Archive for the ‘No Huddle Reviews’ Category
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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 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 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 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 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 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 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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Disc Reviews by Jeremy Butler on May 1st, 2013
“Some people are lucky enough to find their true passions. That’s okay, because their passion makes them feel like somebody. Sometimes it’s the only thing that keeps them moving. I know some people don’t get mine. My passion is jumping rope…competitively, but I like it.”
Growing up I can remember a desire to tie my parents up; did anyone else share that desire? Don’t get me wrong, this desire was not meant with malicious intent, but to simply grasp the full attention of my parents.
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Disc Reviews by Jonathan Foster on May 1st, 2013
“Imagine if you could never make another sound, not for the rest of your life.”
With those opening words, Marvel Knights Animation draws you into the world of the Inhumans, a race with many different genetic varieties. This 12-episode DVD shares one of the many stories from this unique corner of the Marvel Universe, focusing on the Inhumans’ home of Attilan, an island in the middle of the ocean. Ruled by their king, Black Bolt, they are content to live in their protective dome, blissfully ignoring the outside world.
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Disc Reviews by Brent Lorentson on April 30th, 2013
I wasn’t sure what I’d be getting into when picking up this Bollywood animated feature for kids. Though it has an Americanized voice cast, the Bollywood culture is more than evident throughout this feature, not just through the cultural views but the many song and dance numbers peppered throughout. As the film progressed, there was one thing that stuck with me from the beginning; this film has a message, and it’s not subtle about it, it hits the audience square in the jaw with it.
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Disc Reviews by Jonathan Foster on April 29th, 2013
What do you get when you take one over-actor, one under-actor, a mythical creature, and place them in the Norwegian woods? The answer is Thale, the worst thing to come out of Norway since the Viking raids. This is quite possibly the most boring film I’ve ever seen (and I’ve seen Rubber and Southland Tales). Leo and Elvis clean up crime scenes for a living. One day, while cleaning up a scene where a man’s body has been scavenged by animals, they find a hidden doorway to a secret room.
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Disc Reviews by Jeremy Butler on April 25th, 2013
Things needed to survive a zombie apocalypse: a secure location to hole up in, water (lots of water), canned goods, a hatchet, and a high-powered rifle (preferably with a scope). Luckily for Jim, the main character of State of Emergency, all these things just happen to fall into his lap. Produced by the Clay Brothers (Haven’t heard of them? That’s okay, neither have I.), State of Emergency is their second feature film, and though it ultimately shows promise, it could have been better with a few tweaks.
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Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on April 24th, 2013
“This series presents information based, in part, in theory and conjecture. The producers’ purpose is to suggest some possible explanations, but not necessarily the only ones to the mysteries we will examine.”
Everybody loves a mystery. I’m not talking about a murder mystery found in a book or movie. I’m talking about the mysteries of life. We’re surrounded by them. Do aliens exist? Have they visited us now or in our ancient past? Can plants communicate? Are some sharks immortal?
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Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on April 24th, 2013
As The Virginian entered its seventh year there were very few changes. Of course, this would be the final year, that could be said. The only new cast member was David Hartman who played David Sutton, a drifter who comes to the notice of The Virginian and hires on at Shiloh. He doesn’t appear in many episodes and is almost completely gone in the last handful of stories, returning only for the final episode of the year. Unfortunately, there was one cast member taking his leave. Clu Gulager would no longer be on the show as Deputy Ryker. Many of the rest of the cast would also leave at the end of the next season.
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Disc Reviews by John Ceballos on April 23rd, 2013
“Nobody grows up wanting to be a knuckleball pitcher. It’s born of desperation; it’s born of necessity.”
By the start of the 2011 season, there were only two active knuckleballers in Major League Baseball. One was a failed power-hitting 1B/3B, while the other had been cut by his team at the start of the previous year’s spring training. Knuckleball! — an engaging documentary dedicated to the kookiest pitch in baseball history — illustrates how that desperation extends beyond the few brave souls who have attempted to make a living in the big leagues by throwing very softly.
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Disc Reviews by Paul O'Callaghan on April 22nd, 2013
You need to imagine you are back in 1969. Many of you will have no idea what a different world it was back then. So many things did not exist, like computers and the internet and cable television. So much is available now that people could only fantasize about then. Now any unsupervised 10-year-old can see just about anything they want. It’s hard to imagine how big a difference that is. Hiding Playboy magazines under the mattress was about as bad as it got back then. There was a huge unfulfilled demand for adult entertainment when adults couldn’t find much that excited or titillated them.
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Disc Reviews by Jeremy Butler on April 16th, 2013
“Solving the following riddle will reveal the awful secret behind the universe, assuming you do not go utterly mad in the attempt.”
Never question the importance that a title plays in the success of a film. The title is the first thing that you encounter when discovering a new movie. Let me set the scene: you are at home, bored and looking for a movie to watch so you go to a Redbox kiosk or log onto your Netflix (given that video stores are close to extinct at this point); you narrow your selection down to two titles.
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Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on April 10th, 2013
David McCallum has been a vital part of two outstanding television shows in his illustrious career. The Scottish-born actor played the Russian/British secret agent Illya Kuryakin in the spy series The Man From U.N.C.L.E. The series capitalized on the whole James Bond fad that was sweeping television both in England and in the United States in the 1960′s. The series lasted five years and over 100 episodes. In recent years McCallum has added a 10-year run as pathologist Dr. Donald “Ducky” Mallard on the number one scripted show on television: the original NCIS. In between he’s appeared on countless other shows both in England and the States.
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Disc Reviews by Jonathan Foster on April 8th, 2013
“I’ve always advocated, and I still will advocate until the day I close my eyes and die, that there should be a national holiday honoring Jackie Roosevelt Robinson, so then all people will know who this man is.”
That statement by fellow Brooklyn Dodger Don Newcombe illustrates just how important Jackie Robinson was, not just to baseball, but to professional sports as a whole and the civil rights movement. When Robinson strode onto Ebbets Field in 1947, he shattered a color barrier that had been in place since professional baseball began.
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Disc Reviews by Paul O'Callaghan on April 4th, 2013
Many small unheralded horror films are produced, and they easily slip through the cracks. The Frankenstein Theory is one. It has an interesting premise, though. In 2012, Professor Jonathan Venkenheim takes a film crew to the Arctic to document the attempt to prove that Mary Shelly’s Frankenstein was a true story based on his great, great, great grandfather’s letters. Venkenheim is a highly educated, nervous, and nerdy academic who is obsessed with this possibility. The documentary crew and Venkenheim’s own girlfriend think his obsession is driving him a little mad, but they want the job, and Venkenheim will not be deterred.
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