Posted in: Tuesday Round Up by J C on April 12th, 2016
It's a shorter Round Up than usual, pardners! But one release we're reviewing for you this week has one of the longer titles you're likely to find anywhere. Magnolia Home Entertainment revs up The Lady in the Car with Glasses and a Gun, a French-Belgian thriller/mouthful. Meanwhile, Lionsgate laughs it up with Grace and Frankie: Season One. Finally, Shout! Factory spends some family time with Sisters: Season 4.
One last reminder before signing off for the week: if you’re shopping for anything on Amazon and you do it through one of our links, it’ll help keep the lights on here at UpcomingDiscs. See ya next week!
Posted in: No Huddle Reviews by J C on April 11th, 2016
Thanks to The Sound of Music, millions of people around the world are familiar with the von Trapp family saga. (They probably have the second most popular Austrian name among movie fans, behind some guy named Schwarzenegger.) Given that The Sound of Music is one of the most popular movies of all time, any filmmaker would be wise to offer a fresh perspective in telling a von Trapp story. Enter The von Trapp Family: A Life of Music, which puts eldest von Trapp daughter Liesl Agathe in the center of the action.
“Let's start at the very beginning. A very good place to start...”
Posted in: Disc Reviews by J C on April 8th, 2016
“Look at where the world is because of solitary dudes going mental in the desert.”
Depressed, deplorable artist Tom heads to the Mojave Desert, where he unexpectedly meets his match in crazed, charismatic drifter Jack. The fact that their tense encounter results in a death is one of the least surprising things about Mojave. What initially appears to be a cat-and-mouse game set in the desert turns out to be an interesting, uneven meditation on perception vs. reality that spills over into the vapid world of Hollywood.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by J C on April 6th, 2016
“Welcome to the 21st century!”
Welcome to the world of 4K UHD Blu-ray. This is our first 4k review. It won't be the last.
Posted in: Tuesday Round Up by J C on April 5th, 2016
Not that long ago, in a theatre that was hopefully not too far, far away from your galaxy home…chances are you settled in to enjoy Star Wars: The Force Awakens. The movie went on to become the highest-grossing film of all time in the U.S., and this week you can bring the Force home. You can actually already check out our review of Disney’s Blu-ray release for Star Wars, along with our thoughts on Showtime’s House of Lies: Season 4.
Banshee: Season 3, from HBO, is a real scream. Meanwhile, RLJ Entertainment throws us a Curveball and was kind enough not to keep The Hoarder all to itself. Shout! Factory cops to NYPD Blue: Season 9. Finally, Lionsgate starts at the very beginning with The von Trapp Family: A Life of Music and has it made in the shade with Mojave.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by J C on March 30th, 2016
“It was as if all the pieces of the puzzle were falling into place since what was being discussed here was a matter of creating something unique: a cuisine based exclusively on raw Nordic ingredients.”
That pull quote, which appears at the start of Noma: My Perfect Storm, accidentally serves as a microcosm for the film as a whole. The excitement that builds at the prospect of witnessing something special quickly gives way to a chilly, undercooked experience.
Posted in: Tuesday Round Up by J C on March 29th, 2016
There’s plenty of love hate to go around in this week’s Round Up. We’ll be covering the Blu-ray release of The Hateful Eight, Quentin Tarantino’s bloody, brutal Western/Agatha Christie-style thriller. In addition to reviewing the film itself, you can also check out Gino’s chat with delightful Hateful co-star Dana Gourrier. Elsewhere, IndiePix bundles up for The Winter, while Film Detective allows us inside The Red House. Momentum Pictures saddles up for father/son Western Forsaken, while Lionsgate leaves itself Exposed.
And one last reminder before signing off for the week: if you’re shopping for anything on Amazon and you do it through one of our links, it’ll help keep the lights on here at UpcomingDiscs. See ya next week!
Posted in: Disc Reviews by J C on March 23rd, 2016
Between their stints on Saturday Night Live and their subsequent sitcom hits, Tina Fey and Amy Poehler are two of the most successful comedic voices of the new millennium. (I happen to think Fey’s 30 Rock and Poehler’s Parks and Recreation are both among the five best comedies to debut in the last 10 years.) The longtime friends — dating back to their Chicago improv days in the early ‘90s — have also proven to be funny together, most notably during their well-received gigs hosting the Golden Globes. I'm telling you all of that to tell you this...I can’t believe how bad their new movie is.
Poehler is Maura Ellis, the goody two-shoes daughter of Bucky and Deana (James Brolin, Dianne Wiest). Fey is Kate Ellis, Maura’s older sister and the family’s bawdy black sheep who has just been kicked out of her apartment. Bucky and Deana have sold the girls’ beloved family home — dubbed “Ellis Island” — and they need their daughters to come down to Orlando to pack up their rooms. (They force Maura to tell Kate the news, since the latter doesn’t take bad news well.) Before having turn the house over to the snobbish new owners, the Ellis sisters decide to have one final mega-bash in their childhood home.
Posted in: Tuesday Round Up by J C on March 22nd, 2016
Turns out the odds were definitely in our favor. Thanks to Lionsgate, we’ll soon be posting our review of The Hunger Games: Mockingjay, Part 2, the final chapter in the wildly popular dystopian YA saga. The studio was also kind enough to crown us with The Royals: Season 2. Shout! Factory catches up with Maude: Season 4 and takes us to court with the Perry Mason Movie Collection: Volume 5. Meanwhile, All Hell Breaks Loose courtesy of Wild Eye Releasing. Finally, Anchor Bay starts a revolution with Turn — Washington’s Spies: Season 2.
And one last reminder before signing off for the week: if you’re shopping for anything on Amazon and you do it through one of our links, it’ll help keep the lights on here at UpcomingDiscs. See ya next week!
Posted in: Disc Reviews by J C on March 21st, 2016
“How much of an a--hole do you have to be to be successful?”
Over the last couple of years, a grand total of three movies — 2013’s Jobs, along with 2015’s Steve Jobs and now Steve Jobs: The Man in the Machine — have applied that very question to Apple’s late co-founder. Each film has approached the issue from different angles, but this Alex Gibney documentary is easily the most comprehensive, even if it’s not the exactly the most entertaining or satisfying.
