Posted in Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on September 18th, 2014
“Oh boy, zombie apocalypse!”
No, it’s just South Park. But it has invaded pop culture as much as zombies have over its amazing 18-year run. Trey Parker and Matt Stone have been walking a tightrope for over 18 years now, and it just doesn’t get old. One of the reasons the show doesn’t grow stale is their ability to make such a quick turnaround on current events.
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Posted in Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on September 17th, 2014
“Spartacus’ mongrel horde has swelled with each passing victory since Glaber’s defeat at Vesuvius. They added thousands to rank liberating the mines of Lucania. Slaves across the Republic, humble and grateful to their masters for so many years, have broken to treachery in the wake of the ever-expanding legend of Spartacus.”
Starz has had a pretty good run with their Spartacus series. Coming off the style of blood and violence that was popularized with Zach Snyder’s 300, Spartacus brought that comic book/graphic novel intensity to television.
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Posted in Disc Reviews by J C on September 9th, 2014
“Drag racing is for fast cars. Road racing…that’s for fast drivers.”
I imagine that distinction — along with one character scolding another for pulling a “Vin Diesel stunt” — is meant to set this straight-to-DVD racing drama apart from the Fast & Furious franchise. That separation is an interesting choice for a couple of reasons. On one hand, I assume it’s been easier to finance any car-centric flick ever since a certain high-octane film series proved there’s an audience for the genre. Then again, the increasingly staggering success of the Fast movies seems to be directly proportional to how ludicrous they’ve become.
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Posted in Disc Reviews by Brent Lorentson on August 27th, 2014
Here is a film that delves into a subject not many people care to openly discuss but poses a question that everyone who’s lost someone they love can relate to. When prayer and faith don’t seem to deliver the answers you want for those that need closure that therapy can’t seem to provide, where does one turn? It’s this hopeless feeling of loss that seems to be what attracts Michael King (Shane Johnson) to investigate the possibility of the supernatural.
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Posted in Disc Reviews by William O'Donnell on July 19th, 2014
Here comes Volume four of this clip commentary comedy show (CCC could catch on as a sub-genre title couldn’t it?). This time we get two seasons worth of episodes; the “Collas” and “Exposed Arms” entitled seasons, as it were. Very little is different as far as format or new segments are concerned since the last time I wrote about this show.
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Posted in Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on June 13th, 2014
“It’s a different world out there.”
You can say that again. The television landscape is changing, at least on cable. Ray Donovan is the latest in the string of new shows that are attracting talent once thought out of reach for television. A show starring Liev Schreiber and Jon Voight, this Showtime series looked to be something very special… and it almost is.
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Posted in Disc Reviews by J C on June 5th, 2014
“Our planet, our war.”
Those four words neatly summarize the overriding theme for the third season of Falling Skies, TNT’s earnest alien invasion drama. While the show still takes its broad thematic cues from the American Revolutionary War, this batch of episodes directly references some of the uneasy alliances formed during World War II. So in between the numerous instances of human characters shooting at aliens — and at each other — the show explored the question of whether the enemy of my enemy really is my friend.
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Posted in Disc Reviews by Brent Lorentson on June 4th, 2014
Before getting this season to review, my exposure to the show was fairly limited; I had seen a few episodes on Comedy Central, but that was about it. Now that I’ve had a chance to kick back and take in the shenanigans of Blake (Blake Anderson), Adam (Adam DeVine) and Anders (Anders Holm) I can say it was a disservice to myself to hold out for so long. For those that are unaware of the show, I see it as a bit of a hybrid between It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia and Office Space, as it follows three friends who live together and work together at a telemarketing company.
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Posted in Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on May 27th, 2014
by Eric Mitchell
G.W. McLintock (John Wayne, True Grit, Rooster Cogburn) made most of his money by being a cattle baron. He made so much money, in fact, that the film’s fictional town was named after him. How cool is that? But all is not milk and honey in McLintock’s life. He has an estranged wife who does not live with him (Quiet Man co star Maureen O’Hara), and now wants a divorce
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Posted in Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on May 11th, 2014
If anything, the third part of the Godfather series of films is symbolic of when too many sequels are greenlighted, and consequently, the film is doomed to fail. More often than not, the reason why these films crash and burn is because of major studios acting like Adelphia executives and wanting more money, and in using the previous films’ successes as leverage, they lose sight of things like quality. It’s happened to other trilogies. And if you put together previous films with the reputation that the first two Godfather films have, the only question left to answer is whether or not the third film would be a minor or major letdown.
