Category: DVD/BLU-RAY

Trying to expand his range and take on a different type of storytelling challenge, writer/director David Mamet made "The Winslow Boy" in 1999. It was his first and last G-rated endeavor, focusing on a mild period drama about family, law, and society. The art house release didn't attract much attention, inspiring Mamet to return to his old stomping grounds, making a new R-rated feature about troubled people caught in a multitude of problems. 2000's "State and Main" finds the helmer in a cheeky mood, mounting a satire of the filmmaking process and Hollywood politics, managing fears, leers, and moral uncertainty while paying tribute to classic comedy timing and hectic screen activity. Mamet has the inspiration and the subject, but laughs aren't plentiful in "State and Main," which tries a little too hard to be cutesy instead of merciless as the material surveys a collision of corrupt "movie people" and weird small-town folk. A grand escalation of madness seems to be the idea here, but Mamet has difficulty getting to a point of insanity with a lukewarm sense of humor. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

Last year, co-writer/director M.J. Bassett crafted "Rogue," using African locations to detail an action story with a strong anti-poaching message, using genre filmmaking to reach an audience unaccustomed to such lessons about nature. The plan didn't work, as Bassett wasn't committed to thrills, casting choices were decidedly underwhelming, and incredibly crude CGI undermined efforts to explore a tale about the preciousness of animal life. Apparently refusing to give up on her dream of message-minded moviemaking, Bassett returns to (or perhaps she never left) Africa for "Endangered Species," which is being marketed as a horror-tinged survival story, but it's more of dysfunctional family study, spending more time with domestic concerns than deadly encounters. Bassett once again labors to make the material meaningful, returning to the grisliness of poaching and the destruction of the natural world. Perhaps a straight-up documentary should be her next creative endeavor, as the challenge of conjuring suspense and proper CGI animals is clearly too much for Bassett to handle. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

1964's "For Those Who Think Young" was marketed as a Beach Party event, with the studio hoping to play into marketplace trends of the day with a trailer that sold the sun-and-sand excitement of California life. Trouble is, the movie isn't really about catching waves, with just a small portion of the feature devoted to antics near the water. The rest of "For Those Who Think Young" is primarily about selling Woody Woodbury's comedic abilities, with the older performer offered an enormous amount of screen time to showcase his crowd work club act. There's something of a "young people" romance going on in the effort, but someone, somewhere found Woodbury to be an irresistible talent, making sure to let the whole world know just how great he was in this endeavor. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

"Mail Order Murder: The Story of W.A.V.E. Productions" initially seems like a standard offering of geek love to a filmmaking subculture, with the world of video moviemaking the subject for the documentary. Directors William Hellfire and Ross Snyder are quick to deliver their valentine to the ways of no-budget productions, asking writers and enthusiasts to recall their interactions with such bottom shelf entertainment, finding most impressed that something so awful could feel so right. And then "Mail Order Murder" finally focuses on what W.A.V.E. Productions actually achieved during their run, which takes the endeavor into a strange direction, examining the questionable ways of the company and their eventual quest to capture any sort of fetish for any sort of customer. No questions asked. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

There have been multiple T.V. shows and documentaries created about Silk Road, a darknet market website that made it easy to purchase illegal drugs over the internet. The idea was hatched by Ross Ulbricht, and his story is a fascinating exploration of millennial ego, business opportunity, and online exploitation, making it irresistible to filmmakers. Dramatizing the events of Ulbricht's build-up and breakdown is "Silk Road," with writer/director Tiller Russell adapting a magazine article to get inside the mind of the main character, while the screenplay focuses on the operation of the website and the battle to bring Ulbricht down. Russell goes to David Fincher's "The Social Network" for some of his inspiration, and while it's rough around the edges, "Silk Road" connects as a study of corruption and temptation, dealing with the new frontier of online accessibility. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

The 1950s were a fertile period in horror, introducing audiences to the simple pleasures of Atomic Age nightmares, which included a subgenre involving "big bug" pictures. These efforts turned everyday critters into city-smashing threats, eventually inspiring generations of filmmakers to try their luck at reviving the big screen experience. In 2002, producers Dean Devlin and Roland Emmerich aimed to recreate B-movie mayhem from a bygone era with "Eight Legged Freaks," a decidedly high-tech version of monster mayhem, with copious amounts of CGI used to bring a giant spider invasion to life. Director Ellory Elkayem makes his helming debut with the feature (also co-scripting with Jesse Alexander), and he's never exactly sure what kind of endeavor "Eight Legged Freaks" is. There's an uneasy blend of frights and funny business to process, with jokes lacking definition and terror muted by attempts at zaniness. There's some fun to be had with the premise, but the production ultimately doesn't know what it wants to be, resulting in a mediocre attempt to revive big bug thrills and chills. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

