Posted in: Disc Reviews by J C on February 7th, 2017
To put things mildly, Warner Bros. still has a bit of a ways to go before its stable of DC Comics superheroes catches up to Disney's dominant Marvel Cinematic Universe. However, Warner and DC have long had the upper hand on both the small screen (Smallville, Arrow, The Flash) and with their animated, direct-to-video offerings. The latest in that latter category is Justice League Dark, which mostly sidelines DC's best-known heroes in favor of a team of mystical outcasts led by a charming, abrasive rogue.
“The capes and tights group...useless against dark magic.”
Posted in: No Huddle Reviews by Gino Sassani on February 6th, 2017
Who or what is God? Does he perform miracles here on Earth? What happens to us when we die? Is there true evil on this earth? How was the universe created? How will it all end? These are the kinds of questions for which there are no concrete answers to be found in the world around us. These are the subjects that require us to turn to our faith or belief systems. The answers might be found in our culture. You might even have had experiences that have brought you closer to the answers. This is meaning-of-life stuff, and the answer might just be 42.
Morgan Freeman joins an elite few actors who have played God in a movie. In Evan Almighty and Bruce Almighty, Freeman was the personification of God. That makes him a rather natural choice to explore the real questions surrounding faith and belief. Freeman is also one of those people who make you feel at ease. He has a naturally soothing voice and a level of wisdom in his presence that allows him to fit the bill here rather nicely as he travels the globe to get to the heart of these important mysteries.
Posted in: No Huddle Reviews by Jeremy Butler on February 6th, 2017
What do you know about the Stuxnet virus? It’s all right, you can be honest. If I’m being honest, before the documentary Zero Days, I hadn’t even known the name. After watching the film, my knowledge is stemmed more in speculation than fact. I hadn’t realized how many different ways there were to hear, “I can’t talk about that.” To this day, government officials refuse to answer any question regarding the computer virus that was supposedly designed to thwart Iran’s nuclear program. It is incredibly frustrating and has inspired in me a degree of curiosity that I hadn’t known possible beforehand. I can see why it the filmmakers were drawn to this subject matter.
Through a panel of computer experts and government officials, the origin and implementation of the Stuxnet virus is explored, which is believed to have been a joint effort cyber-attack between the United States and the Israeli government with the intention of crashing the Iranian nuclear program during the Bush administration. As expected, this is conjecture, as no one is willing to go on the record about the computer program. Despite this, the facts presented by the computer expert as well as leaked government documents detail a compelling story which makes it hard not to believe it to be true.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by J C on February 3rd, 2017
“In chess, the small one can become the big one.”
It's hard to stand out in the Disney family when your big brothers and sisters are Star Wars, Marvel, and the studio's own blockbuster animated offerings. (Not to mention live-action re-imaginings of its own classic animated offerings.) While those properties have been making a racket at the box office, the Mouse House has also been quietly cranking out family-friendly, multi-cultural sports dramas in recent years, including 2014's Million Dollar Arm, and 2015's McFarland U.S.A. I'm not sure if Queen of Katwe is the best of that bunch (I really enjoyed McFarland) but it certainly has the most unlikely hero.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on February 2nd, 2017
“When you wish upon a star. Makes no difference who you are. Anything your heart desires will come to you. If your heart is in your dream, no request is too extreme.When you wish upon a star, as dreamers do… Like a bolt out of the blue, fate steps in and sees you through. When you wish upon a star, your dreams come true.”
The song has become a standard. Every kid knows it. Walt Disney Studios has made it their theme song. You hear it each time you load up a Disney disc. If you have been fortunate enough to have visited Walt Disney World, you’ve heard it the entire day long. We know the song, but did you know where it originated from? It was back in 1940 and the release of Walt Disney’s, in fact, the world’s, second ever feature-length animated film: Pinocchio. Now Disney brings us this timeless classic on high definition and Blu-ray. What a marvel this release is.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on February 2nd, 2017
American football has been making the news of late, and not just in the sports pages. For the last couple of years there has been an increasing concern for players’ safety. From our former president declaring he wouldn't let his fictional son play the game to the hard-hitting Will Smith film Concussion, football has taken some heat over its violent nature. Players are retiring early, and the subject of life after football becomes more of a social question than ever before. That's where HBO's Ballers comes in. It's a half-hour look at the NFL from the player perspective, both current and retired. It's intended as a light bit of dramedy, and it certainly is that. Even so, the series doesn't hide from some of the brutal realities of the sport, from the trappings of fame and fortune to the realities of its eventual end.
Meet Spencer Strasmore, played by Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson. Spencer was a star defensive player for the Miami Dolphins. In his retirement years he has joined a financial advisor firm, teaming up with buddy Joe, played by Rob Corddry. Together they are charged with getting their NFL buddies to sign up with the firm. What Spencer ends up being is a fixer to his former friends and clients, mostly trying to help them get out of their own way. This season he is plagued by a hip injury that should be replaced. Of course, he's having trouble dealing with a hip replacement at 41. The guys also have a new pain in the rear in Andy Garcia's Andre Allen, who owns the largest agency in Miami. When Spencer and Joe decide to poach one of his clients, it turns into a war that the guys can't win.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Brent Lorentson on February 2nd, 2017
It’s been 40 years since the release of The Man Who Fell to Earth, and in that time a lot has changed. If I’m being honest, this isn’t a film that really holds up too well. Last year the star of the film, David Bowie, passed away, and it would seem prosperous and logical to crank out an anniversary edition of the film. As it stands this film isn’t considered so much a classic, but a cult film that fans of Bowie and certain sci-fi fans hold in high regard. For me, this was simply a title I had heard of in passing during talks about Bowie or sci-fi films, but it was never a film that really called to me. To the disappointment of several friends, I’m not much of a fan of David Bowie’s music, and science fiction just isn’t a genre I’m in love with. But when the call came in from Upcomingdiscs headquarters about reviewing this film, well, I decided to finally check this film out, and the result…well it certainly left me pondering the film afterwards.
