Posted in: Disc Reviews by Michael Durr on February 15th, 2019
It is interesting to see two or more of a director's works in a short period of time. One sees similarities, differences, and how the filmmaker hones his craft as they improve with every production. Masaaki Yuasa is certainly one of those directors, and if you enjoyed my review on Night is Short, Walk on Girl, then you will want to go ahead and read my review today on Lu Over the Wall. While there are similarities, I can safely say that is quite the departure from the previous film. Let us take a look in the animated world of merfolk and the people who live around them.
A boy taps his fingers next to a microphone for an Internet streaming session as we read the comments below his video. There seems to be a lot of interest below his post including the potential for some band-mates should he ever want to expand his horizons. We soon meet the boy named Kai as he shuffles downstairs to have breakfast with his grandpa and father.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Michael Durr on February 8th, 2019
As with probably most people in this business, I am indeed addicted to the concept of collecting movies. It should probably come as no surprise that I have well over 1,000 movies in all disc-based formats. Anybody with a rational mind should question why I have to own all the movies in a given series. Yes, I own Darkman 3, Hollow Man 2, and Bloodsport 4, among other strange and utterly awful movies. But somehow despite that completion-ist mindset, my addictions and OCDs pale in comparison to a deadly drug such as alcohol, a drug that can overtake your life and kill you in an instant. Our review today takes us to a TV movie from the 70's named Sarah T: Portrait of a Teenage Alcoholic.
We start with an upbeat commercial showing a bunch of teenagers having fun with a Courey's Beer. Then we get some cold hard facts from the time period. There are 500,000 pre-teen and teenage alcoholics. Three in four teenagers have had a drink, 1 in 20 have a serious problem with alcohol, 1 in 10 of those people will become an alcoholic. But it certainly makes you popular and easygoing with your friends, or at least that's what they say, anyway.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Brent Lorentson on February 8th, 2019
When Robert Redford first announced that The Old Man and the Gun was going to be the last film he was going to be acting in, it became a film that shot to the top of my must-see list. Since that announcement he’s backed off on his comment, but if this were his last film, this would be one heck of a way to close out an amazing career. What writer and director David Lowery has delivered here is sort of a love letter to all of Redford’s greatest hits, and by the time the credits end, well, you simply know you’ve watched something special. It’s a film from another era, when special FX didn’t come out of a camera and cinema just was different. Most of all this film reminded me why Redford will always remain a cinematic icon, but what was missing here is the void Paul Newman left behind. This would have been a perfect film for them to both be in and ride off into the sunset together, and it’s a reminder of how many greats we have lost and those other greats who may not have passed, but it seems Hollywood just doesn’t seem to have a place for anymore.
The film is mostly a true story based on the criminal Forrest Tucker (Redford), who has spent his life in and out of prison. He’s been incarcerated 18 times, and each of those times he’s managed to find a way to escape. But the film isn’t about his entire life, but instead about when his criminal life may be coming to an end. When he meets Jewel (Sissy Spacek), he’s actually on the run after a bank heist, and he pulls over on the highway to help her when he sees her car is broken down. Of course it seems this is just a tactic to throw the cops off his tail, but the more he talks with Jewe,l you can’t be sure if that twinkle in his eye is part of the con or if he is sweet on the woman.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Jeremy Butler on February 6th, 2019
This was the big surprise during the 2018 Super Bowl halftime show; that this film that would be immediately available on Netflix after the game. As you can imagine, this was pretty significant for me, as I only had a vague knowledge of the film due to its limited promotion until this event. How apropos it is that this film be released around the same time of as the 2019 Super Bowl. Part of the Cloverfield Universe and armed with basically a who’s who of international talent, I can say that The Cloverfield Paradox is among my favorite of the movie franchise, based predominantly on the performances of the cast. The plot of the film tends to be a bit heavy on the science, which may make it difficult to follow for those who aren’t that well-versed with that subject.
Set in 2028, the Earth is suffering a global energy crisis, and countries are close to going to war over the remaining energy reserves. In an attempt to resolve the crisis, the space agencies of the world have band together to form a coalition force on a space station to test a particle accelerator to create an unlimited power source. After two years of failed attempts, tensions between the countries’ representatives begin to grow and accusations of sabotage are lobbied against one another, mainly at German physicist Ernst Schmidt (Daniel Bruhl, Captain America: Civil War).
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on February 1st, 2019
When did it become mainstream to root for the bad guys? Certainly our pop culture has been propagated with colorful villains since Shakespeare, goons we love to hate or even just love. Still, the rule always seemed to be that the white hats always win and the black hats get what’s coming. Television once demanded that shows follow that simple code. When Alfred Hitchcock did his television show, the stories often ended with the bad guys appearing to win. To comply with the code, he developed a habit of offering us a usually humorous sidebar about the unfortunate fate of the stories’ bad guys. It became a trademark that was created to keep to a moral code. But when did all of that change? Was it with The Sopranos? We all became enamored by this lovable teddy bear of a guy in Tony. We don’t have to spoil it by pointing out he’s a killer, adulterer, and all-star criminal sociopath. The Shield places us squarely in that same situation. Vic Mackey has a lot in common with Tony Soprano. He’s guilty of the entire litany just made. But he wasn't the first dirty cop we rooted for. Dennis Franz created two of the best between Hill Street Blues and NYPD Blue. He was as brutal as they come. But even Buntz couldn't kill a fellow cop in his unit or even worse. So why do we love him so much?
