Family Home Theater

13/02/2024

Grade: C- Comedy-Musical Not rated (would be PG) Elvis Presley made 31 movies between 1956-69, and 16 of them are currently available on Blu-ray from U.S. or European distributors (the latter via …

11/12/2023

A respectable retirement party . . . closer to the initial trilogy in quality than to the disapointing "Crystal Skull"....

Grade:  B Action/Adventure Rated PG-13 Let’s get one thing out of the way:  Raiders of the Lost Ark (1981) was such a larger-than-life kickback to old-time serialized movie adventures tha…

09/12/2023

Bond had his "girls" . . . so did Elvis, and Shelley Fabares played opposite him in three films.

Grade:  C+/C Comedy-musical Not rated (would be PG) The “formula” Elvis Presley picture was a thinly plotted, quickly filmed excuse to string a few new equally slapdash songs together so audie…

02/12/2023

Teachers may want to check this out....

Grade:  C+ Drama Not rated (would be PG) First, schools across America absolutely ruinedNathaniel Hawthorne’s The Scarlet Letter for readers by force-feeding it to them when they were disinter…

02/12/2023

Grade: B+/A- Drama Rated R On the heels of Barbie comes this review of Christopher Nolan’s Oppenheimer—the other half of the Barbenheimer cultural phenomenon, where moviegoers took to seeing both …

26/11/2023

Grade:  B+/B Fantasy-Comedy Rated PG-13 Barbie’s creator, Ruth Handler, merited a chapter in the 2018 book Shapers of American Childhood, and why wouldn’t she? Barbie was a blank slate. For th…

26/11/2023

Grade: B Drama Not rated (would be PG) After watching Scrapper a second time, I found myself scratching my head that British director Charlotte Regan was able to craft such a likable feature film h…

26/11/2023

Grade:  C+/C Action comedy Not rated (would be PG) These days the media is full of stories about writers, artists, and people working the film industry who are worried that their livelihoods m…

26/11/2023

Grade:  C- Horror/Drama Not rated (would be PG) Just in time for Halloween, Film Masters has released a B-movie trick or treat (you decide):  a newly restored 4K scan from 35mm archival m…

18/09/2023

For older teens and adults who love zombie movies and the whole idea of making them...

Grade: B-/C+ Horror comedy Not rated (would be PG-13) Final Cut is an onion of sorts, a 2022 French film with English subtitles that will vary in its appeal based on how much viewers know about (a…

16/07/2023

The Updike family tree gets a good shaking....

Poet Molly Fisk published an essay on "John Updike, His Stories, and Me" in the Oct. 25, 2021 issue of Harper's Bazaar that shares some Updike family history and confronts the issues of truth in fiction . . . and …

03/06/2023

Grade:  A-/B+ TV comedy Rated TV-PG In 1982, producers Glen and Les Charles were cruising along with their Taxi, having accelerated past All in the Family in 1979 to win the Emmy for Outstandi…

24/04/2023

Grade: B+/A- TV comedy Not rated (would be PG for adult drinking and smoking) I Love Lucy was one of the early TV series that made the leap from vaudeville and radio to television. It began as My F…

24/04/2023

Grade:  A- TV comedy Not rated (would be PG) From 1993-2004 the king of sitcoms was Frasier, a spin-off from the popular sitcom Cheers starring Kelsey Grammer as a pompous but endearing psycho…

24/04/2023

Grade:  B+ TV comedy Not rated (would be PG) When Hogan’s Heroes first aired in 1965, it quickly became a hit. Though the show never finished higher than the 9th place it earned its first seas…

24/04/2023

Grade:  B+/A- Drama-Fantasy Adventure Rated R I’m beginning to wonder:  has a generation of gamers accustomed to living virtually on multiple levels led us to the point where many films g…

24/04/2023

Grade:  A- TV comedy Not rated Maybe it’s because the series is in perpetual rerun. Maybe it’s the popularity of Steve Carell ever since he turned up on moviegoers’ radar with The 40-Year-Old …

07/04/2023

Grade:  A- Drama Rated PG-13 The Fabelmans was promoted as a “semi-autobiographical story loosely based on Spielberg’s adolescence,” but after Steven Spielberg’s November 2022 New York Times i…

05/04/2023

Grade: B/B- Comedy Not rated (would be PG) Bob Hope comedies have been entertaining families for generations, perhaps because Hope’s onscreen persona is a likable, somewhat bumbling and cowa…

03/04/2023

Grade:  B- Drama-Comedy Rated PG-13 A Man Called Otto(2022) offers another serving of a Hollywood trope we’ve seen many times over: the grumpy widower whose life is brightened somehow by a you…

03/04/2023

Grade:  B-/C+ Adventure Comedy Not Rated (would be PG) Today’s audiences know Donald O’Connor mostly as the third wheel in the 1952 Gene Kelly and Debbie Reynolds musical romance Singin’ in th…

03/04/2023

Grade: B- TV sitcom Not rated (would be G) Some Christmas movies are best seen as a run-up to the holiday, while a few special ones become part of our family holiday traditions. Others, like The A…

26/11/2022

Grade: B-Musical comedyRated PG How do you explain the Elvis Presley phenomenon? You start with the music. Until Elvis, rock and roll was an evolving synthesis of blues, gospel, jazz, boogie woogie, and western swing. As a type of music that was deliberately dance-oriented, it hooked America’s youths. But Elvis and his “rockabilly” variation made the new music sexy, with hip-swiveling gyrations that caused girls to scream and faint....

