Posted in: Disc Reviews by J C on February 12th, 2013
The image of what a bully looks and sounds like has changed drastically in recent years. When you and I were growing up, a “bully” was probably someone who looked like this and demanded your lunch money. Mean Girls came out less than 10 years ago; but if Tina Fey were trying to get the exact same movie made today, she’d probably have to deal with notes from a nervous studio exec worried that the Burn Book would drive one of the characters to suicide.
Bully — director Lee Hirsch’s heartbreaking and intensely-personal project — has lofty aspirations. In presenting five affecting stories of abuse that don’t necessarily involve black eyes or bloody noses, the documentary seeks to eradicate bullying by inspiring and educating the current generation of elementary, middle and high school students.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by J C on February 9th, 2013
I didn’t know what to make of this Pig/1334 double bill when I took it on as my latest assignment. All I had to go on were the aggressively grotesque images on the Blu-ray case. I wasn’t yet familiar with the work of Dutch filmmaker Nico B. or former Christian Death frontman Rozz Williams. I did a bit of research, mostly because I wanted to make sure I wasn’t being handed a real-life version of the videotape from The Ring. (Surely, there would be a less drastic way of informing me my services were no longer required on this site.) What I uncovered instead was an intriguing and haunting back story.
Pig is a 23-minute short co-directed by Nico B. and Williams, a pioneer of deathrock. (Unfortunately, I didn’t have access to too many deathrock records when I was growing up in Puerto Rico.) The short was filmed in 1997 and tells the story of a pig-masked serial killer (Williams) who ritualistically murders an unidentified man (James Hollan) in an abandoned house in the middle of Death Valley. Williams never saw the completed product because he hanged himself on April 1, 1998, shortly after finishing work on the soundtrack. (Pig premiered in Los Angeles in January 1999.)
Posted in: No Huddle Reviews by Brent Lorentson on February 8th, 2013
What makes the horror genre so unique is that it doesn’t have any rules, but it has one goal: to scare us. And the weirdest thing I find about horror is that so many people enjoy being scared, and, well, some of us have watched some pretty rotten things all in the name of a cheap thrill (my reasoning for watching A Serbian Film). Lately the trend in horror is to be in the world where our heroes on the screen are put through some very “real” situations and it kind of poses the question: how far is too far?
Cherry Tree Lane is far from an original story; I somewhat see it as Funny Games meets Ils aka Them. This is not to insult the film by any means, but let’s face it, there have been plenty of home-invasion films, to the point it could almost be its own subgenre. But what Cherry Tree Lane does do is put us in this real-time scenario where two parents are held captive as their captors wait for their son to come home. The terror isn’t from the violence we see on the screen, or even off the screen for that matter; the real terror in fact isn’t violent at all, but is in fact the waiting for the impending doom we know the son has in store for him.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by J C on February 7th, 2013
You don’t usually get too many legendary (and wildly polarizing) filmmakers coming off the biggest hit of their careers — unadjusted for inflation, of course — at age 77. Yet that’s exactly where Woody Allen found himself with To Rome with Love, his pleasant, witty, not-at-all-groundbreaking follow-up to Midnight in Paris. The writer-director originally named this film The Bop Decameron before changing it to Nero Fiddled. I’m guessing somebody (smartly) figured the suddenly buzzworthy director’s next film should have a less esoteric title; and if there was a way to incorporate a European city into the name, even better.
Luckily, the film’s more genetic moniker is actually a much better fit for this simple, engaging collection of stories set in the Eternal City. The movie is comprised of a series of parallel vignettes, but I really wish the director had found a clever way to connect these stories beyond the fact that they’re each set in contemporary Rome.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on February 6th, 2013
"All this has happened before and will all happen again. But this time it happened in London. It happened on a quiet street in Bloomsbury. That corner house is the house of the Darling family, and Peter Pan chose this particular house because these were people who believed in him..."
In 1953 with a little help from some Walt Disney magic, generations of children, and adults, of course, would learn to believe in the boy who never grew up. Peter Pan began in the imagination of writer J. M. Barrie. He appeared in a number of works from the Scottish author beginning in 1902 with The Little White Bird. The character had always been a favorite of Walt Disney himself, and it was originally intended as his second animated feature following Snow White. It became quickly apparent that the technology wasn't quite where he needed it to be to tell the story he wanted to tell. It was put on a shelf, but never forgotten. The rights to the character were willed to the children of a Children's Hospital in London, and it was from there that Walt managed to obtain the film rights for the animated feature we have today. Peter Pan has enjoyed success in pretty much every medium possible. There have been hugely popular stage productions where Peter was usually played by a woman. The character has appeared in film, music, comics, television, radio plays and, of course, printed form. He's an endearing and certainly enduring character who has now added high-definition Blu-ray to the list.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by J C on February 6th, 2013
Can a scumbag also be considered a hero? Lance Armstrong fans probably mull that question each time a new, unsavory revelation about the now-disgraced cyclist comes to light. The issue was addressed in 1992’s Hero, which starred Dustin Hoffman as a low-life who saves a group of passengers on a crashed airplane. Flight also takes to the not-so-friendly skies to examine whether it’s possible to reconcile a lifetime of destructive behavior with an extraordinary act of valor.
