Posted in: Disc Reviews by Brent Lorentson on August 5th, 2014
"You're different. You don't fit into a category. They can't control you. They call it Divergent."
In the wake of Hunger Games and Twilight studios have been snatching up the rights to young adult fiction and gearing up for franchises, all in the name of capturing the hearts and wallets of the legions of fans of these book series. Though there have been a few hits, the failures have been plentiful i.e.: City of Bones, The Host, and The Vampire Academy. As a guy approaching his mid-thirties, it’s safe to say I’m nowhere near being the target audience for this film, but call me crazy, I actually dug it.
Posted in: No Huddle Reviews by Brent Lorentson on August 4th, 2014
When it comes to films with Dolph Lundgren, let’s face it: you know before it even starts there is no chance of this movie having what anyone would call an “inspiring performance.” Thankfully Lundgren seems to understand the limits of his abilities and tends to stick with the run-of-the-mill action/adventure films that seem to go direct to DVD. Sure he had hits in the past like Universal Soldier, Masters of the Universe (my personal favorite), and, of course, his most famous role as Drago in Rocky IV. This week I got to check out Lundgren’s new cinematic romp and (to my surprise) I had a good time with it.
When we first meet Harker (Lundgren), he’s part of a scientific team that is hunting a giant bear. I’m not talking about your standard grizzly bear. This is a towering beast; the kind you only hear about while telling campfire tales. This scientific team specializes in discovering cryptid beasts and is led by Travis (Scott Adkins), who seems to hate everything Harker stands for. Harker could care less about the science behind the animals he’s hunting, he is simply in this for the bragging rights of saying he slayed this cryptid beast. Things, of course, go wrong while hunting the bear, and the rivalry between Travis and Harker only intensifies.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on July 31st, 2014
"Make no mistake. Blood will be spilled. Lives will be lost. Fortunes will be made. Men will be ruined. There will be betrayal and scandal and perfidy of epic proportions."
With a statement like that, how can you not want to check out AMC's newest drama series Hell On Wheels? I've been told the title sounds like it's about motorcycle gangs, and I couldn't agree more. The term refers to the mobile tent city that housed the workers on the Union Pacific Railroad and the support entourage the camp attracted. It was a virtual tent city that had all of the essentials: a church, bar, and whorehouse. It was just after the Civil War, and the American government believed that a railroad connecting the east and west coasts was just the kind of project the country needed to pull back together and heal still-festering wounds. As one of the filmmakers accurately points out, this was the Apollo moon project of the day. Long believed impossible by the brightest engineers of the day, the railroad would cut the time it took to go from coast to coast from six months to just under seven days. It was a truly remarkable feat, and it carried with it more than a fair dosage of corruption and blood. Now AMC has brought those days from 1865 back to our television screen with an ambitious and smartly produced series. It's a must see.
Posted in: No Huddle Reviews by J C on July 31st, 2014
The impending death of a loved one tends to dredge up a complex mix of emotions. (Unfortunately, I speak from relatively recent personal experience.) In addition to the obvious sadness, there can be guilt, resentment, anger, relief, and other sentiments that combine to create a messy stew of feelings. Putting those feelings on the page or on a screen is an emotional minefield, since you risk veering jarringly from one tone to the next. The task becomes even trickier when you attempt to introduce humor into the equation. Lullaby stumbles over a few of those mines, but is otherwise a well-acted, modestly-affecting dramedy.
The movie opens with a close up of Lowenstein family black sheep Jonathan (Garrett Hedlund) taking a long, luxurious drag off a cigarette. Soon enough, we learn the gesture functions as a middle finger on a couple of different levels. On one hand, Jonathan is smoking on an airplane lavatory, which almost gets him arrested by a strict flight attendant. On top of that, it turns out Jonathan is on his way to visit his well-to-do New York City family because his father Robert (Richard Jenkins) is dying of lung cancer.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by J C on July 30th, 2014
No matter how far removed you may be from Sunday school — or even if you never attended in the first place — chances are you know that God spoke to Noah. You also know He told him to build an ark in anticipation of a catastrophic flood meant to wipe out mankind. What you may not have realized (or remembered) is that, in the Bible, Noah himself doesn't speak at all until well after that rain starts. So in adapting the famous Book of Genesis story to the screen, any filmmaker is going to have to take a certain amount of liberties. And when that filmmaker is Darren Aronofsky, the result is a strange, uncommonly thoughtful blockbuster that is as flawed as the hero it presents.
