Brent Lorentson

Ben Tennison is back in the action packed collection of Ben 10 Omniverse from Cartoon Network.  In 10 newly released episodes we follow Ben and his fellow Plumbers as they do battle against the meanest and the ugliest aliens the galaxy has to offer, in our universe or any parallel universe out there. This cartoon is infectious.  From its catchy opening music, imaginative characters and fun action sequences this is a cartoon that simply grows on me more and more, and I have no shame in admitting that I’m a fan of this “kids’” show. 
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With Kung Fu Panda: Legends of Awesomeness and Dragons: Riders of Berk, it would seem only fitting that Monsters vs. Aliens would get an animated series of its own as well.  Nickelodeon seems to know what they are doing by mass producing these hit DreamWorks animated films and bringing them to the small screen.  The biggest shock is that in doing so they’ve managed to maintain the quality on a story level as well as animation level while under the budget constraints of having to produce multiple episodes as compared to one feature film.
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The Furious 5 are back in the new collection of episodes from the Nickelodeon hit show, inspired by the film Kung Fu Panda.  It wasn’t too long ago that I reviewed the first batch of episodes in the collection Good Croc, Bad Croc, and I had a good time with that set.  Now with the new collection, would it fare as well as the first, or will it blow my mind with its kung fu awesomeness?  Well, why waste any more time, and get right to it. For those unfamiliar with the show or movies, that is fine
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The Halloween holiday season is upon us, and as kids count down till the day they can trick or treat dressed as their favorite ghoul or goblin, leading to candy binges that would put me in a diabetic coma. It’s also appropriate that the kids get to watch some films to have some thrills and chills that are age-appropriate (don’t make the mistake of showing a six-year-old Friday the 13^th 2).  With the release of A Monsterous Holiday, we get a short film that clocks in at 48 minutes; the cover art may appeal to some, but looks are deceiving.
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At some point as we’re getting older I think we all get a little nostalgic for the things we liked when we were younger.  For everyone I believe our reasons are different for having this trip to the past, whether it’s playing that old cassette that never seemed to leave our car radio, revisiting old NES games, and most commonly I think it’s the movies and TV shows we looked upon so lovingly in our youth.  Sadly, though, these trips to the past seem to leave us scratching our heads, wondering what we were ever thinking.  And that would about sum up my experience reviewing Shout’s release of the Nickelodeon series Aaahh!!! Real Monsters.
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Have you ever watched a movie that is so insane that when it ends you’re stuck on your couch wondering what just happened?  Adam Chaplin: Violent Avenger did just that, and as it turns out, that is not such a bad thing.  The film is such a mash-up of crazy visuals and violence, it’ll leave your mind rattled for some time just trying to make sense of it all.  This is pure splatter cinema straight out of Italy where the gore runs red and by the buckets.
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It’s only the first of October, and already the Christmas spirit is being thrust upon us.  It’s not that I’m trying to be a Grinch about it, but for me my true Christmas is in October when we get to celebrate the ghouls and goblins that lurk in the shadows.  But I did what I could not to let the season we’re in get in the way of a movie; after all, Die Hard was a Christmas movie in the summer; same goes for Iron Man 3.  Sure, those are action titles, but they are still great no matter what time of year you watch them.  So perhaps So This Is Christmas may turn out to be this under-theradar gem that will surprise me.
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Family Guy has reached a level of impact upon the American pop culture where I believe the characters need little to no introduction.  Is there anyone, really, that doesn’t recognize Stewie; after all he’s reached the status of icon and has even become a fixture of the Thanksgiving parade as one of the many floats.  Where The Flintstones, then later The Simpsons were at one time the dominating animated family on the television tackling day to day struggles of the modern American (each in their own and unique way), Family Guy (love it or hate it) now seems to be the go-to animated family.
