Posted in: Disc Reviews by Jeremy Butler on October 26th, 2023
“Since the beginning of time, since the first little girl ever existed, there have been dolls. But the dolls were always and forever baby dolls, until ...”
Let me preface this by saying that I am in no way the target audience for this film. That said, this film is in no way for the target audience that you may imagine it is for. Initially, I suspected the film was intended for the age bracket that actually plays with Barbies. However, after watching, I’d have to argue that the themes of the film are geared more towards the young adult / early adulthood crowd. Bearing all that in mind, it should go without saying that Barbie was a film that I endured rather than enjoyed until one key moment which I will describe later. To my mind the film was an amalgamation of films that came before it. And while I appreciate the film’s diversity in encompassing a wide range of actors to represent variations of the Barbie and Ken characters, at times it felt as though the film’s agenda was literally punching me in the face.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Brent Lorentson on October 19th, 2023
“Where the hell did you come from?”
When you consider just how many films have been made about Bram Stoker’s novel Dracula, I’m surprised it has taken this long to get a film like The Last Voyage of the Demeter. I’m not a huge fan of the novel, but the chapter that centers around Dracula’s voyage from Carpathia to London is a section that I always enjoyed. It’s a chapter told through journal entries from the captain of the ship and how the crew is killed one by one by a mysterious menace aboard the ship. In the movies that have come before, this moment of the film is usually mentioned as an afterthought or simply gets a couple of minutes of screen time. So is this the fresh take on the beloved horror icon that cinema goers have been waiting for, or is this just a lame attempt to revive the vampire genre?
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on October 2nd, 2023
"Have you ever heard of exorcism? It's a stylized ritual in which rabbis or priests try to drive out the so-called invading spirit. It's pretty much discarded these days, except by the Catholics who keep it in the closet as a sort of embarrassment. It has worked, in fact, although not for the reason they think, of course. It was purely the force of suggestion. The victim's belief in possession helped cause it. And just in the same way, this belief in the power of exorcism can make it disappear."
By now we've all heard of The Exorcist. The film was based on a best-selling novel by William Peter Blatty. Blatty himself based the story on a real exorcism of a young boy many years earlier. And that's where the true power of the film begins. The monsters of horror movies often allow us a sense of unreality that protects our inner selves from being truly terrified. Yes, they may frighten us, but it's fun to be frightened, isn't it? It's rare that a horror film touches on something inside of us and delivers an experience that is truly terrifying. It's arguable that The Exorcist has done this in a way that has rarely, if ever, been repeated in horror movie history. Whatever your religious beliefs might be, there is that little voice deep in our minds that fears what we call evil and can't deal with the possibility that we can be taken over by such evil. Devil. Demon. Mental illness. It doesn't matter. We're all afraid of losing control of who we are to some invading force within our minds. Within our very souls.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Jeremy Butler on September 7th, 2023
"If we're going to do this, there's a lot I'm going to have to explain to you."
Been waiting on this one for some time, ever since we were introduced to the character in the Justice League movie and it was announced that the film would cover the Flashpoint Paradox storyline, which is one of my favorite comic storylines. My enthusiasm was tempered a bit with the film being delayed and the actor’s subsequent troubles (for the purposes of staying on the topic at hand, that will be my only mention of that situation). However, it is finally here, and after viewing it I can say that it was well done and well received. It is also a bit bittersweet, as it signifies the conclusion of the DCEU as we know it. While I have complete confidence that the future of DC is safe in James Gunn’s hands, it is difficult to say farewell to the only thing that we’ve known since Cavill first donned the suit. Back on topic: in my opinion, while this adaptation does have some slight deviations from the source material, I can confidently say that the film does the source material justice (pun intended).
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on August 17th, 2023
"In northern California, the Santa Lucia Mountains, dark and brooding, stand like a wall between the peaceful agricultural town of Salinas and the rough-and-tumble fishing port of Monterey, fifteen miles away It's 1917 just outside of Monterey."
