Category: DVD/BLU-RAY

1979's "Stone Cold Dead" is an adaptation of Hugh Garner novel, and writer/director George Mendeluk ("Bitter Harvest," "Meatballs III: Summer Job") doesn't know what to do with it. It's a suspense piece about a Jack the Ripper-style murderer prowling the streets, armed with a sniper rifle, but subplots are also dedicated to heroin abuse and trafficking, kinks in the prostitution game, dirty cops, and the elaborate feeding of fish. It's everything but really nothing, as the production is often pulled in different directions, and none of them are particularly interesting. It's Mendeluk's helming debut, and it shows, as "Stone Cold Dead" has moments of ambition that appear to be taking plot developments in the right direction, only to have the whole thing repeatedly undone by poor dramatic management.  Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

1974's "Swept Away" is built to generate attention. Written and directed by Lina Wertmuller, the feature takes on two challenging subjects, politics and sex, and does so in the most charged manner imaginable, adding violence and subjugation to an already toxic brew of opinion and defiance. It's raw nerve filmmaking disguised as a black comedy, or perhaps a romance, with Wertmuller using her collision of classes and temperaments to poke viewers as hard as she can, making a provocative movie that has strange sensuality, repellent characters, and gorgeous Italian locations.  Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

The credited director of 1965's "Orgy of the Dead" is Stephen C. Apostolof, but everything else in the production is born from the mind of Edward D. Wood, Jr., the famous architect of B-movies and no-budget nonsense. I'm not sure "Orgy of the Dead" could even be considered a legitimate film, as it plays more like a night at a burlesque show, with Wood scripting a vague horror story to help link together performances from ten dancing women, all working to share a sense of character and narrative with their gyrations as they slowly shed clothes. It's simple, effective, and for fans of Wood, remains in line with his exploitation interests. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com 

Director Peter Chelsom once had a promising career. He made his debut with 1991's "Hear My Song," and graduated to a more star-laden effort with 1995's "Funny Bones," but the ride didn't last forever, eventually stepping into career quicksand with duds like "Town & Country" and "Hector and the Search for Happiness," and journeyman opportunities such as "Hannah Montana: The Movie." "Funny Bones" was the last full-blooded Chelsom film, and it plays like a production that was, at one point, granted complete creative freedom to pursue any bit of whimsy and grotesquerie it wanted to find. The final cut is a collision of tones and ideas, but it remains distinct in its intent to be unpredictable and oddly sincere, hunting for the meaning of family and emotional stability in the mine field of professional comedy.  Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

It's difficult to pinpoint exactly what "Slack Bay" is, and I'm sure that's exactly how writer/director Bruno Dumont likes it. Strange doesn't even begin to cover this comedy about class struggle, cannibalism, levitation, and young love, but Dumont commits to every single frame, concocting a deliberate journey into oddity that's sure to polarize viewers, especially those expecting another tender Juliette Binoche period piece.  Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

1975's "Trip with the Teacher" is an exploitation movie, filled with sleazy material, but it's actually is more of a horror film when one processes the dire tone and threatening behavior found in the picture. Directed by Earl Barton (his lone helming credit), "Trip with the Teacher" isn't harmless entertainment, made with a certain edge that's unusual for material that's not striving to be the most intelligent offering at the local drive-in. Barton isn't a craftsman, but there's menace to the work, which helps to pull the feature out of a few dead spots and endure the habitual overacting of co- star Zalman King.  Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

After covering Jess Franco titles from the 1960s and '70s, it's interesting to watch the frightfully prolific filmmaker take on the 1990s. "Killer Barbys" is a 1996 effort that's meant to give Franco some appeal to younger audiences, merging his interests in gothic horror with the wicked musical and sexual appetites of punk band traveling across Europe. As with most Franco endeavors, it's all borderline unwatchable, but I recognize the man has his fans. I just need them to explain his appeal to me, because "Killer Barbys" is a complete mess of ideas aching for proper direction. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