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Football season is well on its way, and that can mean one thing; fantasy football players are at their computers making trades and setting up their lineups.  For some fantasy football is nothing more than Dungeons and Dragons for adults who like football, but those that have their own league, well, you know how cutthroat things can get once your star receiver is injured and that perfect replacement just hit the waiver wire.  The F/X (now I think FXX) show The League may take more than a few jabs at those who take fantasy football a little too seriously, but for myself this is one of my comedies on the air right now. 
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The idea of taking a long road trip with your loved one or best friend is something everyone has to do at least a few times in your life.  There is something that occurs while driving down long lonely roads with nothing but music, scenery and good conversation to keep you company.  The road trip film is almost a genre onto itself and can be funny like Plains, Trains and Automobiles, insightful like On The Road, or horrifying like Joyride.  These films are so easy to relate to, because at some point we all share in these kinds of adventures, perhaps not so exciting but memorable nonetheless.
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Even though director Steven Soderbergh (Traffic, Ocean’s 11, Magic Mike) has an Oscar under his belt and numerous box office hits, the road to getting Behind the Candelabra was a difficult one.  Originally Soderbergh had planned for the film to play in theaters, but every studio was afraid of the project believing it to be “too gay”.  Sure, there have been numerous films in Hollywood that dealt with homosexual subject matter, and considering this was also a bio pic I’m still surprised the typically liberal studio system was so afraid of this project.
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In the caverns beneath the planet’s surface there exists a place like no other, a place where duels are settled not with bullets but with slugs.  But these are not the kind of slugs that ooze their way across your driveway; instead they each have their own personalities and skills that are to be used in battle.  In the land of Slugterra, El is the quickest slugslinger out there, but there are a lot of baddies out there looking to take control over Slugterra, and thankfully he has the Shane gang (Trixie, Kord, Pronto and Burpy) to help him out.
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Knowing very little about Thailand’s gangster history, I jumped into The Gangster with no expectations and was left breathless by the time the final credits rolled.  With the energy and violence on display here, I can’t help but feel this is the intensity Scorsese intended in his underwhelming film Gangs of New York; there he had over a hundred million and the street fights, though they had epic buildups, seemed to just fall flat.  The Gangster, on the other hand, is on a micro-budget by comparison and delivers street fights that hurt, that leave scars and stay with you.
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There are so many vampire films, it’s hard to get excited any time a trailer for one comes along.  The Twilight series as well as shows like True Blood and The Vampire Diaries have managed to take everything I once enjoyed about the menacing creature and turned it into a joke.  Let the Right One In and the American remake Let Me In are the last vampire films that had any substance that went for more than cheap thrills and gore and delivered a solid story.  That is until Kiss of the Damned came along.  It’s a film that keeps things simple, yet brings back the beautiful elegance of the creature we loved to fear.
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First let me come out and say I know very little about Anime; aside from a few episodes of Speed Racer when I was growing up, Anime just never really caught my interest.  But I’m willing to give anything a shot; after all, it’s never too late to discover a new genre in entertainment.  Unfortunately the Shout Factory release of Starzinger was a bad first experience that made for a long cringe-worthy experience.  Films like Howl’s Moving Castle and Grave of the Fireflies are beautiful pieces of animation as well as touching stories.
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With films like Sharknado it’s clear that that Hollywood can’t say no to a disaster movie no matter how bad it may sound.  It’s almost as though everyone has given up on the idea that a disaster movie can be good; The Towering Inferno holds up after all these years, yet you can almost guarantee if they attempted to remake it, awfulness would certainly follow.  Heck, the Poseidon Adventure was amazing to watch growing up, and even on the heels of Titanic and with “better” special effects at their fingertips, the remake, Poseidon, was a failure.  What I find all the more odd is that with these straight-to-DVD or SYFY-made movies
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The surf culture and those involved are like a tribe separate from everyone else.  Those who are hardcore into the scene seem to care very little about money or material things, all that seems to matter to this group of outsiders are the onslaught of waves that’ll soon be theirs to ride.  Several movies have been made about the sport/lifestyle, Point Break and Chasing Mavericks are the two that stand out the most for me at this time (not sure if admitting my secret love for Back to the Beach is good idea).
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