Archive for the ‘Disc Reviews’ Category
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Disc Reviews by Michael Durr on May 20th, 2013
Well, it is that time of the year when we must see what the blood suckers, shape shifters, wolves and the faeries are up to. No, I am not talking about the State of the Union address; I’m talking about the latest season of True Blood. Season Five to be exact. In these twelve episodes, we again travel to the land of Bon Temps, Louisiana and see exactly what delicious trouble and dastardly deeds our characters can get themselves tied up in.
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Disc Reviews by John Ceballos on May 20th, 2013
The conclusion of the wildly popular Twilight saga last fall left a nation of haters high-fiving each other, but it also created a giant, heart-shaped vacuum in Hollywood. Where is the industry’s next big young adult-oriented, human-on-supernatural romance franchise going to come from? This past Valentine’s Day was as good a time as any to find out if Beautiful Creatures — based on Kami Garcia and Margaret Stohl’s “Caster Chronicles” series — was up to the task.
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Disc Reviews by Jonathan Foster on May 20th, 2013
“Never let the truth spoil a good story.” – Charlie Watts, drummer
Ever since they came on the scene in the ‘60s, The Rolling Stones have done things in their own unique and unapologetic style. Widely regarded as the anti-Beatles, The Stones’ blues-infused rock music spoke to many people and inspired many a future musician. They personified the era of sex, drugs and rock & roll…especially the “drugs and rock & roll” part.
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Disc Reviews by John Ceballos on May 20th, 2013
The problem with casting Ben Kingsley in this film’s title role is that the Oscar-winning actor is anything but common. He’s been a commanding screen presence for four solid decades, starting with his award-winning work in 1982’s Gandhi and continuing through his surprising performance in Iron Man 3. When Kingsley first appears in A Common Man, he immediately stands out in the crowded streets of Colombo, Sri Lanka thanks to a sharp goatee and his signature shorn dome. Turns out Kingsley’s inherent star power is the least of this movie’s problems.
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Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on May 16th, 2013
“Who is Jack Reacher? Born Jack, not John. No middle name. He’s a ghost. Served in the military police. A brilliant investigator, troublemaker, too. And two years ago he disappears. You don’t find this guy unless he wants to be found.”
We’ve found him. The character of Jack Reacher comes from a series of thriller novels written by Lee Child. From the very start you know that this is going to be a different kind of Jack Reacher than fans have come to know and love from the books. He described as being 6′ 5’’ and about 250 pounds. Tom Cruise doesn’t really fit any of those description elements.
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Disc Reviews by John Ceballos on May 16th, 2013
“We are your Family. We come before anything, even your own family.”
Everything about Once Upon a Time in Brooklyn — the setting, the storyline, the cast, the title — brings to mind vastly superior crime dramas. To be fair, it’s incredibly difficult to say something in this genre that hasn’t already been said brilliantly by the likes of Francis Ford Coppola, Martin Scorsese or David Chase. So instead of trying to carve out its own turf, this low-budget effort seems to almost revel in how derivative it is. At the very least, the people who made this movie seem to love gangster flicks as much as we do.
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Disc Reviews by John Ceballos on May 15th, 2013
Even among the crowded field idyllic meadow of big-screen romances, the “Nicholas Sparks movie” has become its own lucrative sub-genre. The only other contemporary authors I can remember achieving that sort of name brand recognition are Stephen King and John Grisham. (When people went to watch a Harry Potter film, they didn’t usually say, “Let’s go see the new J.K. Rowling movie.) It’s easy to spot a Nicholas Sparks movie: the lily white leads usually live in or around one of the Carolinas, where they inevitably get drenched by a romantic, cleansing rain before coming across a pivotal letter.
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Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on May 15th, 2013
The setting for Gunsmoke was the by-now-famous Dodge City, circa 1870’s. Phrases like “get out of Dodge” would enter the popular lexicon as a result of this resilient series. Marshall Dillon (Arness) was charged with keeping the peace in Dodge City. The only other character to see the entire 20-year run was kindly Doc Adams (Stone). Star Trek’s own Doc, Leonard McCoy, took many of his traits from Doc Adams. He was the humanitarian of the city, always looking to help someone. Like McCoy, he had a taste for bourbon and a soft heart underneath a rather gruff exterior and was always ready with free advice.
