Disc Reviews

"Let's just cut the crap and get on with it, shall we?"

You shouldn't need a primer on the NCIS franchise by now. Unless you've been living under a rock for the last decade or longer, you're up to speed on these guys. If not, you still could have some fun and enjoy the CBS DVD release of NCIS: L.A., but NCIS has been around for nearly 20 years, and this particular version has been around for 12 seasons now. That's a lot of characterizations under the bridge and a ton of character evolution and stories that can't help but give you maximum mileage out of the release. If you aren't up to speed, you can check out over 30 seasons of various NCIS reviews by just banging it here: NCIS Reviews. That should keep you busy long enough to get you to the point that we're here talking about Season 13. So hopefully you are up to speed, and we can get on with it. Shall we? 

It was 1975, and cop shows were all the rage. The only way a crime show might be able to distance itself from the crowd was to introduce the audience to a group of cops that were not quite so known and show off special-unit kinds of skills and equipment. The solution in 1975 was the L.A. SWAT team. Most folks didn't know what SWAT was. It stands for Special Weapons And Tactics. They are the guys who have the cool armored trucks and go where the serious action can be found. Hostage situations and severe firepower that overwhelms the typical cops on the beat are no match for these elite forces. So Steve Forrest and Robert Urich took our televisions by storm. The amazing thing is that the series was a mid-season replacement in its first year and only really lasted one complete season. It was 37 episodes and out. But the theme by Barry De Vorzon became a top-40 hit on the radio, and while the ratings never really caught fire, something about the whole experience remained in the pop culture all of this time. An A-list film in 2003 that starred Samuel L. Jackson, Colin Farrell, Jeremy Renner, Michelle Rodriguez, and LL Cool J did well enough at the box office to spawn a few direct-to-video sequels in name only. And it all went away once again.

Jump to 2017, and it appears little has changed. Cop and crime shows are all the rage, and the only way to stand out is to introduce the audience to a new kind of unit or team. That's how we got the NCIS, Criminal Minds and CSI franchises, to be sure. So why not pull out a few old tricks. That appears to be television gold these days with remakes of Hawaii Five-0, MacGyver, Magnum P.I., Charmed, and The Equalizer all having significant runs in the primetime schedule. Why not bring out SWAT? That's exactly what happened, and here we are four years later with the fourth season hitting the video shelves on DVD.

Have you ever wondered what the Jurassic Park franchise would have looked like if instead of a amusement park, it was a hunting preserve? Yeah, me either, but someone must have, because that is essentially the embodiment of the film Jurassic Hunt. After watching the film, I’ve come to the conclusion that some films just don’t need to be made. Especially if they are going to be done with cheesy special effects and sub-par storytelling. To put it mildly, this was not a movie for me, and if you are a fan of high-quality content, I’m pretty sure you will feel the same. I suppose the film reaches the level of a sci-fi made-for-TV movie, but other than that, I can see no higher aspirations for it. The film kind of puts you right into the thick of things; no real back story or anything like that. We are just kind of launched right into the hunt. On this type of film, I would have expected background information to be paramount. It would have been nice if they had at the very least an opening sequence that showed our protagonist’s motivation for coming to the park. Maybe add in some details that she lost someone close to her who was determined to expose the wrong dealings at the park, and now their mission has become her own. It’s a little cliché, but I could have gotten behind that. It certainly would have helped develop the character a little bit. At first glance, there isn’t really much to root for with her. She is clearly acting tougher than she is, and her attitude is very soon exposed to be all sizzle and no steak. If it wasn’t for the fact that she attempting to do something noble at the risk of her own life, she would be a throwaway character.

Speaking of her mission, the conspiracy that she seems hell-bent on exposing needed to be fleshed out too. On paper, there is nothing really inherently evil about them. Granted, their representative is a sociopath and all, but we never really get a real look behind the curtain and what it is that our protagonist is so determined to expose. I suppose using dinosaurs as hunting prey rises to the level of animal cruelty, but I don’t believe that is the platform that she is crusading for. Then let’s talk about the company that she is keeping. She is surrounded by killers, one of whom seems to have some pretty despicable things planned for her, and she is against killing or even carrying a gun. OK, she might as well be wearing a sign that says “sacrificial lamb” on it.

“By 2014, hundreds of young women had left Europe to join ISIS. Their journeys began on social media platforms where they found new friends and chose new names.”

