Posted in: The Reel World by Brent Lorentson on June 16th, 2017
It’s summertime, and that means it is time for those bikini-clad bodies to start decorating the beaches and become bait for everyone’s favorite predator of the ocean. For those who don’t tan and manage to only burn in direct sunlight, there is a safer alternative to the beach, and that is your local theater with the new film 47 Meters Down. Last year we had the surprise hit The Shallows that made a valiant attempt at making the beach terrifying once again. I love a fun, cheesy shark film; it’s one of those cinematic pleasantries I feel we just don’t get enough of. With the wait for Meg being another year off, it seems 47 Meters Down is going to have to tide me over till then. Is it worth taking a dip?
Lisa (Mandy Moore) and her sister Kate (Claire Holt) travel down to Mexico for a vacation. The trip was originally supposed to be with Lisa and her boyfriend, though we find out early on that he broke up with her not long before the trip, and Kate was a quick backup guest. Though I had a hard time believing the pair are sisters, they could be best friends, and it would really do nothing to change the plot. We know these young women are simply soon to be bait for the sharks, and that’s what matters in these kinds of films.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Brent Lorentson on June 16th, 2017
It used to be when you had a straight-to-DVD release, you knew better than to set the bar too high. From time to time you would find that occasional gem that slipped through the cracks and turned out to be something awesome, but this was a rare occurrence. With the way films are released now, the talent you are seeing in straight-to-DVD releases has improved, as have the budgets, since getting a film on the big screen has become a greater financial challenge. I mention this only because I look at a title like Kill’em All and wonder if they even cared. The actors are here and doing their job, but it’s the figures behind the scenes that I’m calling out here. Is this simply a cash grab to exploit the fans of Van Damme, or did they believe they had something special on their hands? I’m a fan of Van Damme, and seeing that this is a film directed by Peter Malota a stuntman from Van Damme’s heyday (Double Impact and Universal Soldier), you just kind of hope for better action, but sadly this all seemed so lazy.
Suzanne (Autumn Reeser) is a nurse who has managed to survive a massive shootout that occurred at her hospital. She’s the only witness that the FBI has to what went down. Peter Stormare and Maria Conchita Alonso play the pair of agents who are interrogating Suzanne in a very over-the-top good cop/bad cop sort of manner. If the interviewing skills by the agents aren’t enough to make you groan, the tough-guy banter Suzanne gives the agents is beyond frustrating, since every answer she gives is heavy with the sarcasm. Stormare is better than this; he can be menacing and be a threat on screen, but here his character is so over-the-top it’s hard to believe he would pass a character profile check to be an agent.
Posted in: The Reel World by Brent Lorentson on June 12th, 2017
I think we can all agree that at some point we’ve all managed to make a fool of ourselves in the name of love. It’s almost a rite of passage so to speak. As for that forbidden love, well, I’m not so sure how many people will be so eager to admit to this one. When it comes to the film My Cousin Rachel, it’s a love story, but far from what you’d find on the Hallmark channel. Instead this is a film about the nightmare of what love can be and what it can do to you. Back in the 90’s, Roger Michell directed one of the sweetest and optimistic romances of that decade when he did Notting Hill.Now it’s 2017 and his return to romance could not be any more bleak, but how beautifully bleak it all is.
Philip (Sam Claflin) gets us up to speed in the film’s opening narration where he discusses becoming an orphan and being taken into custody by one of his cousins, Ambrose, a cousin who seems to have embraced the novel idea of bachelorhood. Philip manages to be raised just fine by his cousin, that is till things change and Ambrose falls ill and has to move from the English countryside to Italy, and during his recovery he meets a mysterious woman, Rachel (Rachel Weiz). His cousin continues to write Philip and tell him about his growing relationship with Rachel, till things take a turn for the worse and in the following letters his cousin goes on to believe Rachel is attempting to kill him. Concerned for Ambrose, Philip ventures off to see what has happened to his cousin, and upon his arrival he discovers that he is too late and that Ambrose is dead.