James Dean was somewhat of a brief candle. Very much like Marylin Monroe, he came upon Hollywood so bright and hot only to burn for a short time. And while Norma Jean had a few good years in which to shine, Dean would have less than a handful. In those few years he made three incredible films. His last was Giant, and before that was perhaps his best known, Rebel Without A Cause. East Of Eden was the first of this trilogy of films that would pretty much make up the career of James Dean. All three films were made in the years 1955-1956, and just as suddenly as Dean had come upon the scene, billed as the next Marlon Brando, he was gone. One car ride into eternity and it was all over just as it had begun: Explosive and brief. Through Warner Brothers 100 years of movies restoration and release celebration, we have already seen and reviewed Giant and Rebel Without A Cause. Now the trilogy is complete in the place where it began: Elia Kazan's masterpiece, East Of Eden.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Brent Lorentson on July 8th, 2023
For me it’s crazy to see that The Truman Show is turning 25 years old. I was graduating high school when this had come out, and television was just an entirely different landscape back then. In 1998 when this film came out, the only reality shows were pretty much COPS and then The Real World on MTV, I really don’t believe anyone could have expected just how big reality TV would become. The same year in competition for box office dollars was Ed TV. Oddly enough, Ed TV would be a little closer to the mark on what the reality TV landscape would look like, taking a regular guy and making him a star overnight because he was on TV. The Truman Show I always felt was the superior film in just about every aspect. In many ways it is what I had hoped reality TV could be, but unfortunately it seems what viewers wanted in their reality programming was something more scandalous and absurd, more akin to a Jerry Springer episode than someone living in an idyllic world that was out of an episode of Ozzie and Harriet or Leave It To Beaver.
Jim Carrey stars as Truman Burbank, an insurance salesman who lives in an idyllic white-picket-fence town and is just living his life. The only the problem is, the world he lives in is not real; it’s all manufactured, and he’s really living in the world’s largest television studio, and everyone around him is acting, all because the reality is Truman is unknowingly the star of the world’s biggest reality show. This was such a departure for Jim Carrey. At the time he was the biggest comedy star on the screen and was known for being over the top and playing larger-than-life characters, but the role of Truman required him to be toned and down and seem even boring. The result is perhaps his most enduring performance to date (or at least tied with his massively underappreciated film, The Majestic).
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Brent Lorentson on June 29th, 2023
Back in 2013 the remake for Evil Dead came out. I enjoyed the film, but it just didn’t feel right not having Bruce Campbell on the screen fighting off the deadites in that crazy cabin in the middle of the woods. But I could still appreciate the gore, and I felt the filmmakers did a decent job at capturing the tone of the franchise. The film has kind of grown on me over the years. Then fans got hit with the Ash Vs. The Evil Dead series, which was three seasons of bliss that really did a fantastic job honoring the trilogy that Sam Raimi had created. Now in 2023 we have a new film, Evil Dead Rise, a film that ignores pretty much everything fans of the franchise have known and loved for 40 years. It did great at the box office, but where does the film stand on its own and in relation to the legacy before it?
The film shifts its location from the middle of the woods to an apartment in the city. This was a nice, refreshing change in my opinion, kind of like how Scream decided to leave the small town of Woodsboro this year and move things to the Big Apple. The location shift simply opens up so many new possibilities, and when you consider the havoc that some deadites can bring to this new setting, it is something worth getting excited about. Instead of a group of friends, this time the film is centered on a family. There’s the newly single mom of three, Ellie (Alyssa Sutherland), her youngest daughter, Kassie (Nell Fisher), and then the other two siblings, Bridget (Gabrielle Echols) and Danny (Morgan Davies). As an unexpected surprise to the family, they get a visit from Ellie’s sister, Beth (Lily Sullivan), who has to stepped away from her rock-star life after discovering that she is pregnant. There are other people who share the same floor as Ellie, but the film’s focus is on this family, and for the most part just this floor, which is one of my problems with the film. It offers so much potential with a bigger location, but chooses to isolate itself, which defeats the whole purpose of leaving the cabin.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Jeremy Butler on June 27th, 2023
“How everyone thinks we can solve any problem with magic. There are limits! This isn’t some bedtime story; this is the real world!”