For director Alan Birkinshaw, the job of adapting Edgar Allan Poe stories was his primary career focus in the late 1980s, with "The Masque of the Red Death" following his time on 1989's "The House of Usher." Of course, these are loose versions of the original stories, but Birkinshaw is hoping to conjure something spooky and B-movie baroque with the features, finding "The House of Usher" the more inspired production, delivering a mild Hammer Films vibe as actors Oliver Reed and Donald Pleasance do their best to ham it up while the story details horrible things happening to a young woman stuck in a dangerous situation of obsession. The endeavor isn't sharp, but it has some degree of enthusiasm for broad antics, making for an amusing sit as Birkinshaw tries to create something savage with his low budget and game cast. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

A period mystery collides with horror and action in 2001's "Brotherhood of the Wolf," which represents co-writer/director Christophe Gans's attempt to change the course of the French film industry, adding a little violent genre excitement for the masses. It's a valiant mission to deliver bigger thrills, and the premise is loaded with strangeness, blending magic, myth, the French Revolution, and some sexual power, with Gans using all he can to summon a bizarre adventure that occasionally packs quite a punch as Hong Kong choreography crashes into a stately European endeavor. It's an excessively long feature, but "Brotherhood of the Wolf" holds attention for most of its run time, finding Gans eager to please with his usual mix of fantasy visuals and charged encounters. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

1974's "High School Fantasies" was created to cash-in on the unexpected success of 1973's "American Graffiti." The George Lucas masterpiece was the tiny movie that could, offering audiences a way out of the Nixon years with a healthy dose of nostalgia, offering a time machine to the early 1960s, when the future was unwritten. Lucas cleverly recreated the era and filled his feature with lively personalities and relatable emotions. Director James Bryan doesn't get the same kind of mileage out of "High School Fantasies," which also attempts to revive the sights and sounds of 1962, but with an adult film budget. The helmer hopes to create a spirited romp about oversexed teenagers and their strange adventures with heavy petting, but there's also a hardcore aspect the picture that's hastily worked into the flow of the endeavor, with Bryan doing his best to shape something resembling a story, fighting the randomness of the effort. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

In 1984's "Streetwise," Erin Blackwell was known as "Tiny." A 14-year-old prostitute, the girl struggled with a life spent on the hard streets of Seattle, making fleeting friendships and experiencing something resembling love with a boy named Rat. Erin Blackwell eventually survived her brutal formative years, and 2016's "Tiny: The Life of Erin Blackwell" offers a reunion with the now 44-year-old mother of 10 children, who continues on her journey to basic functionality, only now she's saddled with a lot more responsibility. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

Taking inspiration from a Life Magazine article by Cheryl McCall and photographer Mary Ellen Mark, director Martin Bell ventures into Seattle to better understand life for the street kids who populate the urban areas. The 1984 documentary "Streetwise" aims to explore this existence, where survival is a daily activity, and the community is filled with children who are perhaps better off on their own than with the dangerous families they've managed to escape. It's a no-win situation for the subjects in "Streetwise," with Bell trying to respect the natural rhythm of this world, which is teeming with confused adolescents left with nothing but their own ill-formed instincts. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

Baseball movies were all the rage in the early 1990s, especially ones involving children and their love of the game. Joining "The Sandlot," "Rookie of the Year," and "Angels in the Outfield" is 1994's "Little Big League," which had the advantage of a slightly less fantastical premise, exploring the life of a 12-year-old boy who inherits control of the Minnesota Twins. Co-writer/director Andrew Scheinman (co-founder of Castle Rock Entertainment and producer of "When Harry Met Sally," "A Few Good Men," and "Misery") makes a valiant attempt to reduce the sitcom-ish aspects of the premise, focusing on the world of baseball and the trials of being an overworked kid. Not everything connects as it should in "Little Big League," which doesn't contain many laughs, but Scheinman finds the spirit of the picture, playing up a remarkable situation with some down-to-earth writing and an enjoyable supporting cast. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

1979's "The Two Worlds of Jennie Logan" is a television film that's hoping to appeal to a singular demographic, offering romantic conflict, domestic despair, and secret desires. It's also a time travel movie, with writer/director Frank De Felitta adapting a novel by David Williams, trying to do something sincere with the concept of a magical dress that offers a broken woman a chance at a happy life. It's all very silly, but De Felitta manages to make the premise work to a certain degree, replicating the romance novel experience for the screen, providing a satisfactory understanding of character and motivation while trying to whip the material into a sufficient network television lather. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

