http://movies.yahoo.com/dvd/reviews/ Recent DVD reviews from Yahoo! Movies en-us Copyright (c) 2008 Yahoo! Inc. All rights reserved. Wed, 07 May 2008 10:22:41 GMT Wed, 07 May 2008 10:22:41 GMT 54 http://us.i1.yimg.com/us.yimg.com/i/us/plus/b6/props/3d_movies.gif 130 http://movies.yahoo.com/dvd/reviews/ http://us.rd.yahoo.com/movies/rss/dvd/*http://movies.yahoo.com/dvd/reviews/df/20080506/121007880002.html In addition to juggling classes and social lives, the supernatural sleuths of the Paranormal Research Society (PRS) of Penn State University investigate everything from poltergeists to hauntings in an attempt to uncover the truth behind frightening real-life mysteries. Sought by clients ranging from the Catholic Church to ordinary families, the PRS, aided by psychologists, psychics, priests, and demonologists, helps terrified people find solutions to their paranormal problems.Ryan Buell started... Tue, 06 May 2008 13:00:00 GMT ent/news/df/20080506/121007880002 http://us.rd.yahoo.com/movies/rss/dvd/*http://movies.yahoo.com/dvd/reviews/df/20080506/121007880001.html National Treasure was so successful that a new franchise was born. National Treasure 2: Book of Secrets ups the ante, a more international film than its predecessor and one that featured considerably more action. It was well received and earned even more money than the original at the box office. Can a second sequel be far behind? All the principal players return for this second romp, and to them add two significant additions. We are blessed with a film that is no less absurd and no less fun than... Tue, 06 May 2008 13:00:00 GMT ent/news/df/20080506/121007880001 http://us.rd.yahoo.com/movies/rss/dvd/*http://movies.yahoo.com/dvd/reviews/df/20080506/121007880000.html Leave your brains at the door, boy and girls; it's time for some entertaining, mindless, action-adventure fun. But first, a question. How does one differentiate an annoying film (filled with plot holes and factual gaffs) worthy of scorn from a self-deprecating and fun romp (filled with plot holes and factual gaffs) that is worthy of our time? Earnestness. The Core took itself very seriously. I could not. National Treasure does not take itself very seriously, and I enjoyed the ride.The film... Tue, 06 May 2008 13:00:00 GMT ent/news/df/20080506/121007880000 http://us.rd.yahoo.com/movies/rss/dvd/*http://movies.yahoo.com/dvd/reviews/df/20080501/120964680002.html In my recent review of The Orphanage, I made a point of complaining how if it weren't for gross- out torture-porn flicks inspired by the likes of the Saw franchise or retooled remakes of far-better Asian and European horror films, there wouldn't be much reason for a lifelong horror fan like me to even venture out to the local multiplex anymore. Lo and behold, nary a week elapsed before yet another of those pointless and clumsily-executed remakes made its way to the top of my viewing... Thu, 01 May 2008 13:00:00 GMT ent/news/df/20080501/120964680002 http://us.rd.yahoo.com/movies/rss/dvd/*http://movies.yahoo.com/dvd/reviews/df/20080501/120964680001.html?id=1800110497 I just finished up a review of Paddle to the Sea – one of Criterion's new 'Children's Classics' releases – and it left me feeling kind of rough: this writer always hates giving bad reviews to Criterion titles; for me, it's the emotional equivalent of someone spending hundreds of dollars on a birthday present for me that I simply dislike.Well, luckily the folks at Criterion sent over The Red Balloon soon after, and it was as if Paddle to the Sea had... Thu, 01 May 2008 13:00:00 GMT ent/news/df/20080501/120964680001.html?id=1800110497 http://us.rd.yahoo.com/movies/rss/dvd/*http://movies.yahoo.com/dvd/reviews/df/20080501/120964680000.html Predator is Fox's second alien franchise, and until the AVP series was introduced, it hadn't been exploited quite as much as Ripley's Alien. Regardless, Predator is very entertaining. And like the Alien series, Fox has revisited the title with multiple releases: the first was a non-anamorphic widescreen DVD disappointment; the second was an anamorphic transfer on DVD with a DTS audio option that improved the presentation, but remained essentially featureless; and then there was... Thu, 01 May 2008 13:00:00 GMT ent/news/df/20080501/120964680000 http://us.rd.yahoo.com/movies/rss/dvd/*http://movies.yahoo.com/dvd/reviews/df/20080429/120947400002.html?id=1809861551 Inspired by their