Posted in: Disc Reviews by Michael Durr on January 17th, 2011
Philip Seymour Hoffman has become quite the acclaimed movie star by working in many well nominated flics such as Capote, Doubt, and Charlie Wilson’s War. However, Mr. Hoffman does a great deal of stage work when he is not performing in front of a camera. His recent directorial debut involved a piece of stage work that he brought to film, Jack Goes Boating. Let us see how this plays out.
Jack (played by Philip Seymour Hoffman) and Clyde (played by John Ortiz) are two limo drivers in New York City. They are both interested in moving out from the limo driving business. Clyde is attending night classes while Jack is thinking of applying at the Metropolitan Transportation Authority. They are also best friends and Clyde is currently trying to hook up Jack with a girl named Connie (played by Amy Ryan).
Posted in: Disc Reviews by David Annandale on January 15th, 2011
George Papdapolis (Alex Karras) and Katherine Calder-Young (Susan Clark) meet on a Greek cruise, and, after a whirlwind romance, return to Chicago. They're a bit of an odd couple – she's a blue-blood, complete with male secretary, and he's an ex-football player. The cross-class romance is barely underway, however, when they suddenly find themselves the guardians of the unspeakably adorable seven-year-old Webster (played by twelve-year-old Emmanuel Lewis) after his parents die (George had agreed to be his godfather back in the day). All sorts of cute misunderstandings, cute heart-warming lessons and cute sentimentality then ensues.
There is no denying diabetic-shock-inducing cuteness of Lewis, though there is also something a little bit creepy about the way the camera presents him, shamelessly exploiting that cuteness for all its worth, offering up Lewis for the audience to cluck over as if he were some kind of ambulatory teddy bear. The humour, meanwhile, is typical of an 80s sitcom – banal jokes in tandem with a Serious Message. And some of the gags are, to put mildly, antediluvian. Oh, look! Katherine is a woman who can't cook! Hilarious! For those with fond memories of the show, however, none of this will matter. But those who have no such memories are probably better off not forming them.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Michael Durr on January 15th, 2011
Well, I've been about a month off since my last review and the rest was sorely needed. I visited my folks, thought about my future and spent the holidays enjoying life and trying to do somethings I wouldn't normally do with my paying job and my writing gig. So, the first movie I crack open is Fire on the Amazon with Sandra Bullock, Craig Sheffer and produced by Roger Corman. Wait, Roger Corman, king of schlock and “B” movies? Hrmmm, I feel another vacation coming on.
Fade in, we see the Amazon jungle. Turtles, macaws and monkeys, oh my. Somewhere, a tree falls. (too easy of a joke and too early). Suddenly, we flash to a runway and a plane coming in from the air. RJ (played by Craig Sheffer) gets off the plane and gets right to work. For you see, he is a photographer and he's been sent here to get the scoop on the destruction of the rainforest. But in order to better understand the situation, we must get a little history about the opposition.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by David Annandale on January 15th, 2011
Johnathan Swift's Gulliver's Travels was never meant to be a children's tale. It is one of the most corrosive satires in the English language, one that has lost none of its brilliant venom over the passage of centuries. But endless bowdlerizations have given its first two sections (the voyages to Lilliput and Brobdingag) the reputation for being children's classics. Obviously, references to people being “the most pernicious race of little odious vermin that nature ever suffered to crawl upon the surface of the earth” are usually left out. At any rate, said bowdlerizations inevitably resulted in various anodyne film adaptations. And so, as Jack Black galumphs across the screen to box office disaster, here is a collection of animated takes on Swift's work.
Gulliver's Travels: (76 mins.) This 1939 effort is the main attraction here, the second feature-length animated film ever made. It limits itself to Gulliver's journey to Lilliput, where, in this version, he must bring about the end of a war between Lilliput and Blefuscu so that bland princess and prince of the respective nations can marry. The Fleischer brothers are best remembered for Betty Boop and their excellent Superman cartoons. Gulliver's Travels, on the other hand, is far from their best work. The animation is fluid, though the backgrounds are lifeless and still, a far cry from what Disney had just done with Snow White. The pace is slack, meandering along through rather tired slapstick. The cartoonish Lilliputians are charming enough, but the more realistic characters are expressionless waxworks, or, in the case of the rotoscoped Gulliver, dip alarmingly toward the uncanny valley. The piece is a historical curiosity, but is no classic. Still, it's much, much better than...
