Posted in: Disc Reviews by Brent Lorentson on May 25th, 2017
While I’m not usually a fan of gimmicks involved in trying to get my attention to see a movie, I’ll happily take an anthology of a found-footage film, simply because the odds of me finding something I like in the anthology are greater. VHS 2 is personally my favorite anthology film out there; even though it suffers from having to be a found-footage anthology, it at least delivers several unique perspectives and stories. I find it hard to believe a horror fan out there can’t enjoy the film. With XX the anthology presents us with a unique proposition when it comes to horror, four tales that are all crafted and presented by women. A rather unintentional taboo notion when you consider horror has been a boys’ club for many years, but we are in a new era, and with this anthology this is the business card that is here to show us what they got.
I’m a little sad to see that the Soska sisters (American Mary) didn’t have a part in this, simply because they seem to be on the front lines of the women-in-horror movement, but nevertheless the entrants in XX are respectable heavy-hitters.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by J C on May 18th, 2017
“Sometimes...if there's too many white people, I get nervous.”
Some of the very best horror films/psychological thrillers succeed by taking a relatable source of anxiety and cranking it to 11. For example, The Exorcist can be viewed as the worst-case scenario for anyone suffering a crisis of faith, while The Shining taps into the madness of being cooped up with your family for too long. Get Out works because it uses the nerve-wracking experience of meeting your significant other's parents for the first time as a jumping-off point to tell a subversive, insightful, and entertaining story that mashes together Guess Who's Coming to Dinner and The Stepford Wives.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Brent Lorentson on May 18th, 2017
With its original release in 2009, DC and Warner Bros have set up the release of Wonder Woman the animated film to help ramp up excitement for the live-action release of the new Wonder Woman film that is set to hit the big screen in a matter of weeks. For some of those readers who may think animated film means it’s just for kids, what WB and DC have done together with the animation department I wish managed to translate to their live-action releases. The DC/WB animated films in my opinion are phenomenal and honestly have set a high bar for me, because these translations have just been superior to the live-action films, and most come in short of the 90-minute mark. Wonder Woman follows in line with the previous successful animated films, and I had a blast with this title; it’s the kind of film as a kid I would have loved to see on the big screen, and it’s something adults and parents I feel will also join in on the fun.
This is an origin tale (don’t roll your eyes just yet), but everyone involved knows their audience and that they can’t waste too much time on backstory. The film opens up with the Amazons at war with Ares, the God of War, and all his minions. This introduction to Ares and just how powerful a force he is reminded me of LOTR: Fellowship of the Ring when we see Sauron just decimate the humans in battle. There is a moment when the Amazons have defeated Ares, and before they can kill him Zeus steps in to save his son. To spare his son’s life, Zeus makes Ares a prisoner of the Amazons where he is expected be held in their care for eternity.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by J C on May 17th, 2017
“Look, as lousy as the marriage is, the divorce is going to be much, much worse.”
The subject of divorce isn't exactly a laugh riot in real life, so the makers of HBO's comedy series tracking the dissolution of a decade-long marriage had their work cut out for them. Divorce (not surprisingly) takes a darkly comic approach to the hostile material; the problem is the show seemingly forgot about the part where we're supposed to want to spend time with these people every week. The series also marks the HBO return of star/executive producer Sarah Jessica Parker...call this new show No Sex in the Suburbs.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on May 16th, 2017
There was a 20th anniversary edition of Michael Mann's Heat planned a couple of years ago by the folks at Warner Brothers. There was hope of a 4K restoration and more. The rights ended up reverting to 20th Century Fox before any of that could happen. Now Fox has released something they are calling The Director's Definitive Edition, but it is the same cut and print of the film as used in the last Warner Brothers' Blu-ray release. So I really can't tell you what is definitive except for a couple of new and more recent bonus features.
Pacino plays a cop who is tracking a group of robbers, among them Val Kilmer (Wonderland) and Tom Sizemore (Saving Private Ryan), a group headed by DeNiro. The group receives offers for work from Jon Voight (Runaway Train), and they rob anything from gold to coins to bearer bonds. They are all ex-cons, and know all the ropes. They are a highly professional crew, which you see in the opening moments of the movie, despite the addition of a new man to the crew. What also helps to differentiate this from a usual cops-and-robbers movie are the secondary plotlines of the families involved. Pacino’s is clearly distant and breaking (played by Diane Venora and Natalie Portman), while DeNiro doesn’t have one to speak of, despite an emerging romance with Edy (Amy Brenneman, Judging Amy). At three hours, there are some unnecessary scenes involving a banker (played by William Fichtner), but the underlying message is that almost all of the actions in the movie do not involve just the primary characters, but also friends and loved ones of those characters. Kilmer’s wife in the film, played by Ashley Judd, desperately wants to get him out of his line of work, as she wants to start a new life for her family. An ex-con (Dennis Haysbert, 24) is stumbled upon working in a greasy spoon, and offered a chance to work by DeNiro. Haysbert’s character wants to be right, but runs into so many obstacles from it that he takes the job, only to wind up perishing in what results in a massive gunfight in the heart of Los Angeles while a bank robbery is being pulled.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on May 11th, 2017
"I got this..."
When Sly Stallone delivered his homage to the 1980's action film in The Expendables he hit a lot of the action film requisites. It was old-school fun with a new-school level of effects and production design. But with all of his efforts to bring back the 1980's action star hero, there was one beat he couldn't have connected with until a couple of years later. You see, action films are like potato chips. You can't have just one. Films like First Blood, Die Hard, Terminator, and all of the others always had one final thing in common...the sequels. In case you thought that The Expendables was a one-off, the sequel was inevitable. And this is one case where the second film might be a little better than the first. Sure, it's somewhat of a two-hour cliché, but who says there's anything wrong with that?
