Category: DVD/BLU-RAY

Although it has the set-up of a classic thriller, 1985's "Eleni" takes a mournful route when detailing the events of the Greek Civil War. An adaptation of Nicholas Gage's best-selling autobiography, the picture uses the fist-clenching reaction of revenge to explore a divided era of politics and cruelty, finding a personal story of loss driving the drama, which volleys between subtle and hysterical. "Eleni" doesn't always come together as director Peter Yates imagines, but there's a deep sense of emotion that periodically arrives to hold attention, hitting a few dark moments of grief and suffering that motivate the story. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

Zorro is an icon that has been shaped through all forms of media, passed down through generations since his 1919 debut. There are iconic depictions of the character, but rarely has one interpretation encountered universal approval like 1940's "The Mark of Zorro," where star Tyrone Power picked up the sword and the mask and made a hero soar across the screen. Directed by Rouben Mamoulian, "The Mark of Zorro" hits all genre sweet spots, keeping Power and his co-stars front and center to bring complete charisma to the production, which has just as much fun watching the talent interact as it does staging sword fights and chases. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

What's most surprising about 1951's "Rawhide" is its ferocity, refusing to go soft as it explores rising tensions between stagecoach service officials (including Tyrone Power) and a single mother (Susan Hayward), and an outlaw gang who's taken over the station, searching for a shipment of gold. The essentials in antagonism are there, but "Rawhide" has real snap, detailing troubling times with terrific performances and a sense of danger that separates it from the traditional black hat/white hat entertainment of the day. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

After rocking the world with blaxsploitation hits "Dolemite" and "The Human Tornado," star Rudy Ray Moore was in the mood to switch up his formula of sluggish martial arts and tentative sex play, embracing his comedic potential with 1977's "Petey Wheatstraw," which replaces scowling with mugging. The film intentionally inches Moore away from his aggressive ways, transforming the brightly decorated star into more of a ringmaster role, overseeing the wacky antics director Cliff Roquemore tries to secure, paying tribute to industry legends and personal heroes. "Petey Wheatstraw" is a ridiculous movie, but intentionally so, satirizing Moore's still-forming screen persona while working to strengthen storytelling ambition, with the screenplay reaching out to fantasy and religion to help secure a fresh adventure for the star, who's ready and rhyming to get right back into the action. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

While the gold standard for surf movies was set all the way back in 1966 with Bruce Brown's "The Endless Summer," it hasn't stopped filmmakers from trying to explore the combination of water sports and world travel. Director Jeremy Rumas takes a more dreamy approach to the pastime with "Hangs Upon Nothing," which does away with structure, introductions, and locations to simply take in the power of rolling waves and the spirit of surfing freedom, endeavoring to connect man and nature as a few subjects embark on daily adventures into the ocean, enjoying the most beautiful places on Earth. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

"Pioneers of African-American Cinema" provides historians, admirers, and the curious with an opportunity to explore the Black experience in the movie industry as it was from 1915-1946, focusing on individuals to claimed power for themselves, financing and producing pictures for their own audience, taking control of creative endeavors. It's a five-disc odyssey highlighting restored "features, shorts, fragments, and documentaries," bringing rarities to light that underline cultural attitudes of the eras, but also showcase developing storytelling confidence, experimentation, and courage as a few names, including Oscar Micheaux, emerged as leaders of a burgeoning movement, working to find its own perspective away from discrimination and expectation. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

Writer/director Ale Abreu's "Boy & the World" is both a celebration of animation and a hypnotic trip through Latin American culture and history. Settling on a kaleidoscopic atmosphere for the feature, Abreu sends viewers on a cinematic ride of colors and music, intentionally avoiding dialogue to tell the story through bright, inventive imagery, giving the effort an explorer's spirit and surprising heart. "Boy & the World" is stunning work, filling its brief run time with ample energy and true directorial vision. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