"So Long Billie" (aka "Pompei") appears to pursue a hypnotic viewing experience. Writer/directors Anna Falgueres and John Shank don't have much time for storytelling with their endeavor, making room for lengthy shots of nature, open spaces, sexual connections, and naked actors. There's little in the way of drama in the feature, but a direct assessment of motivation doesn't seem to be the point of the movie, which chooses to exist as a cinematic mist of sorts, hoping to attract viewers interested in art-house hypnotism. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

There was a sense of finality to 1974's "Big Bad Mama." And then the feature made some sizable money for producer Roger Corman, inspiring him to attempt a sequel 13 years later, with "Big Bad Mama II" bringing back star Angie Dickinson for another round of Depression-era mayhem. The divide in time between the movies is substantial, which is why Corman orders up more of a remake for "Big Bad Mama II," which tweaks the original plot to handle different dramatic interests for the do-over, though co-writer/director Jim Wynorski is smart to keep his cameras trained on Dickinson for most of the endeavor, who provides another spirited performance as Wilma returns to power, and definitely not as a ghost. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

Roger Corman had a thing for movies with "Mama" in the title, and in 1974 he released one of his biggest hits with "Big Bad Mama," not to be confused with "Bloody Mama" or "Crazy Mama." Returning to his love of the gangster genre, Corman offers director Steve Carver a small budget and the star power of Angie Dickinson to make magic happen, with the feature a chaotic offering of violence and combustible character relationships. Carver keeps the picture in a state of unrest for as long as possible, looking to wow viewers with chases and shootouts, but "Big Bad Mama" is really Dickinson's big show, and she delivers a wonderfully enthusiastic performance as the titular criminal. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

In 2018, a Super Bowl advertisement was created hinting a reboot of the 1986 smash hit, "Crocodile Dundee," was coming in some form, with Danny McBride taking command of the role. It was eventually revealed to be an elaborate ad for Australian tourism, but the weird result of the mini-movie was excitement for a new "Crocodile Dundee" feature. Few could've predicted that response, especially original Mick Dundee, Paul Hogan (who cameoed in the commercial). Instead of capitalizing on the success of the ad with a fresh adventure for the once beloved Aussie icon, Hogan decides to do something smaller, blander, and possibly unfinished. With "The Very Excellent Mr. Dundee," the actor plays himself living in a world of fading fame and sequel frenzy, participating in a comedy (scripted by Robert Mond and Dean Murphy, who also directs) that tries to be silly and self- referential, but mostly ends up uncomfortably odd. "The Very Excellent Mr. Dundee" plays like a tax shelter production, with Hogan offering the least amount of effort in a film that has no clear idea what it wants to be. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

For their fifth release, Dark Castle Entertainment returns to remake territory with "House of Wax," which takes its inspiration from a 1953 Andre DeToth film, which was a remake of a 1933 picture, "Mystery of the Wax Museum." Looking to capture some 2005 energy, the new "House of Wax" gathers young stars of the day to provide a fresh sense of peril for viewers, while director Jaume Collet-Serra (making his helming debut) invests in the oily, sludgy textures of the titular gunk, attempting to generate a more claustrophobic sense of danger for his take on the material (scripted by Chad and Carey Hayes). "House of Wax" isn't particularly well-acted or tightly edited, but it does have a visual presence that impresses, with Collet- Serra delivering a pleasingly ruthless nightmare that does especially well with creepy visuals and bodily harm, resulting in one of the best Dark Castle Entertainment offerings. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

The call of the wild gets incredibly grim in "Hunter Hunter," with writer/director Shawn Linden exploring the savage ways of man and beast in the feature. He doesn't hold back on the hard stuff in the picture, offering a merciless understanding of violence, but not a sustained one. "Hunter Hunter" is slow-burn but effective, with Linden working to understand troubled characters and survival issues while carefully creating a gristly genre film out of the endeavor, and an effective one, sneaking up on viewers with strong writing and a deliberate choice to not take it easy the participants in this suspenseful movie. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

A true bio-pic on the life and times of David Bowie will probably never be made, forcing the producers of "Stardust" to work around legal issues as they attempt to illuminate a transitional year for the future industry icon. It seems futile to even attempt to do a movie about David Bowie that doesn't feature David Bowie music, but here we are, and "Stardust" gets somewhere interesting when it comes to the psychological state of the musician during a time of tremendous insecurity. Sonically, the picture is almost pointless, with co-writer/director Gabriel Range trying to work around the loss of classic tunes, failing to come up with stimulating replacements capable of identifying Bowie's developing brilliance during a year of career redirection. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com