DVD Talk reviews for Tuesday, September 10th, 2019
Dogtooth (Blu-ray)
<small>by Oktay Ege Kozak</small><hr />The Movie:
It's easy for us in free(er) societies to make fun of people living in authoritarian states who believe everything their closed circuit of information tells them. Can they really believe that Great Leader never poops? How can that be, when they know he's human, the way they are? Or are they truly sold on the idea that the head of state is superhuman, a true messianic figure? What we see as a pudgy man-child playacting a god with an entire country. They are told that, beyond a shadow of a doubt, he is God. It's hard for us to imagine that our capability of learning through reasoning in the modern world comes as a given, but we are empty shells at birth, ready to be filled with ANY information we're capable of imbibing.
Co-writer/director Yorgos Lanthimos, the grand cynic of contemporary cinema and an invaluable voice in absurdist dark -with a capital D and an underline- ...Read the entire review »
The Secret Life of Pets 2 (Blu-ray)
<small>by Oktay Ege Kozak</small><hr />The Movie:
The allure of the first Secret Life of Pets, a 2016 surprise hit for the animation studio Illumination, known primarily for their Despicable Me series and for releasing those annoying minions to the world, were the gags about what our pets did when we weren't home. The ideas behind how dogs, cats, and birds acted when we were gone, ranging from the appropriately cartoonish to clever in a grounded way, was what made the experience interesting and fun on its own. The Toy Story 1 rip-off overarching narrative about two dogs who initially hate each other having to work together in order to find their way back home was used merely as an excuse to pad the runtime to a feature.
The sequel, The Secret Life of Pets 2, seems to have been aware of this, so what we get here is a series of vignettes that center on the various characters from the first fil...Read the entire review »
Men in Black: International (Blu-ray)
<small>by William Harrison</small><hr />THE FILM:
It has been twenty-two years since a good Men in Black film was released. That happened back on July 2, 1997, during what was then known as "Big Willie Weekend," as star Will Smith was churning out July 4th hit after July 4th hit. That first film was a humor-packed summer action spectacular, and it spawned a garbage sequel five years later and an equally lousy revival in 2012. The summer 2019 blockbuster season was a weak one, so it is fitting that Sony went back into its vaults in an attempt to resuscitate the Men in Black franchise yet again. Smith and Tommy Lee Jones are nowhere to be found, and Chris Hemsworth and Tessa Thompson instead lead the fil...Read the entire review »