Geoffrey Morrison

Video: 3
Audio: 3
Extras: 5
The original Clerks, released in 1994, was the seminal work for people of my generation. That should be as disturbing as it sounds. I doubt there was a film school in the country that didn’t spew out Kevin Smith wannabes at a tremendous rate for the better part of a decade. All of them, and every other fan of that film, surely got a twang of disappointment when they heard about Clerks II. Had the great bearded auteur finally sold out? Well, amazingly enough, he pulls it off. Where Clerks was about a bunch of losers wanting to do something with their lives, Clerks II takes place 11 years later and finds the same losers now disappointed that they really haven’t done anything with their lives. It actually works, it’s funny, and it’s a story worth telling.

Video: 3
Audio: 3
Extras: 5
There’s something inherently fascinating about watching someone who is unquestionably the best at what they do. Bruce Lee was just incredible to watch, and, regardless of the quality of the films he was in, they are worth watching just to marvel at his greatness. Enter the Dragon, ostensibly about a martial-arts competition put on by one bad dude, is really just a showcase for one of the greatest athletes the world has ever seen.

Video: 4
Audio: 5
Extras: 5
I was so unimpressed with the first two Harry Potter movies that I didn’t bother to see the third or this one in theaters. Boy, did I miss out. This and Prisoner of Azkaban are excellent. In this episode of the Harry Potter serials, Hogwarts is playing host to the Triwizard Tournament. Somehow, Harry’s name gets entered, even though he’s too young. From the little touches of the teenagers’ growing pains to the significant plot developments in the Potter canon, you shouldn’t miss this one. Oh, and there’s a bunch of action, too.

Video: 5
Audio: 5
Extras: 2
House of Flying Daggers is, in many ways, similar to many other martial-arts movies you've seen (most notably, the crazily popular Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon). It has all of the action and incredible fight sequences we've come to expect from the best Hong Kong exports. From a visual standpoint, though, it has more in common with the stylized color works of Japanese director Akira Kurosawa. And what visuals they are. In Hero, director Yimou Zhang used massive amounts of color. Sometimes entire shots would be one color. Here, that is rarely the case, but color is no smaller a tool—just a more finely honed one. The story is of a love affair between an assassin and a policeman as a war builds around them.