Posted in: No Huddle Reviews by J C on January 26th, 2015
“Hello, please allow me to observe you working.”
A sign bearing those words hangs inside Studio Ghibli, the Japanese animation factory responsible for films like Grave of the Fireflies and My Neighbor Totoro. It's one of many polite directives that adorn the airy workspace, but it also describes the mission of The Kingdom of Dreams and Madness. The movie gives fans an unprecedented look inside the world (and walls) of Studio Ghibli, and watching the creative process is alternately fascinating, frustrating, and exciting. However, the documentary also surprisingly turns out to be an elegy for a dying art form.
Posted in: No Huddle Reviews by Jeremy Butler on January 25th, 2015
Justice or vengeance: how often the lines of the these two things become blurred. At what point does justice become vengeance, or when does it become warranted to take the law into your own hands? Zarra’s Law tells the story of two men who have lived their life coloring inside the lines, doing the right thing, only to see the murderer of someone they loved dearly walk free after a less-than-satisfying sentence. Retired cop Tony Zarra’s (Tony Sirico) life is frozen at the moment he witnessed his brother’s murder. Despite being on separate sides of the law (Tony being a cop and his brother being a member of the mob), Tony feels the loss of his brother so deeply that it he walks away from the job. Two years have gone by and he lives a stagnant life, working in the bar he owns and caring for pigeons that he keeps on the roof of his apartment building. Then something happens to jerk him out of his routine: the man he holds responsible for the death of his brother is about to be release from prison early. Outraged by this news, Tony reopens the case hoping to find damning evidence that will result in the man being back in prison.
He enlists the help of his recently returned nephew Gaetano (Brendan Fehr), a former soldier turned attorney. Gaetano has no love for his father and is too busy waging a one-man war against a childhood rival who, in addition to attempting to take over the streets, also terrorizes his wife and son. However, it is not long before his uncle research turns up new evidence into his father murder that reveals that the two men share a common enemy.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on January 22nd, 2015
"If we're good today, we'll be better tomorrow."
The final season of Boardwalk Empire breaks the mold of what the show has been for the first four years. The action jumps ahead several years to 1931. It's a necessary plot point if we're going to be ending the popular series in the fifth season. I understand the jump and why it works. I guess my only real question is: why are we jumping ahead to end what is one of the best shows on television? The answers likely lie within the powers that be at either HBO or the show's production staff. There's little point arguing the point. This is your last chance to get some Nucky... Nucky Thompson, that is.
Posted in: No Huddle Reviews by Brent Lorentson on January 22nd, 2015
Whether you believe in horoscopes or not, just about everyone out there knows their “sign”. I never really put too much stock in astrology; it always seemed like harmless fun people can have for a few moments each day as they read their horoscope for the day to see what possible good fortune can come their way. In the new film, Zodiac: Signs of the Apocalypse, the film takes a different look at these astrological signs. Rather than be signs that help reveal one’s personality, these symbols instead are supposed to be warnings for the upcoming apocalypse.
Neil Martin (Joel Gretsch) is a single father who is also a scientist who seems to be the only man that can save the world after a series of disasters occur across the globe. For those who have seen Day After Tomorrow, Volcano, Twister, and the one…the only Sharknado I’m pretty sure you know what you are getting yourself into with this film. It’s frustrating how the fate of the world seems to always depend on some rogue scientist that of course no one will listen to. To leave no cliché unturned for this disaster film, helping dad reluctantly save the world is Colin (Reilly Dolman), Neil’s rebellious son.
Posted in: No Huddle Reviews by Brent Lorentson on January 22nd, 2015
Thanks to Chappelle’s Show, Comedy Central has helped pave the way for comics on the cusp of breaking out to produce their own sketch comedy shows to springboard themselves to a larger audience. Key & Peele has flourished in the sketch comedy scene, and now there is Nick Kroll with his own sketch comedy show Kroll Show. But in the world of sketch comedy, is there really a need for more shows? After all, NBC still has Saturday Night Live; well, to be fair, it has been a while since SNL has been consistently funny.
Unlike the former shows mentioned, Kroll Show at no point has Nick Kroll coming out to address the audience. Instead the few setups we do get are recorded with the rest of the show. Not that this deflects any attention from the sketches we see performed, but the added touch of seeing Key and Peele interacting with the audience is part of what makes their show work. Kroll instead lays the sketches out for the audience at home.
Posted in: No Huddle Reviews by Gino Sassani on January 20th, 2015
"It's complicated."
