and screen detail, delivering a Wes Anderson-y spin on the experiences of a 16-year-old kid trying to take on an adult world of financial responsibilities and relationships. Glander plays with dryness and video game-like visuals, but he’s fully committed to the oddity of his screenplay, which demands viewers go with its flow as it visits areas of adolescence, weird science, and late-stage capitalism while it also explores teen dilemmas of life and love. “Boys Go to Jupiter” is a creative effort from Glander, and it possesses enough humor and visual idiosyncrasy to hold attention as the tale dances with unreality and musical interests while visiting the secret lives of Floridians. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

  • Blu-ray Review – Raw Talent

    The battle of an aspiring actor trying to make it in the big, bad movie industry is, well, marginally tended to in 1984’s “Raw Talent.” The picture is scripted by Joyce Snyder, and she’s all over the place in the endeavor, looking to create a study of professional ambition that somehow involves multiple martial art fights and a semi-satire of adult filmmakers. It’s a starring vehicle for Jerry Butler, who tries to channel the energies of Travolta and Gere with his take on hungry thespian blues, putting in the work to bring meaty swings of drama to life. “Raw Talent” remains involving, but not always for the right reasons, as the feature certainly delivers some interesting elements of manipulation and despair. However, it’s also a very silly movie at times, and the tonal extremes are a little difficult to digest. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

  • 4K UHD Review – Timecrimes

    2007’s “Timecrimes” is the directorial debut for Nacho Vigalondo. He’s gone on to create such pictures as 2016’s “Colossal” and 2024’s “Daniela Forever,” offering unusual blends of dark humor and fantasy/sci-fi interests, and his debut feature introduces a helmer ready to impress with his command of twisty storytelling. A time-travel tale of increasing panic, “Timecrimes” is a small-scale study of self-destruction, with Vigalondo trying to play with confusion and dark clarity as he creates an evening of horror for a man who simply wants to rest in his house in the country. The movie runs out of steam before it finds an ending, but Vigalondo provides a good hour of appealing disorientation and mystery, making for an enjoyable brain-bleeder. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

  • Film Review – The Odyssey

    Writer/director Christopher Nolan surprised a lot of people with his 2023 release, “Oppenheimer.” It was a three-hour-long study of a deeply troubled man, mostly avoiding the scale of previous Nolan endeavors, and it connected with audiences in a huge way. The success of “Oppenheimer” helped to secure the helmer’s name as a selling point for ticket-buyers, and he returns with a major flex of power with “The Odyssey,” taking on the adaptation challenge of Homer’s epic tale of danger and survival. Bigness is back in the picture, which looks to hypnotize audiences with its IMAX-approved visuals and ear-splitting sound design. Such overwhelming technical achievements end up the most impressive elements of the feature, with “The Odyssey” occasionally struggling with casting and screenwriting, putting Nolan once again in charge of a three-hour tour that might’ve found greater dramatic impact in a more concise cut. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

  • Film Review – The Kidnapping of Arabella

    The deadpan comedy spirit of Wes Anderson and Jared Hess appears to be the main influence on “The Kidnapping of Arabella,” an Italian production from writer/director Carolina Cavalli. She’s not necessarily out to make something uproarious with the endeavor, offering an askew sense of humor while examining the troubled life of a young woman trying to process past mistakes by making a fresh one, accepting the company of a feisty girl who lives to torment her father. “The Kidnapping of Arabella” has moments of hilarity, and Cavalli attempts to give the feature a healthy dose of idiosyncrasy to keep it unexpected. More dramatic intentions are less compelling, but still register with intended sincerity, allowing the movie to reach some personal areas of pain without fully losing viewers to slower pacing and a gradual loss of narrative drive. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

  • Film Review – They Fight

    In 2018, director Andrew Renzi released “They Fight,” a documentary inspecting the efforts of trainer Walter Manigan and his battle to teach young kids about the ways of boxing and discipline while dealing with his own tortured past as an ex-con. Renzi returns to the story with “They Fight” sharing a co-writing credit with Sheldon Candis, who also directs this dramatization of Manigan’s experience in southeast Washington D.C. after being released from prison. There’s a define underdog atmosphere to the endeavor, with “Creed” references replacing the usual “Rocky” ones, and Candis pays careful attention to the discipline and contest of boxing. But there’s a lot more to “They Fight,” which strives to be as human as possible, tracking the development of characters attempting to put their lives back together after experiencing tremendous upheaval, learning the value of communication, support, and persistence during a difficult time. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

