Posted in: No Huddle Reviews by Dan Holland on January 24th, 2017
If asked about my favorite genre of film, romantic comedies would not be close to the top of the list. However, I have seen enough rom-coms that I wouldn’t mind watching a second time. The Babymooners would be a film that I’d give a second watch, simply because of its charming energy. Most of this charm can be attributed to Shaina Feinberg and Chris Manley, who co-wrote and directed the film. Through explicitly stating in the synopsis that the film is “clearly influenced by old Woody Allen films,” the filmmaking duo alert audiences to exactly what they should be expecting, and they are not far off. So if you are a fan of Woody Allen, rejoice, as that is not an empty promise.
Part documentary, part sketch comedy, part smart storytelling, The Babymooners is a story about a middle-aged artistic woman named Shaina, who is concerned about losing her creativity with the coming child. Set up as a video letter to her unborn son, she recounts the events that led to the conception, as well as details the complexities within the relationship between her and her partner. These events are largely told in vignettes, that are prefaced by either Shaina talking to her computer, or a talking-heads-style interview with Shaina’s parents recounting their experience with her.
Posted in: No Huddle Reviews by J C on January 23rd, 2017
Stop me if you’ve heard this one before: single gals looking for love — among other things — in the big city. On television, the trope dates back to the days of Laverne & Shirley and continues with more contemporary entries like Sex and the City and Girls. It’s an effective, timeless story hook that has gotten a funny, druggy, tremendously weird spin thanks to the queens kweens of Comedy Central’s Broad City.
The stars of the show here are Abbi and Ilana (co-creators Abbi Jacobson and Ilana Glazer), a pair of uncommonly attached besties living and playing in NYC. (Except for Ep. 6/“Philadelphia”, which finds the pair visiting Abbi’s suburban childhood home in Wayne, Pennsylvania.) Season 3 kicks off with a bit of literal toilet humor, as we get an amusing split-screen montage of Abbi and Ilana in their respective bathrooms.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by J C on January 19th, 2017
“My husband used to tell me I have an overactive imagination…”
The idea at the core of The Girl on the Train is equal parts provocative and relatable: a lonely commuter observes an attractive couple from a distance and imagines what their seemingly perfect lives must be like. Anyone who’s ever done any people-watching will recognize the appeal of inventing a backstory for a stranger, and the story is a healthy reminder that things are never quite what they seem from the outside. But despite a powerhouse lead performance, this Train is ultimately derailed by an unsatisfying mystery and a lack of flair that causes this potentially juicy story to lose steam as it chugs along.
Posted in: No Huddle Reviews by Gino Sassani on January 17th, 2017
The premise here was always dirt simple. They've taken the buddy cop idea and found a way to work in the forensics science fad and deliver a procedural with a few twists. The show is based on a series of mystery novels by Tess Gerritsen, who introduced us to Jane Rizzoli & Maura Isles in 2001. Tess makes a cameo appearance in this, the show's final season. The season is shorter than the usual 18 shows. There are 13, and in all of them you can feel the weight of the characters and their situations counting down until the final episode of the series. You'll be able to see where that's going pretty much from the beginning. After seven years, you can look forward to a tearful goodbye as the show exits on its own terms.
Angie Harmon plays Detective Rizzoli. She's wanted to be a cop all of her life and is living the dream, working with a special unit out of Boston PD. Her best friend in life happens to be Dr. Maura Isles, who is the Chief Medical Examiner for the unit and is played by Sasha Alexander. These are the kind of friends who finish each other's sentences and share a lot of history together. That's not to say they are at all alike.
Posted in: No Huddle Reviews by Gino Sassani on January 16th, 2017
“It’s been a long time getting from there to here.”
35 years, to be exact. Enterprise is the fourth spinoff from the original 1960’s hopeful series. The Earth is finally ready to send its first starship to explore the vast galaxy. This first starship Enterprise is smaller than the ships we’ve become used to. There are no shields or photon torpedoes. The transporter has only been cleared for inanimate objects. Not that this stands in the way of its occasional “emergency” use. The ship is very much like the cramped spaces of today's submarines. It adds an even greater sense of reality to the show. The crew is composed of Captain Jonathan Archer (Bakula), First Officer and Vulcan High Command liaison, T’Pol (Blalock), Chief Engineer Charles (Trip) Tucker (Trinneer), Tactical Officer Malcolm Reed (Keating), Denobulan Dr. Phlox (Billingsley), Pilot Travis Mayweather (Montgomery) and Linguist/Communications Officer Hoshi Sato (Park).