Arriving in 2012 to rave reviews, the BBC series "The Hollow Crown" was intended to bring the works of William Shakespeare to a new audience, using the power of name actors to juice up a cycle of films that explored the dramatic highs and lows of royal power and madness. For "The Wars of the Roses," the production returns to the formula, staging "Henry VI, Part 1" (116:18), "Henry VI, Part II" (128:13), and "Richard III" (134:19) with a cast of Shakespeare devotees and industry veterans, including Benedict Cumberbatch, Judi Dench, Hugh Bonneville, and Sally Hawkins. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

1978's "Movie Movie" is meant to be throwback entertainment, replicating a filmgoing time of double features, where different genres were smashed together to provide an evening's entertainment to those looking to get lost in disparate screen adventures. And who better to mastermind a spoof/homage to the cinematic achievements of the 1930s than director Stanley Donen, helmer of "Singing in the Rain" and "On the Town." "Movie Movie" isn't out to wow with plot and expanse, more interested in packing in jokes and adoration for the production era, assembling two short efforts that cover the gamut of emotional responses and musical opportunities, bringing together a gifted cast to breathe life into a screen experiment that's ideal for those who personally value golden dreams of cinematic glamour and for those with short attentions spans. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

As Studio Ghibli ends operations, one of their earliest efforts finally makes it to American audiences. Better late than never. 1991's "Only Yesterday" is the company's fifth feature and, for an animation house known for creating faraway lands and fantastical creatures, it's also one of their most human, turning to memory and regret to inspire an emotional journey of a woman who yearns to reclaim and reassess an earlier, simpler time in her life. Gorgeously animated in the distinct Ghibli style, director Isao Takahata manages to understand the erratic flow of childhood impulses and curiosity, while pinpointing the moment when nostalgia transforms into personal need. "Only Yesterday" is 25 years old, but it remains surprisingly relevant, warmly conceived and executed from beginning to end. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

1962's "Five Miles to Midnight" has an unfortunate casting issue that's difficult to ignore. It's not that Anthony Perkins and Sophia Loren are unpleasant performers, far from it, but director Anatole Litvak makes quite a leap pairing them in what should be a tense domestic drama with thriller interests. Instead of conjuring suspense, "Five Miles to Midnight" takes a leisurely stroll around screen anxiety, with Loren and Perkins sharing stiff chemistry normally reserved for sibling characters, not a married couple. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

Threads of time are knotted carefully by director Jia Zhangke in "Mountains May Depart," which attempts to explore the lives of three characters as they experience 25 years of Chinese cultural and economic development and their own maturity. Taking place in 1999, 2014, and 2025, the picture successfully creates a broad sweep of life, tracking emotional and physical growth in an unusual way. It's an emotional effort, though it commences with more subtlety than it concludes with, fighting off the artificiality of melodrama for the most part, ultimately growing too fatigued to better balance a disappointing third act. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

The cinema of writer/director Apichatpong Weerasethakul is an acquired taste, with his latest, "Cemetery of Splendor," taking a meditative look at weary, haunted souls and tentative personal connection. Those who've sampled pictures such as "Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall His Past Lives" and "Tropical Malady" should be prepared for the observational qualities of the helmer's work, with "Cemetery of Splendor" a fine addition to a career filled with artistic achievements and perpetual curiosity with the human experience. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

While he doesn't command the respect his peers receive, director Lucio Fulci has made his mark on horror cinema. The Italian filmmaker has helmed his share of stinkers, but the ones that broke through and found an audience, including 1981's "The Beyond," were memorable excursions into screen violence and loopy artistry, while his attention to gory details turned him into a legend with the Rotten Cotton generation, creating some of the vilest imagery the genre could summon. 1990's "Cat in the Brain" (titled "Nightmare Theater" on the Blu-ray) isn't one of Fulci's finest pictures, but it's certainly his most bizarre. Instead of embarking on a fresh round of chilling events and hysterical characters, Fulci instead recycles prior accomplishments, stitching together old footage from his filmography to beef up a simplistic story of madness colored by exposure to moviemaking. "Cat in the Brain" is a weird picture, not always for the right reasons, but it certainly bears the Fulci brand, surveying all types of carnage and despair, often for no reason at all. It's a greatest hits package from the helmer, either explained away as a wild experiment or an unusually determined contractual obligation. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

