Posted in: Disc Reviews by J C on November 11th, 2014
“You sell 100 million records, and see how you handle it.”
If you’ve ever seen an episode of Behind the Music — or followed popular culture at all in the previous century — then you probably know artists tend to not handle that level of success very well. However, the rise and (inevitable) fall of the original Four Seasons lineup is unique for a number reasons. Unfortunately, very few of those reasons are captured in Jersey Boys, Clint Eastwood’s oddly lifeless, workmanlike adaptation of the joyous, wildly popular Broadway musical.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Brent Lorentson on November 11th, 2014
Personally I’m not a fan of the Fast and Furious franchise, despite the fact that I tend to enjoy films from the genre. For me, I’ll take the old school films like Vanishing Point, Two-Lane Blacktop, and the original Gone in 60 Seconds over these big budget productions any day. All I can figure is that these films that I do enjoy are working with budgets that force the directors to be creative and understand most of their elaborate stunts only get one take and are not polished with CGI, but instead whatever the camera captures that is what we see on the big screen. The stunts are simply incredible, and the cars in my humblest opinion were simply cooler back then.
Drive Hard is a fun throwback to chase films that lived in an era of drive-in theaters and grindhouse cinema. Thomas Jane plays Peter Roberts, a former race car driver who gave up what could have been a successful career to be a father. Sure, this is a respectable decision, but it’s a decision that has haunted him, as he now has taken on a career as a driving instructor. Despite Roberts being a parent, he still hasn’t managed to give up the dream of being something more than an instructor, only it’s hard to imagine he could have expected Simon Keller (John Cusack) would be the person who would become the motivating force. Simon isn’t just a regular student of Peter’s; in fact, Simon has specifically found Peter to once again take a spot behind the wheel, only this time around it is in the form of being a getaway driver.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by J C on November 10th, 2014
“It's noble work. It is useful. You are angels of mercy...I just never thought that I would end up here.”
The geriatric care wing of a hospital — where the employees are undermanned and overworked, and many of the patients are in a near-catatonic state — is not the most obvious sitcom setting. As a result, HBO's comedy series Getting On isn't exactly what I'd call a gut buster. But even though much of the humor seems hyper-specific to this particular circle of workplace hell, anybody who has ever been underpaid to do a hard, crappy job should be able to relate.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by J C on November 7th, 2014
- “We don't have the trust of the public anymore.”
- “Get it back!”
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Brent Lorentson on November 5th, 2014
This has been a review that has taken me a while to get to, not because it’s something I was dreading, but instead it had me revisiting some other Elmore Leonard adaptations to the screen. There have been countless adaptions of Leonard’s work on the big screen as well as television. Whether it’s his westerns 3:10 to Yuma, Justified or Hombre or his work on crime Jackie Brown, Out of Sight, and Get Shorty, there is a good chance at some point you’ve seen Elmore’s work, and those were just a handful of titles I mentioned. I was a teenager when I first discovered Elmore Leonard. Out of Sight had just come out in paperback, and I had scooped it up after reading this was from the guy responsible for Get Shorty. His books didn’t read like your typical novel. Instead it felt like you were reading something that came alive; his characters simply spoke as though they came off the streets, not the pages of literature. I loved these books and have been reading them since, and when the news came early this year that Elmore Leonard had passed, it was one of the first times I actually got upset about a “celebrity” passing. It was the realization there simply would be no more stories to keep me turning the pages at night. Thankfully he left behind a collection of stories that will stand the test of time, and it’s with Life of Crime we get to see that.
A pair of small time crooks, Ordell (Mos Def) and Louis (John Hawkes) have a plan to kidnap a crooked real estate developer’s wife and hold her for a million-dollar ransom. The plan is just about perfect, and Mickey (Jennifer Anniston) is just about the perfect victim for her kidnappers; the trouble instead comes with the husband, Frank Dawson (Tim Robbins) who has just gone on vacation to the Bahamas where he has his mistress waiting. To make matters even more complicated for the crooks, Frank has even filed for divorce, so having his wife out of the picture would only make his life easier.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on October 29th, 2014
"It was the gang that ran amok. You have people who were being extorted, who talked of having a shotgun barrel stuck in their mouths or machine guns pointed at their groin. Body bags were shown by Bulger as he shakes them down. It was absolute terror."