You wouldn’t necessarily guess that from the film’s punchy trailer, which painted Flight as a cynical gloss on the Sully Sullenberger story. (The movie’s protagonist even has a similarly folksy, alliterative name: Whip Whitaker.) Instead, Flight is an R-rated drama that presents one of the most unflinching portrayals of drug and alcohol addiction you’re likely to ever see in a mass-appeal film from a big-time director and starring one of the world’s most famous movie stars.
Posted in: No Huddle Reviews by J C on February 6th, 2013
“It’s time for Animaniacs. And we’re zany to the max. So just sit back and relax, you’ll laugh ‘til you collapse. We’re Animaniacs!”
I am a 30-year-old man, and I didn’t need any help remembering the lyrics to the Animaniacs theme song. (Yikes! That sounds like a confession I should be making at my next Man-Child Anonymous meeting.) Similar to the influential work of Tex Avery and Chuck Jones, Animaniacs served as the first exposure many children in the ‘90s had to classical music and literary masterpieces. And like Looney Tunes, the show’s greatness lies in that it doesn’t just arbitrarily nod to the classics, it gets kids excited about them.
Posted in: No Huddle Reviews by Jeremy Butler on February 5th, 2013
The Love Section is not a very grabbing title if you ask me, but to each his own I suppose. The new film is the latest product coming out of One Village Entertainment; the film does have some things going for it: an absolutely gorgeous leading lady (hubba hubba), a unique pairing of leads, and a very funny supporting character. However, the plot is not swimming in uncharted waters. Ali (Lawrence B. Adisa, Grindin) is a 32-year-old real estate agent and a ladies’ man, bouncing from woman to woman with very little desire for a permanent commitment. His married and porn-addicted best friend, Joel (Brian Hooks, 3 Strikes) thinks it’s time for him to settle down before he becomes the old man in the club. As fate would have it (movie fate, that is) one night out at a comedy club, Ali meets someone: Sandrine (Davetta Sherwood, The Young and The Restless), a drop-dead gorgeous 20-year-old. Age does little to deter Ali, who decides to pursue her, simply for the reason of making her another conquest. However, the more time he spends with Sandrine, no more he finds himself falling deeper and deeper into a commitment with her; not even the news that she is a single mother with a five-year-old son is enough to send him running for the hills.
Despite deep feelings for Sandrine, Ali is still unwilling to dive in with both feet, continuing to see other women on the side. He rationalizes to himself that a complete future may not be possible with Sandrine given the many obstacles in their way such as their age difference and her status as a single mom. Will Ali let a fear that it won’t work out cost him the opportunity to have something he’s never had before, or will he finally ready to let someone into the love section of his heart?
Posted in: Disc Reviews by J C on February 3rd, 2013
“I’ve changed a lot. I’m not the same woman.”
Early on in Luis Buñuel’s surrealist gem, a mild-mannered older gentleman named Mathieu douses a beautiful, battered woman with a bucket of water as she desperately attempts to board the train he’s riding. His fellow passengers are stunned, but also understandably intrigued. What possible sequence of events could’ve led Mathieu to this cold and cartoonish gesture? It’s an irresistible hook, and Mathieu proceeds to regale the other travelers — and, by extension, the movie’s audience — with the tale of “the foulest woman who ever lived.”
Posted in: No Huddle Reviews by Brent Lorentson on January 31st, 2013
When being handed this title to review I have to admit my expectations were rather low, but as with every other title I was going to give it a chance. It’s not that I don’t enjoy cartoons or kid-friendly television; I was simply more concerned that perhaps I had reached an age where I simply wouldn’t be able to connect to the material I had to watch. By the time the credits to the first episode rolled, I quickly moved on to the next episode. Though the show reminds me a lot of Family Guy, there is nothing in the show parents should find offensive and it is suitable for children’s viewing. Each episode has a running time of about 11 minutes. With 12 episodes, a parent could easily pop in this DVD and keep their kids entertained while taking care of some chores around the house.
As for the show, well, it’s filled with more goofy randomness that is better left to be seen than have described. Gumball after all is a twelve-year-old (Cat???) who has a younger brother who is a goldfish and a father who is a human-sized rabbit. As for the characters that fill out the school there is a tyrannosaurus rex, a piece of toast, and a teacher who is a monkey, as well as a young girl Penny who just so happens to be a peanut with antlers. It doesn’t make sense, and it’s not supposed to; that’s just part of the fun of the show.
