Posts by Brent Lorentson

Shout Factory has yet another Transformers animated series to unleash upon the legions of fans who must not be able to get enough of their robots in disguise.  Beast Machines takes place on Cybertron after the Beast Wars.  Beast Wars is yet another series about the Transformers that somehow has gotten past me while reviewing the other series.  The fact that Beast Wars precedes the events in Beast Machines caused a brief moment of confusion.  Thankfully with the target audience being under the age of ten, catching up wasn’t all too difficult.

What would you do if you had access to a computer that was capable of giving you information that could prevent a crime from happening?  One step further, what if this machine could locate any person with only a few keystrokes?  This “God” like machine is the basis for what Person of Interest revolves around.  For two seasons we’ve watched as Harold Finch (Michael Emerson) and ex-CIA agent John Reese (Jim Caviezel) used the machine to protect those whom the machine feels are in danger.

Right now in the martial arts world I don’t believe there is a bigger star than Donnie Yen.  From his work in Iron Monkey to his modern classic Ip Man, Yen shows he is nearly an unstoppable force in the martial arts world, and when his name is involved with a project, you should be ready for a spectacle.  His fight choreography is stunning to say the least, and despite the genre of film, he’s able to keep his fight scenes grounded in reality.  Now teamed with director Daniel Lee who brought us Black Mask, 14 Blades is on first glance the kind of movie martial arts fans should get excited about.

The backwoods flesh-eating disease film Cabin Fever was writer/ director Eli Roth’s first dip into horror and helped establish Roth as one of the “it” guys of the industry despite having a limited film catalog.  The film’s cringe-worthy deaths, not to mention the memorable bathtub sequence, made the film an overnight sensation, and when talk of a potential sequel came out, I was more than a little excited.  Picking up the reins for Roth would be another young rising star of the horror genre, Ti West.

“You were always such a clever troublemaker.”

When Audrey Parker (Emily Rose) entered the barn in the conclusion of season 3 of Haven, all “the Troubles” were supposed to come to an end for the small seaside town of Haven, Maine.  Sure everything seemed to go as planned, that is until Duke (Eric Balfour) took the plunge into the barn before it disappeared, leaving Sheriff Nathan Wuornos (Lucas Bryant) behind.

Considering the state the world is in, I’m a little surprised there isn’t more talk about a possible World War 3 scenario being played out.  This isn’t something I want, but watching the news, it is certainly something that resonates in the back of my mind and gives a moment of reflection.  Aftermath is the film that preys upon that fear of what a possible World War 3 could be. The results are far from promising, and it succeeds in telling the inevitable fate of the world, despite how bleak the outcome may be.

Here is a film that delves into a subject not many people care to openly discuss but poses a question that everyone who’s lost someone they love can relate to.  When prayer and faith don’t seem to deliver the answers you want for those that need closure that therapy can’t seem to provide, where does one turn?  It’s this hopeless feeling of loss that seems to be what attracts Michael King (Shane Johnson) to investigate the possibility of the supernatural.

Cartoon Network has just released yet another collection of episodes of Regular Show, only this time they are all based around Rigby.  For those new to the show who want in on the obsession that kids, friends, and other cartoon addicts have for this show, here is a little need-to-know info about the Regular Show.  The show centers on Mordecai (a blue jay) and Rigby (a raccoon) and the crazy adventures they find themselves stuck in the middle of.

Sin City: A Dame to Kill For marks the return of the iconic graphic novel since it first splashed across the big screen in 2005.  Sin City set out to make the ultimate comic book adaption in which the audience would see the panels move directly from the page and onto the screen.  For me Sin City was a celluloid masterpiece that blended the Noir stories beautifully with all the Hollywood tricks that were at Robert Rodriguez’s disposal.  Frank Miller’s beautiful black and white imagery was more striking than I could have imagined, and it was the film that had me rooting for the big lug Marv (played by Mickey Rourke who seems to have been born for the role).

Horror doesn’t necessarily need to be about the supernatural or have an axe-wielding maniac to be terrifying.  Jump scares and gore effects are also some nice devices directors rely on to scare their audiences.  But for me, what really gets beneath my skin is the possibility of what I see projected up on the screen can become a reality in my day to day life.  The Sacrament attempts to show how quickly faith and love can quickly be turned and used as a weapon that can lead to the demise of the fragile and the faithful.