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Drama

Safe Haven (Blu-ray)

Posted in Disc Reviews by J C on May 15th, 2013

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Even among the crowded field idyllic meadow of big-screen romances, the “Nicholas Sparks movie” has become its own lucrative sub-genre. The only other contemporary authors I can remember achieving that sort of name brand recognition are Stephen King and John Grisham. (When people went to watch a Harry Potter film, they didn’t usually say, “Let’s go see the new J.K. Rowling movie.) It’s easy to spot a Nicholas Sparks movie: the lily white leads usually live in or around one of the Carolinas, where they inevitably get drenched by a romantic, cleansing rain before coming across a pivotal letter.
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Escape (Blu-ray)

Posted in Disc Reviews by Brent Lorentson on May 15th, 2013

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In 1363, the Black Plague had done its damage, leaving most infected areas uninhabitable. Escape — known in Norway as Flukt — is the story of a family that sets out into the countryside to get away from the plague and hopefully find a new place to rebuild their lives. But just as I’m thinking this is going to be a movie about sticking together and fighting to survive the elements, it shifts gears to something far darker but not all that original.
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Broken City (Blu-ray)

Posted in Disc Reviews by Brent Lorentson on May 14th, 2013

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“This is not what you think it is.”

Sometimes a movie comes along that simply has so much to say that two hours simply isn’t enough to flesh it out to its full potential. Broken City is a film that is filled with many great characters and story threads that needed more than just the 109-minute running time to tie everything all together.
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Tomorrow You’re Gone (Blu-ray)

Posted in Disc Reviews by J C on May 13th, 2013

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We all know what it feels like to nod off in the middle of a film. It starts with micro-naps that last a few seconds. They’re so short, we don’t even realize we’ve fallen asleep. But when we wake up, we feel totally lost because we’ve missed a line of dialogue or scene transition. I mention this for two reasons: 1.) the confused protagonist of Tomorrow You’re Gone floats through his life in a dream-like state and 2.) watching this incomprehensible mess of a movie constantly made me feel like I’d fallen asleep and missed something. That’s a problem because I was wide awake.
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Flashpoint: The Fifth Season

Posted in Disc Reviews by Michael Durr on May 8th, 2013

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After a four-month hiatus, I have been called to assignment, a very special assignment indeed. Thankfully, the message did not self-destruct after five seconds. However, the message did have demands and required negotiation tactics. That is when I called in the SRU Unit from the show Flashpoint and they burst onto the scene. While they are handling a memo that has a notebook at gunpoint, they left me with a copy of Season Five of Flashpoint to review. Let’s take a look.
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Gangster Squad (Blu-ray)

Posted in Disc Reviews by J C on April 22nd, 2013

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“I want to talk to you about the war for the soul of Los Angeles.”

This could easily describe the current rivalry between the surging L.A. Clippers and the geriatric Los Angeles Lakers, but Gangster Squad has slightly weightier matters on its mind. The stylish 1940s and 50s cops-and-crooks saga wants to tell a story about corruption and violent men unable — or unwilling — to turn off their capacity for hurting others. Instead, the film winds up being a somewhat shallow 21st century gloss on The Untouchables. And there’s absolutely nothing wrong with that.
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Pawn (Blu-ray)

Posted in Disc Reviews by J C on April 22nd, 2013

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“Whose move is it?”

To be honest, I’m not much of a chess player. I know how all the pieces move and I enjoy the mental challenge, but I never really committed to becoming proficient at the game. (Now, if we’re talking Connect Four, you don’t want to run into me in a dark alley.) Pawn establishes its intriguing chess motif early on, before almost completely abandoning it in favor of becoming more of a generically twisty thriller.
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Down the Shore (Blu-ray)

Posted in Disc Reviews by J C on April 8th, 2013

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For better or worse — okay, it’s worse — it’s now impossible to hear the words “Jersey” and “Shore” without thinking of a certain group of knuckleheads on MTV. Down the Shore is a dreary, observant drama set in the region and starring James Gandolfini. If anyone is ever going to restore the area’s good(?) name, you figure the Sopranos star is a better bet than most, having previously dominated the Garden State from a pop culture standpoint by starring in the landmark television drama.
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The Devil’s in the Details (Blu-ray)

