DVD Verdict reviews: OCEAN'S TWELVE, HOTEL RWANDA, FINDING NEVERLAND, and more!

Today, DVD Verdict posted reviews of APOLLO 13: 10TH ANNIVERSARY
EDITION, THE CORPORATION, FINDING NEVERLAND, HOTEL RWANDA, LICENSE TO
DRIVE, LIGHTNING IN A BOTTLE, LI'L ABNER, MEMENTO MORI, OCEAN'S TWELVE,
REVERSE OF THE CURSE OF THE BAMBINO, SPACEBALLS: COLLECTOR'S EDITION,
and TEACHER'S PET (195:


APOLLO 13: 10TH ANNIVERSARY EDITION (reviewed by David Johnson, overall
score 92/100):
"That's the foremost reason the movie works: the naturally thrilling
source material it draws on. All this stuff took place, and all the
seemingly insurmountable problems facing NASA and the crew propel the
suspense forward. Who knew problem solving could be so fun? And that's
what drives Apollo 13: the unending supply of problems. It's literally
one after the other for the doomed mission, and the forced
resourcefulness all the NASA smartasses have to drum up makes for
compelling stuff."

FULL REVIEW: http://www.dvdverdict.com/reviews/apollo13se.php

THE CORPORATION (reviewed by Joel Pearce, overall score 98/100):
"I have rarely felt inspired to act at the end of a film as I did when
the credits of The Corporation began to roll."

FULL REVIEW: http://www.dvdverdict.com/reviews/corporation.php

FINDING NEVERLAND (reviewed by Joel Pearce, overall score 95/100):
"The stranger the story is, the deeper we want to dig into an author's
mind. The brilliance of Finding Neverland is in the way it both uses and
undermines this idea. "

FULL REVIEW: http://www.dvdverdict.com/reviews/findingneverland.php

HOTEL RWANDA (reviewed by Diane Wild, overall score 94/100):
"Paul Rusesabagina is no Hollywood-sized superhero. His connections gave
him the power to help, but his nobility is the nobility of the ordinary
man in extraordinary circumstances, doing what he can because there is
no one else to do it."

FULL REVIEW: http://www.dvdverdict.com/reviews/hotelrwanda.php

LICENSE TO DRIVE (reviewed by Brett Cullum, overall score 89/100):
"This is your standard teen flick from the era; thankfully, the genre
seems to have died. If you're not a fan of the '80s teen movie then you
should stay far, far away from this disc. It's purely nostalgia, and
functions on almost no other level."

FULL REVIEW: http://www.dvdverdict.com/reviews/licensetodrive.php

LIGHTNING IN A BOTTLE (reviewed by Joe Armenio, overall score 87/100):
"The focus is always on the concert, and non-performance material is
kept to a minimum. There are some brief interviews, and a little footage
of backstage hobnobbing, but these amount to little more than
transitional passages. This focus on performance strikes me as a good
thing; too many documentaries about artists decline into bland,
repetitious overpraising of their subjects when they let people talk too
much. It's best to let the music speak for itself."

FULL REVIEW: http://www.dvdverdict.com/reviews/lightninginbottle.php

LI'L ABNER (reviewed by Maurice Cobbs, overall score 90/100):
"When I first saw this movie, I was vaguely aware of some indistinct
figures moving around and taking screen time away from the movie's star,
Julie Newmar, as well as the film's story line, which involved the
dazzling Stupefyin' Jones on an average day, walking in the woods. I
also noticed, strangely, that my head had morphed into that of a cartoon
wolf's and that I was racing around the room and howling periodically."

FULL REVIEW: http://www.dvdverdict.com/reviews/lilabner.php

MEMENTO MORI (reviewed by Joel Pearce, overall score 95/100):
"The 'sort of' sequel to Whispering Corridors, Memento Mori is a triumph
of great filmmaking in spite of challenging circumstances. Directors Tae-
yong Kim and Kyu-dong Min didn't really want to make a horror movie, and
were instead far more fascinated by a taboo relationship between two
young schoolgirls. Korean society has some serious issues with
homosexuality, though, so this story needed to be embedded into a film
of another genre, and a whole lot of controversial footage needed to be
excised. "

FULL REVIEW: http://www.dvdverdict.com/reviews/mementomori.php

OCEAN'S TWELVE (reviewed by David Johnson, overall score 82/100):
"I'm not saying this is the deepest movie in the world. It's not. Nor
does it want to be. The point of Ocean's Twelve is to entertain the
pants off of you, feed you eye candy, and send you home with a smile on
your face. I think it succeeds."

FULL REVIEW: http://www.dvdverdict.com/reviews/oceans12.php

REVERSE OF THE CURSE OF THE BAMBINO (reviewed by David Johnson, overall
score 89/100):
"You will not get a more complete picture of a Red Sox fan, short of
moving to the North End and spending every night in a sports bar. The
filmmakers ingeniously wove together the musings of regular folks and
famous faces. It's great because no matter where they are in life, they
all share the common denominator of being devoted Red Sox fans. They
have all felt destroyed at some point in their life -- and, most
recently, elated. Forget Marx -- the pain that the Red Sox bring is the
great equalizer."

FULL REVIEW: http://www.dvdverdict.com/reviews/re...rsebambino.php

SPACEBALLS: COLLECTOR'S EDITION (reviewed by Mac McEntire, overall
score 88/100):
"Yes, it's funny, but these are cheap laughs. There are bathroom jokes,
characters speaking directly to the audience, several instances of
someone getting bonked on the head, and so on. Yet despite its glaring
immaturity, somehow the movie holds together. You might hate yourself
for laughing at it, but you'll laugh."

FULL REVIEW: http://www.dvdverdict.com/reviews/spaceballsce.php

TEACHER'S PET (195 (reviewed by Amanda DeWees, overall score 92/100):
"Although Teacher's Pet does fall into the romantic comedy genre,
its intelligence, its low-key atmosphere, and its thoughtfully
developed characters and story make it much more satisfying to the
adult palate than cotton candy like You've Got Mail or How to Lose a
Guy in Ten Days."

FULL REVIEW: http://www.dvdverdict.com/reviews/teacherspet1958.php

Mike Jackson
Editor & Webmaster, DVD Verdict
www.dvdverdict.com

DVD Verdict

DVD Verdict wrote:

> LI'L ABNER (reviewed by Maurice Cobbs, overall score 90/100):
> "When I first saw this movie, I was vaguely aware of some indistinct
> figures moving around and taking screen time away from the movie's star,
> Julie Newmar, as well as the film's story line, which involved the
> dazzling Stupefyin' Jones on an average day, walking in the woods. I
> also noticed, strangely, that my head had morphed into that of a cartoon
> wolf's and that I was racing around the room and howling periodically."

(...Did I mention that I enjoy reading daily DVDVerdict excerpts?)

Derek Janssen

Derek Janssen