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Brent Lorentson on January 16th, 2017
It would seem as though Ben Affleck is finally starting to shed the stigma of doing bad films. He’s been on a roll since he took on the role of George Reeves in Hollywoodland and has also in the process become an accomplished director. When the trailer first dropped for The Accountant, I wasn’t sure what to expect, but as you look at the laundry list of talent that fills the cast, it quickly became a film I had my eye on. What is surprising is despite there being franchises that seem to cover the same territory i.e.: Jack Reacher and the Jason Bourne films, is there room for another lone-wolf killing machine film? Before going into this it was a question that bothered me; heck, I’m already burnt out of the Jason Bourne films, and with a new Jack Reacher film on the horizon, the saturation is noticeable. But thankfully, The Accountant doesn’t just come out swinging but exceeded all expectations and has raised the bar for this brand of action film.
Christian Wolff (Ben Affleck) is, as the title would lead you to believe, an accountant. He runs his own firm and is exceedingly good at what he does when it comes to solving accounting problems people may have. He’s exceptional at solving problems, and what makes this all the more impressive is he does all of this as a high-functioning autistic. This may be one of the first times I’ve seen a character with a disability on screen, but not once is it ever played as a way to sway sympathy; instead, it’s just another layer to this character. We see the everyday hell Wolff goes through, but we also see how far he’s come from his childhood after his mother gives up hope and abandons her family.
Posted in: No Huddle Reviews by Dan Holland on January 16th, 2017
When a movie makes a bold claim such as being “a tour de force murder flick that defies classification,” it is inviting a hefty amount of preconceived criticisms prior to anyone actually viewing the film. It’s like titling a horror film This Will Scare You. Naturally, your first thought would be something along the lines of “Yeah, whatever, movie.” Needless to say, that want to criticize burns within you until you watch it. Then, with all the satisfaction in the world, you get to say “No, that wasn’t scary at all.” In the end, you are stuck with a movie that wasn’t what it promised to be, but realistically, you knew that would be the case anyway. It is a cheap marketing ploy that entices you to watch for all the wrong reasons.
On the surface, The Orphan Killer has a lot more in common with the Halloween franchise than it realizes. A homicidal maniac churns out an impressive body count in an attempt to destroy his own bloodline. The only difference is the plot of The Orphan Killer is anchored down to a Catholic orphanage, where the killer grew up. So in terms of being a film that “defies classification,” I would argue that is an objectively erroneous statement. It is a horror film, a slasher specifically, that uses a little more blood than its competition.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by J C on January 11th, 2017
“I don’t want to be in this relationship anymore, and I don’t know how to get out.”
A TV show’s fifth season is around the time it starts to feel like you have to see things through to the bitter end. I mean, it seems downright irresponsible to ditch a series after five years of investing in its characters’ lives, no matter how flawed and frustrating they are. And there’s no doubt the self-absorbed millennials on HBO’s Girls are among the most flawed and frustrating people on TV; so I was delighted to find that the series produced one of its strongest seasons as it nears its conclusion.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Brent Lorentson on January 10th, 2017
In 1999 The Blair Witch Project was released, and it was a horror film that created a stir like I had never seen before. I remember going to Tampa Theatre to see it opening week. The line was wrapped around the building for the sold-out screening. Discussions were going on in the line about the film actually being real, some even talking about how they heard the bodies of the three filmmakers were never found. It’s this kind of mindset going into the film that made it such an impact as I walked out of that first showing. At the time I knew I had seen something unique, but I never would have expected it to spawn an entire style of genre filmmaking that would be copied over and over again. Now nearly two decades later, director Adam Wingard (You’re Next) attempts to inject new life in the found-footage genre and into the film franchise that started it all.
The film picks up years after the disappearance of the film students in the first film. James (James Allen McCune) has been looking for evidence since his sister first disappeared. A digital video has surfaced that may have more clues as to what happened to his missing sister. It’s this hope that takes James and his friends to the woods where is sister vanished and where the legend of the Blair Witch continues to flourish. Lisa (Callie Hernandez) makes plans to document the trip to the woods as they hope to acquire this new evidence, and she comes armed with an array of high-tech gadgets to document the journey.
Posted in: No Huddle Reviews by Gino Sassani on January 10th, 2017
"Evil has returned to Sleepy Hollow."
With the big bad finally destroyed and an apocalypse averted, the dynamic duo of Sleepy Hollow have gone their separate ways. Abby is now with the FBI, while Crane has gone into seclusion and ends up in jail for trying to sneak an artifact into the country from his homeland of Scotland. Abby gets him out of trouble only to discover that the tablet Crane found in his family crypt back in Europe holds more prophesy for the pair of witnesses. The two have to come back together to save the world from yet another end of times.
