Category: DVD/BLU-RAY

Once the figure of youthful idealism in 1988's "Platoon Leader," Michael Dudikoff returns to duty in 1995's "Soldier Boyz," maturing into a gruff leader of a makeshift military force. Losing all semblance of wartime commentary to march ahead as a boomy actioner, "Soldier Boyz" goes the "Dirty Dozen" route, mixing combustible personalities and mercenary challenges, with director Louis Morneau making sure to blow something up every 15 minutes, keeping the audience awake as they're forced to endure clichés between blasts of jungle-based hostilities. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

While cinematic inspections of the Vietnam War were already in place by the time "Platoon Leader" was released in 1988, it's the awards-sweeping success of 1986's "Platoon" that's truly the reason why the movie came to be. Hungry for their own take on wartime misery and the death of innocence, Cannon Films brings an adaptation of James R. McDonough's memoir to the screen, but they go about it in a distinctly Cannon Films fashion. Instead of hiring a thoughtful person for the job, they bring in Aaron Norris, a man who's already had his way with Vietnam, helming "Missing in Action III," which starred his brother, Chuck. Instead of bringing on a capable star, they hire "American Ninja" hero, Michael Dudikoff, who seems like a nice guy, but can't quite reach imagined dramatic heights with this deathly dull actioner.  Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

Some will watch "The Whales of August" for its dramatic content, but most coming to the 1987 production are most likely spending time with the picture for a chance to see stars Lillian Gish, Bette Davis, Ann Sothern, and Vincent Price in action near their end of their respective careers. It's premiere time with acting legends, and director Lindsay Anderson understands just what he has here, permitting the ensemble to make the most of the feature, which is an adaptation of a David Berry play. "The Whales of August" isn't particularly thunderous went it comes to creating tension, and the story is practically nonexistent, but it does offer an opportunity to watch icons in motion, generating unusual chemistry with a tale that plays to their advanced ages, addressing the pain of the golden years, especially when true communication between loved ones is blocked. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com 

There's something about Tchaikovsky's "Swan Lake" that beguiles filmmakers, and long before Darren Aronofsky nailed the biggest hit of his career with 2010's "Black Swan," co-writer/director Peter Del Monte used the world-famous ballet to inspired creepy events in 1989's "Etoile." The duality found at the heart of "Swan Lake" permits an easy transition to genre moviemaking, and Del Monte, while not heading in an overt horror direction, sparks to the potential of a ghost story of sorts, merging dance with otherworldly experiences, generating a chiller that toys with reality, identity, and the blinding power of young love. "Etoile" has its issues, but its strangeness is appealing, with Del Monte finding stillness in the growing nightmare, taking cues from stage performances to introduce a sort of artfulness to a production that's poorly cast, and features a ridiculous ending that needs to be seen to be believed.  Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

1975's "Pick-Up" gives off the impression that it's going to follow the sexploitation rulebook, opening with a flirty standoff between a motor home driver and two young women who would do anything for a free ride. And, for a few moments, the picture maintains the B-movie allure, offering teasing glimpses of nudity and bad behavior, lubricated by marijuana and the liberation of the open road, shadowed somewhat by reminders of mysticism and strangeness to come. And holy moly, does "Pick-Up" ever get weird.  Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

After handling documentary duties with Lily Tomlin's "The Search for Signs of Intelligent Life in the Universe," director John Bailey elected to spice up his helming career with a red-hot noir. A respected cinematographer, favored by Lawrence Kasdan ("The Big Chill," "Silverado," "The Accidental Tourist"), Bailey constructs "China Moon," a lusty, twisty mystery that offers a little more visual heft than a Tomlin performance, taking the action to Florida, where characters engage in sex, lies, and murder. Bailey isn't redefining the beloved genre with "China Moon," but he does make a pretty picture, keeping the effort visually interesting while the screenplay by Roy Carlson struggles to keep things compelling, slogging through some tedious plotting. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com 

In his final film role, Laird Cregar, the star of "The Lodger," finds himself back in period London trouble in "Hangover Square," though it's a very different type of serial killer story. More of an obsession chiller than a tale of murder, "Hangover Square" strives to give viewers a stranger viewing experience while hoping to keep up momentum from "The Lodger," with returning helmer John Brahm working to spin the picture in a slightly different direction, going for more operatic conflicts than atmospherics ones.  Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

