During its release dead-center in the middle of the 1990s, Crimson Tide felt more than a little like a watered-down retread of The Hunt for Red October, once again churning up Cold War paranoia for another (then) modern-day nuclear submarine thriller. Three decades on, the film’s plot about a megalomanaical Russian dictator plunging the world… Read More The True Enemy Is War Itself | Crimson Tide (1995) Blu-ray
For the second episode of our new Film at 11 podcast series, I’ve both chosen a new movie and switched 11-year-olds! This week, I introduce my son Thomas to director Joe Dante’s delightfully wicked dark comedy Gremlins. The kid was actually a little nervous going into this one. I first saw Gremlins when I was… Read More Film at 11 Podcast: Episode 2 | Gremlins (1984)
Most cult movies that are actively made with the intention of becoming cult movies from the outset just wind up missing their target and alienating everyone, both the multiplex mass audiences who don’t get what the film is supposed to be, and actual cult movie fans who don’t appreciate being pandered to. An argument can… Read More Just Be Cool | The Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai (1984) Arrow Video Blu-ray
Far too often, after rewatching a favorite movie from my youth in the 1980s and early 1990s, I get a compulsion to also play the tie-in video game that accompanied it at the time. This is often a mistake, as most of them are terrible games. I was especially nervous to revisit the 1989 Nintendo… Read More 8-Bit Replay | Who Framed Roger Rabbit (1989) for NES
This week, we launch a new feature here at The Video File blog. For the past couple months, I’ve been quietly working on a video podcast called Film at 11, in which I’ve convinced my sons to watch famous movies they’ve never seen before and discuss them with me, offering their reviews from an 11-year-old… Read More Introducing “Film at 11,” A New Movie Podcast from The Video File: Episode 1 | Who Framed Roger Rabbit (1988)
One of cinema’s all-time great political thrillers, John Frankenheimer’s 1962 adaptation of The Manchurian Candidate paints a depressing portrait of America unraveling from within, where the country’s government is torn apart by the collusion of its own leaders willfully (even happily!) allowing themselves to be manipulated by malicious foreign aggressors for personal gain at the… Read More The Wires Have Been Pulled | The Manchurian Candidate (1962) Criterion Collection Blu-ray
By the time Southern Comfort, his fifth feature as director, left theaters as both a critical and box office failure in 1981, Walter Hill had made more flops than hits. He wouldn’t break out as an A-List Hollywood filmmaker until the blockbuster 48 Hrs. the following year. However, like many of Hill’s early movies, this… Read More Survival Is a Mental Outlook | Southern Comfort (1981) Vinegar Syndrome 4K Ultra HD
As a longtime movie collector with many hundreds of Blu-rays and 4K and DVD discs (and even still some Laserdiscs!) cluttering my shelves, the films of John Huston have a special place of honor in my collection. Not only was Huston a masterful director from Hollywood’s golden age who made a number of revered classics… Read More You’ll Take It and Like It | The Maltese Falcon (1941) 4K Ultra HD
Long delayed from its original announcement almost a half-dozen years ago, the planned Star Trek: Discovery spinoff series Section 31 was eventually reduced to a television movie deposited onto streaming in the late January dumping ground. That this project saw any completion at all is no doubt a consequence of star Michelle Yeoh having won… Read More Not Very Starfleet | Star Trek: Section 31 (2025) on Paramount+
I doubt even the biggest fans of The Keep would defend it too strenuously as a good movie. The film is a total mess by just about all objective criteria, with an incoherent story, erratic production values, and sometimes bizarre performances from actors capable of better. A huge bomb during its brief release in 1983,… Read More This Place Has Its Strong Points | The Keep (1983) Vinegar Syndrome 4K Ultra HD
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