Paramount Home Entertainment

CHICAGO – DVD editions from Paramount Home Entertainment’s most popular films are on tap for holiday and general gift giving, and several are in the latest 4K ULTRA HD format … providing high definition pixel imagery that is PERFECT for backyard or any projected film nights.

CHICAGO – Patrick McDonald of HollywoodChicago.com audio DVD reviews for Paramount Home Entertainment in 2022, including their special series “Paramount Presents … “ In two parts, reviews for “Good Burger” (1997), “Event Horizon” (1997), “Raiders of the Lost Ark” (1981), “Grease 2” (1982), “The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance” (1962), “Blue Hawaii” (1961), “Ordinary People” (1980) and the double feature package of “War of the Worlds”/“When Worlds Collide” (1953/51).

CHICAGO – There is not quite any entertainment like a great John Wayne picture, and “McLintock!” certainly fulfills that expectation. But in adapting Shakepeare’s “Taming of the Shrew,” they forgot that the womenfolk had progressed a bit since the spankings that were liberally doled out against the wives and daughters.

CHICAGO – Witches were always my monster of choice as a child. Their façade of maternal warmth that routinely gave way to fiendish malice was both scary and oddly funny. Actresses love playing this archetype because it allows them to break all the rules followed by photogenic starlets. The fun had by everyone in a witch’s cape—from Margaret Hamilton to Angelica Huston—is timelessly infectious.

CHICAGO – With her chin pointed high, eyes bulging, teeth gleaming and hands contorting as if performing a Transylvanian spell, screen actress Norma Desmond insists that she’s ready for her close-up. She descends her staircase and becomes fully engulfed in the gray haze of her delusions in one of the greatest and most unforgettable final scenes in cinema history.

CHICAGO – To say that Rupert Sanders’s “Snow White and the Huntsman” is one of the year’s best-looking films would be entirely accurate, but it’s also one of the least involving. The more sumptuous the visuals became, the more infuriating I found the tedious script, which plods along from A to B to C without any real sense of urgency, before making a tired plea for a franchise. How depressing.

CHICAGO – Sean Byrne’s “The Loved Ones” is one of those cinematic curiosities so gleefully depraved and unapologetically looney that it appears to have been conceived in an insane asylum. There is no logical reason why this picture should work at all, and yet it has been made with such conviction that I couldn’t help watching it in a state of slack-jawed awe.

CHICAGO – By the age of 15, actress Hanna Hall had delivered iconic lines in two of the most acclaimed films of the ’90s. After famously yelling, “Run, Forrest, run!” in Robert Zemeckis’s Oscar-winner, “Forrest Gump,” Hall nailed the unforgettable line, “Obviously, doctor, you’ve never been a 13-year-old girl,” in Sofia Coppola’s directorial debut, “The Virgin Suicides.”

CHICAGO – Sometimes it’s difficult to determine why a film retains its cult status over the years. Jonathan Lynn’s adaptation of the Parker Brothers board game may be fondly remembered as a cult favorite simply because its source material was so unusual (at least back in 1985). Yet unlike “Battleship,” the game of “Clue” has a built-in plot and colorful ensemble that could easily inspire an entertaining script.

CHICAGO – I have a certain begrudging affection for Gore Verbinski’s 2002 remake of Hideo Nakata’s 1998 thriller, “Ringu,” despite the fact that I know in my heart of hearts that it doesn’t really work. Verbinski’s film falters precisely when it should be at its scariest, and yet it still has enough memorably eerie moments to inspire at least a couple sleepless nights.