1986's "Psychos in Love" certainly has the external appearance of a horror extravaganza, with an eye-catching title and marketing materials that emphasize a ghoulish viewing experience to come. But the feature isn't a nightmare machine, it merely wants to tell a plethora of corny jokes and showcase freshly chopped limbs. And if you happen to hate grapes, here's a cinematic experience tailored directly to that phobia. Co-writer/director Gorman Bechard arranges a massacre with "Psychos in Love," but his heart belongs to comedy, pinching from the Marx Brothers and Monty Python as he sets up shop in Tromaville for this unexpectedly goofball take on "Annie Hall," diluting the direct Woody Allen lifts with bloodshed and multiple maniacs. It's a strange picture, but that's the point.  Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

Technically, 1969's "Take the Money and Run" isn't Woody Allen's directorial debut. That distinction belongs to the dubbed farce, "What's Up, Tiger Lilly?" However, what the second effort in a long, decorated career represents is Allen's initial offering of pure silliness, taking his interests and timing as a comedian and film performer, and funneling it into a faux documentary about the life and times of a terrible crook. It's the first shot fired in an early career what would go on to introduce several comedy classics, but with "Take the Money and Run," Allen provides a raw form of cheekiness to come, showcasing early instincts to offer as many jokes as possible, fueling the endeavor on pure goofiness. It's a joy to watch at times, even at its most exhausting, delivering a hungrier Allen at the start of his helming career, eager to please with this zany snapshot of criminal stupidity.  Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

Dario Argento certainly doesn't have the career today that he once had in the past, and the line of quality tends to be drawn at 1987's "Opera," which represents a final push of youthful exuberance when it comes to staging ghastly acts of violence as stylishly and surreal-like as possible. "Opera" is one of Argento's better pictures, partially because it plays directly to his artistic interests, mixing the theatricality of stage performance with the grim appetites of giallo filmmaking, coming up with a slightly deflated but fascinating horror endeavor that comes alive whenever the helmer frees himself from narrative rule and explodes with evil and animal wrangling. Perhaps in the grand scheme of a career that produced "Suspiria," "Deep Red," and "Tenebrae," Argento's push to make a winded tale of insanity isn't going to penetrate deep enough, but visual delights remain, with Argento working up the energy to supply a proper jolt of the macabre and the exaggerated.  Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

The aching hearts of stock car racers and the women who love them are explored in 1965's "Red Line 7000." Director Howard Hawks clearly has a lot of respect for the sport, but his ability to find something interesting to do once the action steps away from the track is iffy at best. "Red Line 7000" aims to be a butch overview of dented masculinity, but it's surprisingly sudsy and a little protracted, though Hawks does well with his cast, putting together an ensemble of disparate talent who lend the feature the little excitement it provides. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com 

Movies wouldn't be movies without music. However, film scoring is often an unheralded art, left as something for the senses, difficult to separate from the overall viewing experience. Writer/director Matt Schrader hopes to achieve a level of appreciation with "Score: A Film Music Documentary," which examines the history of composing and performing as it's developed over the last century. It's not an easy task to cover such an enormous time period in just 90 minutes, and Schrader certainly speeds around the subject like the Tasmanian Devil, but the effort is there to spotlight dozens of creative people who painstakingly put together what often becomes the heart and soul of cinema, creating music that inspires emotion and, sometimes, life itself, offered clear identification in this wonderfully vibrant and insightful documentary. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com 

1967's "Custer of the West" is built for size, not accuracy. It's a weird mix of Western mythology and revisionism, trying to compete in the race of Hollywood spectacles, but unsure if it wants to commit to the legend of George Armstrong Custer in full. It has its heart in the right place, exposing the darker side of the pioneer spirit, but a few steps in the enlightened direction throw the whole cinematic dance off, threatening to confuse viewers confronted with a committed military man known for slaughtering Native Americans, but spent most of his career trying to protect them from harm. At least the movie looks beautiful. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

In the future, old men will be robots, and they will all wear ascots. That's the promise made by "Cyborg 2087," a 1966 time travel adventure directed by Franklin Adreon, who attempts to stretch roughly 30 minutes of story into an 86-minute-long film. He's not exactly a miraculous architect of suspense, with the feature enduring incredible padding just to make it to a release-worthy length, but there's a certain tone of super-serious no- budget sci-fi that keeps the effort entertaining, even when it isn't doing anything onscreen. "Cyborg 2087" isn't a genre classic, that's for sure, but it retains some appeal due to committed performances and Adreon's B-movie hustle, often doing anything he can to keep the picture on the move.  Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