While it's fascinating to watch World War II movies produced after the global event, the ones made during the conflict carry a special atmosphere, with productions trying to manage the jingoistic needs of the war effort with the more sobering reality of military duty. 1944's "Since You Went Away" is not a gritty offering of wartime observation, but the David O. Selznick-produced picture has its moments of honesty and concern, blending bits of reality in the overall melodrama, which gives itself a whopping three hours of screen time to take shape.  Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

After years spent making trouble for other directors, actor Sean Penn elected to take matters into his own hands for 1991's "The Indian Runner," assuming helming and screenplay duties, taking dramatic inspiration from "Highway Patrolman," a song off Bruce Springsteen's 1982 album, "Nebraska." Penn would go on to have an erratic career behind the camera (scoring with "The Crossing Guard" and "Into the Wild," but stumbling recently with "The Last Face"), but it's interesting to see early cinematic interests immediately taking shape, with this American tale of brothers and disaster blending the raw energy of a Cassavetes picture (the helmer is thanked in the end credits) and the screen poetry of a Malick movie, ending up muddled and heavy-handed, but not without stunning moments of pure visual communication. "The Indian Runner" doesn't feel like a complete story (an expected result when inspiration comes from a five-minute-long song), but it's not without beautifully human moments and certain directorial flair from Penn and his tireless ambition to put everything rattling around his head on the screen.  Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

1984's "The Ambassador" is a Cannon Films production, and I'm not entirely sure if producers Menahem Golan and Yoram Globus want to encourage peace in the Middle East with this feature or welcome its demise. It's a bizarre effort from the beloved B-movie factory, bringing traditional action thriller beats to Israel, making a tough guy endeavor while dealing with longstanding hostilities between the Israelis and Palestinians. The screenplay by Max Jack (who loosely adapts an Elmore Leonard novel) appears to be interested in the dialogue between warring sides, but director J. Lee Thompson doesn't have much patience for stillness, filling "The Ambassador" with sex and violence, including a few nightmarish encounters peppered with the kind of gushing wounds more commonly on view in a horror film.  Read the rest at Blu-ray.com 

There's been a longstanding Hollywood fascination with the works of author Jim Thompson. He's a writer specializing in dark poetry, creating ugly characters involved in ugly business, unable to touch the bottom of the pool when it comes to the depths of horrible business. Of course, this is catnip to filmmakers, with 1997's "This World, Then the Fireworks" a particularly itchy adaptation of a Thompson novella, with the production working very hard to make as claustrophobic and freewheeling a movie as possible.  Read the rest at Blu-ray.com 

Cineastes will surely respond to "Dawson City: Frozen Time" with utter joy, as it details a film distribution discovery previously thought impossible. The tale takes place in Dawson City, a remote Canadian town near the Yukon River, where, in the mid-1970s, a routine excavation project managed to unearth 533 film reels from the permafrost, exposing cans of nitrate film to the sun after 50 years, gifting the National Archive of Canada a treasure trove of lost cinema and footage of history. While the discovery occurred 40 years ago, director Bill Morrison endeavors to summarize not only the unearthing and ensuing restoration effort, but the very history of Dawson City itself, turning what initially seems to be a picture about a film preservation miracle into an offering of history captured in the moment. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com 

"Center of My World" is an adaptation of a novel by Andreas Steinhofel, and it preserves the structure of a page-turner, winding through the lives of dysfunctional characters trying to keep themselves together during troubling times. It's a melodramatic effort from writer/director Jakob M. Erwa, but he strives to preserve the heartfelt aspects of the story, beguiling through the guidance of passionate performances and attention to nuanced behavior, offering depth to what could easily become a shallow viewing experience. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com 

Horror doesn't come easy to 1990's "Night Angel," which is more of an erotic thriller with periodic dips into gore zone activities than a straight nightmare machine. The picture couldn't be more late-1980s if it tried, combining the ways of yuppiedom with freewheeling bedroom antics involving a bloodthirsty demon and her quest to rise in the ranks of the modeling business. Screenwriters Joe Augustyn and Walter Josten are after something awfully specific with the material, which is ambitious in the way it pulls from biblical mythology and Skinemax, but it's clear director Dominique Othenin-Gerard ("Halloween 5," "Omen IV: The Awkening") doesn't quite have a handle on the proceedings, dutifully trying to visualize a haunting of the mind and genitals while keeping the effort soaked in blood. "Night Angel" charms with its interest in make-up effects and period style, but it doesn't have the inspiration to emerge as a formidable genre endeavor, and its titillation factor is debatable.  Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

