Slippery Pitch: Blu-ray review of The Damned United

"The film looks spectacular in its Blu-ray transfer, and Hooper injects it with a great energy. From the shot framing to the choice of lenses to the rhythm of the editing to the widescreen vistas, the film’s stunning visual flair matches Clough’s bombast and enthusiasm. Even with the great visuals paired to Sheen’s magnetic performance, though, this is still going to be a tough sell for non-football fans."

Click here to read my review at PopMatters

Death Every Afternoon: A DVD review of The Hit

"...despite its generic title and the professions of its central characters, The Hit bears little resemblance to the gangster film in the traditional sense. It’s closer in nature to Nicolas Roeg and Donald Cammell’s Performance, a film that opens as a full-on gritty gangster film but radically shifts gears to become a psychedelic head trip about questioning self-identity. The Hit is a less complex (and less frustrating) film but it follows a similar trajectory of using gangster film qualities to philosophize about the nature of death."

Click here to read my review at PopMatters

The Legend of Hell House: Beware a Black Cat

"The Legend of Hell House, released in 1973, satisfies most of the desires inherent in the haunted house formula and manages to hold up pretty well, without succumbing to campiness or risible special effects. Well, except for a sequence featuring an awesome catfight—literally, between one of the lead characters and a demonically possessed black cat that concludes in a bludgeoning-by-candlestick."

Click here to read my review at Not Coming to a Theater Near You