Posted in: Disc Reviews by J C on October 4th, 2018
“This is the greatest s— show on Earth!”
The First Purge arrives in theaters a little more than five years after the (lowercase) first Purge rampaged into moviegoers’ consciousness as a nasty bit of R-rated, summer blockbuster counterprogramming. The movies are obviously quite popular, but I’ve never felt that any of them fully lived up to the killer concept at the center of this franchise. Unfortunately, that still holds true for The First Purge, which had a chance to deviate from the established formula in a variety of interesting ways, but ends up playing a lot like The First Three Purges.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on October 2nd, 2018
"Mutation: it is the key to our evolution. It has enabled us to evolve from a single-celled organism into the dominant species on the planet. This process is slow, and normally taking thousands and thousands of years. But every few hundred millennia, evolution leaps forward."
Fox is taking full advantage of their version of the X-Men Universe these days. By this time next year, the group of mutants will once again be back with Marvel at Disney, and I suspect they will quickly join that studio's MCU. I can't blame Fox for getting as much out of it now as they can. With the pending release of Dark Phoenix and two television shows running, this was the perfect time to release the original film trilogy on UHD in ultra-high-definition.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on September 24th, 2018
"Do you remember the first time you saw a dinosaur? The first time you see them, it's like a miracle. You read about them in books, you see the bones in museums, but you don't really believe it. They're like myths. And then you see the first one alive."
By the time you get to the fourth sequel of a film, the results are usually not very good. Even a groundbreaking film like Jurassic Park has been followed by at least one terrible sequel. The problem with these kinds of things is pretty easy to figure out. You can't please all of any film's diehard fans, and it's hard to continue to deliver on the formula's expectations, all the while breaking new ground without the result feeling more contrived than original.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on September 21st, 2018
"It's not just for profit. It's for revenge. It's a twofer."
Hollywood has been making a greater effort these days to add some diversity to their film casts. From minorities to women, this has been a year of unprecedented changes in the makeup of so many films. One of the new trends in this effort is to remake/re-imagine/reboot an already established franchise with a gender-switched cast. The results have been somewhat mixed. The female Ghostbusters film was a complete disappointment.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on September 3rd, 2018
Amazon Prime Video is beginning to offer new scripted drama shows on their streaming service. One of the more recently acclaimed is a Jack Ryan series. That gives Paramount a great opportunity to take advantage of the situation and release the five Jack Ryan films on UHD/4K. Whatever the excuse, I'm happy to see these films get the UHD treatment. The release includes The Hunt For Red October, Patriot Games, Clear And Present Danger, The Sum Of All Fears and Jack Ryan Shadow Recruit. It's a chance to see Alec Baldwin, Harrison Ford, Ben Affleck and Chris Pine all take the Tom Clancy CIA analyst to the big screen. You don't have to pick your favorite, because they're all here
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on August 24th, 2018
"So dark. You sure you're not from the DC universe?”
I've said many times in these pages that expectations can kill. That might have been more true for Deadpool 2 than any other film I've seen since the re-launch of Star Wars. The first movie didn't push boundaries. It obliterated the boundaries and kept on going. Fans had certainly been ripe for a raunchy R-rated superhero film, and the box office for Deadpool certainly proved that out by bringing in nearly a half a billion bucks. For a superhero film that might seem like small change, but for what was essentially a comedy, it was awesome money and demanded a sequel before the first run was over at the multiplexes
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on August 15th, 2018
In September there is going to be a new film in The Predator franchise called The Predator. It's directed by Shane Black, who actually starred in the 1987 original film and soon after went on to develop the Lethal Weapon series and make a bit of a name for himself in the buddy-cop genre. It's no surprise that Fox wants to capitalize on the release by giving us UHD/4K releases for the other three films in the franchise. Let's try to forget those Alien vs. Predator disasters and focus on the three films of this particular franchise.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on July 31st, 2018
"Every bridge, every building grows from an engineers imagination."
Dream Big: Engineering Our World is the second of Shout Factory's latest collection of IMAX films to be brought into the capable arms of the UHD/4K format. And while this film doesn't take us so much into the natural beauty of some picturesque place on our planet or deep into the darkness of space, it does deliver a rather grand look at some of the wonders of the man-made world. Both films were directed by Greg MacGillivray, which binds them together in a somewhat nice little bow.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on July 27th, 2018
"Wildlife and its habitat cannot speak, so we must, and we will" - Teddy Roosevelt.
Actually they do speak for themselves, and Shout Factory's UHD/4K release of National Parks Adventure gives that wildlife plenty of grand opportunities to speak to us through the grandeur of the American National Park system. Last year Shout Factory showed us what the UHD/4K format could really deliver by releasing a series of IMAX films in the new format. It was a bold move that has really paid off. IMAX cameras utilize 65 and 70mm film, which offers source material that is actually much higher resolution than 4K.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Brent Lorentson on July 26th, 2018
Like so many others, when I read the book Ready Player One by Ernest Cline I simply fell in love with the nostalgic ride through the 80’s, all thanks to a virtual reality world called The Oasis. From start to finish it was a book filled with pop culture references that would make film and video game geeks squeal with delight, and it was no surprise that the book was a hit and would be turned into a film. There were only two names I could think of that could ever come close to making this film a reality: Robert Zemeckis and Steven Spielberg.