own unique birth experiences, producer Ricki Lake and director Abby Epstein team up to provide a nation of mothers-to-be with insight into the process of childbirth and the various options available when preparing for life's most special event. From pregnancy to the miraculous moment of birth, The Business of Being Born is an entertaining and informative celebration of the road to motherhood.Blindly, I thought it was a film, but it is a documentary. Hastily, I requested... Tue, 29 Apr 2008 13:00:00 GMT ent/news/df/20080429/120947400002.html?id=1809861551 http://us.rd.yahoo.com/movies/rss/dvd/*http://movies.yahoo.com/dvd/reviews/df/20080429/120947400001.html If you want to see an effective, thought- provoking and genuinely scary horror film these days, you have to look to either Asia or Europe to deliver the goods. It's disappointing to have to continually bemoan the lack of creativity in the American horror genre, but when all they churn out are tepid remakes of '70s classics or reworked versions of their far- better Asian or European counterparts, why not just go directly to the source? I was recently impressed with the French... Tue, 29 Apr 2008 13:00:00 GMT ent/news/df/20080429/120947400001 http://us.rd.yahoo.com/movies/rss/dvd/*http://movies.yahoo.com/dvd/reviews/df/20080429/120947400000.html For several decades, comics have been an inspiration for summer movies. More recently, novels about fantasy worlds either long gone (Lord of the Rings) or unseen by normal mortals (the Harry Potter and Narnia series) have become a ripe source for motion picture adaptation. We can now add to those author Philip Pullman's work; this is the first film of a trilogy about a parallel universe, much like our own but also uniquely different. It's a mystical world, where noble witches fly... Tue, 29 Apr 2008 13:00:00 GMT ent/news/df/20080429/120947400000 http://us.rd.yahoo.com/movies/rss/dvd/*http://movies.yahoo.com/dvd/reviews/df/20080427/120930120002.html?id=1809772353 I honestly can't imagine what it's like to go through a serious, debilitating stroke like the one that Jean-Dominique “Jean-Do” Bauby (Mathieu Amalric) suffers in the remarkable The Diving Bell and the Butterfly. But in the capable hands of director Julian Schnabel, we come as uncomfortably close to the experience as we're likely to get. Forty-two-year-old Bauby, who was something of a French playboy and the editor-in-chief of the renowned Elle fashion magazine, was... Sun, 27 Apr 2008 13:00:00 GMT ent/news/df/20080427/120930120002.html?id=1809772353 http://us.rd.yahoo.com/movies/rss/dvd/*http://movies.yahoo.com/dvd/reviews/df/20080427/120930120001.html?id=1808737045 If anyone doubts the power of DVD to resurrect long-buried treasures, let the argument end with Criterion's release of Allen Baron's 1961 Blast of Silence. It's a film that was so behind the times that it was ahead of its time. In 1961, film noir had seen its best days. The shadow-drenched, nihilistic tales of dispassionate murders, their crimes and their dames whose visual style sprang from German Expressionism, resulted in too many classics to mention here. But by the late... Sun, 27 Apr 2008 13:00:00 GMT ent/news/df/20080427/120930120001.html?id=1808737045 http://us.rd.yahoo.com/movies/rss/dvd/*http://movies.yahoo.com/dvd/reviews/df/20080427/120930120000.html Consider this one for fan club members. With so many great music documentaries/concerts in the mix right now, there simply isn't enough time to digest them all, and in the case of Sex, Food, Death…and Insects, all the material contained within it is aimed square at those who have more than a casual relationship with Robyn Hitchcock. This writer's first impressions of the troubadour came relatively late in his career, with Jonathan Demme's capable (if decidedly simplistic... Sun, 27 Apr 2008 13:00:00 GMT ent/news/df/20080427/120930120000 http://us.rd.yahoo.com/movies/rss/dvd/*http://movies.yahoo.com/dvd/reviews/df/20080422/120886920001.html?id=1809826835 Seems like 2007 will go down as the year everyone in Hollywood attempted to make a political statement on America's involvement in the War of Terror. Of course, few of these films actually caught the public's fancy or earned overwhelming critical accolades. One of the more successful attempts, albeit a shallow and vapid one, was director Peter Berg's adrenaline-pumped The Kingdom. At the opposite end of the spectrum is