1981's "The Salamander" is meant to be a hard-charging conspiracy thriller, adapted from a novel by Morris L. West. The final cut keeps the general outline of chills and spills, but lacks a considerable amount of energy and clarity, asking the audience to play the name game with a host of Italian characters and their cloudy motivations. The production has all the advantages a movie could ask for, leading with an all-star cast, a rousing score by Jerry Goldsmith, and Italy itself, which provides a memorable backdrop for all kinds of political and personal manipulations. And yet, while stuffed with threats and troublemaking, "The Salamander" is a frustratingly flat effort.  Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

After becoming a sex symbol, or perhaps THEE sex symbol of the late 1970s, Farrah Fawcett struggled to be taken seriously as an actress. After rising to the top of pop culture awareness with "Charlie's Angels," Fawcett turned to television movies to make a different impression. While trying to find a sense of creative satisfaction, Fawcett struck gold with 1984's "The Burning Bed," which offered the actress a chance to put away demands of glamour and portray a woman subjected to horrific abuse in her toxic marriage. "The Burning Bed" takes inspiration from the true-life tale of Francine Hughes (who passed away earlier this year), and director Robert Greenwald ("Xanadu") treats the severity of the story with some care, trying to keep melodramatics at arm's length for as long as possible. But this is truly Fawcett's big showcase, delivering a haunted performance that's impressive in its dramatic commitment and physical display, helping the endeavor remain grounded as its television interests fight for attention. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com 

Here's one problem with "Nightkill": the first character to die in the film is murdered during the day. It's a small detail, for sure, but an important one that identifies the general lethargy of the event, which isn't even titled correctly. It's meant to be a sinister thriller, a Hitchcockian endeavor with Euro chiller interests, also presenting Jaclyn Smith with a starring role that begins to inch the actress away from her "Charlie's Angels" television success. And yet, while the story details murder, betrayal, and deception, large chunks of the movie are simply devoted to Smith acting agitated and teary, groaning as her character struggles to figure out an impossible situation of guilt and homicide. "Nightkill" is quite dull and somewhat unsatisfying, with director Ted Post fumbling a growing sense of suspense, content to portion out shocks in brief reveals, which does nothing to build the effort's fright factor. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com 

There's a slasher film for every star in the sky, and every now and then, one of these productions manages to upset a lot of people. 1984's "Silent Night, Deadly Night" was intended to become another holiday horror staple, joining the ranks of "Halloween" and "My Bloody Valentine" as a perennial moneymaker. Instead, the Christmas-themed endeavor from director Charles E. Sellier, Jr. was immediately condemned by parents and family organizations, objecting the use of a maniacal, murderous Santa Claus in marketing materials, moving on to destroy the movie itself as protests were assembled during the feature's theatrical run. Even Siskel and Ebert went to town on "Silent Night, Deadly Night," decrying its sleazy content and ill-advised use of an ax-clutching Santa on the poster. The picture didn't have much luck during its initial release, but like everything that's branded taboo and hated by parents, it managed to find a second life on home video, giving horror fans a chance to spy what's actually a fairly clumsy, amateurish, tonal disaster that strives to be cheeky fun, but offers more than enough repellent content to fully stifle whatever yuletide joy ride the producers were intending to make. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com 

"They Call Me Bruce?" is a difficult film to understand, and perhaps it helps to be reminded that the production is from 1982, where stereotype-based humor was in its waning years, finding audiences growing tired of jokes that reinforced ugly ideas about race and foreign cultures. The screenplay strives to get in a few final hits before the window of opportunity closes, with director Elliot Hung seemingly have a ball staging this action comedy, which emerges as a purely cartoon understanding of East meets West clichés, striving to add a serious dollop of Looney Tunes to an already manic creation. "They Call Me Bruce?" isn't a movie that's ideal for a casual viewing, demanding an understanding of the time and place in which it was created, but for those capable of leaping over the effort's questionable taste in jokes, perhaps there's a wily creation in here somewhere that supplies sufficient entertainment value.  Read the rest at Blu-ray.com 

Technically, 1981's "Kill and Kill Again" is a sequel to 1980's "Kill or Be Killed," but the productions have little in common besides star James Ryan, who's not even playing the same character. However, hindsight is apparent throughout the picture, as it takes what worked before and amplifies the actioner attitude of the follow-up, with director Ivan Hall (returning for duty) creating a bigger adventure that's filled with martial arts demonstrations and meaty threats, but escalates the whole thing into a James Bond-style spy extravaganza set in South Africa, only without a grand budget.  Read the rest at Blu-ray.com