Posted in: Disc Reviews by Brent Lorentson on March 6th, 2013
Normally when I see trailers for films about “inspiring true stories” I try to remind myself to avoid that film at all costs. Sure I’ve seen more than a few of these kinds of films, but that’s the problem with them, once you’ve seen one you’ve seen them all. When Chasing Mavericks was brought to my attention I was ready to ignore, but then I gave it a quick look at IMDB and to my surprise it had two directing credits, Curtis Hanson (L.A. Confidential, which just so happens to be in my all-time top ten films) and Michael Apted (Gorky Park, Nell, Gorillas of the Mist), and with that my mind was made up. And lucky me it turned out to be one of my favorite films I’ve had the opportunity to review.
Ever since he was little Jay Moriarty (Johnny Weston) has been fascinated by the currents and the waves they produce. The obsession sets Jay off to learn how to surf, and by the time he’s 15 he’s managed to become one of the best young surfers in Santa Cruz, but the waves he’s conquering just aren’t cutting it. Till one morning he follows a local surf legend, who just so happens to be his neighbor, Frosty Hesson (Gerard Butler), who is going out on an early surf run. Where they end up is at a hidden beach where Jay sees the biggest waves that are colossal in comparison to what he surfs daily, and he watches Frosty. These giants that Jay and many others believed to be nothing more than mythic surf lore are what are called Mavericks. And it is from this day on Jay sets off to try and surf one of these waves. For fear Jay will only get himself killed, Frosty agrees to train him to be able to survive the wave, and he has 12 weeks to get himself ready before the season ends.
Posted in: No Huddle Reviews by Jeremy Butler on March 6th, 2013
How long does it take for an affair to cross over from casual fling to a full-blown commitment? Well according to Oscilloscope Laboratories, about 28 Hotel Rooms. Chris Messina and Marin Ireland pair up to tell an engaging tale of two strangers who begin a long-standing relationship that spans cities, states, and possibly countries; the locations are bit harder to determine given that whenever we see the pair, they are never outside of a hotel. Another interesting factoid is that throughout the entire runtime of the film, neither one of the lead character’s names are mentioned.
Messina plays a novelist on tour for his latest book, Ireland is an accountant flown out to audit one of her company’s branch offices. The two have a chance meeting. She’s married and he has a girlfriend. Despite this, the two engage in a one night stand with the belief that they will never see each other again afterwards (yeah, because that’s likely).
Posted in: Disc Reviews by J C on March 5th, 2013
If a movie starring Bruce Willis, Catherine Zeta-Jones, Vince Vaughn and a few other notable names only grosses slightly more than $20,000 — BoxOfficeMojo.com assures us that’s not a typo — does it make a sound? The natural assumption is any film boasting that kind of star power must be pretty bad to be completely ignored by distributors and the movie-going public. Lay the Favorite is a disappointing, low-energy effort, but it certainly deserved to make more money than what A Good Day to Die Hard will probably earn in the time it takes you to finish reading this sentence.
The film follows sweet dim bulb Beth (Rebecca Hall), a stripper who feels unfulfilled in her life and dreams of moving to Las Vegas to become a cocktail waitress. (This movie’s title should’ve been Aim Higher.) Instead, Beth gets a job working for eccentric sports bettor Dink (Bruce Willis) and proves to be something of a gambling prodigy, much to the chagrin of Dink’s scary wife, Tulip (Catherine Zeta-Jones). As Beth and Dink’s relationship becomes more complicated, she gets romantically involved with nice guy journalist Jeremy (Joshua Jackson) and professionally involved with Rosie (Vince Vaughn), a volatile rival of Dink’s.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on March 5th, 2013
If you were alive at the time, you probably remember watching the seven tobacco company executives testifying in before a Senate committee on the addictive nature of their products. They all raised their hands to swear that they do not believe that nicotine is addictive. It made for great television of the absurd. It was great fodder for the late-night comedy routines, and almost every stand-up in the country found a way to work it into their material. It was the beginning of a changing environment in America toward smoking, in general. Most states have since passed "Clean Air Acts" which prohibit smoking from most public places. States have sued and ultimately won to recoup some of the money they lose each year on taking care of citizens who have ruined their health by smoking. Even more restrictions on advertisement have been implemented, and the idea of smoking being "cool" went out along with the billboards and sports stadium banners. The tobacco companies are still doing fine, however. They now export more product than they sell in the United States, and the lawsuits and advertisement bans have been little more than speed bumps on the profit margins.
Much of that swing in public opinion can be attributed to Jeffrey Wigand (Crowe). He was a scientist working for one of these "big 7" companies when he was fired. He had some fundamental issues with the work he was doing and left with a pretty generous severance package and a non-disclosure agreement that barred him from revealing what he knew.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by J C on March 4th, 2013
By the time we meet most big-screen hitmen, they’ve already attained the level of badass-ery required to be efficient killers. Far fewer movies take the time to examine the circumstances that result in a person becoming a murdering machine. Interview with a Hitman — a British action offering from first-time writer/director Perry Bhandal — stands out from the pack because it’s a surprisingly thoughtful meditation on the consequences of killing.