Robert Redford's preachy Lions for Lambs, which is... Tue, 22 Apr 2008 13:00:00 GMT ent/news/df/20080422/120886920001.html?id=1809826835 http://us.rd.yahoo.com/movies/rss/dvd/*http://movies.yahoo.com/dvd/reviews/df/20080422/120886920000.html Master filmmaker Sidney Lumet (The Verdict, Dog Day Afternoon, Serpico) directs another dramatic thriller with high caliber Hollywood actors. Oscar-winner (Capote, 2005) Philip Seymour Hoffman is Andy, an overextended payroll executive who lures his younger brother, Hank (Ethan Hawke), into a larcenous scheme: the pair will rob a suburban mom-an-pop jewelry store that appears to be the quintessentially easy target. The problem is, the store owners are Andy and Hank's real mom and pop, and... Tue, 22 Apr 2008 13:00:00 GMT ent/news/df/20080422/120886920000 http://us.rd.yahoo.com/movies/rss/dvd/*http://movies.yahoo.com/dvd/reviews/df/20080420/120869640002.html When Bonnie Parker (Faye Dunaway) and Clyde Barrow (Warren Beatty) met their end in an ungodly hail of gunfire at the conclusion of the movie that bore their last names, it wasn't just two lawless gunfighters who shed this mortal coil. The film, which was released in 1967, is partially credited with heralding the end of the Production Code era. The Production Code (which was developed in 1930, but not enforced until the creation of the Hays Office in 1934) set strict guidelines as to what a... Sun, 20 Apr 2008 13:00:00 GMT ent/news/df/20080420/120869640002 http://us.rd.yahoo.com/movies/rss/dvd/*http://movies.yahoo.com/dvd/reviews/df/20080420/120869640001.html Much like a rock band whose first album sells twenty million copies and is called a failure when their follow-up only sells ten million, M. Night Shyamalan's Unbreakable was probably doomed from the start to disappoint. Following on the heels of his 1999 mega-hit The Sixth Sense, Unbreakable arrived in a shroud of secrecy, with terrific teasers that hinted at the film's many mysteries but gave nothing away. Though the film made money when it was released in late 2000, it just couldn't equal the... Sun, 20 Apr 2008 13:00:00 GMT ent/news/df/20080420/120869640001 http://us.rd.yahoo.com/movies/rss/dvd/*http://movies.yahoo.com/dvd/reviews/df/20080420/120869640000.html What could have been an entertaining film based on an interesting premise has been sabotaged by the filmmakers' clueless conception of medical immortality through cloning. This fatal flaw consistently collapsed my willing suspension of disbelief and pulled me out of the film. Self is a blend of memories, skills, and experiences that shape our outlook and personality, and it is consciousness. Consciousness is independent of memories. A person with amnesia still retains an instinctive will to... Sun, 20 Apr 2008 13:00:00 GMT ent/news/df/20080420/120869640000 http://us.rd.yahoo.com/movies/rss/dvd/*http://movies.yahoo.com/dvd/reviews/df/20080418/120852360002.html I find it a bit ironic that this is my very next review after Cloverfield. Water Horse is an entirely different approach to a beasty; this one won't eat a city, but it will provoke considerable tourism at Loch Ness. The film is set in 1942 Scotland; England is at war with Germany and many good men will never return from combat. Among them is Charlie MacMorrow (Craig Hall), a seaman who lost his life when his warship was sunk. He leaves behind a slightly embittered wife, Anne (Emily Watson... Fri, 18 Apr 2008 13:00:00 GMT ent/news/df/20080418/120852360002 http://us.rd.yahoo.com/movies/rss/dvd/*http://movies.yahoo.com/dvd/reviews/df/20080418/120852360001.html?id=1809761698 I have very mixed feelings about this epic story of obsessive love. The tale spans fifty-six years in the lives of two star-crossed Columbian lovers. The story begins over a century ago. A teenager named Florentino (Javier Bardem) works in a telegraph office and while delivering a telegram to the affluent Daza home, he's dazzled by the sight of Fermina (Giovanna Mezzogiorno), the family's lovely sixteen year old daughter. Alas, she's protected vigorously by her father, Lorenzo... Fri, 18 Apr 2008 13:00:00 GMT ent/news/df/20080418/120852360001.html?id=1809761698 http://us.rd.yahoo.com/movies/rss/dvd/*http://movies.yahoo.com/dvd/reviews/df/20080418/120852360000.html?id=1810004651 I will state upfront that I don't like rock in any form. I find it grating, noisy, unmusical, and deafening loud in performance. Vocalists screaming