Posted in: No Huddle Reviews by Brent Lorentson on November 18th, 2019
Blumhouse Productions has been the go-to company when it comes to horror and suspense films being marketed for the more mainstream audiences. The Purge films, Happy Death Day, and most recently Halloween (2018) have been some of their successful releases, though they’ve had several other films that didn’t fare so well that you can catch on Netflix. Now there is Prey. I knew going in this would be a Blumhouse film; I just wasn’t sure if I’d be watching a potential genre gem, or if it would be a dud. As it turns out, it’s somewhere in between, and I’m a little surprised that there seems to be little to no marketing campaign for this one. The film starts off innocently enough with Toby (Logan Miller) at home and on his cell phone. While Toby is immersed in his social media, outside his father is being attacked by a couple of robbers and is killed. This sequence is a bit of a bummer; it’s lacking anything that resembles tension, and while it’s attempting to insert this message about today’s youth being disconnected from the real world, it just falls flat. We don’t get to see Toby deal with loss or guilt, instead the film has us follow Toby as he in enrolled in a “Lost and Found” program that has people spending three days and three nights alone on a tropical island. It seems like it would almost be paradise, but all they are left with is a backpack filled with some supplies, and in case of emergency, you get a flare. OK, I was in scouts for 12 years, and there was never a time where they would just abandon us for three days. On our own and with our troop we had extensive wilderness survival training, so to see this was not only reckless but unbelievable. Even with shows like Survivor, there is a camera crew and medics on standby incase anything goes wrong. But for the sake of cinema and needing to have the suspension of disbelief, I ignored all this and let it unfold. Toby is not on the island very long before his backpack is torn apart by monkeys that steal his food, so Toby is forced to settle for shellfish, and you just know this can’t end well.
Then we get to the mysterious monster on the island. Toby quickly discovers there is something on the island that is hunting the animals, and for a while he feels like he’s the one being hunted, that is until he comes across Madeleine (Kristine Froseth) who has been stranded on the islands for years with her mother. Madeleine quickly gives Toby a crash course on the rules to surviving on the island and about avoiding the monster. Now here is where things get hard to believe again. The group Toby is with has been using these islands for a while, so it shouldn’t be hard to believe other people have explored or travelled past this island over the years, so why would Madeleine and her mother still be “stranded”? Thankfully this does get addressed in its own way as the film attempts to give audiences a twist, though really it isn’t much of a twist to begin with.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Brent Lorentson on November 15th, 2019
It’s frustrating seeing a film starring Michael Chiklis and Bruce Willis and knowing before you’ve even watched five minutes of the film that it’s not going to be good. I mean, come on; you have the star of The Shield and then an action movie icon, but neither can save this film. 10 Minutes Gone is one of those films where on paper it seems like a surefire hit, but somehow instead of a white-knuckle action thriller, the result is a snooze-fest that will keep you guessing as to why these actors signed on for this film. Frank (Chiklis) has been hired by Rex (Willis) to pull off what seems to be an easy heist. Frank and his team seemed to have thought of everything and have even put together some backup plans, but as expected, the heist ends up going bad, and in the process Frank is knocked out cold and loses 10 minutes. In this time he’s lost possession of the jewels, and he needs to figure out what happened to them before Rex has him killed. It’s not a bad idea for a movie, but it’s the execution of this film that is a mess. Willis and Chiklis do their best to make the dialog work, and at times the can make the scenes flow, but once the film shifts to any other character you start to wonder if this film was written by a 12-yea- old boy who just binged a bunch of older action/ detective films while chugging Red Bull and snorting lines of sugar.
The big mystery of the film is who set up Frank and his crew; the film does a good job at setting up a variety of suspects, though it doesn’t take much to figure things out. One thing, though, that is rather frustrating is when Frank goes to question one of his guys and the guy is “hiding out” at some underground gambling room. I have my issues with this character’s decisions already, but what is more distracting is how the scene is shot. The amount of lens flares in this sequence is nauseating. This might be one of the worst shot scenes I’ve seen in a film. Sure, Spielberg uses lens flares, and the world knows how JJ Abrams gets carried away with them, but this sequence is a technical marvel at how just about everything has a lens flare, and someone actually thought that this looked good and it wasn’t a distraction.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Michael Durr on November 14th, 2019
Musical mockumentaries can often be hilarious. One has to look no further than Spinal Tap to see how funny it can be to blend music with comedy and shoot it like a documentary. However, it is a delicate balance between fun, smart jokes and perhaps going too far for a simple punchline. Today's film is Popstar: Never Stop Never Stopping, which has received a brand new steel book from the minds at Shout Factory. This 2016 film was considered a bomb at the box office, but it has found a home in disc and digital thanks to the gag-a-minute style of Andy Samberg and his supporting cast of musical celebrities and comedians. Let us take a look inside this limited edition and see if "Conner4Real" can take on a cult-like status with this film.