Posted in: No Huddle Reviews by Brent Lorentson on June 9th, 2017
When it comes to Dr. Hunter S. Thompson, I view the man as an American legend and the ambassador of the sixties and the seventies. He was the voice for those who were misfits to society, and he was a nightmare for the establishment. Many people watched Fear and Loathing and Las Vegas and formed their opinion of him, thinking he was just a drug-consuming madman who somehow managed to get a gig as a writer for Rolling Stone magazine. Though there are glimpses of truth in this character, it was more a fictional creation named Raul Duke that Thompson created to tell his narrative. Where the Buffalo Roam I had hoped would be a film much closer to the real-life Thompson, but instead it seems to be more about the character of Duke as well. Shout Factory has dusted off this title from 1980 and delivers a gem with Bill Murray staring as Hunter S. Thompson. How is the film? Where does it take us? Hop into the back seat,and we’ll go on this weird journey together.
As the film opens, we meet Thompson as he is hard at work trying to meet a deadline with his latest article. With his trademark cigarette holder clinched between his teeth, he pours himself a glass of Wild Turkey and begins to scream manically, shooting his pistol around the room. The film wastes no time getting us into the head space of Thompson as we watch him work out some of his issues while talking with his dog as well as an effigy of President Nixon. Clearly he’s a man tormented by personal demons as well as numerous substances that are legal as well as many that are not.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Brent Lorentson on May 25th, 2017
While I’m not usually a fan of gimmicks involved in trying to get my attention to see a movie, I’ll happily take an anthology of a found-footage film, simply because the odds of me finding something I like in the anthology are greater. VHS 2 is personally my favorite anthology film out there; even though it suffers from having to be a found-footage anthology, it at least delivers several unique perspectives and stories. I find it hard to believe a horror fan out there can’t enjoy the film. With XX the anthology presents us with a unique proposition when it comes to horror, four tales that are all crafted and presented by women. A rather unintentional taboo notion when you consider horror has been a boys’ club for many years, but we are in a new era, and with this anthology this is the business card that is here to show us what they got.
I’m a little sad to see that the Soska sisters (American Mary) didn’t have a part in this, simply because they seem to be on the front lines of the women-in-horror movement, but nevertheless the entrants in XX are respectable heavy-hitters.
Posted in: No Huddle Reviews by Brent Lorentson on May 23rd, 2017
It’s not often that a show can come along that impresses me with its talent in front of and behind the camera; then when the show premieres, it is just bad for a couple of episodes and then manages to bounce back. There are just so many options that if you don’t come out swinging, your show is going to be passed up for something else. I still feel like we’re in the Golden Age of television despite some of the best series in the past decade having already been retired from the airwaves (Breaking Bad is sorely missed despite Better Call Saul). There is still so much out there that sometimes good stuff gets overlooked, and it’s not till DVD rolls around that you can discover a show, and that is the case for the new series Ice.
I love a good crime series, and when Ice became available as a title to check out at Upcomingdiscs, well, I felt the need to jump on it. When you have heavy hitters like Donald Sutherland and Ray Winstone headlining the cover and then throw in the vastly underrated Jeremy Sisto, I got even more excited for the possibilities. Then throw in director Antoine Fuqua (Training Day) directing the pilot, and seriously, what can go wrong?
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Brent Lorentson on May 18th, 2017
With its original release in 2009, DC and Warner Bros have set up the release of Wonder Woman the animated film to help ramp up excitement for the live-action release of the new Wonder Woman film that is set to hit the big screen in a matter of weeks. For some of those readers who may think animated film means it’s just for kids, what WB and DC have done together with the animation department I wish managed to translate to their live-action releases. The DC/WB animated films in my opinion are phenomenal and honestly have set a high bar for me, because these translations have just been superior to the live-action films, and most come in short of the 90-minute mark. Wonder Woman follows in line with the previous successful animated films, and I had a blast with this title; it’s the kind of film as a kid I would have loved to see on the big screen, and it’s something adults and parents I feel will also join in on the fun.
