Posted in: Disc Reviews by David Annandale on September 5th, 2007
In hellish vision of a near future (?) LA, Marty Malt (Judd Nelson) is an incompetent garbage man who moonlights as an even worse comedian (his jokes aren’t funny, and he is half-crippled by stage fright). His only friend is the manipulative Gus (Bill Paxton). When Marty starts to grow a third arm out of his back, he loses his girlfriend (Lara Flynn Boyle) but attracts the attention of sleazy showbiz types Wayne Newton and Rob Lowe.
The film’s influences are pretty apparent. Imagine the love child of Repo Man and How to Get Ahead in Advertising, as midwifed by early John Waters and David Lynch. Heck, the bar where Marty performs, along with its patrons, seem to have been imported from Café Flesh. Such a mixture could well spell cult movie, and something of the kind seems to have happened with The Dark Backward, but the mixture is a little too forced for my liking, and the performances are all pitched at one note (Paxton’s note being almost off the scale). Interestingly bizarre and gross, but somehow too familiar despite its wild stabs at freakish originality.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on August 31st, 2007
I don’t care what anyone thinks, A Night at the Roxbury is awesome. Back when Will Ferrell and Chris Kattan would do the skits on Saturday Night Live I loved it, and when the movie came out I pumped. This was back when I was barley a teenager and for me, this one has still got it. The hard part is explaining why this movie is so funny to me and its cult following. It has no real story, character development, etc. But still it manages to keep me laughing, time and time again. I’ll get more into that later, for those of you who haven’t seen A Night at the Roxbury I’ll play it out for you.
It doesn’t really get much simpler than this; Doug (Chris Kattan, Corky Romano) and Steve (Will Ferrell, Blades of Glory) Butabi (Are they brothers? No…. Yes!) love the nightlife, and aspire to be club owners. The only thing is they can’t ever get into any clubs despite there flashy threads and their dad’s BMW. Until one night a chance accident with Richard Grieco (21 Jump Street) leads them into the doors of the infamous Roxbury. Here they meet the clubs owner Benny Zadir (Chazz Palminteri, Running Scared) and hit it off with him and some club girls. The girls of course think they have money, and spend the night with them at Zadir’s house party. The Butabi’s pitch an idea for a club to Mr.Zadir that he loves, but apparently the next morning his assistant Dooey (Colin Quinn, Saturday Night Live) says that wasn’t the first time he picked up some losers and dumped them the next day. Everything seems to be falling apart for the Butabi brothers, can they get it together? Wow that makes this movie sound a whole lot more dramatic than it is.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on August 29th, 2007
Maybe you're wondering why there's a movie starring Zach Braff (Scrubs) and Jason Bateman (Arrested Development) that you never heard about. That's what I was doing when I first received this disc. I'm a big fan of Braff, and a moderate fan of Bateman, so why was I not in the know on The Ex?
I'll tell you why. The Ex had only a limited North American release in late 2006, and under a different title: Fast Track. It bombed. Then it disappeared for all but a handful of foreign markets, before washing ashore in DVD-land.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on August 27th, 2007
Every office has one. Peggy Spade (
If you come to the film expecting a cozy little dog film you can cuddle up with, you will be disappointed. Having a stubborn Siberian Husky myself, I am almost always suckered into pretty much any film that has dogs in it. I even converted my wife. A long standing cat person, she fell in love with the puppy dog eyes of a pointer mix. That should tell you that I am predisposed to like most dog films. I wish I could tell you I liked Year Of The Dog.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on August 27th, 2007
Over the course of all of the reality shows out there, someone decided to want to do one with the goal of finding the next big stand up comedian of North America. But with every comic remotely worth something having done at least a stand up special for a television show of some sort, the search to find a decent stand up was a long one, to say the least. And after several “winners”, are any one of them really top shelf material? Of course not.
