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: No Huddle Reviews by Brent Lorentson on May 9th, 2017
When it comes to graffiti art there is only one name that comes to mind, and it’s Banksy. Before checking out this documentary I had no clue that graffiti art was actually something people took seriously, beyond gang tags and little kids marking up a wall for fun. Apparently there are numerous acclaimed graffiti artists around the world, artists who define themselves with their own unique style and message they’d like to share with the rest of the world, even if their message will most likely be painted over. In 2010 Banksy came to San Francisco to vandalize some walls with a little paint, and it was enough to create a buzz across the city about what the artist would do, and out of that spawned this unique documentary that explores the value of graffiti art.
Director Colin Day states at the start of the film that his attention was to simply document the progress Banksy made as his graffiti art was made and put on display for the public. Along the way he interviews several other graffiti artists who discuss their thoughts on Banksy and about why they do what they do. Just about anywhere you go throughout the world, graffiti is illegal, and the consequences have various punishments that range from a simple fine to even jail time.
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 Gino Sassani on May 8th, 2017
If you weren’t around in the 1970’s you might be surprised to find out that film superstar Michael Douglas was once in a television cop show. It was this influential crime drama that allowed Douglas to show off the acting chops that would earn him a spot in the Hollywood elite for decades to come. It didn’t hurt any that he was able to team up with Karl Malden, an undervalued talent in his own right. The two of them literally bring the show to life. The series was run by Quinn Martin, himself no stranger to groundbreaking television. Martin was the same talent who created the crime drama with The Untouchables. His uncanny ability to come up with a clever premise was responsible for such milestones in television history as The Invaders and The Fugitive. Later he would continue to shape the look of television with shows like Tales Of The Unexpected, The FBI, and Most Wanted. He was the Steven Bochco of his time. Long before NYPD Blue, Martin was able to make San Francisco, the city itself, an iatrical character for Malden and Douglas to interact with. The show had tremendous style, even if the cases were purely formula. Certainly you won’t find anything in these plots you haven’t seen a hundred times before. What you will find is a unique presentation that somehow makes even the most mundane story appear quite compelling. If you enjoy the Bochco and Wolf dramas or fall in with such classics as Starsky and Hutch or Miami Vice, you owe a tremendous debt to Martin for setting the table for all of those fantastic meals that would follow.
Detective “Iron” Mike Stone (Karl Malden) is a seasoned veteran of the San Francisco Police Department. He’s an old-fashioned no-nonsense detective whose life has taken some bitter turns of late. Much to his aggravation he gets partnered with Keller (Michael Douglas), a green detective who hasn’t lost his belief that he can make a difference. Together they just might be able to teach each other something. Before long the two develop a teacher/mentor relationship that works well enough to solve the cases and get the bad guys.
Posted in: No Huddle Reviews by Dan Holland on May 4th, 2017
It is always interesting to see how the history of cinema weaves its way back into the art form, especially when it is incorporated into the narrative itself. For example E. Elias Merhige’s Shadow of the Vampire (2000) constructs its narrative around a fictional filming of F.W. Murnau’s Nosferatu (1922). Recently, Gary Oldman announced his interest in writing and directing Flying Horse, a biopic of Eadward Muybridge, one of the founding fathers of moving images as we know them. Cinema is the only art I am aware of that artists take strides to be self-reflexive for the sake of appreciation of the medium. Apocalypse Child (2015) toys with self-reflexivity, but in a very unique way: It portrays cinema as a quasi-mythical presence through alluding to Francis Ford Coppola’s hellish stretch of filming Apocalypse Now (1979) in the Philippines.
In the surfing town of Baler, Ford (named after the famed director) is somewhat of a man-child who makes his living as a surfing instructor, and lives with his adopted mother (14 years his senior). During the film, Ford and his mother are housing the young Fiona, whose dying grandmother is a well-known member of the village. During Fiona’s stay, she and Ford develop a relationship together, but Ford refuses to visit her grandmother. Eventually, Ford’s successful adoptive brother, Rich, returns to his home town with his fiancée to be married. Tensions begin to rise as we learn that Ford and Rich have a tumultuous past that has never been remedied.
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.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on May 2nd, 2017
"Man, we'll die with you. Just don't ask us to do it twice."
Remember the old days of the action movie? Those films where someone like Stallone or Schwarzenegger would run around and take out armies of bad guys while barely breaking a sweat. You know the kind of movie I'm talking about. The ones where the hero goes up against a hail of bullets and explosions and manages to pick off the bad guys without catching a single slug himself. These were the days when a guy like Bruce Willis could fall thirty floors, get a spike impaled in his ribcage, have a ton of concrete wall fall on his head, and get run over by a truck, but still manage to take out the bad guy while muttering some witty little catchphrase that we would all be repeating, because if we could deliver the line just right that meant we were tough guys too, and we didn't even have to fall out of an airplane to prove it. Well, you won't have to remember. You just have to watch Sly Stallone's love letter to the action movie fans. It's called The Expendables, and it's out right now on UHD Blu-ray in 4K from Lionsgate.