The answer most certainly lies in the compelling writing both of these shows share. Perhaps we’re not so much in love with Tony or Vic, but the stories that are told around them. It just might be that superior drama rivets us to our sets. We root for the bad guy because, to be frank, when they go down, the ride’s over. As with The Sopranos, we don’t want our moments with The Shield to end. Therefore Vic simply has to stay just one step ahead of his just desserts, or the story's over. It finally did end, but Mill Creek has brought Vic back, and he's as good as he's ever been. But now he's in HD and on Blu-ray. This is the kind of show binge-watching was invented for. I dare you to watch just one.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Michael Durr on February 1st, 2019
I have had many story ideas in my head for quite sometime. Putting them on paper is indeed another thing. One such story is a road trip between some friends that starts out normally, but little by little it becomes unraveled until it represents a tremendous and crazy affair. Unfortunately, I only got through nine chapters, and it hasn't seen a word since. Today's review is focused on an anime that is named The Night is Short, Walk On Girl. It involves the story of a girl who starts a normal night drinking through town. However, little by little the people and events around her become more extraordinary and bizarre as the night carries on. Hopefully this one makes it well past the ninth chapter.
We visit a restaurant. A girl with black hair is drinking with her friends. She stares endlessly into a bowl of soup until it turns into a bunch of eyeballs, and then we hear a train whistle. The girl wishes to be out on the town instead of watching time pass. The scene moves to another table where we meet Senpai, a teenager obsessed with the girl with black hair. The School Executive Festival Head (who also apparently cross-dresses when the mood suits him) confronts Senpai with this accusation, but he denies it.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on January 31st, 2019
The fabled story of the Nutcracker has many experiences, from plays, to musicals, to theater, and to operas; it has entertained us all for a century. What if these stories are real, and these Christmas toys really do have a world of their own? That would be a tale we all would love to hear. Enter Disney's The Nutcracker and the Four Realms. After the death of their mother, Clara (Mackenzie Foy), Fritz (Tom Sweet), Louise (Ellie Bamber), and their father, Mr. Stahbaum (Matthew Macfadyen), must endure the Christmas holidays without her. Struggling to move on with the events of the season, Mr. Stahbaum pushes them all to attend the annual event at Drosselmeyer’s house.
Drosselmeyer (Morgan Freeman) is a wealthy inventor of toys and many useful things. He loves all children and teaches them how to use their potential in whatever they are inspired to be.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by J C on January 30th, 2019
“Extremely rich, very married, eminently corruptible, and a willing infidel.”
That description is used to describe the unwitting marks targeted by the titular con men in Dirty Rotten Scoundrels. But except for the “very married” part, it’s also a pretty accurate depiction of the Scoundrels themselves, played here by Steve Martin and Michael Caine in a pair of very different but equally winning performances. The movie was released a little more than 30 years ago — Christmastime 1988 — which makes this a fine time to revisit the breezy, sleazy con men comedy thanks to this Collector’s Edition from Shout Select.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Brent Lorentson on January 17th, 2019
John Travolta is one of those guys I like, but it seems like it has been ages since he’s done a great film. Sure, he was great in The People vs. OJ Simpson where he played attorney Robert Shapiro, but apart from that role, it’s been a while since we’ve seen Travolta really make a splash at the box office. Personally I love seeing the guy on screen. Blow Out, Get Shorty and Pulp Fiction are just a few of my favorite films that he has been in, and I keep hoping his career will bounce back, but unfortunately it doesn’t look like it’ll be happening any time soon. Speed Kills is a film that has a story that is oozing with so much potential that if it were put in the hands of Brian De Palma or Michael Mann you could almost guarantee this film would be destined for greatness. Unfortunately the result is a frustrating mess that manages to make boat racing and drug smuggling in the age of the “cocaine cowboys” seem boring.
One of the film’s biggest faults is to open where the story ends, where we see Ben Aronoff (Travolta) being the target of a hit. The film then wants to take us back in time, where we have Aronoff narrating his story of how he had his rise and fall in Miami that reeks of a bad imitation of Henry Hill from Goodfellas. Seriously, in less than 10 minutes this film manages to sabotage itself, and it doesn’t get much better from here. This isn’t Casino where by some miracle our narrator manages to escape an exploding car. Having this given away so early on in the film is simply a giant mistake. If you eliminate this opening sequence, instantly you have a better film, but apparently even with over 40 named producers connected to the film, no one seemed to have realized this.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by J C on January 16th, 2019
“You know, the first time we met, I really didn’t like you that much.”
I didn’t become acquainted with When Harry Met Sally… until well after the Billy Crystal/Meg Ryan flick had established itself as a bona fide romantic comedy classic. (I was 7 when the film came out in 1989.) So when I finally got around to watching it in my late teens, the “I’ll have what she’s having” punchlines and general set-up involving an unlikely romantic pairing felt overly familiar. I enjoyed it just fine, I definitely appreciated it, but I wouldn’t quite call what we had love. Shout Select, an imprint of Shout! Factory, has released a 30th anniversary Blu-ray of When Harry Met Sally… And after revisiting this film years later, I’m asking myself the same question that Harry and Sally ponder after being friendly for years: is this love?
