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 J C on August 30th, 2018
You can’t call your TV show Masters of Sex and not expect to elicit a few chuckles. (You also can’t be surprised if people go looking for it on Skinemax Cinemax rather than Showtime.) But placing its titillating title aside, Masters of Sex turned out to be an engaging, often-excellent, and low-key adventurous period drama for four seasons. The show shined brightest when it was conveying the thrill of discovery and exploration. (Also, it turns out there was a fair amount of sex.)
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on August 28th, 2018
"Ain't nobody feeling Team Kid Flash."
When Season 3 ended on The Flash, Barry Allen/The Flash (Gustin) is trapped inside the Speed Force where he sacrificed himself to free his friends. Months later we find Wally West/Kid Flash (Lonsdale) acting as the team's speedster. Iris (Patton) is now in charge of the team, while Caitlin (Panabaker) has left to tend bar, mostly running from her Killer Frost persona. Joe West (Martin) is lending police support where he can, and Cisco (Valdes) has honed his teleportation skills and gets the players where they need to be. But they are barely holding their heads above water, and the stress is finally getting to them.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Brent Lorentson on August 27th, 2018
When it comes to Paul Schrader, I feel the argument can be made that he is the greatest American screenwriter. I know it’s a bold statement but when you look over his credits that include Taxi Driver, Rolling Thunder, Hardcore, Raging Bull, The Last Temptation of Christ and so many others I feel there just isn’t anyone out there that can compete. Lately though he’s seemed to have had a difficult time recapturing that greatness, there has even been a part of me that has felt that perhaps I should give up on hoping he’ll crank out one more great film and simply appreciate the filmography he’s delivered us cinema fans over the years.
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 J C on August 24th, 2018
“Who do you think you are, Jackie Chan?!”
I'm going to do my very best to describe how insane this movie is, but it still might not be enough. I want to try and be fair because there aren't many people who have worked harder to entertain audiences than Jackie Chan. The 64-year-old martial arts legend has more than 100 acting credits to his name in a career that has spanned well over 50 years. Naturally, there are bound to be some turkeys along the way. Unfortunately, Bleeding Steel — an obnoxiously incoherent sci-fi departure for the action star — firmly (and gloriously) falls into the turkey category.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on August 23rd, 2018
"This is not just about Gotham. This is all about Bruce Wayne."
It really is about Gotham. And it's about Jim Gordon. It's also very much about Bruce Wayne. The third season ended with Bruce finally starting to embrace his vigilante role, but it was crude and very much only a shadow of the hero he will become. There's a reason why all of the episodes of this season are subtitled The Dark Knight. Bruce is becoming more and more like Batman. Bruce even confronts his future alter-ego in a vision state.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by J C on August 20th, 2018
“We take a look back at the films that helped shape, change, and innovate the world of documentary.”
Between the rise of streaming services like Netflix and the growing number of nonfiction films making noise at the box office, documentaries have never been hotter…or more accessible. At the very least, they certainly don’t feel like the cinematic equivalent of eating your vegetables anymore. As a result, this feels the perfect time for Mill Creek to release the first two seasons of IFC’s obsessively hilarious comedy series Documentary Now!
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Brent Lorentson on August 19th, 2018
“Welcome to the future.”
This is how Josephine (Ellen Burstyn) introduces a church group that is touring her geodesic home, which also doubles as a museum dedicated to inventor R. Buckminster Fuller. Josephine and her grandson, Sebastian (Asa Butterfield) have their own way of living in their home, a place where it is assumed Sebastian has never left long enough to experience how the real world functions. His interactions with the public don’t stretch beyond the casual tourists who come by the home, and as a teenager he’s never experienced “junk food” of any kind. But Sebastian’s reality crumbles after his grandmother has a stroke in the middle of a tour and he meets Jared (Alex Wolff).
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Brent Lorentson on August 17th, 2018
When it comes to films about man vs. nature, we typically see films where they are defending themselves in the wild where weather and predators are the biggest dangers they have to face. (The Grey and The Revenant are the titles that first come to mind.) In the new release Flora, writer/director Sasha Louis Vukovic is here to show us that there is more to fear than wolves and bears, but how deadly pollen can be. Somewhere I can imagine M. Night Shyamalan is happy to see that someone else has tackled this subject since his disastrous film The Happening made a whimper at the box office years ago. Fortunately for Vukovic, he didn’t make the same mistakes and instead has crafted a film that is perhaps one of the more realistic horror scenarios that has come out in some time.