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Jeremy Butler on May 11th, 2017
From the suggestion of the title, you would think that we would be diving deeper into the world of BDSM, but after watching, the only thing that I can say about Fifty Shades Darker is that it’s a love story. Yes, I know that it was always a love story, but the first film possessed an edge and intensity which no longer exist in the sequel. Disappointing is too pale a word for the film. From its failure to properly capture the essence of the source material, less than engaging performance of the leads, and the vanilla nature of the sex scenes, the movie does not live up to the hype. If 50 Shades of Grey pushed the envelope with its sexuality, 50 Shades Darker embraces the commercialism of a sequel for profit rather than effect.
When last we saw Christian Grey (Jaime Dornan) and Anastasia Steele (Dakota Johnson) they had just learned that Ana may not be compatible for the kind of relationship that Christian needs, and they broke up. Their separation is temporary as both parties notice the absence of the other quickly, resulting in Christian seeking Ana out and attempting to renegotiate the terms of their relationship. Ana is all but willing to reconcile, but as soon as it seems that they are about to embrace their happily ever after, complications in the form of an ex-sub Leila and the reemergence of Christian’s original temptress, Elena Lincoln (Kim Basinger) threaten to tear the couple apart.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on May 9th, 2017
It's hard to believe that it has been 45 years since The Godfather first graced theater screens. The Godfather films changed storytelling forever. Films before that time, mobster or otherwise, had some very simple but unshakable rules. There was always a fairly clear distinction between the good guys and the bad guys. The good guys always win in the end, and the bad guys always succumb to justice before the final credits. For perhaps the very first time, we were given characters that we knew in our souls were evil men. They killed. They broke laws. They manipulated everyone around them through fear and terrorism to bend to their wills. Somehow, now they are the film’s core heroes, if you will. When Vito is shot, we cheer for Michael, who discards his contempt for his family’s criminal image and comes to his father’s aid. Suddenly this wasn’t just about a gang of mobsters. This was a story about a family. Most of us can’t relate to the mafia ins and outs, but we all have fathers, and even when we dislike what our fathers represent, we will more often than not come to their aid if they’re being threatened. This unique morality paved the way for an entire genre of such characters today. There just couldn’t have been a Tony Soprano or Vic Mackey without The Godfather. While there were certainly protests from aspects of the Italian-American community decrying the violent way our ethnicity was portrayed, most of us from that community saw more than violence and Mafioso. If you’re from an Italian family, you simply can’t help recognizing aspects of your own family in the Corleones. I could see my own grandfather in Vito, sans the mob boss occupation. Many of us took away the strict codes of honor and respect that drive Italian-Americans to this day in very normal lives. We’re a very passionate people, even if most of us are not part of an organized criminal element.
I’m not going to waste any time here taking you through the Godfather saga. Even if you’ve never seen any of these films, and I can’t imagine anyone hasn’t, you know the story and characters almost as much as if you had. For those of us who have seen these films, it has likely been an experience you have never forgotten. They are like potato chips in that you can not have watched them just a single time. For us these films are more than merely films. They are memories that we share as a culture. They have surely become a part of American mythology, as much as Homer’s tales of conquering heroes and mighty gods were for the ancient Greeks. We know the names of the Corleones as well as any of Shakespeare’s characters. We’ve quoted these films as much as anything short of the Bible itself. It is entirely outside of the realm of possibility, for me at least, to imagine American culture without them. While the films are now 45 years old, they still shape our films and literature today. What television series hasn’t done a spoof of The Godfather. Phrases like: “An offer you can’t refuse”, “Leave the gun. Take the cannoli”, or “Just when I thought I was out, they pull me back in” appear everywhere around us.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Brent Lorentson on May 8th, 2017
When The Ring (2002) first came out, if you looked hard enough you could still find movies on VHS, so the thought of a mysterious tape that kills you seven days after watching it wasn’t so entirely farfetched. Now that we are in 2017, if someone were to find a mysterious VHS tape, well, they’d be out of luck for the most part, since I’d wager most of the US population no longer has a VCR. But Hollywood won’t let this stop their successful franchise from moving forward, even though it’s been 12 years since The Ring Two, this weekend is the release of the third film in the series, and quite frankly, I have to wonder if anyone really wanted this.
Samara is back, and she is hungry to take the lives of anyone foolish enough to watch the video, and as the film opens we’re in a plane along with a passenger who has seen the film and only has minutes to go before his seven days are up. While this is a fun scene that gave me hope for what would continue, I couldn’t help but feel that the scene was perhaps a throwaway sequence from Final Destination. Then, oddly enough, the film seems to start again, two years later when we see Gabriel (Johnny Galecki), a college professor, purchasing an old VCR. Once Gabriel gets to his apartment, he gets a surprise when he discovers a tape with the words “Watch Me” written on it. Just like all foolish characters in horror films, he watches the film and immediately gets the phone call.
Posted in: No Huddle Reviews by J C on May 4th, 2017
“I thought it was dull...unless it was supposed to be a satire.”
Television has been trending toward shorter, more self-contained stories. Successful shows like American Horror Story, Fargo, American Crime, and others reboot themselves every year with new characters and storylines in an attempt to offer viewers something fresh each season. The Affair seemed ready-made for that formula: each season could've followed different adulterous encounters in a wide variety of settings. Instead, the perspective-shifting Showtime drama is determined to chronicle the far-reaching effects of a single Long Island dalliance. So while the show brushes up against some interesting relationship dynamics, it feels like it has stretched a thin concept beyond its breaking point.