"Deadline – U.S.A." comes across just as relevant today as it was during its initial release in 1952. It's a journalism story about the death of a newspaper, with writer/director Richard Brooks cooking up a valentine to the art of reporting and editorial leadership, bringing on star Humphrey Bogart to portray professional might in the face of extinction. Certainly times have changed, with newspapers today fighting a different war with dwindling readership, but the core message of "Deadline – U.S.A." remains potent, showcasing the power of journalism as it reaches its final day of operation. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

For his third directorial outing, Carl Reiner goes dark, real dark, for 1970's "Where's Poppa?" A pitch-black comedy from writer Robert Klane, Reiner works extremely hard to preserve the material's extreme sense of humor, trying to generate a swirling atmosphere of absurdity to help buffer the screenplay's wilder forays into taboo humor. Much of it is dated, but the effort is undeniably fun as times, watching stars George Segal, Ruth Gordon, Ron Leibman, and Trish Van Devere commit entirely, easing tonal digestion as they eagerly portray the escalation of insanity. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

There's nothing out to shock audiences in 1948's "Yellow Sky," which puts most of its effort into the basics of western entertainment. It's all about outlaws and moral choices, unruly men and tamed women, working up excitement in the middle of Death Valley National Park, which gives the picture an atmospheric authenticity. Visually, "Yellow Sky" is interesting to study, with director William A. Wellman securing bigness for a movie that's light on engrossing dramatics, finding western touches and creative achievements far more compelling that the unfolding story, which comes off mild and uneventful. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

In "Basket Case 2," the series developed into a tale of community, where Duane and his deformed brother Belial finally found a home with a group of "Unique Individuals," learning to temporarily silence their murderous appetites and learn the warmth of acceptance. There was even a little sex thrown in there too, giving writer/director Frank Henenlotter a narrative direction for 1991's "Basket Case 3: The Progeny," which tries to pay off the eye-crossing conclusion of the last film with a newfound desire to transform what was once a creepy, icky horror picture into a demented Saturday morning cartoon, loaded with creatures and chaos. While it's made strictly for fans of the franchise, presenting the faithful with ample screen time for ghoulish celebration, "Basket Case 3: The Progeny" definitely keeps up Henenlotter's interests in the macabre and zany, successfully advancing the saga of Duane and Belial into trials of fatherhood and human acceptance. This final chapter isn't as memorable as its predecessors, but the effort isn't lazy, working hard to disrupt expectations and stage ridiculousness, though it becomes increasingly clear that Henenlotter has run out of ideas for his creation. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

I suppose technically, formerly conjoined twins Duane and Belial died at the end of 1982's "Basket Case," but when has finality ever stopped a horror franchise from taking shape? The understandably unsettled siblings return to action in 1990's "Basket Case 2," which offers writer/director Frank Henenlotter ("Frankenhooker") an opportunity to expand his vision for brotherly love with a slightly larger budget and more polished technical achievements. While the sheer oddity of "Basket Case" is impossible to replicate, Henenlotter takes his creation to pleasingly broad extremes, cooking up a tribute to "Freaks," Tod Browning's 1932 shocker, to help provide dramatic direction for his follow up. Returning to the ways of grotesque characters, psychological collapse, and bizarre events, "Basket Case 2" is a largely successful sequel that brings the series into a new era, ready to explore its old bag of tricks. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

Magazine publisher and genre enthusiast Don Dohler decided to try his luck as a movie director in the 1970s, with his debut, "The Alien Factor," a riff on the extraterrestrial terror pictures from the 1950s. Armed with a severely limited budget, Dohler elected to use his home community as a backlot, turning rural Maryland into a battleground for intergalactic war. "The Alien Factor" is undeniably shoddy in construction and muddled in tone, and it won't win any accolades for helming finesse, watching Dohler trip over himself trying to keep up with basic technical challenges, but for those who embrace the art of schlock, especially one that's not striving to be campy, the feature has its bottom-shelf charms. At the very least, Dohler keeps the malevolent creatures coming throughout the run time, proving his awareness of the film's appeal. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com