  • Film Review – Mother’s Pride

    Nick Moorcroft has found his way into the business of feel-good English movies, joined by collaborator Meg Leonard to script 2019’s “Fisherman’s Friends,” which managed to appeal to a smaller audience with its softer ways. Moorcroft and Leonard raised their responsibilities by helming the 2022 sequel, “Fisherman’s Friends: One and All,” which didn’t attract much attention from ticket-buyers. Moorcroft reteams with Leonard for “Mother’s Pride,” though he goes solo behind the camera for this easygoing tale of a financially ruined pub in a small village in England looking to make a major comeback with a special brew shepherded by a troubled young man. There are no surprises in the picture, but these films tend to coast on charm, and “Mother’s Pride” has its moments of personality and feeling, playing simple games of broad conflict to entertain audiences. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

  • Film Review – The Shrinking Man

    Author Richard Matheson originally created “The Shrinking Man” in 1956, quickly turning around a screenplay for a 1957 movie adaptation. The concept has gone on to inspire many film, television, and literary offerings that explore the fantasy elements of the premise, but co-writer/director Jan Kounen (“Blueberry,” “Coco Chanel & Igor Stravinsky”) hopes to return to Matheson’s quiet intensity of thought with “The Shrinking Man.” A French production, the endeavor is prepared to sell the visual highlights of a small man fighting for his life after he’s forgotten in his own home, with star Jean Dujardin contributing excellent work while handling the demands of visual effects. “The Shrinking Man” intends to remain existential with its examination of life at many sizes, and the austere atmosphere of the feature is interesting to experience, balancing the wonders of the mind with the urgency of Smurf-sized survival demands. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

  • Film Review – Dead Media

    We’re currently living in an age when movie studios and video game corporations are looking to eliminate physical media, preferring to live a digital download/streaming life to best profit from the art they sell. Writer/director Joseph Scrimshaw makes his feature-length helming debut with “Dead Media,” and he’s hoping to revive that nostalgic spark for discs, using the power and mystery of DVD navigation to inspire a horror tale that highlights zombie-like enemies, but mostly wants to play with acts of disorientation. “Dead Media” is a low-budget endeavor, but Scrimshaw works hard to make something lively and unique, finding an interesting way to approach the usual in stalk-and-kill cinema, giving his fright film special inspiration to help it through a few mismanaged ideas. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

  • Blu-ray Review – Tag: The Assassination Game

    For many people, the game “Assassin” or “Senior Assassin” was a rite of passage in school. Gameplay involved organized chaos, sending players into the world with dart guns, aiming to “kill” targets using spy game wits and dedication to the spirit of the competition. Of course, the idea of young people tearing around a college campus carrying realistic-looking guns seems a little strange today, but the 1980s were a different time, and writer/director Nick Castle uses the organized specifics of the era to inspire 1982’s “TAG: The Assassination Game,” which follows the exploits of players trying to take down their targets in the middle of a college year. Castle (who makes his helming debut with the endeavor, eventually going on to oversee such efforts as “The Last Starfighter” and “Major Payne”) isn’t making a cold-blooded thriller with “TAG: The Assassination Game,” going the semi-comedic route instead, aiming to turn a tale of toy pistol elimination into a film noir tribute/spoof, blending silliness with some degree of severity as dead bodies begin to pile up in the story. It’s a big swing from the production, which is more effective as a modest tale of campus pursuit than a pulse-pounding detective tale. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

  • 4K UHD Review – Boxcar Bertha

    Careers must start somewhere, and for so many in the film industry during the 1970s, employment was usually found with producer Roger Corman. The king of frugality was mostly happy to help hungry moviemakers, especially those he didn’t have to pay very much, and part of this roster of stars is Martin Scorsese. Having made his first feature (1967’s “Who’s That Knocking on My Door”), Scorsese was finding his way to Hollywood, eventually attracting attention for his short films, creating a path to make 1972’s “Boxcar Bertha,” which follows a Depression-era woman and her experiences with violent, desperate men. Scorsese and Corman appear to be an unlikely pair, but work is work, and the helmer puts in as much effort as possible for the producer, ready to deliver exploitation for the masses in the B-movie. Cinematic mastery would start to form in 1973’s “Mean Streets,” but Scorsese has his moments here, out to deliver the basics in Corman demands while figuring out his style and fondness for screen intensity. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

  • Blu-ray Review – Goodbye, Columbus

    1969’s “Goodbye, Columbus” attempts to adapt a tale from author Philip Roth’s 1959 short story collection. As with any effort to expand on something limited in scope, screenwriter Arnold Schulman has difficulty trying to extract drama out of an experiential journey for the lead character. Director Larry Peerce works hard to make the picture memorable, leaning into the appeal of youth culture from the era to land a faint take on “Romeo and Juliet,” managing the romantic combustion of the writing with Roth’s vision of Jewish American activities and family ties. “Goodbye, Columbus” has style, with Peerce laboring to find visual energy for a feature that’s not commanding with emotional issues, lacking sharpness when it comes to matters of the heart. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com