My Favorite Year (Blu-ray) <small>by Stuart Galbraith IV</small><hr /> My Favorite Year (1982), the Richard Benjamin-directed comedy starring Peter O'Toole and set in the world of live 1950s television, is a highly-satisfying, often delightful comedy. I hadn't seen it in many years, but watching it now on Blu-ray the movie strikes me then and now as having the same many wonderful qualities and, well, less wonderful qualities. Overall, it's very, very good. O'Toole is a delight, deserving of his Academy Award nomination that year, and there are plenty of magical or hysterically funny bits sprinkled throughout. However, there are other aspects that, while technically fine, played out by talented actors, don't entirely come off even where they seem like they ought to. The picture was produced by Mel Brooks's production company, with write...Read the entire review »

The Cotton Club Encore (Blu-ray) <small>by DVD Savant</small><hr /> Reviewed by Glenn Erickson Francis Ford Coppola's The Cotton Club didn't get a fair shake when it was new, but corrections have been made... 35 years later. This year's The Cotton Club Encore is an exception to the rule that filmmakers revising their own movies is a bad idea. Back in 1984, the positive reviews were not enthusiastic, and the negative reviews wanted us to believe that Coppola had surrendered his crown as America's most creative, commercial director. Was there some kind of Hollywood backlash against Francis Coppola? Perhaps Apocalypse Now was a hard act to follow, both creatively and financially. Francis took on more commercial projects, and simply applied the stylishness he thought they needed. Robert Evans was behind The Cotton Club, a gangster/musical hybrid that was never going to be as historically realistic a...Read the entire review »

Where'd You Go Bernadette? (Blu-ray) <small>by Oktay Ege Kozak</small><hr /> The Movie: Depression is a sneaky thief. It doesn't deplete our joy all at once, choosing instead to pick away tiny pieces over a period of time. By the time we find ourselves drifted completely away from the ones we love and shut ourselves to the outside world, it's hard to comprehend how we got there in the first place. The moment we stop blaming others, and ourselves, when we can finally pinpoint the real problem with an open mind, it's a revelation. But the road back to recovery is a perilous journey, and regardless of the help we get, our own resilience and faith in self must weather it alone. Once a genius architect and now a stay-at-home-mom, Bernadette Fox (Cate Blanchett) is under the illusion that everything about her day-to-day life is normal. She just happens to hate pretty much any human interaction, is distant to everyone except her daughter Bee (Emma Nelson), does a...Read the entire review »