So enter Showtime, home of such quality shows like Weeds, attempting to promote culturally aware entertainment down the collective premium cable buying throats of America, with their show White Boyz in the Hood. Simply put, the show pulls together some stand up talent of the caucasion persuasion and puts them on stage in front of a mostly African-American crowd. In the spirit of Def Comedy Jam and similar shows of that ilk, it’s an interesting idea.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on August 24th, 2007
Right off the start Wild Hogs looks to be appealing simply because of the cast which includes John Travolta, Tim Allen, Martin Lawrence, William H. Macy, and Ray Liotta. However when you get numerous big names together, some of whom aren’t known for comedy, their meshing on screen becomes quite an issue. Regardless, I don’t anticipate this to become a problem with Wild Hogs.
Wild Hogs tells the story of four middle aged recreational bikers who are all going through a personal crisis. Doug (Tim Allen, Galaxy Quest) is a dentist stuck in a rut, he wants to relive his glory days but has too much responsibility and a kid who doesn’t respect him. Bobby (Martin Lawrence, Bad Boys) aspires to be a writer but is stuck in a job as a plumber, his wife wears the pants and he hardly does or says what he wants anymore. Dudley (William H. Macy, The Cooler) seems to suffer from an inferiority complex as he can’t seem to muster up the courage to talk to women, his life lacks excitement. Finally there’s Woody (John Travolta, Hairspray) he seems to have it all, a big house and a supermodel wife, that is until she leaves him and he looses all his money. Desperate to get a taste of life, on Woody’s suggestion the group embarks on a cross country motorcycle trip with no cell phones and no plan, just the west coast in mind. Of course along the way they run into their share of misadventures including a homosexual highway cop, a gang of bikers, and Dudley’s inability to balance on his motorcycle.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on August 18th, 2007
There was a time when break dancing was the hottest thing around. For this film, that time is 1986, when a talented young dancer goes too big in a dance contest, flips off the stage and winds up in a coma. He wakes up 20 years later, a grown man with the mind of a 12-year-old, an unhealthy passion for break dancing and a crush on the girlfriend he almost had two decades earlier.
With that premise, how can you go wrong? Plus, you know Kickin' It Old Skool is a righteous movie because it spells 'School' with a 'k.'
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on August 17th, 2007
Are We Done Yet? That's not just the title of this film, it's a form of the question you'll be asking repeatedly during the film's runtime, until you eventually reach a climax of desperation and cry out for all to hear, "For the love all that is good and pure in this world, when will it end?" Not soon enough, my friend. Not soon enough.
Should you find yourself watching this torturously stupid sequel to 2005's Are We There Yet?, all I can say is, you should have known better. While opinions about movies are subjective, this one's a special case that allows me to say with 100% confidence: if you liked Are We Done Yet? you deserve a big ol' smack upside the head.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on August 16th, 2007
In the day and age of sequels being thrown at us like lies from the media, the idea of a sequel surpassing its predecessor rarely occurs. I can only think of a few films that have achieved such a title. Titles like Aliens, The Bourne Supremacy and the recent comedy sequel Meet the Fockers are perfect examples, the latter which is actually funny and charming instead of being cruel and rather mean like the first.
As we all know in Meet the Parents, Greg Focker (Ben Stiller) asked his girlfriend Pam (Tea Leoni) to marry him, which she accepted. Only it wasn’t as open and shut as this. See first Greg had to ask the permission of Pam’s father Jack (Robert De Niro) for his daughter’s hand. Jack, an ex-CIA specialist, basically tried to torture Greg into not wanting to marry Pam by ridiculing him in front of others and digging up every little secret he could. And let’s not even bring in the other completely childish and rude family members who act like jerks. Anyhow, Jack finally comes to the realization that if Greg loves his daughter so much, he can marry her. But now there comes a dilemma. Just like Greg had to meet Pam’s parents, it would only be polite for Jack and company to meet Greg’s parents. The only problem here is that Greg’s parents, well, are a bit odd.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on August 14th, 2007
Written by Evan Braun
If I had to find one single word to completely encapsulate this show, and particularly its first season, it would be: Cute. No, wait ... scratch that. Make it: Nauseauting.
![Wild Hogs [Blu-ray] dvd cover art](https://upcomingdiscs.com/ecs_covers/wild-hogs-blu-ray-large.jpg)
![Meet the Fockers [HD DVD] dvd cover art](https://upcomingdiscs.com/ecs_covers/meet-the-fockers-hd-dvd-large.jpg)
