Posted in: Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on July 7th, 2009
I tend to wince a bit when I see these films that star wrestling names and are produced in conjunction with one of the WW A-Z’s. I’ve come to believe that WW means “Won’t Wow”. Along comes John Cena and this latest cooperative film, 12 Rounds. I have to say I was somewhat surprised to find that it was a pretty good action thriller, if a bit implausible. I’m willing to overlook certain aspects of inplauability, if you take me on a thrilling enough ride and try not to totally insult my intelligence. For the most part I found that to be the case here. Cena doesn’t feel the need to work in impractical wrestling moves on his opponents. In fact most of the action is not the hand to hand tripe these movies tend to lean toward. You’ll find plenty of action sequences. There’s a pretty cool runaway rail car, plenty of car chases with the expected carnage that follows, and enough gun play to drive home the point. Renny Harlin, the director, worked on the second Die Hard film, so you know he has a good eye for this kind of action. And while no one will confuse him with John Woo, I think you’ll get enough of an adrenaline hit here to make the 2 hours worthwhile… until we get to the end. More on that later.
A sting to bring down a dangerous terrorist goes horribly awry when the fed’s informant has a sudden change of heart. The result is a lot of shooting, chasing, and dead guys on both sides of the law. Patrol officer Danny Fisher (Cena) is one of the cops drawn into the chase and eventual takedown of the chief terrorist, Miles Jackson (Gillen). In the mayhem that follows, Jackson’s wife is killed. Jackson blames Fisher for the death and vows his revenge.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Michael Durr on June 29th, 2009
Transformers are something near and dear to my heart. I grew up with them, watched all of the episodes, read many of the comics and watched the animated movie more times than I care to think about. When the original Rhino DVD set came out a few years back, I bought all of the volumes despite the hardship that roughly $50 a volume would cost me. Now, with the 25th anniversary of Transformers upon us, Shout Factory has gained the rights to the series and has re-released the first season to coincide with the release of the second live-action film. Is this simply an attempt to cash in on the mega movie hit of the summer? We shall see.
A civil war is ongoing on the planet of Cybertron. Fierce battles between the Autobots and the Decepticons have tore the planet apart and the energy sources at critical levels. The heroic Autobots decide to go to the planet Earth on the theory that these resources exist there for them to be able to use. However, the Decepticons decide to follow. Once in space, the Decepticons attack under the leadership of Megatron. Optimus Prime and the Autobots try to hold them off but soon both sides crash into the Earth.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on June 9th, 2009
Mike Riggins (Lundgren) has been languishing away in a Russian prison for many years. So he doesn’t have anything to lose when he’s approached by the CIA to help them save a young woman who has been kidnapped. The government needs Riggins’ special set of skills, namely the ability to cause a lot of carnage in a short amount of time. If he rescues the girl, he gets 20 grand and sprung from prison. Of course, everything is not what it seems to be, and the government really just wants Riggins dead. After about an hour and a half of shooting and mayhem a lot of people end up dead, but Lundgren is still technically alive. I say technically because as far as I can tell Dolph Lundgren has been brain dead since 1985 when his acting career began with A View To A Kill. But, like the energizer bunny he keeps going, and going, and going.
The plot isn’t anything all that imaginative; in fact it’s pretty simple. But the other thing that’s simple is the acting of one Dolph Lundgren. Lately we’ve been hearing a lot about torture and inhumane treatment of prisoners. There are apparently international laws on such things, but the Geneva Convention folks have turned the other way as Lundgren continues to subject audiences to what can only be described as cruel and inhuman punishment. I guess as a Constitutional scholar I could make an implied consent argument here, if you’re actually insane enough to pick up one of these films. It’s not like it’s a secret. If you watch these Lundgren films, particularly the direct to video stuff, you already know what you’re getting. I’m sure Lundgren’s folks have been opting for direct to video because too many moviegoers have been throwing stuff at the theater screens. The theory is they are less likely to act violently to their own 2 grand flat screen.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Michael Durr on June 3rd, 2009
Sword and Sandal films have been around since the early 1900’s and under the broad definition, Ben Hur was the first way back in 1907. However, under the more accepted narrow definition, this referred to Italian films that were based on loose plots around Greek mythology with giant muscle men and low budgets. The popular Sword and Sandal era was a period of roughly 10 years from 1957-1964 and started with the world-wide release of Hercules in 1957.. It kinda died out once the spaghetti westerns came around (giving Italian directors something else to do). Muscle Madness provides us with five films representative of the era including the likes of Steve Reeves, Alan Steel and Mark Forest. Let the cheesefest begin!