“In the beginning, there was nothing...”
Posted in: Disc Reviews by J C on July 29th, 2014
“Don't you ever get tired of vanilla?”
There's a special breed of '80s movie that appears hopelessly dated on the surface yet remains impulsively watchable. (Insert your own, “So you mean *every* '80s movie?!” joke.) The Legend of Billie Jean — with its hilarious-in-hindsight fashion and Pat Benatar theme song — certainly fits the “trapped in the '80s” bill. However, the 1985 film — now making its Blu-ray debut courtesy of Mill Creek Entertainment — still manages to entertain by tapping into the timeless spirit of teenage rebellion.
Posted in: No Huddle Reviews by Archive Authors on July 29th, 2014
by Normandy D. Piccolo
“The shark is an evolutionary marvel that should be respected and revered.”
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Brent Lorentson on July 28th, 2014
Robin Williams is one of those actors that I just wonder what happened to them. Through the 80’s and 90’s Williams was simply box office gold with his comedic timing and great impressions, but I’ve always been more drawn to the more serious roles Williams delivered. Awakenings, The Fisher King, Dead Poets Society, One Hour Photo, these are just a few of his roles that have stuck with me over the years that made it easy to look past his cinematic missteps.
When a movie like The Angriest Man in Brooklyn comes along, as a longtime fan I can’t help but get a little excited and hope for that spark Williams once brought to each of his characters. Factor in you have writer/ director Phil Alden Robinson who wrote and also directed Field of Dreams, it would seem this film should have “instant success” written all over it.
Posted in: No Huddle Reviews by Archive Authors on July 24th, 2014
There are people who love horror films and only horror films. For these people, they can never get enough. They will look at anything and everything. There are the people who like movies about high school and sports. Then there are people who like to see hot chicks. All Cheerleaders Die wants to make everybody happy. It starts out with a girl making a student movie about the cheerleading squad. The girls on the squad show off what cool witches with a B they are since they look out for their dogs on the football team. Unfortunately, one of their routines ends tragically with the head of the squad landing on her head from a great height. This opens a vacancy on the squad which is filled by the girl who made the movie, Maddy (Caitlin Stacy from I, Frankenstein) . They all bond pretty quickly at their first big party. Another girl, Leena (Sianoa Smit-Mcphee) is trying to warn her about something but doesn't succeed. The boys come over, but they know it's a girls-only night, which is cool. Leena, on the other hand, is definitely not cool, because she seems to be into occult practices, but it's hard to tell how serious she is about it. Hannah (Amanda Grace Cooper) is curious and listens to an explanation of what Leena does. Leena throws rocks on the ground which seems to be part of a witchy voodoo practice. Leena also has very, very heavy eyeliner.
In the middle of this is the captain of the football team seeing some girl/girl kissing, making him jealous, so they imbibe on drink and smoke. He also plans on playing major head games with the cheerleaders. Things get ugly real quick and it turns into all-out war. The fighting starts out in the woods where they were partying. A car race ensues which leads a car in the river, and the only way to fix things is with black magic. So a little coven is created, and there are tensions on every side: a perfect situation for death.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by J C on July 24th, 2014
One of the miracles of modern technology is its ability to shrink the world down so you can practically (well, proverbially) hold it in the palm of your hand. The cheerily square Smithsonian Channel series Aerial America goes the other way. In fact, the best thing about the show is how it uses technology to fill every inch of your screen with some of the most famous — along with some of the more underappreciated — U.S. landmarks, employing a larger-than-life/bird’s-eye point of view most of us wouldn’t otherwise be able to enjoy.
A quick primer if you’ve never seen the show (as I hadn’t prior to popping in this Blu-ray): the series debuted in 2010, and each hour-long episode is devoted to a different U.S. state or region. Every one of those episodes is solely comprised of stunning, leisurely aerial shots of that respective state’s natural and man-made landmarks, along with a brisk history lesson courtesy of narrator Jim Conrad.