We open the story with Conner (played by Andy Samberg), who tells us about growing up and being dope. He then meets his two best friends, Owen (played by Jorma Taccone) and Lawrence (played by Akiva Schaffer) who later go on to form the rapping group, Style Boyz. Their first single is the tune Karate Guy. But as they grew up, the group was not as strong as originally thought. So they broke up, with Lawrence quitting the business and becoming a farmer. Owen became a DJ and tagged along with Conner. Conner became "Conner4Real" and went solo to huge acclaim. Despite his antics and habit of ending up in the tabloids, his music gathers a ton of fans and fame.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Jeremy Butler on November 12th, 2019
"Luke Hobbs and Deckard Shaw. We have got unfinished business."
When Dwayne Johnson joined the Fast and Furious franchise, I thought the series couldn’t get any bigger, especially when he and Vin Diesel faced off in one of the best scenes ever in an action movie. Then Jason Statham appeared in the end credits of Fast and the Furious 6 shattering that glass ceiling, and he didn’t disappoint, proving to be one of the group’s biggest adversaries. Then there was the fact that the Statham-Johnson showdown trumped the Diesel-Johnson battle, thereby showing the former’s electric chemistry. It was only a matter of time until a spin-off film came about. Lo and behold, Fast and the Furious presents Hobbs and Shaw. Now, the film has been a source of controversy for the franchise, with both Diesel and Tyrese Gibson voicing their discontent about the delaying of their next installment in favor of this film. Needless to say, Johnson will not be taking part of the ninth installment of the series, but I doubt he is losing much sleep about that, especially when he has the makings of his own franchise with this film.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Michael Durr on November 8th, 2019
We are back with another collector's edition from Shout Factory. This time we tackle the much celebrated Spirited Away, directed by Hayao Miyazaki, which was released in 2001, when it did so well that it ended up on our domestic shores in the following year. It was absolutely adored by critics, and here is a fun fact. I have never seen it. Little did I know that the American trailers I was seeing around this time were warping my idea of what the film was really about. Finally, after all of these years I have had the opportunity to watch and digest such a fantastic film.
Chihiro, a ten-year-old girl, is trying to relax in the back of her parents' car. They are on their way to a new city, with a new school, and the young girl is having none of it. As they search for the house where they are going to live, the father decides to use his four-wheel-drive and take off into the forest in hopes of making a shortcut. But rather than finding their new house, they end up at a long building with a dark tunnel that appears to go somewhere exciting according to the parents.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on November 7th, 2019
"This is where change begins."
We're a visual people, so most of you will recognize Taylor Sheridan from his role as a deputy chief of police in Sons of Anarchy when the controlled puppet regime had finally left the scene. It's not a remarkable role, and it's not a complete surprise that Sheridan found his calling more recently behind the camera. As a writer, his first script did hit it out of the park. Sicario is an awesome film populated with compelling and interesting characters who thrived on a broken system. That theme appears to have stuck with him, because the first season of Yellowstone appears to take us back in time to the days of open frontiers and cattle barons who struggled to keep their land amid lawless communities and raiding parties of American Indians who were portrayed as savage beasts who kill women and children in the middle of the night to become shadows of nightmares and the stories told to keep children in line. These themes are all there, but it takes place in a modern 2018 setting that does indeed make for an interesting new twist on an old idea. This is the dawning of the modern western where lands still stretch for miles and are still owned by a single family. It's Bonanza in the 21st century, and Kevin Costner thought enough of the idea to star in this television drama series for The Paramount Network.
Posted in: No Huddle Reviews by Jeremy Butler on November 7th, 2019
Wonder what happened to Laura Marano from Austin and Aly? Well, she is following in the footsteps of fellow Disney Channel actresses, Hilary Duff and Selena Gomez, by starring in the latest incarnation of A Cinderella Story, and this time it’s Christmas-themed. On the one hand, I am wondering how many different ways this premise can be recycled. I mean, it has already gone from a theatrical release movie (the first film with Hilary Duff) to a home media release (the second one with Selena Gomez). Given that that the story revolves around a girl being mistreated by her stepmother and step-siblings, you would think that there would be nothing new to add to that idea. Apparently that is not the case, as the film does a good job getting the audience prepared for the upcoming holiday season. Also starring Gregg Sulkin (Marvel’s The Runaways) as her love interest, the film is sweet and manages to entertain, despite not really breaking new ground.
Kat dreams of becoming a famous singer and songwriter, but in reality, she is forced to live as servant to her stepmother and step-siblings, all while holding down a job as an elf at the local Christmas-themed establishment (with her stepmother taking her tips). It is not all bad, as she is allowed to sing her original compositions for the people who frequent the establishment. While out one day, she suffers a rather embarrassing debacle in front of billionaire heir Dominic Wintergarden. Her family and Dominic’s friends ridicule her, but Dominic attempts to help her. Their eyes meet and there is a connection, but she is whisked away by her callous stepmother.