Giant of Marathon was made in 1959 under the Italian name: La battaglia di Maratona. The setting is 490 B.C. at the times of the Medic Wars. Philippides (played by Steve Reeves) has brought home to Athens the Olympic laurel crown and joins as commander of the Sacred Guard. Philippides is truly in love with Andromeda (played by Mylene Demongeot), daughter of Creuso who rejects him at first. However, there is a conspiracy afoot who try to influence Philippides with a seductive servant as well as brute force.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on May 26th, 2009
The danger in revisiting a show you used to love as a kid is that it will almost always disappoint, especially, it seems to me, if the show was made in the 70s. I have had this experience several times in my life, sitting there with a dull expression in my eyes, gazing at the screen and wondering why I ever thought Welcome Back Kotter was funny. And did I really thrill to the exploits of Starbuck and Apollo without noticing how awful Battlestar Galactica was?
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on May 2nd, 2009
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Michael Durr on April 30th, 2009
The day of October 31st is usually Halloween to most people. However, back in 1992 it was the day one of the best cartoon superhero shows premiered on the Fox Network. It was simply called X-Men. The show would last seventy-six episodes and five seasons while rising to considerable popularity. I’m not one to toot personal bias, but this is probably my second favorite comic book related animated show next to Batman: The Animated Series. Most of us X-Men fans have been waiting for these episodes to be released for as long as the dvd format has existed. Finally that time has come and I couldn’t be more delighted to watch these again.
Two parents sit in a living room wondering if they did the right thing. Their adopted child: Jubilee is a mutant. They have felt the best thing to do is file her name with the Mutant Registration Program, a privately funded program with ties to the government. The Mutant Registration Program is supposed to be a peaceful group helping humanity and the mutants carry on in their existence. However, things are not as they seem.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Michael Durr on April 27th, 2009
At a point in time, women’s fighting was nothing more than usually a side show attraction. As the years went by, the concept of women fighting each other became more and more accepted. There is a women’s boxing league and there are serious women all over the wrestling circuit (and not just t&a shows). There are even rumblings of MMA females (that might be a bit too far though). So, a good plot line for movies would be to interject the female into a man’s fighting world and see how they do. Take underground boxing and the movie: Fight Night, this could be a great marriage.
Michael Dublin (played by Chad Ortis) is a con-man in the hard cold world of underground boxing. As an unfortunate result of his mis-dealings, he is constantly on the run going from city to city and trying to make a buck. He gets in the habit of making too many enemies and finds his life in danger after a con goes bad. However, from out of the shadows appears a female figure who floors Dublin’s would be enemies with vicious punches. Her name is Katherine Parker (played by Rebecca Neuenswander).
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Michael Durr on April 27th, 2009
The title of Spectacular Spider-Man was once used to refer to a second-rate line of comics about the web-crawler. The Amazing Spiderman always led the way in sales but the Spectacular production always had its line of fans too. As well as the critics. The critics were often on the books because they had a more casual tone and sometimes didn’t even go along with the original book in terms of plot development. The comic eventually died off and in 2008, the Kids WB decided to use the name for their new animated show. Two seasons and 26 episodes later, this show has done quite well. Volume Four is now released and includes episodes 10-13.
Episode Ten starts out with Dr. Conners and his crew being allowed to study an alien symbiote. However, that symbiote is lost when the Black Cat & Spiderman have an altercation in the lab when Black Cat was trying to steal the life-form. It is soon found that the symbiote has actually affixed itself to the Spider-Man costume thus changing his powers and his personality.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Michael Durr on April 27th, 2009
Sometimes I feel like a broken record. Once upon a time, I adored the likes of Steven Seagal and Jean Claude Van Damme. I would spend many hours watching Above the Law or Bloodsport until I had nothing else better to do. When I matured, I left many of those movies behind. However, the spirit of those movies was still within the type of movies I would typically watch. The problem is that both of these starts pretty much went from feature film to direct to DVD. But Jean-Claude has tried to change his image by taking on more serious roles. His newest, JCVD; he takes on the role of himself the actor.
Jean-Claude Van Damme (playing himself) is an aging 47 year-old action movie star. His agent can not find him anything decent. JCVD has no money and worst of all, he is fighting a losing battle in the custody of his daughter with his ex-wife. He decides to return to Brussels, his childhood home. Here, he is still considered a national icon and with that comes some sense of worth and peace.
![12 Rounds (+ Digital Copy) [Blu-ray] dvd cover art](https://upcomingdiscs.com/ecs_covers/12-rounds-digital-copy-blu-ray-large.jpg)
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