Posted in: Disc Reviews by J C on April 20th, 2016
“Billionaires are people too.”
HBO’s Silicon Valley, which takes merciless aim at the tech capital of the U.S., was impressive right out of the gate. The series struck comedy gold in its debut season by making fun of both self-important, aggressively eccentric billionaires and the bumbling “guys in a garage” who are trying to get to their level. Season 2 is both nerdier and more confident in its skewering of corporate soullessness and the scrappy underdogs who often can't get out of their own way. (I'm not sure there's another show on TV that would use a SWOT analysis to decide whether a douche-y stuntman lives or dies.) The result is a very funny sitcom that has gotten even better.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on April 18th, 2016
In the late 1960's three musicians came together with an idea. It was a somewhat unconventional idea. Roy Wood and Bev Bevan were part of the band The Move when they met up with Jeff Lynne from The Idle Race. The three hit it off almost instantly. So much so that before long Lynne would also become a member of The Move so that he could work with Wood and Bevan. But that wasn't going to be the ultimate goal. The unconventional idea that the three had involved combining rock and roll with classical music. Of course, other bands had done orchestral arrangements, most notably the Beatles. But their idea was to fuse the concepts more integrally together. The idea was to have live violins and cellos as part of the actual band itself. Lynne would once describe the concept as picking up where the Beatles had left off. Together they invented a new way to rock "n" roll. That invention was the Electric Light Orchestra, or ELO to the fans.
The band started with a bang. The first album, while not a huge commercial success, received more than its share of attention. But band squabbles would almost doom this ambitious project before it got off the ground. Roy Wood left the band to form his own and took some members with him. It looked bleak for the struggling concept. But that might have been the best thing that could have happened. Jeff Lynne would become the controlling force, and the band would go on to enjoy commercial success to go along with those critical appreciations. The band's second album was called No Answer, but it wasn't really intended to carry the title. A secretary with the record company was assigned to contact Jeff Lynne to get the correct album title. He wasn't home. Naturally, the secretary made the notation "no answer". The notation was misinterpreted as the album title, and the mistake would be a permanent entry in the band's discology.
Posted in: No Huddle Reviews by Brent Lorentson on April 15th, 2016
David Crane struck television gold after creating not just one of the biggest comedies of the 90’s but one of the biggest shows of all time when he created Friends. Love it or hate it, Friends was a series you just couldn’t escape while it dominated the ratings through its 10-season run. Well over a decade since the show has gone off the air; it’s a show that continues to thrive in syndication. And that is where Episodes picks up, the show from Friends creator David Crane and starring Matt LeBlanc, who plays himself in a show that parodies the life of a fading celebrity who is struggling to find his next big hit.
The new season picks up with Sean (Stephen Mangan) and Beverly (Tamsin Greig) attempting to get a new show of theirs green-lit as their previous show “Pucks” teeters on finally being cancelled. Sean and Beverly are the charming anchors for the show and are the real stars of the show as we follow along with their struggles with the Hollywood system; every time they seem to get ahead and have control of their new series, it comes with a cost. The struggles seem to be so absurd but could easily have been situations that television writers encounter on a daily basis.
Posted in: No Huddle Reviews by J C on April 15th, 2016
“Am I irrelevant? I refuse to be irrelevant.”
Outside of The Golden Girls, there haven't been too many TV shows where the entire main cast is eligible for social security. Then again, chasing the 18-49 demo that advertisers covet isn't much of a concern for a subscription-based service like Netflix, which debuted Grace and Frankie last year. Naturally, the series — whose four main actors are each 75 and older — has its share of geriatric humor. (Although the broken hip doesn't occur till Ep. 5/“The Fall”.) More importantly, it also has some genuinely funny things to say about companionship and reinvention.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on April 13th, 2016
“Witches live among us. Their magic passed from an ancient race, diluted, half-forgotten, but dangerously powerful. After centuries of conflict, a truce was forged. Witches would be allowed to live and govern themselves if they followed one strict rule: that magic never be used against humans. But a truce is a fragile thing…”
Vin Diesel has made the Fast and Furious franchise into a massive global behemoth, but Diesel is not a global behemoth on his own. He has had successes and failures. He is someone who seems to be an unlikely star. He tried to make Riddick (Pitch Black, The Chronicles of Riddick, Riddick) into a multi-film franchise and accomplished it through sheer force of will, but his stardom largely rests on Fast and Furious. Diesel bristles at being typecast, so he has always tried to find new vehicles that will demonstrate his range. XXX was a big success, but Diesel did not appear in the sequel. XXX: The Return Of Xander Cage is on the schedule for 2017. He walked away from Fast and Furious for a few installments because he was so intent on diversity, but eventually relented and came back. The Last Witch Hunter is his latest attempt to start a new franchise. The film was attacked by some critics when it was released, but it is a pretty decent attempt to create a new legend out of a cauldron of Dungeons and Dragons ideas. That was the inspiration, and a group of script writers did a decent job, and the director Breck Eisner (son of Michael) also does a good job. The cast includes Sir Michael Caine, Elijah Wood, and Rose Leslie (wildling Ygritte from Game of Thrones). It also includes excellent actors such as Isaach De Bankole as a male witch who runs a restaurant that sells pastries that includes ingredients such as hallucinogenic bugs. All the elements are in place to make a great movie experience. The problem is that there is a weak link. It’s Diesel.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on April 13th, 2016
"We have known them only as shadows, gazing at us from a ghostly world of black and white. But now the American Civil War can at last be seen as those who lived and died experienced it...in vivid color."
