Posted in: No Huddle Reviews by Brent Lorentson on June 11th, 2012
One look at the DVD case for Life Without Principle and you would get the impression that this would be your average run-of-the-mill Hong Kong action film. This couldn’t be any more misleading. I understand the companies need to make money, and the easiest way to do this is to make up some cover art with guns, fire, and a masked many with money flung in the air seems the way to go, but in the process it does this film and the audience a disservice. So please, if you are expecting an action-packed bullet-ridden spectacle I apologize, but you need to look elsewhere. But for those willing to sit back and watch a solid thriller about greed and corruption you are in for a treat.
Director Johnnie To is as much a staple to Hong Kong cinema as Martin Scorsese is to American cinema. For those unfamiliar with To’s work I would recommend checking out some of his better known titles like Election, PTU, and Vengeance to see some great modern Hong Kong cinema that action fans will have a lot of fun with. He’s a filmmaker that has a broad cinematic canvas that gives each of his films a unique style, but somehow while watching it you know you’re watching a To film.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on June 6th, 2012
"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: Disc Reviews by M. W. Phillips on June 6th, 2012
“When I saw you, I believed it was a sign… that something new can come into this world.”
John Carter first appeared in Edgar Rice Burroughs’ Barsoom magazine serial nearly a century ago in 1912. The science fiction pioneering Carter stories captured the imagination of masses and inspired countless authors and directors. For example, George Lucas himself has stated there would be no Star Wars without John Carter of Mars. It took nearly a century to get it to screen and in time countless others have mined the series for inspiration. The result is a massive “been there done that” experience.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by William O'Donnell on June 5th, 2012
A successful writing team, who also happen to be a married couple, are the creators of an award-winning show in the UK that has just completed after four seasons. An American network wishes to create a US version of the show. The couple are flown to LA, put up in a lavish mansion and are introduced to the Hollywood method of creating television...and it nearly destroys them.
Even before they arrive in LA, this pair begins sinking in a quagmire of big-time Hollywood lies and bluffs that drive them to losing their lead actor, a respected, elderly British man, in exchange for Matt LeBlanc, converting their program from the story of a headmaster at a boarding school to that of a handsome hockey coach who is chasing after a sexy librarian, and generally sacrificing all they hold dear (both creative and personally) in order to survive the shoot of a single pilot episode (which, by the way, seems to be the most arduous and lengthy studio shoot I have ever witnessed...it lasts the entire season of Episodes!).
Posted in: Disc Reviews by J C on June 5th, 2012
"I'm yelling for society, for everybody! It's not just me!"
That's Larry David chastising a dog walker who didn't bring along a bag to clean up after her pooch, but that statement also tidily summarizes the premise of Curb Your Enthusiasm. After 11 years, seven seasons and 70 episodes of over-analyzing and kvetching — and after pulling off an incredibly well-received Seinfeld reunion in season 7 — a small part of me wondered if David had anything left to complain about heading into season 8. I should've known better.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on June 5th, 2012
"Blacks are mentally inferior, by nature subservient, and cowards in the face of danger. They are therefore unfit for combat." - U.S. Army War College Study 1925
Obviously, there's another story to be told here. George Lucas says that he's been wanting to tell this story for over 20 years. It's a story that has often been told in both film and documentary form. In none of those cases has the movie been made into the kind of spectacle film that we find in Red Tails. Lucas gives the legendary air group the Saving Private Ryan treatment, and we get to see these World War II heroes in flight like we've never seen before.
Posted in: No Huddle Reviews by Brent Lorentson on June 5th, 2012
When half your film takes place in one tight location, you are really taking a gamble with your audience. Chances are you’ll either have a suspense-filled set piece, or you’ll lose your audience as they stare at their watches waiting for the credits to roll. To the director’s credit, with 96 Minutes, she was able to pull off an immersive tension-building ride through the inner city that kept me wondering how it would all come to an end.
Following in the footsteps of other ensemble pieces like Magnolia and Crash (though sadly not nearly as good as these two), this is a story about people being brought together over the course of a day and meeting during one catastrophic moment. This time the moment that brings all these lives together is a carjacking that goes horribly wrong. As the night progresses and difficult decisions are made, the lives of all involved are altered as the consequences of their actions become increasingly severe.
Posted in: No Huddle Reviews by Brent Lorentson on June 5th, 2012
Hannibal Buress brings his unique voice to this hour-long special and delivers. I have to be honest, I had never heard of this guy when I got the DVD to review, and now I find myself hoping to catch a live performance if he ever brings his tour down south. Once a writer for SNL and doing some work with 30 Rock, this young up-and-comer is sure to make a name for himself and hopefully become a name regarded with the best of the comedy elite.
His low energy deadpan approach kind of reminded me of Steven Wright but far more entertaining. With bits that go from being caught jaywalking in Canada, to getting his debit card stolen, and masturbation while wearing a hoodie to “feel creepier” I find it hard to believe there isn’t a topic he couldn’t find the humor in. What I enjoyed most was how it seems he enjoys discussing topics that make the audience feel a bit uncomfortable to laugh about, like when he discusses how he hopes his nephew doesn’t get into college. It seems cold, and it is, but when he said it I couldn’t help but laugh.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by William O'Donnell on June 5th, 2012
YouTube had all but killed off the idea of mailing silly home videos to the likes of America's Funniest Home Videos. These days, people prefer to stream dozens of videos on their computers and save themselves from the watered down jokes of Bob Saget or current host Tom Bergeron. Tosh.O takes a similar format of displaying such silly videos, but focuses on things that have gone “viral” online. Like AFHV, Tosh.O adds their own commentary and sketches to the presentation but in a much more crass, cable-savvy manner.
Daniel Tosh makes for a very suitable host, which makes the difference to those who may consider aimlessly surfing through YouTube's channels to be a more valuable way of taking in the latest in mind-numbing entertainment. Tosh not only is capable at delivering edgy quips but often places himself at the butt of self-deprecating and/or harmful sketches where he may partake in the same idiocy he seems to be lambasting at other points in the episodes (a memorable example being his attempt to eat a teaspoon of cinnamon and karate chop a hundred coconuts after smoking Salvia).
Posted in: No Huddle Reviews by Michael Durr on June 4th, 2012
People tend to place blame on the parents when their children do something wrong. Sometimes this practice is perfectly legit, especially when the behavior is a constant minor disruption or something that is obviously linked to bad parenting. But when the child creates a massive infraction which could include taking a life (or lives), it shouldn’t always fall back on the parents. But yet, the parent will almost always suffer as such the case here with We Need to Talk About Kevin.
Two years ago, Eva (played by Tilda Swinton) had a pretty decent life. She was a successful travel writer, had a loving husband, Franklin (played by John C. Reily) and a peppy daughter, Celia (played by Ashley Gerasimovich). Eva also had a son too named Kevin (played as an adult by Ezra Miller) but Eva’s tranquil life went away the day Kevin created a misdeed too gruesome to ever forget.