It amazes me that I really had very little idea who James J. Bulger was before I watched this film by director Joe Berlinger. How could I have missed this guy? On the run for over 16 years, Bulger was once #2 on the FBI's most wanted list. Who was #1? That was Osama Bin Laden. So who was this man that came in second only to the world's most infamous terrorist? That's what I set out to discover, and Whitey: The United States of America vs. James J. Bulger filled in all of those blanks. When the film is finally over you'll be asking yourself, "How is it possible I didn't know this stuff?" One possible reason and the focus of this documentary lies in the fact that the FBI might not have wanted you to know much about this case. Joe Berlinger corrects that oversight with one of the more compelling documentary films I've seen in years. In the end, it asks as many questions as it answers. But those questions are powerful ones indeed.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by J C on October 28th, 2014
“That man brings hell with him wherever he goes.”
The “man” is supposed to be Paul Brennan (Jason Patric), a retired mob enforcer-turned-unassuming auto mechanic who reluctantly returns to his violent ways after his daughter goes missing. But the real culprit might be director Brian A. Miller. With The Prince and this year’s The Outsider, the director has made two consecutive sub-Taken crime dramas that lack the cohesion, refinement or energy to work even as satisfyingly junky action movies.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by J C on October 9th, 2014
“You know what you just did, don’t you? You jumped the shark.”
People have been mocking SyFy original films since the days when the network spelled its own name properly. But staying home on a Saturday night to “MST3K” your way through flicks with D-list actors and Z-grade visual effects has been replaced by Twitter, which practically blew up when the impossibly campy Sharknado premiered last year. SyFy recognized that social media has made it possible for anyone with Internet access to trade yuks and one-liners on a global scale; more importantly, it has allowed the network to be in on the joke in an unprecedented way.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on October 8th, 2014
"Millions of people around the world believe we have been visited in the past by extraterrestrial beings. What if it were true?
Ever since Eric von Daniken released his speculative book and its subsequent 1970 film Chariots of the Gods, there has been an entire field of study created around something commonly called Ancient Astronaut Theory. The idea is that extraterrestrials have visited many of our ancient civilizations. The theory continues that these visitors had a hand in shaping our development, whether it be through technology or even manipulation of our very DNA. These believers point to a world of evidence to support their claims. There are tons of images from earlier civilizations that could certainly be interpreted as depicting modern devices, concepts, or even spacemen. There is plenty of speculation that some of the knowledge and accomplishments of these peoples could not have been possible without some outside interference. There are even those who believe that aliens best explain our religious beliefs and that God himself was/is an extraterrestrial being. Whatever your own beliefs on the subject, there are certainly some fascinating points to be made. There is no question that the speculations and observations bring up some interesting queries that deserve our attention. This series attempts to document much of this evidence and the beliefs these findings have inspired.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on October 7th, 2014
Baseball is huge, and Bollywood is huge, so imagine if you put them together. In many ways, Million Dollar Arm is about Indian culture and what a separate world it is from ours. The film starts out in Los Angeles where J.B. Bernstein (Jon Hamm from Mad Men) is a sports agent who has broken off from a big agency to start his own firm. His partner, Aash (Aasif Mandvi of The Daily Show), is very nervous about where their next client is coming from, since they lost a big one right at the start of the film. Bernstein, thinking on his feet, decides to pursue an untapped market for baseball and the big-money stars who are big-league pitchers. He sees India as completely virgin territory for baseball. But the problem is there are no baseball players in India. Aash gives him the idea by talking about cricket on cable.
Clearly, cricket and baseball are totally different, but Bernstein is desperate. He pitches his idea to a big-shot money man. The money man, Chang (Tzi Ma), listens and agrees with big conditions. They are basically impossible conditions, but again, Bernstein is desperate. Bernstein had a great life once, and he still has the big expensive house and the Jaguar, but his time to make this big gamble work is running out. A nurse (Lake Bell) rents his guesthouse. She's a sweet person, but Bernstein usually has a different model girlfriend on a regular basis. Her washing machine is broken just as he is walking out the door to head halfway around the world. He gives her keys to the house and tells her to just use the machine and be careful.
