Posted in: Disc Reviews by William O'Donnell on March 3rd, 2014
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Biblical strongman Samson accomplishes many amazing feats and makes many a powerful enemy along the way. None are able to defeat this champion until his action catch the eye of Delilah, and he becomes the target of her affections. Unrenowned to Samson, Delilah has been tasked to discover the source of his supernatural strength. God granted Samson amazing physical strength, but his heart and mind are weak to the machinations of this sly, deceitful woman and it is only a matter of time before she learns his greatest secret.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by J C on February 27th, 2014
They say you can't choose your family, but apparently that well-known phrase never made its way to France. At the very least, no one bothered to tell Paul de Marseul, the legacy-obsessed vineyard owner at the center of You Will Be My Son (Tu Seras Mon Fils.) Cohen Media Group gave this tasty 2011 French offering a theatrical release last year, and now the film — which alternates between being a picturesque delight, a tense family drama, and a thriller — arrives on Blu-ray.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on February 26th, 2014
"Let me tell you a story."
Remember the tagline in Alien? "In space no one can hear you scream." Gravity begins, appropriately enough, with complete silence. We're treated to a rather spectacular view of the Earth from orbit. Eventually chatter begins to intrude upon our revelry. We soon meet the crew of a space shuttle mission to do repair work on the Hubble telescope. We quickly learn that this is the final mission for retiring astronaut Matt Kowalski, played by George Clooney, although I certainly consider it a bad sign when he's told to enjoy his last walk.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on February 25th, 2014
"Don't mess with a man of God."
It has been said that an old vaudevillian was on his deathbed and was asked how he was doing. He replied, "Dying is easy. Comedy is hard". And no, it wasn't Shia LaBeof. The fact is that comedy is easy. Horror comedy is hard...very hard. One needs only to look at the lame attempts each year to make us laugh at the carnage. For every Shaun Of The Dead there are 100 Vampire In Brooklyn's Let's not even talk about the last Scream entry.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by J C on February 20th, 2014
“If you think this has a happy ending, you haven’t been paying attention.”
Even if Game of Thrones had inexplicably wrapped its run after two stellar seasons, the HBO series would’ve gone down as a landmark in television history because of its unprecedented scale and audacious storytelling. But then fans wouldn’t have gotten season 3, an adaptation of (roughly) the first half of “A Storm of Swords”, the third novel in George R.R. Martin’s “A Song of Ice and Fire” series. “A Storm of Swords” is considered the “Empire Strikes Back” of Martin’s novels, which is a terrifying prospect considering the “Empire” in the world of Thrones has been “striking back” since the very first episode.
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.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by J C on February 17th, 2014
“…Super secret spies living next door. They look like us. They speak better English than we do. I mean, come on. Someone’s been reading too many spy novels.”
And now someone has expertly taken the cloak-and-dagger intrigue of a great spy novel, transplanted it onto our television screens, and called it The Americans. While the show is very clearly set during the Reagan era, its complex, multi-layered portrayal of the human beings on both sides of the Cold War makes it feel thrillingly alive today.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by J C on February 13th, 2014
Paula Patton has managed to stand out on the big screen alongside Hollywood heavyweights like Denzel Washington (Déjà Vu, 2 Guns) and Tom Cruise (Mission Impossible: Ghost Protocol), but she’s still probably best known for being married to Beetle-douche. That’s why I was hoping Baggage Claim, her first big solo starring vehicle, would be so much better than it turned out to be. It’s tempting to dismiss it as just another corny, clichéd romantic comedy, and forget about it until it pops up on TBS two years from now. But the film squanders too much appealing talent — and insults the audience’s intelligence too often — to let it off the hook quite so easily.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on February 11th, 2014
There are two very distinctive schools of thought about Walt Disney’s The Jungle Book. There are the Kipling fanatics who have never forgiven Disney for taking a story considered sacred in literary circles and creating something that honestly bears (pardon the pun) little resemblance to the original work. These folks rightfully point out that the story contains almost nothing recognizable about the story and characters from Kipling’s beloved classic. I have often condemned projects that take names like The Night Stalker and Battlestar Galactica and create a vision incompatible with the traditions I associate with them.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by J C on February 10th, 2014
“You have to interfere in what is wrong to make it right.”
When a movie is described as a “timeless classic,” the implication is the film contains a level of artistic merit and cross-generational appeal that has made it relevant decades after its release, and will make it watchable decades from now. The flip side is the type of film that is very much of the time it was created. Despite what ought to be a universal message about caring for one another, The Inn of the Sixth Happiness — making a welcome debut on Blu-ray as part of the Fox Studio Classics series — belongs in the latter category.
