Brent Lorentson

With all these found-footage films that seem to be coming out week after week, I wonder just how audiences will react when they finally get a scene that is shot on a tripod.  It will be hailed as a revelation, I’d imagine, and finally the world will be able to watch a film without pondering if they should have double-dosed on their motion sickness pills.  Yes, ladies and gentlemen, Infliction is yet another entry into the canon of found-footage films and is also another example of why it is a style that is not meant for everyone to try or to use as an excuse for a low budget.
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Any time I see a film released with the words Once Upon a Time (insert location), I feel the film is already setting itself up for failure. There are numerous classics that boast that title; Once Upon a Time in the West as well as Once Upon a Time in America are two that come to mind that are classics in their genres.  But then you have Once Upon a Time in Mexico, which for me was a lackluster conclusion to the El Mariachi trilogy.  Now we have the release of Once Upon a Time in Vietnam and, well, despite its attempts to be a big sprawling epic, the film just doesn’t deliver.
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After the number of horror films I’ve seen, the prospect of going on a road trip and taking a back road seems like just about the worst idea anyone could ever have.  Whether it’s in the mountains where you have to fear backwoods cannibals (Wrong Turn) or it’s the open desert highway and fearing maniacs in semi-trucks (Joy Ride), really, is anywhere safe to travel?  Even the quaint little roadside motel is a place to fear, and I don’t mean the bedbugs either.
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When I read on IMDB that this was meant to be a horror comedy, I have to admit I breathed a sigh of relief.  After watching Ghost of Goodnight Lane I just simply was left wondering if the laughs were intended or if this was a film that just was delivered so poorly that you just couldn’t help but laugh at it.  Having seen now that the film was intended for laughs, I’m still not so sure it’s helps the film any.  Though it has a solid story and a decent cast, the execution just falls flat.
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As we get even closer to the release of Michael Bay’s next foray into the Transformers universe with Transformers:Age of Extinction, Shout factory releases yet another series to help whet our appetites. As a kid growing up in the 80’s it was impossible to exist without knowing who Optimus Prime was or being able to hum (if not sing) the theme song to the cartoon.  But since the release of the original cartoon there have been so many spinoffs it’s hard to keep them all straight.  In 2007 Cartoon Network and Hasbro Studios set out to capture the imaginations of a younger audience following the success of the movies.  How does the series stack up to the 80’s classic?
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Of the cartoons that are on air, it’s no contest in choosing what is my favorite show. Regular Show just strikes a chord with me and reminds me of the antics of Ren and Stimpy back in the 90’s.  Sure, the show airs on Cartoon Network and kids could watch it, but the show seems more aimed at a teenage audience or at least the parents who are trying to find something to watch with their children.  Here at Upcoming Discs, when we get a series to review this usually entails a lot of binge-watching
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Revenge films are simply one of those guilty pleasures that seem to always be in the pipeline for being released, whether it’s on the big screen or straight to DVD. They are the kind of films that allow us to escape into the anti-hero’s frame of mind and go along on their journey of vigilantism.  Perhaps we may not have encountered the same circumstances of characters avenging slain family members (The Outlaw Josey Wales, Death Wish) or violent sexual assaults (Ms. 45 and Make Them Die Slowly) each film gives us the chance to remove ourselves from reality and politically correct convictions and root for these characters
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Despite the atrocities that Adolf Hitler was responsible for, this ruthless visionary had an uncanny way of getting people to not only listen to him, but to follow him, and die for his quest of world domination.  We all know the name Adolf Hitler; it’s a name that will forever hold the stigma that it will remind people of nothing but hate and genocide.  But what made this man slip into darkness, fueled by hate with the goal of eliminating the Jewish race?
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With the clock ticking till the release of Batman vs. Superman, Warner Bros needs to do all it can to get the fans on board for the arrival of the the Justice League.  When it comes to the handling of the DC universe, though fans may be divided on the films, it seems just about everyone will agree the animation is about as good as it gets when it comes to comic adaptations.  In the case of the Justice League perhaps the only way to get it right is through animation, considering there seems to always be something massive going on that it would seem nearly impossible to translate in a live-action setting.
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I have to admit when I first went into this film I went in with some rather low expectations.  I turned out to be more than a little surprised by this little underdog story that has a lot of heart as well as plenty of knuckle-crunching fights.  Sure, this follows in the footsteps of Rocky and The Karate Kid, as we follow a young fighter who overcomes great odds to achieve victory, and we’ve seen it before.  What helps this film stand alone is that it’s also a tale about revenge set in the world of small-time cage fighting.
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When it comes to locations in horror films, insane asylums seem to be one of the go-to spots, and with good reason.  From watching numerous ghost-hunting shows over the years, it would also seem that there are numerous “haunted” asylums out there that are nothing more than rundown relics of what they once were.  So getting into House of Dust and seeing it is yet another haunted asylum film, the expectations went down, and I hoped for the best.  In the end it turned out to be a fun little film.
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