After a dialogue-free first 10 minutes, we meet Viktor (Luke Goss), a highly-skilled hitman who agrees to sit down for a videotaped chat with down-on-his-luck movie producer Xavier (Patrick Lyster). The interview format is a convenient device that allows Viktor to tell Xavier (and us) about his rough upbringing in the Outlying District of Bucharest in Romania. Even as a kid (an effective, chilling turn by young Elliot Greene), Viktor never backed down from a fight. So after local tough guy Sergei (Danny Midwinter) comes to collect a debt from Viktor’s scumbag father, the boy asks Sergei for a job. Sergei teaches Viktor’s the tricks of the killing trade until an unfortunate incident puts them at odds, and Viktor has to flee the country.
Posted in: No Huddle Reviews by Jonathan Foster on March 1st, 2013
You know the story. A bunch of teens head out to a remote location to party, with most of the group getting drunk and/or high. Ignoring any and all warnings, they do something that invariably gets most of them killed, whether they deserve it or not. Most horror movies — like Cabin in the Woods or Wrong Turn — take this recipe and throw in their own flavor. Unfortunately, Nobody Gets Out Alive adds nothing new to the pot. Here, the location is a forest, the warning comes in the form of an urban legend AND the requisite Creepy Old Guy, and the teens make all the mistakes that are typical of a horror movie. The result is a dull, flavorless slasher flick.
The first misstep Nobody Gets Out Alive takes is not making the viewer care about the victims. We only learn approximately three of the seven names of the teens heading out to the woods and, honestly, I didn’t even care to learn them. These kids are raging stereotypes typical of any slasher movie: the jock, the stoner, the awkward nerd, the virgin, and the girl with loose morals. They’re all here, and all they do is whine, complain and snipe at each other at the slightest provocation. I found it incredibly hard to believe these people were ever friends. Because these characters are so irritating, they are extremely unlikable and I found myself rooting for the villain to kill them just so they would shut up.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Brent Lorentson on February 28th, 2013
When an action title comes along and you see the name Steve Austin headlining it, the expectation level shouldn’t be too high (unless, of course, you’re an obsessed fan of Stone Cold). I’ve seen more than my fair share of straight-to-video action films, so it takes a lot to deter me from giving a film a chance, and when it also gives Dolph Lundgren billing, well, the film becomes hard to resist. Tommy Wick (Austin) does work for a crime family to help work off the debt of his brother, who is currently serving time in the state penitentiary. It’s not a stretch of the imagination to see Austin in this role, but from the start of the film, which opens in a bowling alley, I found it hard to believe he’s even trying to act. With the bad quippy dialog and the zero-emotion delivery, it had me thinking The Rock was on par with Daniel Day Lewis by comparison. But thankfully it doesn’t take long for Wick to start pushing people around and breaking tables with people’s heads to get me to forgive the bad acting.
It’s when Wick is approached to deliver a package to a rival gang member that the story begins to take off. Everything, of course, seems simple enough, but “the package” is anything but the normal delivery. It appears everyone wants a piece of the package, though no one seems to be quite certain what it is that they are after. Wick’s partner attempts to check it out; after all, it looks like nothing more than an old book, but before he can crack open a single page, the two men are attacked by a rival group made up of formal special ops soldiers.
Posted in: No Huddle Reviews by J C on February 26th, 2013
Here’s how hot Jennifer Love Hewitt is in The Client List, Lifetime’s breezy, sexy hit dramedy. My wise, eternally-patient girlfriend and I watch the show together, and she doesn’t even get jealous or make any sort of catty remarks at our TV. Instead, she figuratively tips her cap to Hewitt’s hotness the same way a golfer might compliment an opponent for making an impossible shot. (Game recognizes game, I suppose.)
The Client List stars Hewitt as Riley Parks, a Texas housewife who is abandoned by her husband Kyle (Brian Hallisay) during tough financial times. Riley begins working as a massage therapist at an upscale day spa called The Rub, owned by the savvy Georgia Cummings (Loretta Devine). Unfortunately, no one told Riley certain clients expect, ahem, “extras” with their massages. (Maybe Riley’s first clue should’ve been that her boss’s name is “Georgia Cummings.”) Faced with having to support two children, Riley eventually decides to, um, hand out extras.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Jeremy Butler on February 25th, 2013
“God never would have intended this.”
Has anyone ever noticed the pairings that tend to occur in disaster films? A lone scientist with an expertise in a particular field of study partners with a lone government agent or soldier to prevent a cataclysmic event that will result in the destruction of mankind, whether the disaster is manmade or an act of fate. This was in the case in Godzilla (American version), Independence Day (there may be some controversy on whether this qualifies but you must admit that the main focus was on Smith and Goldblum), miniseries Asteroid, and now it would seem Seeds of Destruction.
Posted in: No Huddle Reviews by Brent Lorentson on February 25th, 2013
The story about Finn, the human, and Jake, the Dog is something I’ve managed to come into without any knowledge of what is going on. It’s not as though there is a complex plot built around the characters but I’m somewhat at a loss why the 12-13yrold boy lives with his talking dog with no parental unit to be seen. I know it’s a cartoon and considering this takes place in the land of Ooo, hoping to find a plot thread that follows any real world logic is asking a bit much.
In this DVD release from Cartoon Network, there is a collection of 16 episodes that follow Finn and Jake as they partake in adventures in the land of Ooo. With only a few recurring characters, one I enjoyed seeing the most is the Ice King. Though he may be viewed as a villain, all he claims to really want is to be friends with Finn and Jake. In a way I find this character the more creative decision the animated series presents because despite the Ice Kings actions, it does play out as though Finn and Jake are the oblivious villains. An example of the Kings actions is he uses a freezing potion to spend time with Finn and Jake and tries to force them to bond and become his friend.
