Brent Lorentson

I’m curious if there will ever come a time that people will simply give up making WW2 films.  After all these years you would have figured that every possible story about this time period would have managed to find its way up onto the silver screen.  I have nothing against these war pictures, but the bar has been set so high by films like Tora Tora Tora, Saving Private Ryan, The Longest Day, and many others, that if someone were to tackle the genre, that filmmaker would have to step up their game to be noticed amongst these titans of cinema.
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The first film I saw of Anthony DiBlasi was the adaption of the Clive Barker short story, Dread.  It was a small film that hasn’t seemed to have found its audience, but I enjoyed it and thought that DiBlasi showed some promising signs of becoming a name in horror to look out for.  In his new release Cassadaga he continues to show his signs of promise, though I feel he’s still got a way to go before he releases the film that is truly going to wow us and have him become a major player in horror cinema.
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Just when I thought the home invasion genre was on its last legs, another addition to the oversaturated canon of films has been released on DVD.  Don’t get me wrong, I’m a fan of the genre, but like everything else in Hollywood once something works and is a success the first time the only reasonable thing to do is exploit it till there is nothing unique or fresh with the idea, and then try to exploit it some more.  Entries into the genre like Funny Games, The Collector, The Strangers and even Panic Room all have a soft spot in my genre-obsessed heart, but seriously, enough already.
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Everyone knows the name Bill Cosby, and if you’re an 80’s kid like me then you most likely know him as one of TV’s most likeable dads, Mr. Huxtable.  Cosby has been the comedian who’s managed to succeed for decades by keeping his comedy routine clean and family-friendly.  From his animated series Fat Albert and his numerous other television projects and the Jell-O pudding pop ads, we all seemed to just feel this was a guy we all let into our homes through the television where we all felt we knew him as a part of our extended family.
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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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