DVD Talk reviews for Monday, January 28th, 2019
01-29-19, 03:00 AM
In the Heat of the Night (Blu-ray)
<small>by Ian Jane</small><hr />The Movie:
Based on John Ball's 1965 novel of the same name, Norman Jewison's 1967 film In The Heat Of The Night introduces us to one Virgil Tibbs (Sidney Poitier). He's a detective working the homicide beat in Philadelphia who goes back home to the Southern United States town of Sparta, Mississippi, to visit his aging mother. Shortly before he shows a white man of high social stature named Phillip Colbert is found murdered. Tibbs is promptly arrested by a local officer named Sam Wood (Warren Oates) simply because the color of his skin makes the local authorities suspicious that he may have had something to do with the killing.
Eventually the police realize who he is and he's released, but not before Tibbs' superior officer offers his skills as a detective to the southern police who are in dire need of help. It seems that small town cops don't always have much experience wi...Read the entire review »
Pope Francis: A Man of His Word (Blu-ray)
<small>by Neil Lumbard</small><hr /><html><head> <title></title></head><body>
Thereare times when a documentary film really hits home and has a messagethat goes straight to the heart. Pope Francis: A Man of HisWordis such a film. The documentary explores the world and message of thebeloved Pope Francis, who is renowned all around the world for hismessages of overcoming diversities and to live life with hope andcompassion. Directed by renowned filmmaker Wim Wenders (Pina)....Read the entire review »
The Nutcracker and the Four Realms (Blu-ray)
<small>by Neil Lumbard</small><hr /><html><head> <meta content="text/html; charset=ISO-8859-1" http-equiv="content-type"> <title>The Nutcracker 4K UHD Review</title></head><body>
TheNutcracker and the Four Realms is a fantasy-adventure filminspired by the short story by E.T.A. Hoffmann (The Nutcrackerandthe Mouse King). The story revolves around a girl entering amagical world which is filled with fantastical things (such as giantnutcracker soldiers and adventurous mice). It is executi...Read the entire review »
Foxfire (Blu-ray)
<small>by Stuart Galbraith IV</small><hr />For some, the attraction of Kino's new Blu-ray of Foxfire (1955) will be its place in movie history, for it was the very last feature photographed in Technicolor's lush three-strip process, though another Universal-International title, the sci-fi classic This Island Earth, was released almost simultaneously.
The Blu-ray of Foxfire, in its correct 2.00:1 widescreen and photographed by William H. Daniels, certainly looks gorgeous, but the movie itself, adapted from Anya Seton's novel, is a major surprise. Here, in the famously repressive, a-woman's-place-is-in-the-kitchen 1950s, Jane Russell portrays a sexually liberated, assertive woman who loves her man (Jeff Chandler) but, once married, isn't about to be tamed, play by gender expectations or take crap from anyone, especially him. The normally manly Chandler, by contrast, is something of a weakling, spending almost the entire fi...Read the entire review »