Grade: B-Musical comedyRated PG How do you explain the Elvis Presley phenomenon?  You start with the music. Until Elvis, rock and roll was an evolving synthesis of blues, gospel, jazz, boogie…

17/11/2022

Grade: B-/C+AnimationNot rated (would be PG) Ainbo: Spirit of the Amazon follows the path of save-the-rainforest themed films like The Emerald Forest (1985, R-rated live action), Ferngully: The Last Rainforest (1992, G-rated animation), and James Cameron’s Avatar (2009). Its footsteps are more indigenous, though, which is a positive. But having two 13-year-old girls who talk the way adult writers think 13-year-old girls talk, along with some seen-it-before characters and plot points, could narrow the audience....

Grade: B-/C+AnimationNot rated (would be PG) Ainbo: Spirit of the Amazon follows the path of save-the-rainforest themed films like The Emerald Forest (1985, R-rated live action), Ferngully: The Las…

03/11/2022

Grade: B+/A-Action-Adventure Drama RomanceRated PG-13 Top Gun: Maverick outgunned all other films at the box office so far in 2022, besting #2 Jurassic World: Dominion by nearly half-a-million dollars. It’s slick Hollywood action blockbuster filmmaking at its finest. Critics thought it better than the first Top Gun because of the increased number and authenticity of the aircraft action sequences....

Grade: B+/A-Action-Adventure Drama RomanceRated PG-13 Top Gun: Maverick outgunned all other films at the box office so far in 2022, besting #2 Jurassic World: Dominion by nearly half-a-million dol…

29/10/2022

Grade: B/B-ComedyNot rated (would be G) Bedtime for Bonzo (1951) is one of those legendary movies that I hadn’t gotten around to seeing until Kino Lorber came out with this sparkling new 2K Master Blu-ray release. As it turns out, Ronald Reagan was a better actor in the political arena than he was in movies. He’s out-acted in this one by a chimpanzee named Peggy, whose performance earned her a PATSY Award (Picture Animal Top Star of the Year) from the American Humane Society....

Grade: B/B-ComedyNot rated (would be G) Bedtime for Bonzo (1951) is one of those legendary movies that I hadn’t gotten around to seeing until Kino Lorber came out with this sparkling new 2K Master…

29/10/2022

Grade: B/B-Western comedyNot rated (would be G) Families that watch I Love Lucy reruns on TV will enjoy seeing Lucille Ball in this Western comedy—the fourth film to be based on Harry Leon Wilson’s popular 1915 novel Ruggles of Red Gap, and the second feature film Ball made with comedian Bob Hope.The humor in this film is certainly a cousin to the antics home audiences loved about that classic TV series, which began airing in 1951....

Grade: B/B-Western comedyNot rated (would be G) Families that watch I Love Lucy reruns on TV will enjoy seeing Lucille Ball in this Western comedy—the fourth film to be based on Harry Leon Wilson’…

17/10/2022

Grade: BFamilyNot rated (would be G) These days everyone thinks Disney when they hear the word “Cinderella,” but the folk tale dates back to 7 B.C. and has spawned thousands of variations. The most common in western culture has been Charles Perrault’s Cendrillon (1697), which added the pumpkin, fairy godmother, and those uncomfortable glass slippers. The Cinderella of this 2021 Norwegian film has been tweaked to reflect 21st-century values, though maybe something was lost in translation, because I couldn’t figure out what the three wishes might be—unless she wishes she could have a pet owl, like Hermoine Granger; wishes she could ride a horse and successfully pose as a man, like…...

Grade: BFamilyNot rated (would be G) These days everyone thinks Disney when they hear the word “Cinderella,” but the folk tale dates back to 7 B.C. and has spawned thousands of variations. The mos…

16/10/2022

Grade: B-/BAnimationRated PG You know how you have to make up a list of positives and negatives when you’re undecided about something? That’s what I had to do in order to review DC League of Super-Pets. Right about now, any children or fans of the DC Universe who are reading this are shaking their heads and muttering…...

Grade: B-/BAnimationRated PG You know how you have to make up a list of positives and negatives when you’re undecided about something? That’s what I had to do in order to review DC League of Super…

15/10/2022

Grade: B-/C+Mystery-ThrillerNot rated (would be PG) Another release timed for Halloween is The Bat (1959), which is in the public domain and widely available for free . . . in blurred versions that are no better than VHS tapes (remember those?). The way to watch, if you’re a fan, is on hi-def Blu-ray from The Film Detective, which becomes available on October 25....

Grade:  B-/C+Mystery-ThrillerNot rated (would be PG) Another release timed for Halloween is The Bat (1959), which is in the public domain and widely available for free . . . in blurred version…