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Disc Reviews by William O'Donnell on May 15th, 2013
“’Have gun, will travel’ reads the card of a man. A knight without armor in a savage land…”
Those words ended every episode of Have Gun Will Travel, sung by Johnny Western in a time that such words could be sung without irony. Outside of Richard Boone’s black-clad, craggy Rhett-Butler-gone-to-seed gunfighter, that song was all I could really recall about this venerable Western from television’s golden age.
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Disc Reviews by Brent Lorentson on May 15th, 2013
In 1363, the Black Plague had done its damage, leaving most infected areas uninhabitable. Escape — known in Norway as Flukt — is the story of a family that sets out into the countryside to get away from the plague and hopefully find a new place to rebuild their lives. But just as I’m thinking this is going to be a movie about sticking together and fighting to survive the elements, it shifts gears to something far darker but not all that original.
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Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on May 14th, 2013
“Space… the final frontier. These are the voyages of the starship Enterprise. Its continuing mission, to explore strange new worlds. To seek out new life and new civilizations. To boldly go where no one has gone before.”
When the first season of Star Trek: The Next Generation beamed into our living rooms, I was quite impressed with the quality of work that was done to bring the next generation of Star Trek into the next generation of home video.
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Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on May 14th, 2013
All good things must come to an end, and for the fans of Private Practice the end has come. I’d like to think that the series deserved a little better than the final season provides. Of course, you get pretty much the kind of stories and production you’ve come to expect in six years, but it’s a short season with only 13 episodes and a finale that, I think, might have let the fans down. The finality appears rushed and a bit too plastic and meaningless, something the series itself never was.
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Disc Reviews by Brent Lorentson on May 14th, 2013
“This is not what you think it is.”
Sometimes a movie comes along that simply has so much to say that two hours simply isn’t enough to flesh it out to its full potential. Broken City is a film that is filled with many great characters and story threads that needed more than just the 109-minute running time to tie everything all together.
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Disc Reviews by Jeremy Butler on May 14th, 2013
“An affair born in betrayal will end in ashes.”
And a movie starring Lindsay Lohan and Grant Bowler depicting Hollywood’s most controversial and scandalous couple will share the same fate. Liz & Dick tells the love story of two-time Academy Award winning actress Elizabeth Taylor and respected theater actor turned leading man Richard Burton, documenting from their first meeting to Burton’s death in 1984. The key element to love stories, especially biographical love stories, is casting two people that will have chemistry
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Disc Reviews by Michael Durr on May 14th, 2013
Most cartoons these days seem to be carbon copies of cartoons gone past just with different settings and characters. You got the superhero cartoon, adventure cartoon, anime cartoon, the really kiddie cartoon and the adult cartoon. Today, we have a classic I want to be a Pokemon imitator cartoon. It goes by the name Monsuno. Let us take a look inside the second volume and see if this one is more than an attempt to sell action figures and trading cards.
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Disc Reviews by John Ceballos on May 13th, 2013
We all know what it feels like to nod off in the middle of a film. It starts with micro-naps that last a few seconds. They’re so short, we don’t even realize we’ve fallen asleep. But when we wake up, we feel totally lost because we’ve missed a line of dialogue or scene transition. I mention this for two reasons: 1.) the confused protagonist of Tomorrow You’re Gone floats through his life in a dream-like state and 2.) watching this incomprehensible mess of a movie constantly made me feel like I’d fallen asleep and missed something. That’s a problem because I was wide awake.
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Disc Reviews by Jeremy Butler on May 9th, 2013
“Season of the equinox, the witch besets her kill; one last soul, the town to know taken against their will.”
I’m not the type that scares easy, and I’m not overly superstitious. But when it comes to urban legends, I know there are a few things I never intend to do: I never intend to say “Bloody Mary” three times in the bathroom mirror, I never intend to mix Pop Rocks and Coke, and, if there is a legend about a witch that will come after you if you break one of windows of her house, guess what? I won’t be picking up a rock.
