I’m not objective when it comes to James Bond. [[[Dr. No]]] was the first “grown-up” movie I ever saw, and I’ve been writing about 007 in magazines and my books ever since. Nor am I particularly dispassionate about [[[Casino Royale]]]. The New York premiere at the great Zeigfeld Theater was the best experience I’ve had…
As we await the gourmet meal that The Dark Knight promises to be, a worthwhile hors d’ouevre to truly whet your appetite is Batman: Gotham Knight — a DC Universe Animated Original Movie DVD arriving in stores July 8th. As director Christopher Nolan prepared his audacious sequel to Batman Begins, someone got the great idea…
Granted, I’m not the sort of person you should see this film with. As the author of multiple martial art movie books, a martial art hall of fame member, a tournament gold medal recipient, the co-creator of Jackie Chan’s Spartan X comic book, and a columnist for Inside Kung-Fu magazine, I’m like that history expert…
I like it when the DVDs I review here are similar, but I also really like it when they’re very different. And other than being made by British talents, the DVDs in this edition are about as different as they can get. First, there’s the cultural classic that is A Passage to India. Columbia Pictures…
Any regular reader will no doubt have noticed something by now. I think I may have mentioned it once before, early on, but there should be no harm in repeating it: this column isn’t really for the big-time releases any DVD fan already know exist. Naturally, by all rights, I, like everyone else, should review…
Well, it’s SF week at the ol’ DVD Xtra. Not sci-fi week, but SF week, using the “official” contraction sanctified by the Science Fiction Writers of America, of which I was once a member. Now, if I were considering the likes of I Robot and/or I am Legend – two Will Smith vehicles adapted from…
DVD special features are an invaluable tool for aspiring filmmakers. In addition to the discs that let you reedit sequences, there are many who simply present the filmmakers’ points of view in such a clever, informative, interesting, and edifying way that volumes can be learned with even a cursory viewing. Cases in point:…
Eight years ago an anime appeared that has stood, and even reverberated, the test of time. Blood: The Last Vampire was a groundbreaking and engrossing effort that clearly left virtually everyone who saw it wanting more. Clocking in at a breathless, seemingly unfinished, forty-eight minutes (just enough to fill a network TV hour slot),…
I hope you’ve already read Matt Raub’s advance review of Justice League: The New Frontier — DC Universe’s Animated Original Movie — which was posted days ago. Naturally, since it’s coming out in stores this coming Tuesday, it’s time, keeping with the comic source material, for my variant review. Matt critiqued the film itself. I,…
Note to producers: either retire words like “phenomenal” and “unbelievable” from your vocabularies or think thrice before allowing yourself to be filmed for DVD special features. Rest assured it will only help your cause. The aforementioned suggestion comes as a result of watching two long overdue DVD offerings back to back. If you watch…
Unarguably, one of the things DVD has way over VHS is its compression. Far more discs fit in any given space than cassettes – allowing producers to create compact yet extensive homages to filmmakers or genres. A welcome addition to this group arrives this week in the form of the Stanley Kramer Film Collection….
This week I watched two DVDs that considered the same turbulent period, but from two wildly divergent vantage points. First, the divider. Reviewers were almost totally at odds over Across the Universe, director Julie Taymor’s “homage” to The Beatles. Homage is in quotation marks because half the critics thought its liberties and excesses…