Well not quite, but still very sound advice. Which is what our heroes find out in this adaptation of the popular tabletop game. I’m becoming convinced that there is no such thing as a truly great cinematic adaptation for a tabletop or role-playing games. Think about it? Warcraft, Battleship, the previous Dungeons and Dragons adaptation. All of them failed to hit the mark. When you think about it, it’s not surprising. These games are incredibly nuisance and detailed, it would be more surprising if their entirely was actually able to be encompassed in a matter of hours. In the case of the latest Dungeons and Dragons adaptation, Honor Amongst Thieves, I think it is a case of good movie/decent adaptation. Based on the Forgotten Realms settings, the film follows Chris Pine as Edgin Darvis, a former Harper turned thief. While I do claim to be an expert in the world of D&D, Darvis does appear to have some basis in the game itself. Backing Pine up, we have Michelle Rodriguez as barbarian Holga, Hugh Grant as conman Forge Fitzwilliam, Justice Smith as a fledgling elf sorcerer Simon Aumar, Sophia Lillis as druid Doric, and Rege-Jean Page as paladin Xenk Yendar. I was expecting Page to have a bigger role as he was featured prominently in the film’s promotional materials, but I will go into further detail about that down the road.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on June 2nd, 2023
When I was a young boy I loved playing with my toys. We didn't have Transformers in those days, but we did have Major Matt Mason, plastic dinosaurs, Hot Wheels, and Creepy Crawlers Thingmaker sets. Yeah, in those days a toy could cause third-degree burns and no one really worried about getting sued. Kind of takes the fun out of being a kid today. You know who else, I bet, loved to play with his toys? Michael Bay. I bet he had the coolest toys in his neighborhood. He probably wasn't the best guy to be friends with, however. He didn't invite the kids over to play with his toys. He likely charged you a nickel to watch him play with them. It's many decades later, and Michael still has the coolest toys on the block. Only now you have to cough up twenty bucks if you want to watch him playing with them. Sadly, that is what the Transformers film franchise has been reduced to. We're all watching the rich kid playing with really cool toys.
I had a decided advantage going into the Michael Bay extravagance that is the Transformers film franchise. Unlike the majority of the film franchise’s target audience, I have had almost no exposure to the other incarnations of Transformers. I was already too old for the toys when Hasbro launched them, and so it was true for the cartoon and comic versions that quickly followed. Like everyone else I had a passing familiarity with the things, but nothing more. How is that an advantage, you might very well ask. Like any film franchise that dares to attempt material often considered sacred by its followers, Transformers had to play the game of expectations. I don’t carry any of the baggage that often keeps an audience from enjoying a film because they already think they know what it should look like. Armed with just the most basic of knowledge, I was able to approach them each freshly and enjoy each as a standalone entity. With that said, I had a pretty rockin’ time of it.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Jeremy Butler on May 24th, 2023
I know that we all know that the DC universe is going through a bit of a revamp right now. I’m sure we’ve all seen it, with the cancellation of the Batgirl movie and the getting our hopes up over the prospect of Henry Cavill’s return to the fold, only to be crushed when it was announced that the studio was going in a different direction. We all have our feelings about it. That said, if there was a franchise that I would recommend keeping around, it would be the Shazam films. I know, I know, I’m surprised by this revelation too, but the thing is, this franchise of them all was the one that took me by the most surprise. I wasn’t expecting to enjoy it. Prior to the release of the first film, the character of Shazam (a.k.a. Captain Marvel) had been nothing more than a background character that I’d observed in the animated films and shows. I even questioned the wisdom of introducing a character like this when DC was behind the curve in comparison to Marvel. I thought they should focus on building up the main Justice League heroes so they could get back in the race. Then in 2019, I went and saw this, and it won me over. It gave the DC universe a dose of lightheartedness. Zachary Levi was a fantastic choice for the character, because all the quirks and awkwardness that made NBC’s Chuck a gem were on display in our plucky hero. And now with Shazam: Fury of the Gods, DC just keeps that train rolling. The addition of Helen Mirren and Lucy Liu as the antagonists, the Daughters of Atlas, was a bold and interesting gamble, given that they do not appear in the comics, and are actually original characters created for the film. Yes, I did a bit of research.
When we last left off, Billy Batson (Asher Angel) had finally become a member of a family after a lifetime running away from them in order to find his birth mother. Solidifying his bond with his new family, he elected to share his power with them and create the Shazam family. Picking up years later, Billy, who is on the verge of aging out of foster care, worries as everyone begins drifting apart due to them all growing older and developing their own personal interests. This drifting also affects their heroism, as despite having the best of intentions, they begin doing more harm than good, causing the public to view them negatively even though they save countless lives.
