Posted in: Disc Reviews by Michael Durr on November 23rd, 2022
Many times when we watch films for the first time, we get distracted. Maybe it's a pretty girl, money issues, or perhaps you had something else on your mind that's hurting your focus. Whatever it is, it can really change your interpretation of a movie in a positive or negative way. One such movie for me is Mystery Men when I saw it in early 2000. Back when rentals were a thing, I remember renting this film and being distracted completely by someone who shall remain nameless. I barely liked the movie and didn't really watch it again until many years later only to realize I liked the film far more than originally thought. Four or five times later, I revisit the film again, this time in glorious 4K. Let's see how it does.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Michael Durr on November 18th, 2022
Favorite movies are usually easy to come back to. It's a familiar song, stars you feel at home with, and even if you recite all the lines by heart, you can find something new to come back to. In the case of Planes, Trains, and Automobiles, even though I had seen the movie probably around a dozen times or more, I was lured by the promise of new deleted and extended scenes but also a 4K-quality picture. But as with life, you don't always get everything you want. Let's take a look.
Posted in: The Reel World by Michael Durr on October 10th, 2022
In 1907 in a little town named Kearny, NJ (just a stone's throw from New York City), a worker was cleaning out a sewer gutter. Little did he know he would be soon bit by a eighteen-inch alligator. Stories would crop up around the New York area of alligators coming up from beneath the city every few years or so. It became urban myth, comic books, heck, it ended up a movie named Alligator (which I believe has a 4K as of this year) and a children's book. It's a popular story idea. Well, my family recently decided to go see Lyle, Lyle, Crocodile over the past weekend, which gives us a dancing and singing crocodile, and all I kept thinking was perhaps this movie would have worked better in a sewer. Hey, it worked for the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. Let's take a look.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Michael Durr on September 28th, 2022
Some of my favorite movies from the 80's and 90's consist of films where very little brain matter needs to be used to consume the action of what's going on the screen. The type of films I'm talking about are films like Bloodsport, Above the Law, the Perfect Weapon, and Rapid Fire. Now, from reading those titles, it might sound like I'm a little "man" heavy so to speak but I also heavily enjoy films like La Femme Nikita or Moon Lee films (Princess Madam or Devil Hunters for example). Today's film is Catch the Heat which stars Tiana Alexandra in a film where she cranks up the kick butt meter to ten. Let's see how it performs.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Michael Durr on September 13th, 2022
The people of Taiwan have been searching for an identity for a long time. When martial law was lifted over the People's Republic of China in the 1980's and shifted to a more democratic form, the people have increasingly wanted their own identity and no longer to be known as a part of China. Sure, they might maintain the status quo and appear to work with China (which hasn't been exactly the case lately), but they strive to be known as Taiwanese, separate from the mainland influence. Our film today, Vive L'Amour, takes place in the 1990's Taiwan, where life was extremely hard for the average young adult. So hard that many of them didn't even have a permanent residence.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Michael Durr on August 19th, 2022
When I am not writing reviews, playing games, having a family, oh, and also having a job (because writing reviews doesn't exactly pay), I do try to dabble in the occasional short story. Perhaps it's fantasy or science fiction, but I like spinning tales about a world that I want to be a part of even if its just for a few minutes. It's relaxing, and that's why when I saw the opportunity to review Wheel of Fortune and Fantasy, a collection of three tales steeped in chance, culture, and some wonderful word banter, I knew I'd enjoy my time. Let's take a look.
Posted in: No Huddle Reviews by Michael Durr on August 8th, 2022
Some of my favorite movies are ones where they use the "author" as the focal part of the story. Films like Secret Window, Misery, and The Ghost Writer are ones that immediately come to mind for me. However, Westerns tend to be somewhere down on the list of genres for me, and only ones like Tombstone or Unforgiven tend to spark any interest. So when I received Jesus Kid, which features a Brazilian author who likes to write Westerns, well, you can kinda understand my apprehension. However, my curiosity was also piqued at the same time for the very same set of reasons.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Brent Lorentson on July 29th, 2022
From the moment I saw the trailer for The Lost City, it immediately gave me vibes of Romancing the Stone and Jewel of the Nile, the adventure-romance films that starred Michael Douglas and Kathleen Turner back in the mid-eighties. The basic story for those films was simple: a romance writer who finds herself in an adventure to find a rare jewel alongside a handsome rogue with bad guys coming after them around every corner. I loved these films as a kid, and getting to see a modern twist on these stories is something I found welcome. What is even more welcome is getting to see Sandra Bullock back in a comedic role. I’ve been a fan of just about everything Bullock has done since she graced the screen in Demolition Man and then the following year in Speed. My only concern was seeing Channing Tatum as her co-star;
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on May 20th, 2022
From the bouncing opening music by Glenn Fry to the final frame of Eddie Murphy's smile, Beverly Hills Cop had established itself as a classic. The movie had a complicated history, and it's a kind of miracle that the version we know ever happened at all. The movie was originally conceived as a straight action film with the plan to have either Al Pacino or Clint Eastwood in the title role. At that point the script was called Beverly Drive. When they couldn't get Al or Clint, they turned to Sylvester Stallone, and Sly took the role. He took the script and rewrote it to fit his own particular style. The main character's name went from Axel Foley to Cabretti so that he could be called The Cobra. The problem with Sly's version is that the cost was rising higher than the execs at Paramount were willing to put out. Sly was offered another film to drop Beverly Hills Cop. He took his rewrites with him, and they eventually formed the nucleus of his movie Cobra. The rest of the film had already been cast, so imagine their surprise when the action movie they thought they were making with Rocky turned into a comedy/drama starring the Saturday Night Live but unproven box office comedian Eddie Murphy.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Brent Lorentson on March 1st, 2022
In 1999 when Man on the Moon was released, Jim Carrey was pretty much one of the biggest comedic stars in the industry, though at the time I don’t think audiences were prepared to see Carrey make such a departure despite it being a career best performance. This was one of those box office failures that shouldn’t have been, but to be fair, 1999 is one of the most stacked years of great films, though how Carrey didn’t even get a nomination is baffling. So what are my thoughts after revisiting the Andy Kaufman bio-pic that was penned by Scott Alexander and Larry Karaszewski (Ed Wood and The People Vs. Larry Flynt) and directed by Milos Foreman (One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest and Amadeus)? The opening scene pretty much sets the tone for the film you are about to see with Andy Kaufman (Jim Carrey) breaking the 4th wall to address the film the audience is about to see. He goes on to tell them that the movie is over, and the credits roll and eventually the screen goes to black.
