Posted in: Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on August 1st, 2012
"This ain't a revival, it's an orphanage."
It's the 1970's and a speeding car screams down the dirt road of an orphanage. A duffel bag is tossed on the doorstep, and Moe, Larry and Curly have arrived. Ten years later we see the beginnings of the familiar routines in the teenage versions of The Three Stooges. They are unadoptable and are causing the nuns who run the joint a ton of headaches.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by M. W. Phillips on July 8th, 2012
“Come on Ryan! These are big existential questions, best left for boring Russian novelists and teenagers on acid. Real people don't think about this shit!”
As Wilfred: The Complete First Season begins, Ryan Newman (Elijah Wood), a miserably depressed out of work lawyer, just reached the end of his rope. One night, after meticulously composing the final draft of his suicide note, he downs a handful of pills, chugs them back with a bottle of NyQuil and heads off to bed. Nothing happens. He can’t even fall asleep.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by J C on July 3rd, 2012
Mirror mirror on the wall, which is the fairest Snow White movie of them all? (Or at least 2012.) Well, if we're going by box office receipts and critical reception, the winner is Snow White and the Huntsman, the gothic, snarlier twist on the classic tale starring Kristen Stewart (everything starring Stewart is automatically snarlier), Charlize Theron and Chris Hemsworth. However, if we're going by costumes, production design and general shiny-ness, Mirror Mirror easily wins. I realize that sounds like faint praise, but this family-friendly take on Snow White has its quirky charms.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on June 5th, 2012
"Blacks are mentally inferior, by nature subservient, and cowards in the face of danger. They are therefore unfit for combat." - U.S. Army War College Study 1925
Obviously, there's another story to be told here. George Lucas says that he's been wanting to tell this story for over 20 years. It's a story that has often been told in both film and documentary form. In none of those cases has the movie been made into the kind of spectacle film that we find in Red Tails.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by J C on April 12th, 2012
- "I have a question for you. You're some random guy from the city, no one in the zoo community has ever heard of you. You know nothing about animals and you moved into a dump...why did you buy this place?"
- "Why not?"
Following the death of his beloved wife, Benjamin Mee does what any reasonable man would do under the same circumstances: he quits his job and moves his family into a zoo. I suspect you'll enjoy this movie a lot more if you simply shrug your shoulders and say, "Why not?"
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on April 12th, 2012
"They're gonna rock the boat"
The Chipmunks began life oddly enough as a singing group, of sorts. They were the brainchild of struggling songwriter Ross Bagdasarian and were named after the three chief executives at Liberty records. His own alter ego David Seville’s name came from his World War II Army station in Spain. The Chipmunks first appeared in a 1958 record called The Witch Doctor, but wouldn’t officially become The Chipmunks until later that year when The Chipmunks Christmas Song was released. It is for that Christmas music that I most remember the group. They first appeared as puppets on The Ed Sullivan Show.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on April 6th, 2012
The Killing began life as a Danish television series. We are used to seeing British shows reinvented for American audiences, but it's rare to find something from Danish television that someone found so compelling they decided to work it for the competitive American television landscape. It's no surprise that such an effort would find its way on cable rather than network television, where boundaries can really be pushed and explored.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by M. W. Phillips on March 26th, 2012
“Ohh. Oh, Fritz? Fritz, get up for God's sake! Get up! They've killed Fritz! They've killed Fritz! Those lousy stinking yellow fairies! Those horrible atrocity-filled vermin! Take that! Take that! They killed Fritz!!!”
Ralph Bakshi is probably best known for his x-rated animated adaptation of R. Crumb’s Fritz the Cat, the first animated film to receive an x-rating from the Motion Picture Association of America and still turn into the most successful independent animated feature of all time. When his second and also x-rated animated feature, Heavy Traffic, a blacker than coal satirical comedy
Posted in: Disc Reviews by J C on March 22nd, 2012
Even though I'm guilty of doing it myself, I always laugh a little when I hear someone complain that certain actors "just play themselves": as if you or I actually know these celebrities personally and have the authority to say what they're like in real life. Of course, what we really mean is most movie stars have found a screen persona that has connected with audiences and — in the spirit of giving people what they want (or laziness) — tend to stick pretty close to that image, adding only a tweak when we catch on to their game. (I mean, do we really want to see Sylvester Stallone tackle Hamlet? Wait, that would be amazing!)
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Michael Durr on March 16th, 2012
Sometimes you just know. As a movie reviewer, I always strive for an open mind. I work for the idea that even if the cover screams snorefest or if the movie has a star I can absolutely not stand, perhaps just perhaps there is a nugget of cinema goodness underneath. Then I received Tooth Fairy 2 on Blu-Ray. After I screamed at the heaven’s above and drank myself into a deep coma, I decided that an open mind was a terrible thing to waste.
