Posted in: Disc Reviews by Jonathan Foster on March 25th, 2013
It’s tradition. The night before a wedding, the groomsmen throw a party for the groom and the bridesmaids do the same for the bride. Usually, the bachelorette parties are tamer than their male counterparts. Unless, of course, the bride has the absolute worst bridesmaids in the history of weddings; like the ones Becky (Rebel Wilson, Pitch Perfect, Bridesmaids) chooses for her bridal party in Bachelorette.
Posted in: No Huddle Reviews by J C on March 20th, 2013
Sometimes you really can judge a book terrible movie by its cover. Beyond the awful Photoshopped shot of the film’s stars, the cover art for House Arrest boasts that the movie comes “From a Producer of You Got Served.” That set off a bunch of questions in my curious mind. Why just one producer? Is this really something a person would brag about? Most importantly, where are all the hip hop dance battles?! Worse than all that, the film itself completely muddles a worthwhile message about faith and the importance of family with shoddy storytelling and a steady stream of substandard performances.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by J C on March 5th, 2013
If a movie starring Bruce Willis, Catherine Zeta-Jones, Vince Vaughn and a few other notable names only grosses slightly more than $20,000 — BoxOfficeMojo.com assures us that’s not a typo — does it make a sound? The natural assumption is any film boasting that kind of star power must be pretty bad to be completely ignored by distributors and the movie-going public. Lay the Favorite is a disappointing, low-energy effort, but it certainly deserved to make more money than what A Good Day to Die Hard will probably earn in the time it takes you to finish reading this sentence.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by J C on February 7th, 2013
You don’t usually get too many legendary (and wildly polarizing) filmmakers coming off the biggest hit of their careers — unadjusted for inflation, of course — at age 77. Yet that’s exactly where Woody Allen found himself with To Rome with Love, his pleasant, witty, not-at-all-groundbreaking follow-up to Midnight in Paris. The writer-director originally named this film The Bop Decameron before changing it to Nero Fiddled. I’m guessing somebody (smartly) figured the suddenly buzzworthy director’s next film should have a less esoteric title; and if there was a way to incorporate a European city into the name, even better.
Posted in: No Huddle Reviews by J C on February 6th, 2013
“It’s time for Animaniacs. And we’re zany to the max. So just sit back and relax, you’ll laugh ‘til you collapse. We’re Animaniacs!”
I am a 30-year-old man, and I didn’t need any help remembering the lyrics to the Animaniacs theme song. (Yikes! That sounds like a confession I should be making at my next Man-Child Anonymous meeting.) Similar to the influential work of Tex Avery and Chuck Jones, Animaniacs served as the first exposure many children in the ‘90s had to classical music and literary masterpieces.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by William O'Donnell on January 19th, 2013
Spongebob Squarepants, the flagship cartoon for Nickelodeon for the last few years, has been churning out DVD specials inbetween releases of complete seasons. Sometimes these are linked by a theme (such as the Halloween DVD I reviewed in October https://upcomingdiscs.com/2012/10/15/31-nights-of-terror-spongebob-squarepants-ghouls-fools/ and this would mean taking episodes from numerous seasons. This particular special mostly contains more recent episodes, all of which have some sort of "extreme" or somewhat violent/action oriented story. 
Posted in: Disc Reviews by William O'Donnell on January 19th, 2013
Chris Hardwick is a card carrying, flag-waving nerd. He is very proud of said nerdiness and has devoted the lion's share of his career expressing this. Probably best known for his various hosting duties, especially for the Nerdist podcasts, Hardwick gets to display his stand-up chops in his first, full-length DVD special and he does not disappoint.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by William O'Donnell on January 12th, 2013
Probably most known for his roasts on Comedy Central, Anthony Jeselnik offers an hour (included the many long pauses) of stand-up comedy that is 100% bad taste. Dark humour and a huge ego are Jeselnik's shtick so you have absolutely every reason to walk away from this...except you might actually catching yourself laughing.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by William O'Donnell on January 7th, 2013
(I have covered the first season on this site already so this review shall begin with that one then segway into new write-up for Season 2):
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.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by J C on January 6th, 2013
The following sentence is taken directly from the back of the Blu-ray case for Charlie Sheen’s latest small-screen vehicle: “Charlie thrives on the chaos in his life while still battling his own anger issues.” So it’s fair to say FX’s Anger Management isn’t afraid to blur the line between reality and fiction. It’s actually a good move because the latest TV show tailored specifically to Sheen’s talents doesn’t have much else going for it.
