Posted in: Disc Reviews by J C on February 7th, 2012
Recent Academy Award nominee Jessica Chastain famously appeared in a whopping six movies released in 2011. These include two Best Picture nominees (The Help, The Tree of Life), and two other movies that briefly generated a small measure of Oscar buzz (Take Shelter for Michael Shannon's performance, and Coriolanus for Vanessa Redgrave's work). Unfortunately, when people try to recount Chastain's outstanding breakout year, Texas Killing Fields is destined to become the sixth movie no one can remember.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by J C on February 6th, 2012
“I was dumb enough to think I'd be joining some elite police officers here. I don't know who these people are.”
Those words come from Kathryn Bolkovac (Oscar winner Rachel Weisz), a Nebraska cop who accepts a high-paying gig as a United Nations peacekeeper. The film, inspired by true events in 1999 post-war Bosnia, follows Bolkovac as she discovers a human trafficking/sexual slavery ring with an insidious connection to International Police Task Force personnel, including some from the United States.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by William O'Donnell on February 6th, 2012
Evidence has revealed the possibility that a Soviet Assassin code-named “Cassius,” thought to be long dead, is still at large after a US Senator is murdered. A veteran CIA operative (played by Richard Gere) is teamed up with an enthusiastic young FBI agent (played by Topher Grace) who has studied and obsessed over Cassius' actions since his days at Harvard.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by William O'Donnell on February 3rd, 2012
Owl City's popularity was born out of social networking websites such as Myspace. From the days of uploading songs while living in his parent's basement, to going #1 on Charts in an astounding 24 countries, Owl City (aka Adam Young) continues to ride his hysterical success into his inevitable, first concert film.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on February 3rd, 2012
"It is generally thought that time travel is impossible. Tonight, however, we ask you to bravely go where no audience has gone before, back in time to the 1970's"
And that's exactly what you'll get to do if you're smart enough to take my advice and pick up Styx: The Grand Illusion & Pieces Of Eight Live on Blu-ray from Eagle Rock Entertainment. It doesn't matter if you're old enough to remember when these albums were first released in 1977 and 1978 or if you've newly discovered the band and the albums. In fact, it doesn't even matter if you're a Styx fan at all....yet.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by William O'Donnell on February 3rd, 2012
Forgive the impending fun-with-words but, hot on the TAIL of the theatrical release of Red Tails is the Blu Ray release of this 1995 interpretation of the same story. Based on the actual group of airmen who were the first African-American fighter pilots in the United States Army Air Corps. This film follows the first cadets through their training and onto their various combat and mission in North Africa and Italy during World War II.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by J C on February 2nd, 2012
Ryan Gosling's 2011 made the rest of us look like a bunch of slackers. When he wasn't breaking up fights on the streets of New York City or inspiring countless memes last year, he was starring in three incredibly varied and well-received movies. The curiously punctuated Crazy, Stupid, Love. is the most commercial of those releases and also features Gosling at his movie star/leading man best. Steve Carell stars as Cal Weaver, a middle-aged man who is blindsided after his wife, Emily (go-to-adulteress-of-the-moment Julianne Moore, of The Kids Are All Right and Chloe), reveals she had an affair with a co-worker (Kevin Bacon) and asks for a divorce.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on February 2nd, 2012
Written by Joe Gause
Here we go again! It’s another movie about something dangerous in the water. I’m not gonna lie here, folks, I wasn’t expecting to much out of this one, but to my surprise I enjoyed it quite a bit. So here’s the short and skinny. A bunch of college kids set off to a lake house to enjoy a much-needed vacation. There is a fair amount of drinking and flirting and tomfoolery (always wanted to use that word). Early in the film we discover that Sara (Sara Paxton) has a dark secret with one of the town locals. As the party gets under way, trouble starts to brew in paradise when one of the partygoers gets his arm ripped off by a shark!
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on February 2nd, 2012
Written by Brian Ludovico
To film fans, the clause “Directed by Alfred Hitchcock” has almost become an adjective in and of itself. It has come to mean suspense created by using the viewer’s imagination and mind as a part of the film, first and foremost. These films didn’t have the freedom of CG, and consequently had to invent ways to achieve visual effects (watch the documentary on Birds or Rear Window for example). Besides the lack of freedom of creation that digital filmmaking now provides, the filmmakers had to tip toe around the Hays code
Posted in: Disc Reviews by William O'Donnell on February 2nd, 2012
Curtis “50 Cent” Jackson plays a hotshot college football player is at the cusp of making a big move to the NFL and riches when he collapses in the locker room due to a tumor growing in his chest, near his heart. Having to undergo cancer treatments, he loses his ability to play and must start again without all the advantages being a star came with.