Posted in: Disc Reviews by Michael Durr on August 12th, 2013
Let's face facts. War is heck. Sure, we can go back to ancient times with the Romans or more modern offerings such as the World Wars or even Vietnam, but perhaps more recent offerings between smaller countries and territories can be just as brutal. But what can be surprising is the emotional and physical toll it takes on those soldiers even years after it happens. Our film today, Killing Season takes us into two different sides in the aftermath of a very brutal altercation, the Serbs and the Bosnians.
We get text across the screen. In 1992, the Serbian Army invaded Bosnia starting a war marked by large-scale massacres of civilians in the name of ethnic cleansing. Over two hundred thousand people died. We watch as brutal war scenes take place. In 1995, Operation Deliberate Force was created by American and NATO forces to finally put an end to the horror of that long and dreadful altercation complete with prisoner of war camps and deadly surrenders.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on August 8th, 2013
"With a name like Banshee how can you not be drawn in?"
Alan Ball got my attention in 2001 with HBO's black comedy Six Feet Under. It was one of the most original shows I had ever seen, and to this day I find it hard to characterize the series when asked to do so. It was there that he also introduced me to Michael C. Hall, who continues to amaze me in the role of Dexter over at Showtime. When Six Feet Under left the airwaves, Ball didn't waste very much time in bringing his quirky style back, this time to the horror genre. True Blood would put a rather strange twist on the lovesick vampire craze, and while that show has not kept up the same kind of clever writing and wickedly brilliant stories, Ball has lent his name and talents to another cable show. This time it's on Cinemax, and the series is Banshee. And while Ball is a producer and not the day-to-day runner of the series, it is nonetheless another pretty strange show that defies any particular genre or characterization.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by William O'Donnell on August 1st, 2013
This is the third stab at making an animated series about these radical reptiles. This lone DVD acts as a sampler of seven episodes taken from the middle of its first season, instead of the complete season set. (A common move from Nickelodeon.) These episodes introduce the characters well enough that it will make you curious to see more of what this series has to offer.
This is the first series presented as a 3D computer animation. The graphics are nicely rendered, but are sometimes hard to see since the movements, especially during fight scenes, are incredibly frantic. I certainly hope the fact that I find the pacing too fast isn't a sign of old age arriving. The animators have clearly gone through a lot of trouble choreographing a fight that can sometimes have at least a couple dozen characters interacting (a very difficult thing to manage) and I'd appreciate it more if the speed didn't make me feel like I need to feed the DVD Ritalin.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Jeremy Butler on July 25th, 2013
I was not looking forward to this sequel at all. Now, to those who saw the film in theaters and loved it, before you get bent out of shape, allow me to explain why. See, I don’t react to change very well, and after seeing the first film and liking it, let’s just say that I had certain reservations after learning that much of the original cast wouldn’t be returning (not to mention news of the worst kept secret about the demise of one of the characters). Needless to say when I sat down to watch Retaliation, I wasn’t expecting to enjoy. Happy to say that after watching it, I’m eating crow.
Retaliation resumes sometime after the original movie. Duke (Channing Tatum) is now leader of his own team which includes Roadblock (Dwayne Johnson), Lady Jaye (Adrianne Palicki), Snake Eyes (Ray Park), and Flint (DJ Cotrona). After completing a successful mission, the team returns to base camp and awaits extraction. Dropping their guard, the group enjoys downtime; however, when a security patrol arrives ahead of schedule, it does not go unnoticed. Their suspicions are proven right, as a massive assault devastates the camp. Unable to adequately defend themselves, the team suffers heavy casualties including a vital and precious member of the team. (I’m sure you’ll have no trouble figuring out who.)
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on June 18th, 2013
"Now, this game has 12 rounds. You win more than you lose, I turn myself in. You don't, a lot of people die including you. If you refuse to cooperate, people die. If you make any attempt to contact the police, people die."
I'm usually pretty skeptical when it comes to movies that are made by any of the various fighting federations out there. W?? usually stands for "What The F***". I get it. There are a lot of tough guys out there who would like to follow in the footsteps of guys like The Rock. But for every successful transition to acting there are a hundred stories of mindless muttering substituting for actual... I don't know.... words. The idea is if enough guys beat up enough other guys we'll take the necessary testosterone injections to come along for the ride. Did I mention I hate needles? Still, I actually quite enjoyed John Cena in the original 12 Rounds and gave it a pretty respectable 3.5 in my review back in 2009. It's taken someone four years to figure out that the title has yet to be mined for another outing. Take away John Cena, director Renny Harlin and a guest cast that included the likes of Ashley Scott, and I found myself wishing that whomever that certain "someone" was would have contracted a serious case of amnesia.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by J C on June 17th, 2013
Earlier this year, Warm Bodies become a solid box office hit by giving its zombie hero a heart. The Amazing Adventures of the Living Corpse seeks to carve its own uniquely bloody path by saddling its undead protagonist with a soul. It’s a clever way to go considering there’s not much new territory to cover in zombie fiction 45 years after George A. Romero’s Night of the Living Dead shambled into pop culture immortality. I just wish this provocative promise had yielded a better movie.