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Posted in Disc Reviews by J C on April 24th, 2014
“I used to be thin when I was 6.”
Jim Gaffigan has long been fixated on food. Need proof? The comedian’s 2013 memoir is called “Dad Is Fat”, and his most famous routine is about Hot Pockets. So it wasn’t exactly a shocker to find that Gaffigan spends most of Obsessed — his fourth Comedy Central stand-up special — talking about his dietary likes and dislikes. (Hint: kale is not on his list of favorites.) This is astoundingly straightforward and inoffensive material that nonetheless had me consistently laughing out loud.
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Posted in Disc Reviews by J C on April 2nd, 2014
“Sometimes a day can be an eternity.”
It’s hard to tell a convincing love story, period. It’s even harder to tell a convincing love story when we’re supposed to believe the two characters fall for each other within the space of a single day. The good news is At Middleton somewhat manages to pull this off in a little over an hour. The bad news is the film is actually 1 hour and 40 minutes long.
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Posted in Disc Reviews by Brent Lorentson on March 30th, 2014
It’s been quite some time since The Chappelle Show went off the air, and it would appear Comedy Central has finally found its replacement. I wouldn’t go so far as to say the two shows are on the same par, but what Keegan Michael Key and Jordan Peele bring to the small screen is something that has piqued my interest and shows some potential. Both Key and Peele got their big break from working on the sketch comedy show MADtv, and it would seem they are taking their talents and what they learned to bring us something that is a little familiar but still fresh and keeps its audience laughing
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Posted in Disc Reviews by Michael Durr on March 16th, 2014
Jeff Dunham has always had a talent for making people laugh. His style of ventriloquism has found its way into millions of homes and probably a billion YouTube views. Of course these standup specials have translated into tons of merchandising potential such as lunchboxes, t-shirts, and even the puppets turned into cute and sometimes furry stuffed dolls. Well, with one of the most beloved characters, Achmed, they decided to do an animated special. Let us see how well it turned out.
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Posted in Disc Reviews by Brent Lorentson on March 11th, 2014
When you are first getting into a relationship those first few weeks can be pretty awkward at times as the two of you get to know one another. The decision to go on a road trip early on in a relationship is simply one of those gambles that can go either way, but if the trip goes well, then of course the future of this budding romance is all the more promising. In Fear follows a couple that bravely decides to take a road trip together so they can see a concert; unfortunately for them, it’s the road trip from hell.
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Posted in Disc Reviews by J C on February 19th, 2014
“Zombies…killer robots…nice town you got here.”
If nothing else, filmmaker Christopher Hatton definitely thought outside the box in his attempt to spice up the lumbering zombie genre. The random appearance of killer robots about halfway through the film is such an out-of-leftfield move — assuming you started watching this movie without looking at its Blu-ray cover (and, no…Dolph Lundgren is *not* one of the robots) — that I actually found it to be inspired. It’s a good thing too because the rest of Battle of the Damned is essentially a low-budget, paint splatter-by-numbers survival flick.
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Posted in Disc Reviews by J C on February 6th, 2014
“Don’t try to figure this out…I’m just a crazy, horny bitch.”
This column strongly opposes cheating on your significant other. But if you absolutely can’t help yourself, you’ve got to be smarter about it than the numbskull played by Billy Zane in this film. In Scorned — a junky, over-the-top cross between Fatal Attraction and Misery — his girlfriend is an admitted manic-depressive who regularly takes as much medication as she can stuff in her purse. So what exactly did this dolt think would happen when she found out that he was sleeping with her best friend?
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Posted in Disc Reviews by J C on February 4th, 2014
“I’m match for any man.”
The idea that “behind every great man, there’s a great woman rolling her eyes” far predates its adoption as a feminist slogan in the middle of the previous century. The White Queen — a sumptuous, rushed combination of Game of Thrones-style high-stakes scheming and Tudors-style regal bodice ripping — uses Britain’s late medieval history as a jumping off point for pushing a number of notable women to the forefront.
