I'll place my China Beach order on Monday and, within a few days, will begin to wend my way through all 62 episodes. I know there were be moments, probably a lot of them, when I'll be angry at how "wrong" the show is about "my" Vietnam.
A flood of Oscar winners, nominees and those that should have been hit stores in the last few weeks. Here's a rundown of recent new films that have just debuted on DVD and BluRay.
This week I cover the new season of Downton Abbey (without any spoilers), some new releases including Adam Sandler's biggest hit in years, another excellent Criterion release, a John Ford gem and a round-up of (mostly) British TV. Enjoy.
OK, you just bought a jar of kosher pickles and you're dying to put one on the burger you just barbecued. You should be able to just unscrew the lid easily, remove the juicy pickle from its briny bathwater and slap it on the meat. This used to be easy. Not anymore.
It's never easy to make a movie, much less one not geared toward the masses. Here's a rundown of new movies, documentaries, TV shows and classics getting a reissue, including one of my all-time favorite romantic dramas on BluRay.
It was two in the morning and I just wanted to check out the picture and sound quality of this new restoration. Almost against my will, I was mesmerized once again by one of the most intelligent, complex and fascinating depictions of an historical figure on film.
Here's one poll you can trust: whenever film buffs vote on the best directors of all time, Alfred Hitchcock will score highly. If you're looking for a distraction on Election Day until the results are in, check out my reviews of a new boxed set of Hitch and other releases.
Here's a rundown of some terrific sets that came out just in the last two or three weeks. It's impossible to put them in order of preference: many of these are gems we've been waiting a long time for.
At this point, either you find director Wes Anderson's sensibility tiresome and twee or you used to like it but can't bear the cult of personality around his body of work or you're in all the way. I'm in all the way.
The Indiana Jones quartet on BluRay for the first time. Raiders looks better than it has, but is it possible this film needs a full restoration? I couldn't help thinking it should look even better throughout.
There's no question you'll get much more value out of watching and rewatching The Cat In The Hat than the latest stab at puffing up a Seuss tale into a movie.
Seriously, has there ever been a better time to be a movie buff? Even if you're not wowed by Hollywood's current blockbusters, you have the entire history of cinema virtually at your fingertips.
The Three Stooges were always the blue collar comedians of live action comedy shorts. They nyucked-nyucked their way through 190 group shorts, some 28 solo shorts and a couple of feature films. That's a lot of poked eyes.
Have you been soaking up all the hoopla over Queen Elizabeth II's Diamond Jubilee? Well, until they release a DVD set of all the goings-on in the UK, here are some other titles to tide you over.
Madonna's career will surely inspire countless documentaries and studies in the future. But the Truth Or Dare film -- which might have been a concert throwaway -- is in fact a pretty enduring look at media manipulation and how she exploited the spotlight.
War Horse is based on the novel by Michael Morpurgo, a solid young adult novel with classic status in the UK. It was turned into a brilliant bit of theater (really, you should see it if at all possible). But Spielberg's film fails on every level.