Rent It Director: Peer PedersenStarring: Kaitlyn Dever, Catherine Keener, Annie StarkeYear: 2017Anton Yelchin's final role comes in We Don't Belong Here, a film that doesn't feature him enough. Obviously I don't mean they should have known that this would be the end of an exciting career and so given him more screen time; his death was an unimaginable tragedy that caught every film fan with a sucker punch. He should simply have been given more to do in this movie, as he was by far the best thing about it. Director Peer Pedersen also wrote the script, and has no…

Recommended The earliest television Westerns, shows from the late 1940s and early 50s, mostly were adaptations of successful, long-running theatrical B-Westerns, series starring William "Hopalong Cassidy" Boyd, Roy Rogers and Dale Evans, Gene Autry, etc. Although many of these shows originated as B-Westerns for general audiences or even specifically adults, by the time television was rolling out their audience consisted primarily of children who adored such shows. In past reviews I've extolled the virtues of TV's earliest adult Westerns, particularly Gunsmoke (premiering in 1955) and Have Gun - Will Travel (1957), but one series predates those, a semi-adult transitional TV…

Rent It The Movie:I really didn't intentionally make Frank Langella a common thread in two of my last three standard definition DVD reviews. But the case handler in The Americans finds himself the unwanted center of attention in Youth in Oregon, a comedy-drama that is copious amounts of one genre and perhaps not enough of the other.Written by Andrew Eisen and directed by Joel David Moore (Spiral), Langella plays Raymond, an 80-year old patriarch who lives with his daughter Kate (Christina Applegate, Bad Moms) and her family, along with his wife Estelle (Mary Kay Place, Sweet Home Alabama). He makes…

Recommended The subject of "troubled youth" in Night Has Settled interested me, as most of my teenage years were rather boring and I now think of both the good and bad points of not having been more adventurous then. A review quoted on the DVD's back cover compares it to the films of Larry Clark (best known for 1995's controversial Kids), which is a somewhat fair comparison though this film from Steve Clark (no relation) doesn't seem intended to shock audiences as much.Our main character is 13 year old Oliver (Spencer List), who first appears innocent and childlike. He lives…

Highly Recommended The Shorts:After a long wait, Warner Brothers, through their direct-to-consumerprogram The Warner Archives, have released the third volume of VitaphoneVarieties. It's been over four years since the second volumewas released, and it's great that they are continuing thecollection. This single disc (the previous installments weremulti-disc collections) contains 16 rare shorts with appearances byperformers who are great, not so great, and just weird. It's a funand entertaining collection that's sure to amuse.Most of these one-reel shorts feature performers that were recruitedfrom the vaudeville circuits. (One performer didn't even bother tochange the patter in his act, and discusses how everyone…

Rent It Following the introduction of James Bond to movies in the 1960s, the spy genre has slowly polarized itself into two camps: the over-the-top thrill ride with the gadgets and the dashing hero, and the gritty, realistic approach with an eye for detail (Bond never got too close to the latter, but the current run of Daniel Craig movies are certainly attempting to have their cake and eat it too). To this pile, we can now add "The Bureau", a decent French spy series that never exactly catches fire but delivers some well-orchestrated thrills.The series is comprised of three…

Rent It As perhaps the most globally recognized Japanese film star of all time, the legendary Toshiro Mifune (1920-1997) was featured in nearly 200 films during a career that spanned almost 50 years. Largely remembered for his collaborations with director Akira Kurosawa between 1948 and 1965---which include such classics as Rashomon, <A href="http://www.dvdtalk.com/reviews/44857/seven-samurai/" target="blank...Read the entire review Source: DVD Talk

Rent It In 10 Words or LessSci-fi, ethics, psychology, disappointment...this one's got it allReviewer's Bias*Loves: Smart sci-fi, psychological filmLikes: Bottle episodes, indie filmsDislikes: Obvious button-pushingHates: Disappointing endingsThe MovieAll due respect to the people involved in making Circle, but I hate this movie. That's not a judgement on the technical effort, which is solid. It has nothing to do with the performances, which are uniformly good. And it's not a problem with the story. The reason I came away from this film with a negative opinion about Circle is solely the ending, which has to be one of the most disappointing…