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Posted in Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on January 13th, 2014
“If you were a spider, where would you be?”
Unfortunately, I happen to know the answer to that question: here at my house. When director Mike Mendez was looking for locations to shoot his SyFy-styled Big Ass Spider! he could have looked no farther than the spider-friendly environs of Tampa, Florida. In fact, he could have set up his equipment in my living room and gotten himself a Big Ass Spider, to be sure. They’re called huntsmen. I call them Rambo Spiders.
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Posted in Disc Reviews by J C on December 11th, 2013
Before Billy Bob Thornton became best known for icky PDA and wearing his wife’s blood around his neck, he burst onto the moviemaking scene as an Academy Award-winning triple-threat with Sling Blade, which he directed, wrote and starred in. (I feel like it’s finally safe to bring up Billy Bob’s acting career again.) Despite working steadily as an actor — and even directing a few other films — the Thornton who won an Oscar for writing Sling Blade has been largely absent from moviegoers’ lives. That’s why it was such a delight to see him return to southern-fried form as a filmmaker with the terrific ensemble drama Jayne Mansfield’s Car.
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Posted in Disc Reviews by J C on November 18th, 2013
“On November 22, 1963, John Fitzgerald Kennedy, the 35th president of the United States, made a political trip to Dallas, Texas with his wife, Jacqueline, and Vice President Lyndon B. Johnson.”
Of course, you don’t have to be an American History buff to know what happened next. The circumstances surrounding President Kennedy’s assassination instantly seared themselves into the country’s collective consciousness. This month marks the 50th anniversary of President Kennedy’s death, which has brought along the expected number of tributes, TV specials and movies breaking down the crime and its corresponding conspiracy theories. Parkland, however, serves as a microcosm of how Kennedy’s assassination affected an entire nation.
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Posted in Disc Reviews by J C on November 11th, 2013
The most surprising thing about Ambushed is that it’s not quite as generic as its completely uninspired title might suggest. (Off the top of my head, I can think of at least 15 movies that could credibly be re-titled Ambushed; I’m sure you can too.) This particular straight-to-DVD action thriller is being sold as The Expendables-lite, with tough guy supporting players (and Ambushed producers) Dolph Lundgren and Randy Couture — along with Vinnie Jones, who really should’ve been in an Expendables movie by now — glowering from the Blu-ray cover. But this stylish L.A. drama — which liberally borrows from superior crime flicks — has a few tricks of its own.
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Posted in Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on November 6th, 2013
Ike Evans (Morgan) owns the most swank hotel in Miami. It’s the Miramar Playa. He bought the land at a song from his deceased wife’s family, and he’s turned it into a luxury city where the likes of Frank Sinatra call home. He’s determined to make it without caving to the influence of his minority partner, who happens to go by the name of The Butcher. He’s Ben Diamond (Huston), and he wants the hotel to become a kingdom of gambling and other profitable vices. Sure, Ike allows a little prostitution and backroom bookie action, but he wants to keep the hotel pretty much legit. That’s hard with a bank nut that runs $65,000 a month.
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Posted in Disc Reviews by Michael Durr on October 19th, 2013
So, it is the Upcomingdiscs.com 31 Nights of Terror and your favorite columnist, Mr. Michael “Hey, were you expecting John Ceballos?” Durr has stepped in for a review about some of his favorite subjects. Cheesy Horror flics and Alyssa Milano. Today’s title is an absolute cult classic and that is the original 1995 Vampire thriller, Embrace of the Vampire. So strap yourself in, and prepare to watch something so beautiful that it brings a tear to this columnist’s eyes. (Tissue please)
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Posted in Disc Reviews by J C on October 15th, 2013
Embrace of the Vampire is a remake of the 1995 erotic bloodsucker thriller of the same name. The original’s only greatest claim to fame is that it starred Who’s the Boss? cutie Alyssa Milano in her first, ahem, “grown up” role. In other words, the bar wasn’t exactly sky high for the remake. (This is not Gus Van Sant doing a shot-for-shot remake of Psycho.) The well-made newer film certainly “embraces” the erotic thriller DNA of the original. Unfortunately, it doesn’t seem overly concerned with the “vampire.”
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