Posted in: The Reel World by Brent Lorentson on August 9th, 2018
Ever since Do the Right Thing came out in 1989, Spike Lee has been a director critics and fans have kept an eye on. Over the span of his career he’s done everything from music videos with Michael Jackson, documentaries, television shows -- but mostly he’s made his claim to fame in film. His films have been all over the place. As critical and box office successes, Inside Man to this day may be his biggest success financially, but of all his films it is the one that feels the least like a Spike Lee film. The man has a distinct visual style; most of his films take place in New York, but the typical thing you’ll find in his films is the “black culture” and the topic of race relations. With his latest film Blackkklansman, Lee ventures into some familiar territory, but for the first time in quite a while he delivers a movie with a strong message but also manages to be entertaining.
Posted in: No Huddle Reviews by Brent Lorentson on August 8th, 2018
You have to go back to the early 40’s for when Archie, Jughead, Betty and Veronica first appeared in comic book form. Over the years, though, their characters have changed with the times, though the town of Riverdale always seemed to maintain an innocent charm where nothing bad ever seemed to happen. Well, that is until recently where the comics took a shift and thrust our characters into various scenarios, one even including Riverdale being overrun by zombies. These changes occurred when Roberto Aguirre-Sacasa took over the brand, and now he has brought the town of Riverdale and its inhabitants to the small screen for the CW network.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Brent Lorentson on July 26th, 2018
Like so many others, when I read the book Ready Player One by Ernest Cline I simply fell in love with the nostalgic ride through the 80’s, all thanks to a virtual reality world called The Oasis. From start to finish it was a book filled with pop culture references that would make film and video game geeks squeal with delight, and it was no surprise that the book was a hit and would be turned into a film. There were only two names I could think of that could ever come close to making this film a reality: Robert Zemeckis and Steven Spielberg.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Brent Lorentson on July 21st, 2018
I’m going to go ahead and say Super Troopers is without a doubt one of my favorite comedies of all time. Sure, I know many will disagree with me, and that’s fine. Since I first saw their film back in 2002 when I got the DVD, I was always excited to see what would come next from the Broken Lizard comedy troupe. There was Club Dread, which induced a few chuckles as they tackled the slasher genre, and then they had Beerfest, which was pretty funny but simply didn’t hold up to their performances as Vermont’s Highway Patrolmen. The antics from the first film are simply classic to me, and the film is something I manage to quote from on a weekly basis amongst friends
Posted in: The Reel World by Brent Lorentson on July 13th, 2018
In 2010 there was a little film called Winter’s Bone that came out; it didn’t make a splash at the box office, but it was one of the critical darlings of that year. For many it was the first time people got to see Jennifer Lawrence on screen, and it’s safe to say it is because of that film she is the star that she is today. I remember first seeing Winter’s Bone and being so floored by the film I immediately watched it again, and I had to know who it was that had directed the film. Debra Granik was the woman responsible for the film. It was a name I had never heard before, but it was one I’d be on the lookout for in the following years. Though she did a documentary between projects, it seems the wait is finally over as Leave No Trace is about to hit the big screen.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Brent Lorentson on July 3rd, 2018
Sometimes a movie comes along that has everything going for it: a great cast, a great cinematographer, and a decent plot, but when you watch it, you just scratch your head wondering why it ended up so bad. That in a nutshell is Terminal. It stars Margot Robbie, Simon Pegg, and Mike Myers, and for each of them I believe this is a film they quickly want to move past. The tagline for the film is Revenge Never Looked So Good, which is a big part of the problem with the film. I absolutely love the look of the film. It’s beautiful and to a point creates its own style I’d call neon-noir, but unfortunately no matter how good something may look, it doesn’t always mean it will be good.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Brent Lorentson on June 28th, 2018
When we first meet the Pierce family it is at the Freeland jail, where Jefferson Pierce (Cress Williams) is there to bail out his oldest daughter, Anissa (Nafessa Williams). The show doesn’t waste time in tackling social issues as we see them have an encounter with the Freeland police force as they are pulled over for a traffic stop. The reason for the stop turns out to be they are looking for a suspect who just robbed a liquor store, and because Jefferson is black, he of course is a potential suspect. Having this scene early on, not just in the season but in the pilot episode, is a bold and important move by the writers. This shows us that despite being a superhero show, Black Lightning is going to show us a superhero tale unlike anything we’ve seen before on the CW.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Brent Lorentson on June 19th, 2018
When Pacific Rim first came out, I had a blast with the film. It was the ultimate giant-monster-versus-giant-robot film that my inner ten-year-old has wanted to see for so long. Sure, the film had some dialog issues, but the world that Guillermo del Toro created with the film was so over-the-top and beautiful that the bad dialog was easy to forget. It knew what it was, brainless eye candy, and it delivered in a big way. Now we have the sequel coming out; del Toro is no longer at the helm, and in his place we have Steven S. DeKnight whose previous directorial efforts have been episodes from Daredevil and Dollhouse. Does the sequel hold up? Well, to put it bluntly, not even close.
Posted in: No Huddle Reviews by Brent Lorentson on June 19th, 2018
It’s been eleven years since that cast and crew took their final bow on the show Will and Grace. In those eleven years so much has occurred such as gay marriage and the rise of the social justice warrior. Just one glance at our political climate these days you can imagine there is plenty of material for comedy gold, heck there was even the revival of Roseanne that attempted to seize the moment. But of all the shows that are on the reboot and revival trend train Will and Grace is the one sit-com I feel is the most suited to take the airwaves. A lot of time has passed, a decade in Hollywood is a few eternities and would seem to be an overwhelming task to reunite the cast and crew but it would seem the stars have aligned for this show but will it actually work?
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Brent Lorentson on June 17th, 2018
Despite falling into the “coming of age genre”, Love, Simon is actually so much more than your typical mainstream teenage film. In the 80’s John Hughes ruled the box office with his films, everything from Sixteen Candles, Weird Science, Pretty in Pink and of course The Breakfast Club were the films that spoke to the kids of the era. It’s been a while since a film has come along that has fit into the genre that has managed to handle the awkwardness of being a teenager while also toeing the line of being heartfelt and humorous. Over the years there have been attempts to capture the essence of the 80’s John Hughes films, but these seem to always fail by either going to raunchy or attempting to make the lead characters cool and popular.
