Archive for the ‘2.35:1 Widescreen’ Category
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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 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 Brent Lorentson on April 22nd, 2013
Donnie Yen continues to deliver one great martial arts film after the other, easily making him the most entertaining martial arts star for quite some time. Sure, there are those who cling to the idea of Bruce Lee being “the best” or perhaps mentioning Jackie Chan or Jet Li for more modern viewers. But for me it’s Yen, and I have no problem saying he may be the best martial arts star of all time. His work with Ip Man, Seven Swords, and Flash Point are staples in a career that has been going since 1984.
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Disc Reviews by Brent Lorentson on April 16th, 2013
Sometimes a movie comes along that rises above simple entertainment and actually has something to say. The Big Picture is the kind of movie that has profound ideas about love, family, and the pursuit of your dreams. Is it possible to really have it all? The perfect spouse, the perfect family and live out your lifelong passion and dream? Many who have families, especially when starting young, can understand the idea of sacrifice for their families; it doesn’t mean they just cast their hopes and dreams aside, but once marriage and children are involved the direction your life may take was never the direction you had planned at all.
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Disc Reviews by John Ceballos on April 1st, 2013
When The Sandlot first came out 20 years ago, I connected to the coming-of-age baseball story as strongly as Babe Ruth connected with one of his titanic, 400-foot homers. I grew up in baseball-obsessed Puerto Rico and I happened to be the exact same age as dorky protagonist Scotty Smalls. Though I’ve kept in touch with the film over the years, Fox’s new 20th Anniversary Blu-ray re-release of The Sandlot marked my first time watching it from start to finish in a long while. It surely won’t be the last.
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Disc Reviews by Jeremy Butler on March 26th, 2013
I tend to shy away from films that have come out before I was born. It’s not a rule, just a habit. The reason for that being because not being from the generation that movie was produced in, I fear that there will be a lot of cultural reference that I will be unfamiliar with and I will have to Wikipedia them all. I also feel that because I am from a different era I am not qualified to render a sound opinion of an older film, because I may judge it too harshly due to my growing up within a time of special effect advancement.
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Disc Reviews by John Ceballos on March 21st, 2013
Day of the Falcon is a photogenic, lavish reminder that violence and strife in the Middle East existed well before it could be broadcast on CNN. The film — set in the early part of the 20th century — also works as a throwback to the sort of rollicking, epic-scale adventure films David Lean was making at the height of his powers and that no one seems terribly interested in making anymore. Don’t get me wrong: Day of the Falcon is no Lawrence of Arabia or Bridge on the River Kwai, but it’s an accetable 21st century substitute.
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Disc Reviews by John Ceballos on March 13th, 2013
“The border between the United States and Mexico spans 2,000 miles. It’s also the most frequently crossed land border in the entire world. And that just refers to legal crossings…”
Hundreds of thousands of people — we’re told at the start of Border Run — try to cross that boundary every year, and each of them has a unique story. Unfortunately, the filmmakers botched a great opportunity to explore the thorny issue of illegal immigration in a thoughtful and stimulating way by choosing to tell the most ridiculous and off-putting story they could possibly think of.
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Disc Reviews by Brent Lorentson on March 7th, 2013
In a film the pays its respects to the French soldiers who are participating in the war on terror as well as the journalists that risk their lives to cover the war, Special Forces delivers more of the same in this new release. Though the default setting has the spoken language in English and has English-speaking stars, don’t let this French release fool you; the dubbing is terrible and the film is better viewed in its original language. Elsa (Diane Krugar) is a French journalist who is in Afghanistan to cover a story about a woman sold as a child. By now we should all know speaking against the politics in these countries is not just bad, but when you are a woman this could get you killed.
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Disc Reviews by John Ceballos on February 22nd, 2013
And you thought Thanksgiving dinner with your family was tense. For most of us, it doesn’t get much worse than critical parents, competitive siblings or that weird side dish no one really wants to try. (There always seems to be about a gallon of that stuff too.) Consider yourself lucky: unlike the poor souls in Deadfall, you’ve probably never been chained to the dinner table — not literally, at least — nor had a psychotic Eric Bana point a gun at your face.
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Disc Reviews by Jeremy Butler on February 15th, 2013
“What’s the matter? Don’t you like role-playing?”
I was on the verge of writing this film off as another zombie flick hoping to capture on the popularity brought about by the AMC series The Walking Dead, but then….BAM! It brought forth a plot twist that veered it away from all other zombie movies and grabbed my attention. It was no longer a zombie film; it was much more interesting.
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Disc Reviews by John Ceballos on January 31st, 2013
No matter how much you hated Prometheus — parts of it were startlingly dumb, but people who seriously talk about it like it’s the worst film of all time need to take a deep breath — Ridley Scott has a pretty strong case to be included on any list of Top 10 Living Directors. His work has helped redefine genres (Alien, Blade Runner, Gladiator) given us indelible images (that final still from Thelma & Louise) and even provided a few smaller-scale delights (Matchstick Men is my favorite of this group). So I’m proposing we take a quick break from trashing his last movie to discuss his very first one.
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Disc Reviews by Jeremy Butler on January 30th, 2013
How exactly do you make a superhero movie without the powers? Answer: Have them wake up with their powers being stripped from them. All Superheroes Must Die is a superhero tale that from the title you can tell is fated not to end in the traditional way that superhero films end: with the righteous prospering and the wicked suffering. What the film title doesn’t let you know, however, is how underwhelming the film is. It does have an interesting startup, I’ll give it that.
