DVD: May 2008 Archives

May 28, 2024


I haven't seen many Bollywood movies. It's quite possible that, were I more familiar with their form and conventions -- if the exotic-to-western-eyes spell they can cast were less of a novelty -- I'd have a lot less patience with Saawariya and the endless tiny complications that sustain its otherwise threadbare boy-chases-girl storyline over more than two hours of screen time. Then again, were I a Bollywood fanboy, I might be even more enchanted by everything that Saawariya gets right -- enough that I'd be less cognizant of what misses.
May 12, 2024

Dawn (Jess Weixler), the protagonist of writer/director Mitchell Lichtenstein's playfully gynephobic black comedy Teeth, is a high-school abstinence advocate whose no-sex-before-marriage stance masks her deep discomfort with her own body. Because Teeth is also a horror movie, the root of her fear is physical, not psychological -- as Anne Carlisle put it in the druggy downtown classic Liquid Sky, "this pussy has teeth."

May 11, 2024
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The gimmick of this energetic Brit-com is that the action switches, approximately halfway through, from comic crime drama to comic splatter movie. The main problem, then, is that The Cottage, against the odds, makes a better caper movie than gore flick. The first half-hour or so is an engaging and amusing farce about kidnappers David (Andy Serkis) and Peter (Reece Shearsmith), who drive to a secluded house with their hostage, Tracey (Jennifer Ellison) bound and gagged in the trunk. It's not the best plan -- the outrageously busty Tracey may be the daughter of a gangster, but she's a terrible hostage, strong-willed and foul-mouthed. She knows David on sight. And their inside man, Tracey's brother Andrew, is a dimwit who brings the whole scheme tumbling down on top of them. About the time the car pulls up outside with a couple of Chinese hit men out for blood, The Cottage has established itself as a credibly tense comedy.
May 8, 2024
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Image nicked from Tim Lucas's excellent Video Watchblog entry on Night of the Werewolf.

It's surely convenience, or just coincidence--rather than any nods to quality or pent-up demand--that these are the first two Euro-horror titles to arrive in high definition on Blu-ray Disc. This double-feature package from BCI and Deimos entertainment pairs two films starring the well-loved (and prolific) Spanish horror actor Paul Naschy. Vengeance of the Zombies (La Rebelion de las Muertas, 1972) is a potboiler from cult director Leon Klimovsky involving a charismatic Indian cult leader (Naschy), his less-attractive brother (also Naschy), and a beautiful redhead (Romy) from a cursed English family. And Night of the Werewolf (La Retorno del Hombre Lobo, 1980) is a genre mash-up directed by Naschy in which he stars as the wolfman Waldemar Daninsky and faces off against a bevy of vampire women led by Elizabeth Bathory herself. (Scroll way down to read about some problems with these discs.)

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About this Archive

This page is a archive of entries in the DVD category from May 2008.

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