Back to the Future: The Ultimate Trilogy (4K Ultra HD) (Blu-ray) by William Harrison THE TRILOGY:It is a rare feat when all three films in a trilogy are good, but that is exactly what the Back to the Future Trilogy provides. Written and directed by Robert Zemeckis and released by Steven Spielberg's Amblin Entertainment and Universal Pictures, the three films chronicle the time-travelling exploits of Michael J. Fox's Marty McFly, Christopher Lloyd's Doc Brown, and a DeLorean time machine. The original film was released in 1985, and its sequels arrived in November 1989 and May 1990, respectively. The real 2015 may not have included the hoverboards, self-fitting clothing and rehydrated food depicted in the films, but Back to the Future is pretty spot-on with its predictions of a time then 20 years in the future. I consider the original film the best, followed by the 1885-set Part III and finally Part II, the plot of which is a bit to...Read the entire review »

Fellinis Casanova (Blu-ray) by Jesse Skeen 18th-century period pieces aren't exactly my favorite genre, but I was drawn to Fellini's Casanova after finding part of it on the "dead side" of an old DiscoVision laserdisc of an NFL highlights film. This included a very strange scene with several small pipe organs mounted on a wall all being played with random notes- one man is wheeled up on a high ladder to play one mounted near the ceiling. I had to see the entire movie after that, but despite being an early laserdisc release that edition is a bit hard to find and hasn't been widely issued on other formats since then- the only US release after that seems to have been a burned-on-demand DVD. It has been issued on Blu-Ray in Europe at least twice, and now Kino brings it to the US.The producers of this movie wanted a ...Read the entire review »

Continental Divide (Blu-ray) by Justin Remer The Movie: NOTE: The images accompanying this review are screencaps of an SD version of this film that do not reflect the quality of the Blu-ray under review.R.J. Cutler's recent Showtime documentary Belushi shows that early Saturday Night Live star John Belushi was just turning a page on his life and career when he took a fatal drug overdose in 1982. While the 1981 films Continental Divide and Neighbors stand now as failed footnotes to the supernova that was Belushi's film career, they also represent an attempt to avoid re...Read the entire review »