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Disc Reviews by Jonathan Foster on May 9th, 2013
“Texas Territory. In 1821 it was known as ‘Téxas’, and its inhabitants were known as ‘Texicans’. This is the story of their fight for freedom. This is the story of Texas.”
Texas. Just the name of our nation’s second-largest state evokes images of cowboys, gunfights, scenic vistas, and much more. Few states have the combination of history, natural beauty and colorful characters that Texas does. These factors have provided a wealth of stories, and James A. Michener’s Texas (based off Michener’s best-selling novel) recounts one of the most tumultuous times in the state’s history.
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Disc Reviews by Michael Durr on May 8th, 2013
After a four-month hiatus, I have been called to assignment, a very special assignment indeed. Thankfully, the message did not self-destruct after five seconds. However, the message did have demands and required negotiation tactics. That is when I called in the SRU Unit from the show Flashpoint and they burst onto the scene. While they are handling a memo that has a notebook at gunpoint, they left me with a copy of Season Five of Flashpoint to review. Let’s take a look.
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Disc Reviews by Brent Lorentson on May 8th, 2013
“If you have a tender soul, brace yourself.”
Sometimes I’ll get a stand-up comedy DVD and wonder how to write the review differently from other stand-up routines because there was simply little-to-no difference between the acts. Everyone just about knows — or should know — the basic formula. A guy walks out on stage and, for 45 minutes to an hour, delivers self-deprecating humor with the goal of receiving a few laughs. But then there are the comedians like Bo Burnham and Jeff Dunham, who at least try to bring something new to the stage by using music or puppets. In the case of Kristen Schaal, the mold continues to break
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Disc Reviews by Paul O'Callaghan on May 8th, 2013
I should start by saying I just re-watched the 1939 version of Wuthering Heights with Laurence Olivier and Merle Oberon on Turner Classic Movies, and I fell in love all over again. Olivier was never more magnetic, naturalistic and appealing than he was as Heathcliff. I have watched it many times and Wuthering Heights has been done many times. There have been recent versions with Ralph Fiennes and Tom Hardy (The Dark Knight Rises, Inception). This is not one of those versions.
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Disc Reviews by Brent Lorentson on May 8th, 2013
There has always been something about anime, as well as role playing card games like Pokémon and Kaijudo, that I’ve never quite been able to understand the draw towards them. When my friends talk about these games — with their booster packs and leveling up — all I can do is smile, nod my head, and pretend I have the slightest inkling at what they are talking about. Surely I can’t be alone on this. So when it came time to settle in and give Kaijudo: Rise of the Duel Masters a spin, I was reluctant; I hoped, perhaps, I could gain some insight into what some of my friends were talking about.
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Disc Reviews by John Ceballos on May 6th, 2013
“This is America’s war as never seen before…”
When you consider the countless documentaries, miniseries and feature films dedicated to the Second World War, you’d think the defining conflict of the 20th century has been covered from every possible angle. And you’d be wrong! History has taken to the skies with WWII From Space, a two-hour special that originally aired on the cable network in December and promised to bring viewers an unprecedented, extraterrestrial perspective of the war.
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Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on May 2nd, 2013
“You call this plain clothes?”
Few shows in television history have the kind of storied history that you’ll find with Cagney & Lacey. The show’s own story would make for compelling television drama in its own right. It didn’t end with simply trying to get on the air. The trials continued through three cancellations and an unprecedented recasting of a lead…twice. It’s no small miracle that the show made it at all, let alone lasting for six years and a total of over 130 episodes and television movies.
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Disc Reviews by Brent Lorentson on May 2nd, 2013
Being raised Catholic the notion of God calling down to someone and delivering a message to help someone make a decision in life is actually a concept that’s easy to accept. Whether someone else believes, well, that’s a whole other can of worms people usually don’t like to discuss. But with If You Really Love Me we are given a look behind the curtain at one man’s decision to leave a successful law firm in order to fulfill the destiny laid out by what would appear is a higher power.
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