Fox has decided to jump off The Bridge. In a move I find more than a little surprising, the show ends here with this second season. From the sets extras I get a strong idea that no one involved with the production saw it coming either. This was one of the better shows on television, and with Sons Of Anarchy also finished, Fox is losing some extraordinary quality to their lineup. At least Sons Of Anarchy got to run its course and tell its story. Sadly, the same can't be said for The Bridge. I was looking forward to more from a show that was getting better as it moved into its own invention. You will have to comfort yourself on the loss by owning the remaining episodes.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on January 20th, 2015
Boyhood is all the rage right now. With all the hoopla surrounding the film, it should be noted that it is ordinary. It is just about people living their lives. One could even call it boring. One can say that because life is boring. It is not as exciting as it is in the movies. Life is about small moments that add up to memories and then it is over. Boyhood doesn't make grand statements about boyhood, or about motherhood or fatherhood for that matter. It is just about a few people and what happens to them. One could say it's about nothing, or one could say it's about everything. The film is nearly three hours long. It was filmed for a few weeks a year over twelve years. It is a very personal project for its writer/director, Richard Linklater.
I don't like Boyhood because it is messy and unfocused. I love Boyhood because it focuses on all the small moments and makes them seem all so important at the moment they happen. I love Boyhood because it makes us look back on our own lives. I don't like Boyhood because it makes it seem like all life is boring. I like Boyhood because it is unassuming in it's efforts to show us a mirror of ourselves. One could say, I'm conflicted about Boyhood. I can say I love many Richard Linklater films; in fact, I like every one of them. And they are not all the same, but they have one thing in common. None of them are pretentious, and that was after seeing his last film Before Midnight which delved precariously into highfaluting and high-minded bouts of conversation. In fact, Linklater has always been on his own path down in Texas. It was a slacker path, since that was the name of his first film. He was always an indie guy but had big successes over the years like School of Rock, Bad News Bears and Dazed and Confused. But the films that most closely tie to Boyhood are the trilogy of films Before Sunrise, Before Sunset, and Before Midnight. Those three films starred Ethan Hawke, detailing conversations with one woman (Julie Delpy) over the years. The trilogy was filmed in 1995, 2004 and 2013. Boyhood began filming in May 2002 and also starring Ethan Hawke, but the real star is Ellar Coltrane who ages from 6 to 18 in the film.
Posted in: No Huddle Reviews by J C on January 20th, 2015
We can blame thank Liam Neeson — or “Liam Neesons” — for this recent run of action movies about men of a certain age who tear their way through some part of Europe in the name of their missing or dead children. Viktor — a French/Russian production starring Gerard Depardieu and Elizabeth Hurley — is one of these latest Taken take-offs. Unfortunately, it’s also one of the more inert revenge films you’re likely to see.
It’s a shame because the movie has a lovely, kinetic opening credits sequence featuring a Chechen dance rehearsal. (The sequence is paid off quite nicely at the very end.) Shortly after that opening, we meet Viktor Lambert (Gerard Depardieu) a French art thief who has just finished serving a seven-year prison sentence. Just before getting out, his son Jeremie (Jean Baptiste Fillon) is killed. Viktor arrives in Moscow — where Jeremie was doing work for a diamond smuggler named Anton Belinsky (Denis Karasyov) — looking for answers.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by J C on January 19th, 2015
What if Elvis Presley had an identical twin brother no one ever knew about? (It would certainly help explain all those Elvis sightings years after the King's death.) That's the kooky conceit at the center of The Identical. Unfortunately, rather than embracing the absurdity of its premise, the movie is an amateurish, uninspiring combination of “by-the-numbers musical biopic” and “painfully-earnest family drama.”
In the Depression-era South, financially-strapped parents William and Helen Hemsley (Brian Geraghty, Amanda Crew) struggle to raise their twin babies. William seeks guidance from tent revival preacher Reece Wade (Ray Liotta), who has been unsuccessfully trying to have a child of his own with wife Louise (Ashley Judd). The Hemsleys decide to let the Wades adopt one of their children, who is given the name Ryan.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Brent Lorentson on January 15th, 2015
When I think about the swamps of the Louisiana bayou, with the exception of hungry gators lurking beneath the murky depths, I can’t help but think about the connection it has to the supernatural. I blame seeing Lucio Fulci’s The Beyond for this. It’s a film that haunted me when I was a kid, and the imagery has stuck with me over the years. There have been numerous films over the years that have explored the supernatural of the bayou; most successfully we saw this in the Kate Hudson thriller The Skeleton Key. The bayou just seems to be a location that equates to doom for all those naive enough to relocate to it. Jessabelle follows suit in this southern gothic thriller that may look the part of a horror film but simply doesn’t deliver.
In the span of just a few minutes we meet Jessie (Sarah Snook) and her boyfriend, before we even have the chance to get to know or care about this couple, we watch as they are involved in a tragic car accident that not only kills the boyfriend but also Jessie’s unborn child. The tragedy isn’t missed by the viewer, but what is missed is any opportunity to become attached to this couple.