Posted in: Disc Reviews by David Annandale on January 14th, 2011
This documentary tracks a year in the life of Joan Rivers. We begin at a relatively low ebb in her career, with her finding it difficult to land desirable gigs. She throws herself into the production of an autobiographical play that debuts in Edinburgh, and her hope is that the London reception will be glowing enough to provide enough momentum for a Stateside production. Meanwhile, she and daughter Melissa are contestants on Celebrity Apprentice. As the film follows the ups and downs of these efforts (concentrating particularly on the play), Rivers opens up about her life and career.
This is a very smart, enormously entertaining, and very funny documentary. There is plenty of footage of Rivers in performance from all stages of her career. For those whose exposure to her has been limited to snippets of red carpet interviews and jokes about her plastic surgery (and I am one of those benighted souls), this film will be a revelation. There's a reason why this woman became famous in the first place – she is one ferocious stand-up comic, and as good as the footage here is, it leaves the viewer hoping for more. That's a good thing. There are, though, one or two less felicitous gaps in an otherwise very revealing doc, most notably what, precisely, was behind the erratic behavior and unexplained disappearances by Rivers' long-term manager. But this is a trivial quibble. The film is a piece of work indeed: sterling work by directors Ricki Stern and Anni Sunderberg, and brave work by Rivers.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by BABY on January 14th, 2011
Baby here. Yeah, I'm the German shepherd/chow mix that runs security here at Upcomingdiscs. I also get called upon to help out with the dog movie reviews from time to time. Now, somebody needs to get themselves a good book on proper mammal identification around here. You see, Alpha And Omega is about wolves. I'm a dog. That spells D O G. Look at it this way. That's God spelled backwards, and that's no coincidence. If you doubt me, just let me get a couple of seconds with one of the delivery guys. Now wolves are a whole different animal. I know there are nut jobs out there who say that dogs did something called evolving from wolves, but those same guys call you humans a bunch of monkeys. Get my point? And that spells F A N G. Dogs are these nice furry buddies who sleep in your bed on cold nights and eat tissues on your nightstand when you're not lookin'. Okay, so I get in a little trouble for that last thing. Wolves are wild animals who don't really do any of those cute snuggly things. If you spell wolf backwards you just get flow, which reminds me of something else I get into trouble for. And that spells B A D. Now Gino says I have to pull my weight around here and write a wolf movie review. Well, I'll show him who's boss. I won't do it, and that's final.
(ed. note: We've had a long talk with Baby and after threatening to take her ball away, I think we've come to an understanding.)
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on January 12th, 2011
I have never watched Little House on the Prairie, so I admit to having no frame of reference when I approached this set, which actually contains two separate made for television movies: Beyond The Prairie: The True Story of Laura Ingalls Wilder, and Beyond The Prairie: The True Story of Laura Ingalls Wilder Continues. Now, since I’ve used up a large portion of my review space just mentioning the titles of these two films, I will try to be as succinct as possible. Suffice to say that, while I was aware of the show, all I really know about the lady is that she grew up on the prairies in a small house of some kind, and that she is beloved by a certain portion of the population. Also, if memory serves, she may or may not have been friends with NFL Hall of Famer Merlin Olsen.
The two films chronicle the life of Ingalls Wilder, from her days as a teenager growing into womanhood on the 19th century Dakota frontier to her eventual marriage to Almanzo Wilder and their emigration to Missouri. The films are quite authentic in their depiction of the harsh realities of frontier life, particularly the Dakota winters, and show death and loss as a constant danger, even when the focus is on wholesome family drama. Blizzards, hail storms, starvation, and disease are among the constant threats that loom over these characters, and the films do a pretty good job making these things real.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on January 12th, 2011
Paranormal Activity 2 is both a prequel and a sequel to the first film, Paranormal Activity. Paranormal Activity followed Katie Featherston and her boyfriend Micah Sloat. For some unknown reason, a demon was terrorizing the couple. By the end of the film (October 8, 2006), Katie was possessed by the demon. She kills Micah and then mysteriously disappears. When Paranormal Activity first came out, I had no interest in seeing it. My friends talked about the film, and said it was ‘jumpy’ especially the scene when Katie is pulled out of bed. However, I always thought the film was about aliens, not demons! Flash-forward to late October 2010; I decided to watch a marathon of horror films to celebrate the Halloween holiday. Paranormal Activity was on the list of must-see films, partly because I wanted to be able to say that I had seen it! It was simple, realistic, but left me wanting more.