Based on the non-fiction novel, In The Skin of a Jihadist, this film tells the story about one reporters journey to create a groundbreaking story and how she nearly lost herself in the process. Valene Kane (The Fall) plays Amy Whittaker, a freelance reporter struggling to make ends meet when she decides to investigate the recruitment of young European women by ISIS. As part of her investigation, Amy creates a fake Facebook profile of a young woman who has recently converted to Islam. Before long, she is contacted by Bilel (Shazad Latif, Star Trek: Discovery), an ISIS fighter from Syria. On the surface, he is charming and he speaks of his chosen cause with great passion and conviction. Amy’s editor is ecstatic about the potential story, and before long, Amy finds herself disguising herself in the garb of a respectable Muslim so that she can engagement in Skype sessions with Bilel. This was a very unique and compelling story that was full of intense and suspenseful moments from the opening scenes. The most unique element of the story was that the entire film is told from the perspective of a computer screen.

Not bad for a B-movie alien invasion dystopian film. That was a nice surprise, as I was all prepared to endure a bunch of cliches and basic character archetypes. However Occupation: Rainfall delivers a moderately decent movie experience. There were some obvious timing issues towards the film’s conclusion, but we’ll get into that later. Speaking of surprises, I was surprised to discover that this film is actually a direct sequel of a film that was released in 2018. Granted, there were some changes, such as Jet Tranter replacing Stephanie Jacobson as Amelia Chambers, or Amelia the human as she is referred to more frequently than by her real name. The film also features the addition of The Originals’ Daniel Gilles and Jason Isaac as a hilarious character. All in all, minus that timing issue I mentioned earlier, Occupation Rainfall delivered a surprising and overall enjoyable experience.

Given that I did not see the original film, I am at a bit of a disadvantage as to background information regarding the story, but fortunately for me, the film served pretty much as a standalone movie. Obviously there are a few callbacks to the original film in reference to the characters’ personal history, but other than that, it is pretty self-explanatory. The film also starts off with a narration that gives some background information, which ensures that you won’t be completely lost in the sauce. In a nutshell, aliens have landed on earth with the intent of invading. Naturally, the human race has risen to defend their home, and despite being outnumbered and technologically inferior, the human race has managed to hold their own for nearly two years. However, billions have died on both sides of the struggle, and the weight of the war is felt on both sides as well.

What a great time it was to be a teen in the late 1970’s. No, I’m not referring to disco music. It was a great time to go to the movies. It was the culmination of the perfect date, and Hollywood was riding the beginning of a trend that remains alive and healthy today. I’m talking, of course, about the slasher film. You could argue that Hitchcock started the ball rolling in 1961 with Psycho, but it would be decades before that film would find its true audience and plethora of imitators. Although The Texas Chainsaw Massacre and Halloween came before Friday The 13^th, can it be argued that any horror film franchise is as widely known? The truth is that even the man behind the film, Sean Cunningham, never really knew what it was that he had. It was never his intent to follow the film with a barrage of sequels. He also scoffed at the idea that Jason could become the centerpiece for future films. By now Jason has become such an iconic character that there is an entire generation out there that doesn’t know that Jason wasn’t the culprit in the first film. Jason’s stature has reached the heights of the classic monsters of the Universal days. While some of us hesitate to put his name and hockey mask up there with the likes of Frankenstein, The Wolf Man, Dracula, and The Mummy, the recognition and sheer dollars generated make it difficult not to. By the beginning of the 1980’s names like Jason, Freddy, and Michael Myers would be scaring audiences around the world, rendering the classics somewhat silly in the eyes of a more visceral generation of teens.

Paramount has put together an impressive collection for fans of the franchise. Because of rights issues it includes only the first eight films, but they loaded on all of the vintage extras and some from the recent SHOUT mega set. This is a good budget way to get these films on Blu-ray if you don't need quite all the bells and whistles from that set. Here are the films you'll get:

When I first saw Nashville, it was back in my days of working at a video store in the 90’s, and I was consuming a ridiculous amount of films a week. For many, it’s considered a classic and one of the better films that Robert Altman put out. Before re-watching the film for this review, I couldn’t remember all that much about the film aside from it having a lot of music in it and there being something involving a political campaign. I’m a fan of Robert Altman. Personally, Short Cuts and The Player are my favorite films by him, but I can appreciate that his way of storytelling paved the way for one of my favorite writer/directors Paul Thomas Anderson. Just watching Boogie Nights and Magnolia you can see the influence of Altman’s work from the script to the way they are filmed.  Now that I’m older, perhaps it was time that I revisited this film. After all, for many it’s considered a classic. Perhaps this time it could make a greater impression on me.

The most challenging thing about Nashville is that while it has a running time of two hours and forty minutes, when it comes to story there really isn’t anything going on that you can define as a story that has a beginning, middle, or end. The film is simply about 24 characters and how their lives intertwine over the course of five days in Nashville while a political campaign is rolling through town. The collection of characters is a blend of country musicians who are stars, to struggling mothers with deaf children, to a mourning husband, to a campaign manger along with numerous other characters that populate the town. If not for some of the great performances and the impressive cast, I’m not sure I could have made it through this film that seems like a country/folk music lovers’ paradise.