Posted in: The Reel World by Brent Lorentson on April 29th, 2023
It’s a little hard to believe that it has been nearly a decade since the first Guardians of the Galaxy made its debut on the big screen. I fell in love with the motley crew of heroes after that first screening, and they have been my favorite thing to come out of the MCU after all these years. Now with the third film releasing and with James Gunn bidding his farewell to the MCU and heading over to the DC universe to helm their cinematic universe, that means it is sadly time to see the Guardians, at least how we’ve come to know them, set out on their final adventure. It has been a bumpy road to get to this point; after all, there was the point where James Gunn had been fired from the project and he dipped his toes into the DC universe by writing and directing The Suicide Squad (2021), a film that just didn’t deliver at the box office but I felt was a heck of a lot of fun. Then it seemed the powers that be saw the error of their ways, also fearing that the cast would not return to the film if James Gunn was not brought back on as director, and the announcement was made that Gunn would be brought back and that production would begin on Guardians of the Galaxy Vol 3. So after six years since the previous Guardians of the Galaxy film was released, was it worth the wait?
Posted in: No Huddle Reviews by Brent Lorentson on April 29th, 2023
I can’t help but feel a bit hoodwinked by this film. From the director of Friday the 13th, we are talking the original film before Jason decided to take over the duties of slaughtering camp counselors. Yes, I’m talking the Sean S. Cunningham who also delivered us the guilty pleasure The New Kids and a little later in his career Deep Star Six. As though to sweeten the deal and make this film all the more tempting to horror fans, Bruce Campbell even stars in the film. Campbell at this point had been successful with the Evil Dead films, Maniac Cop, and the criminally underrated but cult classic TV series The Adventures of Brisco County, Jr. I thought for sure I had stumbled across a gem of a film and that I’d be excited to write about it. Sadly, within 20 minutes of watching the film, I immediately understood how this film had slipped past my radar. Thankfully the film isn’t rotten, but it is the kind of straight-to-video or late-night film that is meant for a rare breed of cinephile, one who can ignore the cheap effects and generic plot; in other words, people not so different from myself.
Posted in: No Huddle Reviews by Brent Lorentson on April 26th, 2023
In 1962, I can understand why Hell is for Heroes would be a successful film. You have Steve McQueen just getting hot after his success with The Magnificent Seven, and then you have a cast with Bobby Darin, James Coburn, and Bob Newhart making his big screen debut, not to mention that war films were still pretty popular at the time; and then you had director Don Siegel at the helm. Some films are simply a product of their time, and they simply don’t age well; then there are films that are classics and are simply timeless. Hell is for Heroes ends up somewhere in the middle for me. It’s not a bad film; actually I think it is pretty good, but I think its legacy is more about how it manages to have so much talent together before these actors and filmmakers really hit their stride or were in their prime.
Posted in: No Huddle Reviews by Brent Lorentson on April 22nd, 2023
In 1965 when The Truth About Spring was released, Haley Mills was turning 18 and was already a well established star after being in a string of hit Disney films like Pollyanna, The Parent Trap, and then That Darn Cat. Back when this film was made, it was simply a family adventure. It is simply so charming and wholesome; it really is the kind of film that is just about impossible to find at your local cinema anymore. When watching this, I couldn’t help but realize how if this very same film was put on the big screen today it would cause certain groups out there to lose their minds, all because it is a story about a tomboy who “changes” for a young man she falls in love with. Now, I’m not about to stir anything up and bring up politics or social ideologies with this review, but it was something that I wanted to mention, because sadly something’s in this movie just wouldn’t be done in a film today
Posted in: The Reel World by Brent Lorentson on April 7th, 2023
You don’t have to be a sports name to know the name Michael Jordan, and there is a good chance you’ve even heard of the Air Jordan even if you are not a sneakerhead. What is a little surprising is that someone out there believed that the story about how a shoe could change the sports industry and go on to make the Nike company a multi-billion dollar industry could be a movie that people would actually want to go see. Well, that person was screenwriter Alex Convery, who wrote a screenplay that would make it onto the Hollywood Black List (For those that don’t know, The Black List is a list that comes out every year that ranks the top 10 unproduced screenplays. It’s an elite list to be on, and typically these eventually get turned into films that gain critical acclaim). As it would turn out, Ben Affleck and Matt Damon would get a shot at the script, and after a polish it would become the new film Ben Affleck would direct since the last film he helmed, Live By Night back in 2016.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Brent Lorentson on March 23rd, 2023
Damien Chazelle seems to have a thing for dreamers, or at least those who want to be larger than life. Whether it is a drummer aspiring to reach perfection in Whiplash, or an actress wanting to be a star in La La Land, to even being the first man to walk on the moon in First Man, he’s always made these films with an enthusiasm and energy that we can’t help but want to see them succeed. In his new film Babylon, he seems to be doing something a little different and on a grander scale as he explores the early days of Hollywood as it made the transition from the silent film era to the “talkies” (basically what we’re used to seeing on the big screen today, just minus all the CGI effects). A lot of money was injected into the production of this film, and you see it in every frame of this movie that is certainly a love letter to a time when Hollywood was trying to figure things out and entertain its audiences. But what I don’t think anyone was expecting is how deep this film was willing to go into the drug abuse and the sordid debauchery that went on in these early days of cinema.