Two weeks later, Paranormal Activity 2 was released into theaters on Halloween. I am going to keep this review spoiler-free. I want you (our readers) to experience Paranormal Activity 2 spoiler-free, because if you know what is coming, the film will be less interesting. This horror film is not like the majority of others released on DVD in recent years. There are no trails of blood, decapitated heads on spikes, or people sewn together to make a human centipede. Paranormal Activity 2 relies on its shock value to get people into the theaters and to buy the DVD. Believe me when I say, Paranormal Activity 2 has more than enough shock value to satisfy anyone looking for an adrenaline rush.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Michael Durr on January 11th, 2011
Most of you watched in horror as we went through our first round of the trilogy of terror. Round 2 in this Romantic terror-thon is coming right up. In this chapter, we explore two godparents who get thrown together after a baby devours her parents whole. Scared yet? No. How about the parents were thrown into Hell to act as Oprah’s personal foot massagers and the couple of Katherine Heigl and Josh Duhamel have to pick up the pieces? There we go. Let’s explore this mess shall we?
It is the year 2007. I was starting a new relationship. AHHHHHHHHHH. Oh wait, that’s not supposed to be scary but apparently it was for Holly Berenson (played by Katherine Heigl) and Eric Messer (played by Josh Duhamel). They go on a first date and everything goes horribly wrong. This leads to a disastrous ending where the actual date doesn’t even get started. Why did they even try to go out on the date? Well it had something to do with their best friends.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on January 11th, 2011
In 1970 the British duo of Doctor Who's Terry Nation and The Avengers' Robert Fuest collaborated on a British film called And Soon The Darkness. The film stared then-popular Pamela Franklin. It wasn't a huge success by any standards. It's practically unheard of here in the States. But, there was something special about the little film. It developed one of those classic cult followings over the years and eventually gained the notice of people like Marcos Efron. With the popular trend of remaking pretty much every horror film ever made, it's no surprise that someone decided to tackle this lesser-known movie.
Stephanie (Heard) and Ellie (Yustman) were part of a South American bike tour. Somewhere along the way they got bored with the travelogue version of the tour and decided to sneak away and explore the rural country on their own. Yeah, I know what you're thinking. You've seen this movie before. But this one doesn't immediately go where you expect it to go. The girls spend a night partying at a local club. Ellie is a bit of a wild party girl and makes a huge show of herself at the club. Her antics culminate with a rather droll display of touching herself to the jukebox music. Stephanie is the more tame girl who had just caught her boyfriend cheating; there are indications that he cheated with Ellie, but I never was completely clear on that one. That night Ellie is stalked by a horny guy from the club but saved by Michael (Urban) who has the room next door. The next day they miss the only bus. So they head out to what was once a popular beach resort, even though they are ominously warned that it is desolate and dangerous now. Plus there are all of those missing-persons flyers. Of course, they decide to go anyway. There they have a fight about Stephanie's ex and Stephanie bikes away in anger. Once she calms down, she tries to hook back up with Ellie only to find she's disappeared and dropped her phone on the beach. She can't convince the local sheriff Calvo (Vianco) that she met with foul play. The dirty-dancing pictures on her cell phone don't help to convince anyone she isn't off on some wild ride somewhere.
![Jack Goes Boating [Blu-ray] dvd cover art](https://upcomingdiscs.com/ecs_covers/jack-goes-boating-blu-ray-large.jpg)
![Fire on the Amazon [Blu-ray] dvd cover art](https://upcomingdiscs.com/ecs_covers/fire-on-the-amazon-blu-ray-large.jpg)
![And Soon the Darkness [Blu-ray] dvd cover art](https://upcomingdiscs.com/ecs_covers/and-soon-the-darkness-blu-ray-large.jpg)
