Author: Jason Zingale

Blu Tuesday is a weekly column where we review the newest Blu-ray and 4K releases, along with a brief rundown of the included bonus material, to determine whether they’re worth buying, renting or skipping. Pick of the Week: “First Man” Neil Armstrong isn’t the most engaging personality to get the biopic treatment, but director Damien Chazelle finds the humanity in his subject’s somewhat cold demeanor to produce a fascinating look at the early years of the NASA space program. Ryan Gosling delivers a deeply internal performance as the celebrated astronaut, while Claire Foy brilliantly balances out that quietude as his…

Blu Tuesday is a weekly column where we review the newest Blu-ray and 4K releases, along with a brief rundown of the included bonus material, to determine whether they’re worth buying, renting or skipping. Pick of the Week: “Halloween” When it was announced that David Gordon Green and Danny McBride would be leading the charge on a new “Halloween” movie, horror fans were understandably a bit skeptical. But while Green and McBride may not have seemed like an obvious choice, the self-professed superfans have delivered a fitting follow-up to the 1978 original that’s better than any of the previous sequels…

Blu Tuesday is a weekly column where we review the newest Blu-ray and 4K releases, along with a brief rundown of the included bonus material, to determine whether they’re worth buying, renting or skipping. Pick of the Week: “Mid90s” Jonah Hill has carved out a respectable career for someone who got their start in comedies like “Grandma’s Boy” and “Accepted,” but his directorial debut is too aimless to suggest he’ll have similar success behind the camera. Though “Mid90s” is obviously a personal project for Hill, the coming-of-age drama plays like a second-rate Richard Linklater film. Sunny Suljic is a good…

Another year has come and gone, and while the movies have mostly been good, this year’s crop differs from past years in that many of the major awards contenders (films like “Roma,” “If Beale Street Could Talk” and “Vice”) are so bang average that they didn’t even earn a spot among my top 20. Though my year-end lists have always diverged from the general critic consensus, the biggest takeaway from my 2018 review isn’t so much about what movies made the list but rather where they placed. Honorable Mentions (in alphabetical order): “American Animals,” “BlacKkKlansman,” “Bohemian Rhapsody,” “Eighth Grade,” “Green Book,” “Incredibles 2,” “Spider-Man:…

Blu Tuesday is a weekly column where we review the newest Blu-ray and 4K releases, along with a brief rundown of the included bonus material, to determine whether they’re worth buying, renting or skipping. Pick of the Week: “Bad Times at the El Royale” Drew Goddard’s long-awaited follow-up to “The Cabin in the Woods” lacks the punch of his 2011 horror comedy, but it’s still a mostly enjoyable Tarantino-esque crime thriller (complete with intertwining narratives and time jumps) that does its best to subvert audience expectations. The movie features a star-studded cast that includes Jeff Bridges, Chris Hemsworth, Dakota Johnson…

Blu Tuesday is a weekly column where we review the newest Blu-ray and 4K releases, along with a brief rundown of the included bonus material, to determine whether they’re worth buying, renting or skipping. Pick of the Week: “A Simple Favor” It’s hard to believe that the same guy behind raucous comedies like “Bridesmaids” and “The Heat” is responsible for “A Simple Favor,” but Paul Feig’s latest effort is arguably his best film to date. Based on Darcey Bell’s 2017 novel of the same name, “A Simple Favor” is a fun and twisty whodunnit that plays like “Gone Girl”-lite. It…

Blu Tuesday is a weekly column where we review the newest Blu-ray and 4K releases, along with a brief rundown of the included bonus material, to determine whether they’re worth buying, renting or skipping. Pick of the Week: “Smallfoot” When the trailer for “Smallfoot” first debuted, it looked like yet another throwaway animated film that would be soon forgotten, and to be fair, that’s pretty much exactly what happened. But while the movie pales in comparison to this year’s stronger animated fare, it’s much better than expected thanks to a solid voice cast led by Channing Tatum, Zendaya and James…

Blu Tuesday is a weekly column where we review the newest Blu-ray and 4K releases, along with a brief rundown of the included bonus material, to determine whether they’re worth buying, renting or skipping. Pick of the Week: “Mission: Impossible – Fallout” The “Mission: Impossible” series has had a long-standing custom of employing a different director for each new film, but “Fallout” breaks that tradition with the return of Christopher McQuarrie, and it pays off in a big way with one of the best installments yet. Though the movie is perhaps a little too long and complex, it’s also incredibly…

Blu Tuesday is a weekly column where we review the newest Blu-ray and 4K releases, along with a brief rundown of the included bonus material, to determine whether they’re worth buying, renting or skipping. Pick of the Week: “Crazy Rich Asians” Much has been made about the fact that “Crazy Rich Asians” is the first Hollywood movie to feature an all-Asian cast since “The Joy Luck Club,” and while that should definitely be applauded (even if it only further highlights the lack of diversity in mainstream films), the movie succeeds primarily because it’s a good story filled with good performances.…

Blu Tuesday is a weekly column where we review the newest Blu-ray and 4K releases, along with a brief rundown of the included bonus material, to determine whether they’re worth buying, renting or skipping. Pick of the Week: “Juliet, Naked” Writer Nick Hornby has been kicking around Hollywood for the better part of 20 years. He’s had his own novels adapted for the big screen (“About a Boy,” “High Fidelity”) and has adapted the works of others (“Brooklyn,” “An Education”) as well. His latest novel to receive the big screen treatment is “Juliet, Naked,” and although it’s definitely among the…