On the Mount Rushmore of glitter-thwacked, cocaine-dusted cinematic camp from the late 1970s and early '80s, there's "Xanadu," "Can't Stop the Music," "The Apple," and 1978's "Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band." I'm sure the production marched into battle with a sincerity, striving to redefine an iconic album from The Beatles for a new generation, offering a loose narrative and legendary tunes to The Bee Gees, Peter Frampton, Aerosmith, Billy Preston, Alice Cooper, Steve Martin, and a host of additional musicians and comedians. Assuming the jukebox musical form, "Sgt. Pepper" means to be a good time with familiar music, but producer Robert Stigwood can't help himself, with the feature bizarre and excessive; it's an iffy idea that's out of control, endeavoring to define classics, but ending up a garish curiosity. However, it's no trainwreck, boasting many fine production achievements during its presumptuous run time. It's an easy film to dismiss, and perhaps it should be, but director Michael Schultz is after something memorable, doing his best to marry classic Hollywood spectacle to the soft rock sounds of the 1970s.  Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

Hubris. If there's a single word that defines The Vietnam War, it's hubris. It's a conflict that's been covered from a thousand different angles, depicted in all forms of media over the last 50 years, with film being a particularly evocative meditation on an era of political folly, innocence lost, and a various nations thrown into chaos. Think "Coming Home," "Platoon," and "Born on the Fourth of July" — vivid tales of psychological erosion, but personal ones as well, using the particulars of combat and self-destruction to inspire riveting drama. Directors Ken Burns and Lynn Novick elect to forgo corners of the conflict to wrap their arms around the whole event, creating "The Vietnam War," a ten-part documentary that endeavors to make sense of almost everything connected to the shocking experience, from origin to aftermath. Coming from a creative team that's already dissected The Civil War, World War I, and World War II, there's expected greatness with "The Vietnam War," an assurance of quality. And yet, Burns and Novick manage to surprise with their balance between detail and expanse, capturing finer points of mental illness and shame as they track the progress of global horror, born from sheer political arrogance.  Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

There's no way to accurately describe "Baby Bump," which takes an experimental art look at the pains of puberty from the perspective of a particularly confused boy. It's a scattergun effort from writer/director Kuba Czekaj, who gives the endeavor his all on a visual level, playing with editing, split-screen, animation, and abstraction to make his comedy(?) aggressively playful. Whatever this is, it handles itself with remarkable attention to detail, giving underground cinema cowboys a true bucking bronco viewing experience.  Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

The real question of 1963's "Love with the Proper Stranger" isn't a will they/won't they situation concerning marriage, but are the filmmakers capable of making a feature that highlights extended conversations about abortion seem warm and cuddly by the end credits? The answer is no, but there's plenty of charm to enjoy and two strong lead performances from Steve McQueen and Natalie Wood, who supply vivid takes on young opposites forced to make critical decisions about their lives when a one-night stand makes plans to bond them forever. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

Atomic Age cinema offers one for the kiddies with 1954's "Tobor the Great." It's a giant robot picture, but instead of inducing paranoia and posing a threat, the titular creation is more of a pal to all, especially to a special boy who needs a mechanical buddy. Dropping an intimidation factor, "Tobor the Great" is mischief in a minor key, gradually softening period fears of metal destruction to play a lukewarm spy game with mediocre characters and plenty of padding.  Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

As many publications have already mentioned, the volcanic island of Krakatoa is actually west of Java. Oops. It's the first of many mistakes encountered during "Krakatoa: East of Java," a strangely titled disaster effort from 1969 that was reportedly built backwards, with producers completing work on special effects before they had a script, requiring the writing to fit the needs of spectacle. The strain of such creative madness shows throughout the feature, which is incredibly dull when it isn't blowing things up, unable to connect as a melodrama despite a fine cast trying their best to look vaguely interested in their characters.  Read the rest at Blu-ray.com