Posted in: The Reel World by Brent Lorentson on March 10th, 2023
We knew it was coming, a new chapter in the Ghostface franchise that has been a staple in the horror genre since the first Scream released back in 1996. Over the years we’ve gotten to see our favorite horror fan/serial killer terrorize the citizens of Woodsboro and even venture out to LA when he terrorized the film set of Stab (you know, the movie within a movie). It was only a matter of time before our killer ventured out of Woodsboro again, and this time he follows in the footsteps of another masked killing icon, Jason Voorhees, as Ghostface sets out to terrorize the Big Apple in Scream VI. Last year’s Scream I felt did a good job at rebooting the franchise (or worked as a requel) and worked as a way of passing on the torch from Sydney and Gale to the next generation, Sam (Melissa Barrera) and Tara (Jenna Ortega). This new film will also be the first time Sydney doesn’t make an appearance on screen, though we do thankfully have Gale (Courtney Cox) and Kirby (Hayden Panettiere) returning in their “legacy” roles. Does Scream 6 manage to impress with the new cast and new locale, or does it take a misstep as Jason Takes Manhattan did for its franchise?
Posted in: No Huddle Reviews by Brent Lorentson on March 6th, 2023
One of the things that stands out to me the most about Voodoo Macbeth has very little to do with the true story about how Orson Welles, who at the time he was only 20 was hired by the Negro Theater Unit to direct a stage production of William Shakespeare’s Macbeth with an all black cast in Harlem. What’s more intriguing to me is that the film was actually the first feature film to come out of USC and gain theatrical distribution, but the film is listed with having 10 directors and eight screenwriters. With hat much ego and creative talent, it is impressive that they managed to squeeze out a cohesive story, and one that looks pretty good, though it does have some issues. I applaud the ambition to tackle a period piece and also a story that is a bit of both film and theater history, considering this was one of the first and most wildly successful stage productions with a black cast, but is also the production Orson Welles helmed before stepping behind the camera to direct his first film, a little thing called Citizen Kane.
Posted in: The Reel World by Brent Lorentson on February 24th, 2023
Not since Snakes on a Plane has a title for a movie been so absurd that I just had to see the movie. While Snakes on a Plane delivered on its B-movie camp, it was still kind of a bad movie no matter how hard Samuel L Jackson seemed to try to carry that film. Cocaine Bear embraces its absurd title, and it goes over the top and beyond with a black ear ingesting more cocaine than Tony Montana would ever dare to snort. The film is loosely based on true events, the truth being that a drug runner did die while tossing numerous bags of cocaine out of a plane in 1985 and that a bear was found dead after ingesting a large quantity of cocaine. This film attempts to rewrite history by posing the “what if?” that the bear encounters many unfortunate humans while on its cocaine binge. For me the moment I heard they were making this a movie, it was on my radar.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Brent Lorentson on February 10th, 2023
This may come to a surprise for some, but there was a time that comic book movies just weren’t taken seriously. We had Richard Donner and his Superman The Movie film, and then there was Tim Burton’s take on Batman. Every other movie that was based on a comic book property was treated as cheesy camp fodder that no one took seriously. Wes Craven’s attempt at adapting Swamp Thing was slightly impressive for the time, but in retrospect I’m just not really a fan of the film despite how much I like the DC character. As for the sequel, The Return of Swamp Thing, I know I’m in the minority when I say how much I enjoy this camp classic. The first Swamp Thing I felt took itself too seriously and was lacking in the fun practical FX department, but to be fair, it also had a low budget and felt the need to be an origin story. Helming the sequel is one of the B-movie workhorses of the industry, Jim Wynorski, who is responsible for the 80s kill-bot classic Chopping Mall. It’s time to return to the bog and deep dive into the camp classic from 1989, The Return of Swamp Thing.