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Disc Reviews by John Ceballos on January 20th, 2013
If Compliance weren’t based on true events, the film’s plot would immediately be dismissed as implausible and insulting of its audience’s intelligence. (Same with Argo.) As the story of an incredibly committed prank caller and his unwitting prey progresses, there’s a pretty good chance you’ll repeatedly roll your eyes. There’s an even better chance the eye rolling will be followed by a feeling of outrage — definitely toward the caller, but maybe even toward the gullible victims — when you remember this stuff actually happened.
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Disc Reviews by Jonathan Foster on January 13th, 2013
What do you do when you have to choose between the law and what is morally right? Lieutenant Danny Sefton (Seth Gabel, TV’s Dirty Sexy Money and Fringe) faces that very problem in Allegiance. Having lost the respect of the men in his command by transferring to a recruiting position right before they are to deploy to Iraq, Sefton faces a crisis of conscience when one of those men — Specialist Chris Reyes (Shad “Bow Wow” Moss, Like Mike, Roll Bounce) — has his non-deployment waiver revoked.
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Disc Reviews by John Ceballos on December 30th, 2012
As The Walking Dead continues to smash ratings records (while compulsively changing showrunners, no less) and Summit Entertainment — the studio behind The Twilight Saga — prepares to throw its considerable marketing muscle behind February’s zombie rom-com Warm Bodies, it’s fair to say the shambling undead are having a major pop culture moment. Yes, zombies are hot right now, but a curious subgenre has already endured for many decades: I’m talking about the zombie Nazi movie.
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Disc Reviews by Michael Durr on December 23rd, 2012
No matter how bad video game adaptations into movies are, I enjoy the grand majority of them. From the really good ones like Silent Hill and Mortal Kombat (minus the sequels) to the dismal ones like Double Dragon and Super Mario Bros. Each of them has their subtle charm and some thoughtful fan service (unless it is a game film directed by Uwe Boll). Today, we have something a little different, a game film that its sole purpose is to promote the upcoming game. Enter the film : Halo 4 – Foreword Unto Dawn.
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Disc Reviews by John Ceballos on November 28th, 2012
”In 1920 they passed the prohibition act making the sale of alcohol illegal. Well… at least it was supposed to be.”
I know what you’re thinking, and I was also incredibly disappointed to learn this film was not a biopic of Xena: Warrior Princess actress Lucy Lawless. (This hypothetical film would obviously star the ageless Kiwi, because the actress still looks incredible.) Fortunately, Lawless makes up for its startling lack of Lawless by being one of the better films I’ve seen this year.
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Disc Reviews by John Ceballos on October 13th, 2012
Ever wonder what a martial arts epic directed by Baz “Moulin Rouge” Luhrmann would look like? Me neither. But that’s pretty much what we get with Legendary Amazons, (loosely) based on the exploits of the Yang family during the Song Dynasty. The story has an intriguing hook — the men of the Yang clan are massacred in battle, leaving their women to throw on armor and take to the battlefield — but is ultimately bogged down by its cartoonish tone and embarrassingly bad production values.
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Disc Reviews by Michael Durr on October 10th, 2012
Direct to Video movies is usually just a clever term to mean “We have a small budget and B-List stars so we are going to skip the theater and go straight to video and hope to capitalize on the people who might pick this up on a very slow Friday night.” Today’s review is about a man simply known as the “Courier”. It could be a ripoff of the Transporter. It might be a mailman who handles packages by day and the ladies by night.
Bad B-Movies aside, let’s see how this one plays out.
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Disc Reviews by John Ceballos on October 7th, 2012
“I don’t want to grow older, to become marginalized and ignored by society. I don’t want to be the first person they let off the plane in a hostage crisis.”
Normally, a movie has to have the words “Harry” and “Potter” in its title to attract the caliber of British acting talent assembled for The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel. The characters in the film may be in the twilight of their lives, but the performers who play them are at the top of their game.
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Disc Reviews by Michael Durr on October 7th, 2012
When I started to review this film, I thought I would come up with a hokey beginning to celebrate the 31 Nights of Terror. That might have worked if I had reviewed It’s the Great Pumpkin Charlie Brown or a Lindsey Lohan movie, but to be truthful there is not much humor in this movie to be had. So let us skip the theatrics for at least one review and go straight into reviewing Bedevilled.
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Disc Reviews by Brent Lorentson on September 27th, 2012
When you pick up a movie with the title Strippers vs. Werewolves, to expect anything more than schlocky B-movie horror is a mistake by the viewer and the viewer alone. This foray into cheesy cinema is best viewed after a few drinks or just as random fun late at night when you can’t sleep. It’s never a movie trying to change the way we view cinema but instead just something to have some fun with, a simple escape where our brains can shut off and simply enjoy the show.
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Disc Reviews by William O'Donnell on September 26th, 2012
The first word that springs to my mind when considering this box set is “essential.” I try to use that word without all of the marketing baggage that comes with it, conjured up by countless previous DVD releases of other films that have claimed to be “essential.” This set lives up to that term perfectly. Raiders of the Lost Ark alone is an incredibly important film (as my review below explains in a gushing fanboy-ish manner) and the entire series is a must have for any true fan of American cinema. This transfer to Blu Ray is a very successful one, making this the ultimate collection to purchase.
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Disc Reviews by John Ceballos on September 16th, 2012
As I was watching the new Ocean’s Eleven for the 185th time — it’s the last movie I saw twice on the same day in theaters — it occurred to me that the stakes were entirely too high. Three casinos…$160 million…the threat of being caught and glared at by Andy Garcia. The Babymakers, on the other hand, builds up to a heist with absurdly low stakes. It’s basically like Ocean’s Eleven, only the exact opposite.
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