This is an origin tale (don’t roll your eyes just yet), but everyone involved knows their audience and that they can’t waste too much time on backstory. The film opens up with the Amazons at war with Ares, the God of War, and all his minions. This introduction to Ares and just how powerful a force he is reminded me of LOTR: Fellowship of the Ring when we see Sauron just decimate the humans in battle. There is a moment when the Amazons have defeated Ares, and before they can kill him Zeus steps in to save his son. To spare his son’s life, Zeus makes Ares a prisoner of the Amazons where he is expected be held in their care for eternity.
Posted in: The Reel World by Brent Lorentson on May 12th, 2017
Director Doug Liman has been a director whose career I’ve enjoyed following since I was in high school and first saw Swingers. It was one of those cool independent films that appeared in the mid-90’s when independent films were all the rage. A couple years later he did the film Go which I felt beautifully captured the rave culture that had taken the states by storm but the film was quickly overlooked. Then he got his big break with The Bourne Identity and as his career expanded to Mr. and Mrs. Smith so did the budgets ie: Edge of Tomorrow. Now with the release of The Wall Liman seems to have gone back to his roots in a way in creating one of the most intimate and intense war films to hit the cinemas, despite its major release being set by Amazon Studios.
After being called out to a site where a group of contractors were attacked, two American soldiers are sent out to investigate the site. When the film starts, Isaac (Aaron Taylor-Johnson) and Matthews (John Cena) have already been hidden and monitoring the site for more than 18 hours and have seen no movement and believe the site is secure, believing if there was a sniper he would have already left by this point. It’s when the pair go to investigate the scene they discover that they are not alone in the process but men are wounded and separated.
Posted in: No Huddle Reviews by Brent Lorentson on May 9th, 2017
When it comes to graffiti art there is only one name that comes to mind, and it’s Banksy. Before checking out this documentary I had no clue that graffiti art was actually something people took seriously, beyond gang tags and little kids marking up a wall for fun. Apparently there are numerous acclaimed graffiti artists around the world, artists who define themselves with their own unique style and message they’d like to share with the rest of the world, even if their message will most likely be painted over. In 2010 Banksy came to San Francisco to vandalize some walls with a little paint, and it was enough to create a buzz across the city about what the artist would do, and out of that spawned this unique documentary that explores the value of graffiti art.
Director Colin Day states at the start of the film that his attention was to simply document the progress Banksy made as his graffiti art was made and put on display for the public. Along the way he interviews several other graffiti artists who discuss their thoughts on Banksy and about why they do what they do. Just about anywhere you go throughout the world, graffiti is illegal, and the consequences have various punishments that range from a simple fine to even jail time.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Brent Lorentson on May 8th, 2017
When The Ring (2002) first came out, if you looked hard enough you could still find movies on VHS, so the thought of a mysterious tape that kills you seven days after watching it wasn’t so entirely farfetched. Now that we are in 2017, if someone were to find a mysterious VHS tape, well, they’d be out of luck for the most part, since I’d wager most of the US population no longer has a VCR. But Hollywood won’t let this stop their successful franchise from moving forward, even though it’s been 12 years since The Ring Two, this weekend is the release of the third film in the series, and quite frankly, I have to wonder if anyone really wanted this.
Samara is back, and she is hungry to take the lives of anyone foolish enough to watch the video, and as the film opens we’re in a plane along with a passenger who has seen the film and only has minutes to go before his seven days are up. While this is a fun scene that gave me hope for what would continue, I couldn’t help but feel that the scene was perhaps a throwaway sequence from Final Destination. Then, oddly enough, the film seems to start again, two years later when we see Gabriel (Johnny Galecki), a college professor, purchasing an old VCR. Once Gabriel gets to his apartment, he gets a surprise when he discovers a tape with the words “Watch Me” written on it. Just like all foolish characters in horror films, he watches the film and immediately gets the phone call.
