Ultra HD Blu-ray Movie Reviews

These days you're not likely to see a Quentin Tarantino script directed by someone else, but there was a time when the young filmmaker-cum-video-store-clerk was raising funds to make his directorial debut (Reservoir Dogs) and sold True Romance, which was ultimately helmed by Top Gun's Tony Scott. The movie took a few years to find its audience—and current cult status—but is now hard to see it as anything but inspired and uniquely entertaining.

Those seeking an accurate account of notorious gangster Al Capone's downfall should continue their search elsewhere. But anyone wanting two thrilling hours of fact-influenced entertainment need look no further. Director Brian De Palma's artful take on Eliot Ness and his squad of incorruptible treasury agents on a quest to clean up Prohibition-era Chicago blends hard-hitting dialogue and career-best performances in an almost operatic tale of good versus evil.

The Northman is a stylish, brutal, and satisfyingly well-made film about a Viking prince named Amleth whose uncle murders his father and kidnaps his mother. He swears vengeance against his uncle and after locating him years later, devises a plan to exact his revenge, even though all is not as it seems. Writer-director Robert Eggers' is also the man behind the critically acclaimed The Lighthouse, a psychological thriller that can be challenging to watch at times. This film, while a little less disturbing and more accessible to squeamish viewers, still has its fair share of gory violence and frightening imagery.

When on-the-run drifter Stanton Carlisle stumbles into a seedy, travelling carnival in the late 1930s, he begins an adventure that might not end well. Ingratiating himself with the show's resident fortune-telling act, he manages to develop a flair for reading people, a talent that naive audiences see as mind-reading. Eventually he sets off in search of fame and richer pickings along with Molly, the carny's electric-girl act (and the film's rare sympathetic character). He hits the top, performing for upscale audiences, but when he meets Dr. Lilith Ritter, a big-city psychiatrist with wealthy clients and her own way with a grift, he more than meets his match.

In The Matrix: Resurrections, Neo (Keanu Reeves) is a developer responsible for the most popular game trilogy, one that ponders what would happen if AI took over the world and we didn't realize it. In his everyday life, listless and disconnected, Neo is seeing a therapist called the Analyst (Neil Patrick Harris) who has been prescribing him blue pills so he can get his head right. Turns out that Neo is back in the Matrix and he doesn't know it, but he can feel it. Thankfully, people are trying to rescue him. They also stumble across something new in the Matrix, called "modals," where incidents from Neo's past are being replayed over and over, but the outcomes are slightly different each time.

Adult-skewing animation wasn't a new genre by 1981 (thank you, Ralph Bakshi), but was the world at that time ready for Heavy Metal? Inspired by the illustrated fantasy publication of the same name, this R-rated feature film served up a disparate series of sex-and-violence-filled short stories, loosely held together by the presence of a deadly mystical sphere called the Loc-Nar. Since each issue was an anthology, with assorted tales from a variety of creators, the range of dramatic tones and visual styles here perfectly captures the spirit of the magazine.