Posted in: No Huddle Reviews by Jeremy Butler on November 4th, 2019
This is a movie that does not hold up with time. Just in time for the release of the reboot comes Charlie’s Angels starring Cameron Diaz, Drew Barrymore, and Lucy Liu. I remember being quite enamored with this movie, or maybe it was Drew Barrymore I was enamored with. It would explain why I watched Santa Clarita Diet. Anyhow, this is the 2003 sequel to the 2000 film adaptation starring the lovely woman mentioned above. This film is joined by Bernie Mac replacing Bill Murray as Bosley, and Demi Moore as the film’s big bad. After rescuing captured US Marshal I’m Mongolia, Natalie (Cameron Diaz), Dylan (Drew Barrymore), and Alex (Lucy Liu) are recruited by Charlie to recover titanium rings that have been stolen from the Justice Department. These rings contain the names of people in the Witness Protection Program. While thwarting the assassin of a witness, the mission gets personal when Natalie and Alex discover that their partner, Dylan, is actually a protected witness.
Dylan is forced to confront her past as well as her old flame, who is also after the list. Further complicating matters, the Angels must confront a big bad who has an intimate knowledge of who they are and how they operate.
Posted in: No Huddle Reviews by Jeremy Butler on November 4th, 2019
Veronica Mars is truly a show with nine lives. Since ending its initial run in 2007, the series has returned in the form of a movie, thanks to a record-breaking Kickstarter campaign. After the film, I expected that would be the end for everyone’s favorite sleuth. However, lo and behold, the series returns yet again with a eight-episode run courtesy of Hulu. I was very excited to hear of this return; I wasn’t completely satisfied with the way things ended in the movie. Sure, the resurrection of Love (the coupling of Logan and Veronica) was great, and I was glad to see that Logan made something of himself. The story just didn’t feel complete, especially with the way they left things with Weevil. Thankfully, the new season provided me with the answers I needed, though they were bittersweet.
Season 4 picks up after the events of the movie. Veronica has left her life in New York and partnered with her father in the family firm, Mars Investigation. Business is slow. That is, until a bomb is detonated at a beachfront hotel. As expected, Veronica becomes ingrained in the investigation, which leads to confrontations with old enemies, like Liam Fitzpatrick, and possibly new ones, like two Mexican cartel soldiers (Clifton Collins Jr. and Frank Gallegos).
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on November 1st, 2019
Every generation has had its Christmas classics, films that have become as much a part of the holiday family traditions as Christmas trees and candy canes. For me it has been the more modern A Christmas Story with ol’ Carl Kolchak himself, Darren McGavin. Kids today have taken more of a shine to even more recent films, but for more than one generation, Christmas wouldn’t be the same without Frank Capra’s It’s A Wonderful Life. Since 1947 the film became a seasonal fixture in neighborhood movie houses across the fruited plain. In the 1970’s the film temporarily fell into the public domain and was played relentlessly on local television stations as each holiday came and went. Unfortunately, these were usually prints in horrible condition, so that scratches and splice marks became a part of the experience, not to mention ads for department stores touting their early bird specials. It is with that experience that I, as did most from my generation, become acquainted with Jimmy Stewart’s George Bailey. When the home video market began to bloom with VHS in the mid 1980’s, a better print resurfaced, so that the experience improved dramatically, along with the loss of those commercials. Of course, this new resource of home entertainment created a fight for the rights to the film to once again be restored to a single owner. It ended up being the film’s score that would allow the rights to be enforced once again. The crappy television prints disappeared, and by the early 1990’s, efforts to restore the film began.
These restoration efforts invariably turned to the controversial subject of colorization. If anyone remembers Ted Turner’s push to colorize RKO films, including King Kong, you will also remember how bad those films looked. The color was an added texture of hue covering the picture so that the subject’s textures and subtleties were obliterated. It was almost as if some child decided to finger paint all over the negative. There was nothing magical or at all realistic about the process. It’s A Wonderful Life has been colorized no less than three times. In both 1986 and 1989 the film got the colorized treatment, both failures. In 2007, It’s A Wonderful Life had been colorized by a new process developed by Legend Films. This new process allows films to be colorized naturally, retaining all of the detail and texture of the original print. These are the guys who are working with legendary Ray Harryhausen to colorize and restore many of his classics. The new process uses a 16-bit grayscale, which offers over 64,000 shades of just gray. The process, called “Photo-Real”, can reproduce HD quality pictures with stunning, lifelike color. I was a very cynical skeptic of the process and was prepared to rip this color print to shreds in my review. I was blown away by how natural the color looks. You will be hard pressed to believe this wasn’t an original color print. Not only are the colors realistic, but the print retains the particular color palette of the 1940’s, so that the film still looks like one from the correct era. I know you’ve seen incredibly bad colorization before, and it likely has made you unwilling to even give this one a chance, but you owe it to yourself to check it out. And this is the version you get on the Blu-ray copy of the film.