Based on the Dynamite Publishing comic series “The Living Corpse: Exhumed”, the film introduces us to John Romero, who rises from his grave and promptly snacks on his own wife and daughter. As a horde of the undead prepares to eat his son Taylor, John realizes what he’s done and saves his only surviving family member. Confused as to why he’s the only zombie with a conscience, he ventures to the underworld, where he is counseled by Asteroth Guide of the Wretched and Worthless Merk (the movie’s source of "comic relief"). Meanwhile, a traumatized Taylor is taken to a sinister boarding school filled with other misfit orphans and inconveniently located next to a cemetery.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on June 13th, 2013
"Me and my boy here, we're gonna put a whuppin' on ya!"
In case you haven't been paying attention, 2013 is turning out to be the year of the returning action stars. The Governator Arnold Schwarzenegger teamed up with Korean action director Jee-woon Kim to deliver a very entertaining ride in The Last Stand. Sly Stallone teamed up with action icon Walter Hill to bring us the not-so-entertaining Bullet To The Head. Of course, perhaps the most eagerly awaited return was Bruce Willis back in the role that made him an action star in the first place. This is less Willis's return and more a potential swansong for cowboy cop John McLane. It's the fifth entry in the Die Hard franchise and the first sequel written originally as a Die Hard film and not something adapted to the character. With the disappointing Live Free Or Die Hard still fresh in my memory, all bets were off when I entered the cinema for a sneak peak of A Good Day To Die Hard.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by J C on June 10th, 2013
I don’t like remakes for probably the same reasons you don’t like them — they’re lazy and creatively bankrupt — but I’m also not completely against the idea of revisiting an older film. When the older film isn’t a beloved classic that shouldn’t be touched or when a story can be more effectively presented using technology that simply didn’t exist when the original movie was made, remakes aren’t such a bad idea. By those standards, 1984’s The Philadelphia Experiment is actually an excellent choice to receive the remake treatment. And that’s why I’m so disappointed to see it go so wrong.
Both incarnations of The Philadelphia Experiment get their names from a hush-hush World War II military experiment — also known as “Project Rainbow” — carried out by the U.S. Navy at the Philadelphia Naval Shipyard in 1943 that is almost definitely a hoax. (Unless it’s not.) The experiment involved using a cloaking device to render the Navy destroyer USS Eldridge invisible. In the 1984 film starring Michael Paré and Nancy Allen, two WWII-era sailors were transported 40 years into the future through a vortex created by the ship’s generator.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by J C on June 3rd, 2013
Bringing big-screen action and spectacle to the small screen is almost always a losing proposition. (A moment of silence for Terra Nova.) It’s just too hard to maintain on a week-to-week basis over the course of multiple seasons. Falling Skies — which, like Terra Nova, counts Steven Spielberg as one of its executive producers — may not be terribly original, but it’s one of the more successful attempts at consistently bringing large-scale thrills to television.
In case you missed the first season of TNT’s hit sci-fi series, here’s a quick catch-up. Less than a year after a devastating, worldwide alien invasion that wiped out most of Earth’s population, we meet the members of the Second Massachusetts Militia Regiment. (Better known as the 2nd Mass.) Tom Mason (Noah Wyle) is the history professor-turned-second in command of the 2nd Mass who frequently clashes with the more militant Captain Dan Weaver (Will Patton) and flirts with pediatrician-turned-combat surgeon Anne Glass (Moon Bloodgood). Tom has three sons: jockish oldest son Hal (Drew Roy), eager youngest son Matt (Maxim Knight) and middle son Ben (Connor Jessup), who was kidnapped by the aliens and outfitted with what humans call a "harness", which affixes itself to children’s spines and allows the invaders to control their minds. A lot of the first season centered around Tom’s efforts to save Ben and culminated with the 2nd Mass’s attempt to bring the fight to the aliens in Boston. The final scene had Tom voluntarily entering a spaceship in an effort to keep Ben safe.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Jonathan Foster on May 29th, 2013
When someone tries to break in and take something from the building you’re in, what do you do? Well, according to “The Official Good Guy Handbook”, you must immediately lock down the building, retreat to a secure room, and try to get help from the outside. Of course, you must do all this while repelling the bad guys, ignoring their threats and bribes, and (of course) watching out for the double cross.
This is the problem CIA agent Emerson Kent (John Cusack, 2012) faces in The Numbers Station. After a botched black-ops mission, Kent is given one last chance. His new assignment: guarding Katherine (Malin Akerman, Watchmen), a code operator at a classified “numbers station” in England. It’s her job to receive coded messages and broadcast them to agents in the field. While bored with his assignment, Kent is always on the lookout for danger. This hyper-awareness is what saves their lives when they are attacked as they show up for their shift one day. Barely making it inside, they find the other team has been killed and a heavily-armed squad is waiting outside to take them out as well. Together, Emerson and Katherine must figure out what their enemies want and how to get out alive.