Posted in Disc Reviews by Brent Lorentson on April 3rd, 2013

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This is a review that I’ve been dreading. It’s been a while since a movie has gotten me so worked up over its thoughtless execution that I struggle to find something redeeming out of it. For those unfamiliar with non-linear storytelling, a simple definition would be a story told out of order, for instance Memento or Pulp Fiction. Those two examples are of films that execute non-linear storytelling and use the structural device as a means to further their story. As for the filmmakers involved with The Devil’s in the Details, they took a decent story and then tore it up into shreds, tossed it in the air, and pieced it together however they saw fit.
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Hemingway & Gellhorn (Blu-ray)

Posted in Disc Reviews by J C on April 2nd, 2013

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“The important thing for a writer is to tell a good story.”

Martha Gellhorn, considered by some to be the greatest war correspondent of the 20th century, was extremely adamant about not wanting to be a footnote in someone else’s life. So I’m thinking the writer — who died in 1998 — may have had mixed feelings about Hemingway & Gellhorn. On one hand, her life story gets the prestigious (and mostly sympathetic) HBO Films treatment, and Gellhorn is played by Oscar winner Nicole Kidman in a sensational, searing turn. On the other hand
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Lincoln (Blu-ray)

Posted in Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on March 28th, 2013

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“Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent a new nation, conceived in liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal. Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that nation, or any nation, so conceived and so dedicated, can long endure.”

These were strong words, and the man who spoke them was certainly a dominant figure in American history.
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Zulu Dawn (Blu-ray)

Posted in Disc Reviews by Jeremy Butler on March 26th, 2013

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I tend to shy away from films that have come out before I was born. It’s not a rule, just a habit. The reason for that being because not being from the generation that movie was produced in, I fear that there will be a lot of cultural reference that I will be unfamiliar with and I will have to Wikipedia them all. I also feel that because I am from a different era I am not qualified to render a sound opinion of an older film, because I may judge it too harshly due to my growing up within a time of special effect advancement.
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Samson and Delilah

Posted in Disc Reviews by William O'Donnell on March 25th, 2013

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Biblical strongman Samson accomplishes many amazing feats and makes many a powerful enemy along the way. None are able to defeat this champion until his action catch the eye of Delilah, and he becomes the target of her affections. Unbenounced to Samson, Delilah has been tasked to discover the source of his supernatural strength. God granted Samson amazing physical strength, but his heart and mind are weak to the machinations of this sly, deceitful woman and it is only a matter of time before she learns his greatest secret.
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Day of the Falcon (Blu-ray)

Posted in Disc Reviews by J C on March 21st, 2013

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Day of the Falcon is a photogenic, lavish reminder that violence and strife in the Middle East existed well before it could be broadcast on CNN. The film — set in the early part of the 20th century — also works as a throwback to the sort of rollicking, epic-scale adventure films David Lean was making at the height of his powers and that no one seems terribly interested in making anymore. Don’t get me wrong: Day of the Falcon is no Lawrence of Arabia or Bridge on the River Kwai, but it’s an accetable 21st century substitute.
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House Arrest

Posted in No Huddle by J C on March 20th, 2013

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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.
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Cirque Du Soleil – Worlds Away (Blu-Ray)

Posted in Disc Reviews by William O'Donnell on March 18th, 2013

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Worlds Away is the tale of a young woman named Mia who happens across a debilitated circus, where she is enchanted by the performance of an Aerialist. Mid-performance, both she and the aerialist are sucked into a parallel universe that is littered with strange, seemingly supernatural circuses. Both are lead from performance to performance in an attempt to escape, or at least find each other.
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The Mob Doctor: The Complete Series

Posted in No Huddle by J C on March 15th, 2013

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If the last few decades are any indication, TV viewers can’t get enough medical shows, while mob dramas seem to develop some of the most fervent followings. The Mob Doctor — the Fox drama canceled shortly after its debut last fall — suggests those two great tastes don’t necessarily taste great together. The network wound up airing all 13 episodes, and now Sony has released every installment of the watchable, uneven drama on DVD.
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Border Run (Blu-ray)