their lines with microphones nearly extended into their mouths only add to the distortions and annoyances. And yet… Blue Man Group, for those who've been in a coma for the last twenty years, is an eclectic trio of mute percussionists - Chris Wink, Matt Goldman and Phil Stanton - who are performance artists with quirky senses of... Fri, 18 Apr 2008 13:00:00 GMT ent/news/df/20080418/120852360000.html?id=1810004651 http://us.rd.yahoo.com/movies/rss/dvd/*http://movies.yahoo.com/dvd/reviews/df/20080413/120809160002.html?id=1809971674 It is amazing what sci-fi geeks will put up with when it comes to bad space-y television. I was definitely not a huge sci- fi/fantasy book reader in high school and college (though I traveled in those crowds pretty frequently). But whenever I see that something on television or at the movies is sci-fi-related, I give it a shot. I don't care if it's thinky (Solaris) or dumb (Mission to Mars): if you set your story in space, you have at least one viewer in America who will give you a... Sun, 13 Apr 2008 13:00:00 GMT ent/news/df/20080413/120809160002.html?id=1809971674 http://us.rd.yahoo.com/movies/rss/dvd/*http://movies.yahoo.com/dvd/reviews/df/20080413/120809160001.html This writer came into That 70s Show late in the game – it wasn't until I dove into the fourth-season DVD box set that I saw an episode of the show all the way through. And while I acknowledged a handful of its charms upon first viewing (a group of dumb-ass stoner/drunkard teenagers causing trouble? What's not to like?), after stomaching the show's sixth, seventh and now eighth season, I must say that I'm pretty much over it. And I would argue that even those who... Sun, 13 Apr 2008 13:00:00 GMT ent/news/df/20080413/120809160001 http://us.rd.yahoo.com/movies/rss/dvd/*http://movies.yahoo.com/dvd/reviews/df/20080413/120809160000.html?id=1809930425 There is a connection between young girls and horses that remains an evocative dramatic ploy for female (and probably equine) viewers. My dear friend Julia once spent the better part of twenty minutes trying to convince her fiancé and I that Wild Hearts Can't Be Broken – about a girl whose tie to her steed was so strong that she'd do anything for them to get to the top – was perhaps the greatest film anyone on Earth had ever made. It didn't fly, but her speech... Sun, 13 Apr 2008 13:00:00 GMT ent/news/df/20080413/120809160000.html?id=1809930425 http://us.rd.yahoo.com/movies/rss/dvd/*http://movies.yahoo.com/dvd/reviews/df/20080408/120765960002.html?id=1809761901 Boy, this writer loves a good, deep, sticky documentary, and in Lake of Fire, he found one that rivals the best of them. This one's the real deal.This ain't your mama's PBS nonfiction programme. Lake of Fire is one of the more tempestuous, emotional and multi-faceted documentaries I've ever come across, and in addition to being positively riveted by the film at every turn, I found myself finding a disdain for the documentary-association publications which all but ignored... Tue, 08 Apr 2008 13:00:00 GMT ent/news/df/20080408/120765960002.html?id=1809761901 http://us.rd.yahoo.com/movies/rss/dvd/*http://movies.yahoo.com/dvd/reviews/df/20080408/120765960001.html It's a long holiday weekend at the Lambda Epsilon Zeta sorority house, and a handful of girls stay behind to indulge in three days of partying, sex games, and strangely delicious meals prepared by a strange new chef. But as the sisters begin to disappear one-by-one, the remaining coeds – The Slut, The Stoner, The Bible Beater, The Dumb Hot Blonde, The Predatory Lesbian, The Tease, The Dominatrix and The Good Girl – will find themselves trapped in a nightmare of graphic slaughter... Tue, 08 Apr 2008 13:00:00 GMT ent/news/df/20080408/120765960001 http://us.rd.yahoo.com/movies/rss/dvd/*http://movies.yahoo.com/dvd/reviews/df/20080408/120765960000.html Just as serious art-house films exist as a way to counterbalance the sheer eye-candy of a mindless adventure or action flick, sometimes the reverse is true: you need a little empty entertainment to pass the time. For producer Jerry Bruckheimer, that pretty much has become his stock in trade. For every Pearl Harbor or Bad Boys II he produces, there's usually something interesting like Pirates of the Caribbean or National Treasure in his bag of tricks. Having hit a major home run back in 1983... Tue, 08 Apr 2008 13:00:00 GMT ent/news/df/20080408/120765960000