I’m going to start off by saying this is a strange film, not just in subject matter but how the story is told. Today we’re used to seeing films in a traditional linear manner, where basically the story unfolds from start to finish in an ABCD manner. Well, this film goes that direction but chooses to skip over C to get to D. What I mean is there are gaps in story and time that are not explained, and there is no reason for this, and don’t dwell on it much despite how often this occurs.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on February 1st, 2017
Forbes magazine called Jack Reacher and author Lee Childs the strongest brand in publishing as much for his over $100,000,000 in sales and billion-dollar imprint as for the strong loyalty of fans and favorable ratings of the readers. The 21st Jack Reacher novel, Night School, is coming out in a couple of weeks (which I’m sure Simon & Shuster would thank me for mentioning, but they don’t need my help), and Reacher fans will be buying in droves. The second Reacher movie will be out on November 21. One of the first things I want to address is that Lee Childs had been actively involved in the picking of Tom Cruise to be Jack Reacher. It was a controversial decision, but Childs rightly said there are no big movie stars who could accurately portray the physical characteristics of Reacher. I personally am 6 ft. 4in tall and 250 pounds, so I could be a close proximity except for the fact that I am not a movie star nor could I disable eight opponents simultaneously. The closest movie star I could name who approximates Reacher’s physical dimensions is Vince Vaughn, and I doubt anyone would say he is as big a movie star as Tom Cruise (box-office-wise, that is). Five Mission Impossible movies alone demonstrate that Cruise’s box office is as strong as ever based on their increasing popularity.
By next week, there will be 21 books to read, which contain a lot of developing characterization. The essential information about Jack Reacher is that he retired as a major at 36 and now roams the country with no luggage. It has been said the books can be read out of sequence.
Posted in: No Huddle Reviews by Dan Holland on February 1st, 2017
The 1960s were very important to the counterculture movement in the United States, most notably the artists of New York City. Whether it be future rock stars such as Iggy Pop and The Stooges and The Doors, or the enigmatic Phenom Andy Warhol, New York was at the crux of a lot of influential ideologies that have inspired us in the succeeding decades. However, there is only so much you can read about when it comes to discovering the cultural history of New York. That’s what makes documentaries like Brendan Toller’s Danny Says so fascinating: Sure, you know the history, but can you glean what the experience would be like? Danny Says takes you on a journey beyond the facts and delves into the personal experiences of one of the most significant music journalists New York has seen.
Danny Fields (born Daniel Fienberg) is a fascinatingly pivotal individual for the music scene that defined a generation. As the documentary unfolds, you cannot help but be struck by his connection to the counterculture movement: he spent some time within the walls of Andy Warhol’s factory, he befriended Alice Cooper and Iggy Pop, and he singlehandedly started the press division of Elektra Records. These are impressive feats and awe inspiring facts that really would not carry the same weight if I had read them in a history book. Danny Says is a medium that aided Danny Fields in getting his story told the right way.
Posted in: No Huddle Reviews by Brent Lorentson on January 27th, 2017
Before there were The Hunger Games or even The Running Man, there was a tiny little B-Film called Death Race 2000. Long before the remake occurred with Jason Statham as the lead I was a fan of the original, and for all the wrong reasons. I thought it was great, the notion of having a point system for people you’d hit with your car, the kind of thing you’d joke with friends about, but would never actually go through with. With David Carradine wearing the black mask as immortal Frankenstein behind the wheel of his death machine, he was fun to root for. I’m pretty sure, though, it was a young Sylvester Stallone as the bloodthirsty Machine Gun Joe who got so many people to see the original. I’ll be honest, it’s what got me to rent the VHS, hoping to see Rambo in action, but instead it just opened my eyes to a new kind of cinema cool I wasn’t expecting. I’ve seen the original film at least a dozen times, and it always delivers the over-the-top fun that films of the 70’s embraced. Now that Roger Corman has decided it is time to dust off his film and give it a reboot for a new generation. Even with a bigger budget and more affordable technology, is it a wise decision to once again attempt to update a classic? There’s only one way to know for sure. Strap in, folks, because things are about to get messy.
It’s supposed to be the year 2050, and the government has developed a cross-country death race to hopefully whittle down the population while entertaining the masses in the process. The returning champ is Frankenstein (Manu Bennett). He’s the fan favorite in a leather suit and always wears a leather mask. It’s hard to understand why he’d be such a beloved favorite, but this is a world that embraces a ruthless killing machine. Other drivers are Minerva (Folake Olowofoyeku), a stylish hip-hop/Mad Max inspired mash-up, Jed Perfectus (Burt Grinstead), an egocentric madman who wants to be number one and adored by everyone, and then there is Tammy (Anessa Ramsey), an all-American religious leader who loves to pray and kill. It’s a fun batch of drivers, along with a car that is controlled by AI that is simply known as Abe (voiced by DC Douglas). The characters are all over the top, but unfortunately there is nothing in the way of depth to be found here. There is an attempt at giving Frankenstein a deeper story, one that is far from being original, but really what’s going for the film is that you don’t watch a movie called Death Race 2050 and expect a heartwarming character study. Instead, you’re here to be entertained, and it does so.