It was the bloodiest conflict in American history. Maybe because Americans fought on both sides of the brutal conflict. It might have been because it was a deeply personal war, often between brothers. The cause was one that cut deeply in both the hearts and minds of the men fighting. A young nation was being torn apart, and war appeared the only path toward any kind of peace. The passions of that war still ring out today. The Confederate flag has become something of a symbol beyond what it once was intended to represent. It has become a symbol of hatred for some and is quickly disappearing from our nation's landscape. Stores are now refusing to sell any products that bear its image. Confederate soldiers are finding their memorials being erased and their names expunged from history. We must be careful that we do not expunge the memory of the war each side fought. It's the curse of history that to forget is to relive. Here's another chance to remember why and how so many Americans died.
Posted in: No Huddle Reviews by Archive Authors on April 12th, 2016
When we last saw Miss Fine (or should I say Mrs. Sheffield), she fell off her husband’s yacht on her honeymoon. I have previously written about The Nanny: Season 5 in January and Season 4 in September of last year, so go back and look up all the previous shenanigans. The first episode of the final season has the newly married couple stranded on a deserted island, and Fran Drescher is up to her usual ridiculous antics as Fran Fine. You can expect a lot of silly and moderately racy sexual innuendo. As usual, there are lots of celebrity cameos. In one Hollywood Squares episode alone, there are nine celebrities interacting with Max Sheffield (Charles Shaughnessy) who is one of the squares. Fran is trying to get pregnant, and she has to climb up to get Maxwell because they have to follow a strict time schedule. Then since these episodes take place in 1999, there is an episode with Hillary and Bill (celebrity impersonators) which is an embarrassment for all involved. We get Aunt Frieda (Lainie Kazan), who is still obsessed and upset that she didn’t get to sing at Fran’s wedding. Frieda finally gets to sing, and Lainie has a fine voice. Another person who gets to sing is Fran’s father, Morty (Steve Lawrence). He also sounds great. We have never seen Morty before in the previous seasons, but in a very special episode, Sylvia (Renee Taylor) is seeing a hot doctor (Joseph Bologna, Renee’s real life husband) and everyone thinks she is cheating on Morty.
Then there is the constant rivalry between Mr. Sheffield and Sir Andrew Lloyd Webber, which culminates in a fight for the rights of Yetta’s Letters (don’t ask, but Yetta (Ann Morgan Guilbert) is Fran’s absentminded grandmother). Then there is time for another wedding when Maxwell’s little daughter, Maggie (Nicole Tom), grows up and gets married to an empty-headed male model. All of this leads up to the two-part series finale which juggles two disparate story lines. Niles (Daniel Davis), Maxwell’s fey butler, and C.C. Babcock (Lauren Lane), Maxwell’s business partner and jealous lover, reveal that their six seasons of hatred and insults was actually covering deep animal magnetism. Will they or won’t they stop treating each other like idiots and finally give into deep burning passion? Then we have Fran at Maggie’s wedding, very close to her due date when she gets stuck in an elevator with C.C. Babcock. I don’t have to tell you what happens next. Well, I could, but I won’t. We do finally get to find out what C.C. stands for.
Posted in: No Huddle Reviews by J C on April 11th, 2016
Thanks to The Sound of Music, millions of people around the world are familiar with the von Trapp family saga. (They probably have the second most popular Austrian name among movie fans, behind some guy named Schwarzenegger.) Given that The Sound of Music is one of the most popular movies of all time, any filmmaker would be wise to offer a fresh perspective in telling a von Trapp story. Enter The von Trapp Family: A Life of Music, which puts eldest von Trapp daughter Liesl Agathe in the center of the action.
“Let's start at the very beginning. A very good place to start...”
Posted in: No Huddle Reviews by Brent Lorentson on April 10th, 2016
It comes as no surprise that even in 2016 we continue to have issues with how we handle and discipline criminals while they are incarcerated. We have a system that pulls in troubled youths that seem to come and go through the judicial system and seem to spend a majority of their lives behind bars. Hollywood has seemed have an eye on this problem and has churned out many films about misunderstood inmates that are incarcerated and are unfairly treated by the system and those who are in control of the inmates. Cool Hand Luke, Sleepers, and The Shawshank Redemption are a couple films that jump out at me, and today it’s Stealing Cars that dares to explore this problem.
Billy (Emory Cohen) is basically your rebellious teenager who we meet in the opening scene as he is stealing a car and having a little joyride before the police finally catch up to him. As anyone can expect, when Billy arrives to the detention center he receives a less than warm welcome from one of the guards, Conrad (Paul Sparks) who seems to have it in for Billy from day one. To be fair though, Billy is far from being the model inmate and wastes no time making an obnoxious spectacle of himself during his first days in custody.
Posted in: No Huddle Reviews by Jeremy Butler on April 10th, 2016
From the opening credits I knew this was movie intended to be a hard-hitting examination on how drugs could compromise a promising future. In most respects Curveball hits the mark; even the inclusion of the unorthodox methods which the lead character’s mother utilizes in order to help him is a welcome addition. However, there is a disconnect between the film’s introduction and conclusion that does some pretty considerable damage to the story overall.
Nolan is a pitcher with a promising future ahead of him. He and his best friend Sam are closer than brothers. Since childhood, when Sam protected Nolan from a beating from a group of boys, Nolan has felt extreme loyalty to his friend, covering for him anytime he makes a mistake. Sam, unlike Nolan, is a foster child in an at least verbally abusive home. To escape his situation, he turns to drugs and eventually pulls Nolan into that world as well. It starts off recreationally and rapidly becomes all-consuming
