Posted in: Disc Reviews by J C on March 13th, 2012
I don't think I'm breaking any news when I say that director Paul W.S. Anderson's latest action spectacle, an update of Alexandre Dumas' classic The Three Musketeers, is junk. So far, the director has specialized in taking established properties — including the Resident Evil and Mortal Kombat videogames, as well as the Alien and Predator franchises — and re-working them to fit his own shallow, highly-stylized, quick-cutting sensibilities. The result is basically the cinematic equivalent of junk food: people know those Resident Evil movies are bad, but they just can't stop consuming them.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by J C on March 12th, 2012
"What must it be like to be the most famous woman on Earth?"
In My Week with Marilyn, one character relays this very question — apparently asked recently by Queen Elizabeth II — to Marilyn Monroe herself. The main problem with this movie is that it is less interested in exploring that query with a great amount of depth, and more interested in answering the considerably less provocative question, "What is it like to hang out with someone super famous?" (That's what Entourage was for.)
Posted in: No Huddle Reviews by J C on March 12th, 2012
I like to think I know more than a little bit about sports. I wake up to Mike and Mike in the Morning, drive to work while listening to The Dan Patrick Show and rush home to catch Pardon the Interruption. I've played organized football, baseball, basketball and soccer throughout my life, and I always make the playoffs in my fantasy football leagues. (Let's skip the part where I've never actually won.) Unfortunately, I have somewhat of a blind spot for sports that are more popular outside the United States. As a result, I know very little about Formula One racing and I knew absolutely nothing about Brazilian F1 champion Ayrton Senna until I watched the engrossing and spectacularly thrilling documentary about his life.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by M. W. Phillips on March 9th, 2012
“It has skin like silverfish.”
After suffering through the vast majority of low-budget indie horror films whose only motivation seems to be to make a quick buck on distribution deals, it is truly a delight when you stumble on to something wonderful like writer/director Mike Flanagan’s Absentia. Building on a cast of unknowns, with the exception of an incredibly creepy cameo by genre fave Doug Jones, Flanagan weaves a web of creepy, atmospheric horror in this effective low-budget chiller.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by William O'Donnell on March 9th, 2012
It has not been over 40 years since the inception of the band Queen, but it and its members Freddie Mercury, Brian May, Roger Taylor, and John Deacon, continue to be one of the most popular bands in the world, despite losing lead singer Mercury to AIDS some 20-odd years ago and not creating new material since then. This documentary tells their story in two episodes, spanning nearly 4 hours.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by William O'Donnell on March 8th, 2012
An infant chimp is taken out of his natural environment to be raised like a human by a family of curious, rich folk. Upon learning that this chimp, now named Nim, is capable of learning sign language, this family turns to professional educators to research and experiment with this concept further.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by David Annandale on March 8th, 2012
A group of high school girls heads off into the woods to make a movie for their film club. What only the two organizers know is that they are heading for the site of a previous film club’s massacre. Their shoot descended into madness, with a participant in a deigan mask killing all the others, and the whole thing was recorded on tape. It isn’t long after the girls arrive that things start to go wrong, and it seems that history might be repeating itself.
Posted in: No Huddle Reviews by Archive Authors on March 7th, 2012
Oh for the love of waffles. Here we go with another simple disc review. This time for a movie called Bounty Hunters. The fact that it has Trish Stratus in it, is just asking for awfulness. I was kinda of surprised that Michael didn't take this one seeing as it has a female wrestler in it. But hell, this ought to be easy right? Then I put in the DVD, and I am started with some very awful previews (this is not looking good). Somehow, I think those will end up in my husband's review pile. Hopefully, not mine. Well the load screen is here, let's jump in shall we?!
Posted in: Disc Reviews by M. W. Phillips on March 5th, 2012
“Exactly, you're a kid. So go and be a kid... go and, I don't know, go ahead and steal me something.”
The Tribe is a New Zealand/British post-apocalyptic, young adult soap opera, beloved around the world. So I had to put on my young adult glasses and watch it through those. In the near future, an unknown virus wiped out all the adults on Earth. Left to raise themselves, the kids form tribes in a Lord of the Flies type society. Now, being that the average viewer is probably between 12 – 17 years old, it is a very mild Lord of the Flies society.
Posted in: No Huddle Reviews by J C on March 5th, 2012
Isn't it odd how movies with similar story lines tend to get released around the same time? For example, no one has gotten the urge to release another major motion picture with a volcano as its main antagonist since the Dante's Peak/Volcano Battle of 1997. (Though that might have more to do with the fact that, my slight soft spot for Dante's Peak notwithstanding, both those movies are terrible.) We've been treated to the Great Deep Impact/Armageddon Debate, dueling Truman Capote biopics and the upcoming Snow White Smackdown of 2012. In that same spirit, I'd like to unofficially — and belatedly — declare 2011 as the Year of Has Anyone Seen My Keys?
