blu-ray reviews

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Matt Hough Kidnap Blu-ray Review Produced in 2015 but shelved until this year, Luis Prieto’s Kidnap allows Oscar-winner Halle Berry that rare chance to prove what a mama bear ferociously trying to save her cub from abduction looks like. [review]

What can I say? I love 3D! From the moment I began watching 3D content in my home I quickly discovered that I needed more content. I suspect that those of you just purchasing your first 3D hardware will acquire the same ferocious appetite. That's why I became the HTF 3D ADDICT. I personally love...

Matt Hough Vampyr Blu-ray Review Carl Theodor Dreyer's Vampyr is best appreciated as a visual-aural experience, a disquieting mix of story and character that is unquestionably one-of-a-kind. [review]

Matt Hough Girls Trip Blu-ray Review Besides the missing apostrophe in its title, Malcolm D. Lee’s Girls Trip is also missing originality, wit, and class. In their place are predictability, trash talk, and raunch. [review]

Matt Hough Miracle on 34th Street: 70th Anniversary Blu-ray Review A genuine holiday classic, Miracle on 34th Street still works its magical story of heart and hope, faith and trust seven decades after its original release. [review]

Matt Hough Buffy the Vampire Slayer (1992) Blu-ray Review It’s pretty ironic that one of the most lauded and long-lasting cult phenomenons of recent television history – Buffy the Vampire Slayer – was instigated by a rather lame, erratically written, directed, and acted horror comedy. [review]

Matt Hough Justice Blu-ray Review Recent attempts to revitalize the western through made-for-home video releases have been rather muted and inert, and no better example of that exists than Richard Gabai’s Justice. [review]

Matt Hough T-Men: Special Edition Blu-ray Review A noir docudrama that’s long on suspense and a brilliant exercise in taut direction and evocative cinematography, Anthony Mann’s T-Men is a film that deserves to be far better known. [review]

Matt Hough The Beguiled (2017) Blu-ray Review On its own, Sofia Coppola’s The Beguiled is an adequate telling of Thomas P. Cullinan's Gothic melodrama, but it really seems weighed down by the arty trappings and a shift not only in point of view but an attempt to minimize the very excesses...

Richard Gallagher The Vietnam War Blu-ray Review The Vietnam War, a brilliant new documentary by Ken Burns and Lynn Novick, comes to Blu-ray from PBS. [review]

Matt Hough Cult of Chucky Blu-ray Review With its seventh entry in the murderous doll franchise, Don Manicini’s Cult of Chucky certainly has exhausted whatever novelty and gory fun the idea of a slasher doll come to life may have once had. [review]

Matt Hough The Book of Henry Blu-ray Review A mother’s coming-of-age-story through the auspices of her genius pre-teen son gives hefty dramatic weight to Colin Trevorrow’s The Book of Henry. [review]

Matt Hough Mune: Guardian of the Moon Blu-ray Review The Greeks had several majestic mythological tales about the origins and movements of the sun and moon in the sky, and now the French have come up with their own variations in Alexandre Heboyan and Benoît Philippon’s Mune: Guardian of the...

Matt Hough Beneath the 12-Mile Reef Blu-ray Review 20th Century Fox’s third Cinemascope release after the tremendous successes of The Robe and How to Marry a Millionaire was Robert D. Webb’s Beneath the 12-Mile Reef, a mediocre adventure tale that makes the most of its beautiful and...

Matt Hough Hour of the Gun Blu-ray Review A meat-and-potatoes western dealing with the extended aftermath of the gunfight at the O.K. Corral, John Sturges’ Hour of the Gun is a gritty, fairly humorless western, much more interested in presenting the reality of the Old West rather than a...

This one is simple. Classic M-G-M musical from the Freed unit, with a superb cast, and directed by Vincente Minnelli. Relatively early CinemaScope (2.55:1), original stereo, photographed in AnscoColor, with all those Minnelli dupes. Perfect grain, black levels, color, stability... For those...

Matt Hough September Blu-ray Review Filmed and almost completed and then scrapped, partially rewritten, and recast in three major roles, September still didn’t please its writer-director Woody Allen, and it’s easy to see why. [review]

Matt Hough Crime of Passion (1957) Blu-ray Review One of the undisputed queens of film noir Barbara Stanwyck once again takes matters into her own hands as a woman willing to do anything to get what she wants in Gerd Oswald’s Crime of Passion, an unprepossessing film noir with a first-rate...

Matt Hough Dead Again in Tombstone Blu-ray Review Director Roel Reiné brings yet another of his made-for-home video efforts to Blu-ray disc with Dead Again in Tombstone, a sequel to his 2012 supernatural western drama with the same star, Danny Trejo. [review]

Matt Hough The Mummy (2017) Blu-ray Review This 2017 version of The Mummy is loud and gauche but only fitfully entertaining with a jumbled narrative that doesn’t serve very well as the initial effort in Universal’s new Dark Universe franchise. [review]

Matt Hough 8 Heads in a Duffel Bag Blu-ray Review The blackly comic idea at the heart of Tom Schulman’s 8 Heads in a Duffel Bag gets only a moderate execution (no pun intended) in this out-of-control farce that is equal parts funny and tedious. [review]

Matt Hough The Long, Hot Summer Blu-ray Review A southern fried melodrama based on characters and situations from a series of William Faulker stories, Martin Ritt's The Long, Hot Summer offers romance and drama in equal measure filled with a brilliant cast and lush location photography that...

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Matt Hough Born in China Blu-ray Review Three animal species indigenous to China get the Disneynature documentary treatment in Lu Chuan’s Born in China, a first-rate documentary featuring rare footage of animals living in regions so remote that the opportunities to film them have proved...

Matt Hough Security Blu-ray Review Even the filmmakers themselves call Alain Desrochers’ Security “Die Hard in a Mall,” and that’s exactly what it is only this new action saga lacks the intelligence, wry and canny humor, and real sense of size and scope which that great Bruce Willis...

Matt Hough Chronically Metropolitan Blu-ray Review If there was one moment in Xavier Manrique’s Chronically Metropolitan that felt true and genuine rather than manipulative and artificial, it might actually generate some authentic viewer interest and involvement. [review]

Matt Hough Lowriders Blu-ray Review An unusual East Los Angeles car culture known as Lowriders gets an unexpected feature film spotlight in Ricardo de Montreuil’s Lowriders, a coming-of-age story set among the showy custom automobile aficionados dotting this part of California. [review]

Matt Hough Megan Leavey Blu-ray Review A true story of the unshakable bond between a Marine and a dog partner gives weight and substance to Gabriela Cowperthwaite’s Megan Leavey. [review]

Matt Hough The Lion King: Signature Collection Blu-ray Review Even after more than two decades since its initial release, The Lion King is still the highest grossing hand-drawn animation movie in film history, a beautifully rendered and wonderfully entertaining story of good versus evil set...