Posted in: Disc Reviews by J C on May 21st, 2015
At this point, it’s pretty difficult to find a play by William Shakespeare that hasn’t been produced for the stage or adapted for the screen many times over. So imagine my surprise when I came across Cymbeline, a Shakespearean play I’d never even heard of. (Though maybe that says more about me than it does about the play’s popularity.) Filmmaker Michael Almereyda transplants the action to the present day, but the tablets, cell phones, and other anachronistic touches aren’t enough to inject life into a languid, lurching film that largely squanders a pretty impressive cast.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on May 18th, 2015
"A man of your age has no excuse for looking or behaving like a fugitive from a home for alcoholic music hall artistes."
Sound like anyone you know? Johnny Depp is one hell of a talented actor. There are few in the industry than can so completely inhabit a character. He has an uncanny ability to make you forget Johnny Depp the actor and lose yourself in his performance. He is a chameleon physically and expressively. Unfortunately, Johnny has had trouble finding box office gold lately. You see, he's having a lot of fun at our expense. But it's not just we who are footing the bill for his tomfoolery. The studios are handing out hundreds of millions of dollars for box office misses
Posted in: Disc Reviews by J C on May 11th, 2015
“It’s like being kids again. The streets are our playground.”
The above quote refers to parkour, the art and discipline of moving through urban spaces that was popularized in France. French practitioners of parkour are called “traceurs,” which gives this totally clichéd, consistently ridiculous, but occasionally breathtaking action flick its title. You’ve seen the plot before (many times), but Tracers still vaults itself above the straight-to-DVD pack thanks to its freewheeling free-running sequences.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on April 10th, 2015
"There's something I need to tell you. We're building a weapon. It's not like any weapon the world's ever seen. It draws its energy from a fast-neutron chain reaction. It releases the power of an ancient star. If it works, and it's going to work, it will be the more destructive than all the bombs dropped in all the wars in history put together. It'll bring armies to their knees. Cities will disappear in the blink of an eye. The world will be united in peace by the most just and noble country in the history of mankind or it will burn to the ground. Whoever builds it first, there's the endgame. So it has to be us, whatever it costs."
It's one of those dramatic stories where mankind is altered forever.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Brent Lorentson on April 9th, 2015
This is a movie that snuck up on me. I had seen the trailers, and it looked like goofy fun, but I really wasn’t prepared for how this film would linger in my mind and follow me around. First let me just say this film is not for everyone; this is one of the darkest comedies I’ve seen in quite some time, but on top of that this is one of the most tragic films as well. At first glance the trailer for The Voices has you thinking this is going to be American Psycho meets Dr. Dolittle (only one character can hear the animals talking), and for the most part that is this film. But as the final act kicked in, I realized this was really so much more.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Brent Lorentson on April 7th, 2015
When it comes to screenwriters in the industry, William Goldman is virtually the king of the written word. From writing such hits as Marathon Man and All The President’s Men to The Princess Bride, Goldman will always be a legend in Hollywood even if it has been a while since his last successful original work. Wild Card is a remake of the Burt Reynolds version of Heat back in 1986. It’s been a few decades since watching the film, so instead of trying to remember anything from it how about I just stick to this stylized version?
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Brent Lorentson on March 20th, 2015
From the moment Son of a Gun opens up taking you behind bars as JR (Brenton Thwaites) is being processed into an Australian prison, it is the start of a journey that throws everything at its audience till the final credits roll. I have a hard time figuring out just how to classify Son of a Gun; it is everything from being a film about self-discovery, a guys-behind-bars film, to being a heist film and so much more. The title refers to JR as he goes about serving his time behind bars and captures the attention of an infamous thief Brendan (Ewan McGregor).
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Brent Lorentson on March 18th, 2015
What if there was a place where you can act out your wildest fantasy, whether it be murder, theft, or sex, and at the end of the day you could go home as though nothing happened? That is the tease Vice offers its audience in a sci-fi action film that blends bits of Blade Runner, Stange Days and Westworld into one tight little package. For fans of the sci-fi genre, the movies I reference are staples in the genre, but let me be clear; at no time does Vice measure up to these films. When we meet Kelly (newcomer Ambyr Childers), she is an android leading a life behind the walls of VICE where she is programmed to live the same day over day after day.
Posted in: No Huddle Reviews by J C on March 16th, 2015
“2,000 years ago, the Bible prophesied the return of Christ...but only after God inflicts seven years of torment on the world to test the faith of mankind.”
It's not quite seven years long, but this two-part, three-hour TV movie — History's latest foray into original filmmaking — is likely to test the faith (and patience) of anyone who watches it. Revelation: The End of Days is intentionally less glossy than previous network offerings like Bonnie & Clyde and Houdini because it takes a ground-level look at the apocalypse. But in scaling back to achieve that aesthetic, the result is both frustrating and amateurish.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Brent Lorentson on March 10th, 2015
I’m starting to wonder if it is time we officially made a sub-genre for kidnapping films. It’s a storyline that has been played out for decades but continues to offer up some engaging and oftentimes heart-wrenching tales that for the most part have happy endings but that seems to be a far stretch from reality, though I doubt audiences are looking for these bleak realistic endings and mostly prefer the Hollywood ending where everyone is rescued in just the nick of time. When Prisoners came out, I had hopes that it would be a film that wouldn’t shy away from the harsh realities, and for the most part it succeeded, but I still felt it held back.