Posted in Disc Reviews by J C on March 13th, 2013

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“The border between the United States and Mexico spans 2,000 miles. It’s also the most frequently crossed land border in the entire world. And that just refers to legal crossings…”

Hundreds of thousands of people — we’re told at the start of Border Run — try to cross that boundary every year, and each of them has a unique story. Unfortunately, the filmmakers botched a great opportunity to explore the thorny issue of illegal immigration in a thoughtful and stimulating way by choosing to tell the most ridiculous and off-putting story they could possibly think of.
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Smashed (Blu-ray)

Posted in Disc Reviews by J C on March 12th, 2013

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“I don’t know if I’m an alcoholic, really, I just drink. I drink a lot.”

Movies that deal with alcoholism tend to either be relentless downers (Leaving Las Vegas, When a Man Loves a Woman) or use drunkenness as a catalyst for Hangover-style shenanigans and tipsy laughs (Arthur; Dean Martin’s entire act). In other words, drunks on film don’t usually look like Mary Elizabeth Winstead in Smashed, the brisk, well-acted dramedy from writer-director James Ponsoldt.
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The Marine 3: Homefront (Blu-ray)

Posted in Disc Reviews by J C on March 11th, 2013

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On paper, pro wrestlers are the perfect action movie stars. Their beefy frames and larger-than-life personalities should make them naturals at kicking butt on the big screen, plus the performers are certainly familiar with choreographed combat. (This is the part where I planned to mention that wrestling is fake, but I don’t want to make anybody cry.) Even though Arnold, Sly and their brawny brethren have struggled at the box office recently — and are about 20 years past their heyday — WWE Studios has a sneakily clever thing going with its Marine franchise.
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Chasing Mavericks (Blu-ray)

Posted in Disc Reviews by Brent Lorentson on March 6th, 2013

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Normally when I see trailers for films about “inspiring true stories” I try to remind myself to avoid that film at all costs. Sure I’ve seen more than a few of these kinds of films, but that’s the problem with them, once you’ve seen one you’ve seen them all. When Chasing Mavericks was brought to my attention I was ready to ignore, but then I gave it a quick look at IMDB and to my surprise it had two directing credits, Curtis Hanson (L.A. Confidential, which just so happens to be in my all-time top ten films) and Michael Apted (Gorky Park, Nell, Gorillas of the Mist), and with that my mind was made up.
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Lay the Favorite (Blu-ray)

Posted in Disc Reviews by J C on March 5th, 2013

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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.
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Insider (Blu-ray)

Posted in Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on March 5th, 2013

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If you were alive at the time, you probably remember watching the seven tobacco company executives testifying in before a Senate committee on the addictive nature of their products. They all raised their hands to swear that they do not believe that nicotine is addictive. It made for great television of the absurd. It was great fodder for the late-night comedy routines, and almost every stand-up in the country found a way to work it into their material. It was the beginning of a changing environment in America toward smoking, in general. Most states have since passed “Clean Air Acts” which prohibit smoking from most public places.
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Interview with a Hitman (Blu-ray)

Posted in Disc Reviews by J C on March 4th, 2013

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By the time we meet most big-screen hitmen, they’ve already attained the level of badass-ery required to be efficient killers. Far fewer movies take the time to examine the circumstances that result in a person becoming a murdering machine. Interview with a Hitman — a British action offering from first-time writer/director Perry Bhandal — stands out from the pack because it’s a surprisingly thoughtful meditation on the consequences of killing.
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The Client List: The Complete First Season

Posted in No Huddle by J C on February 26th, 2013

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Here’s how hot Jennifer Love Hewitt is in The Client List, Lifetime’s breezy, sexy hit dramedy. My wise, eternally-patient girlfriend and I watch the show together, and she doesn’t even get jealous or make any sort of catty remarks at our TV. Instead, she figuratively tips her cap to Hewitt’s hotness the same way a golfer might compliment an opponent for making an impossible shot. (Game recognizes game, I suppose.)
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