Posted in: Disc Reviews by J C on December 14th, 2018
“I'm sorry there is so much pain in this story. I'm sorry it's in fragments, like a body caught in crossfire, pulled apart by force, but there is nothing I can do to change it.”
To say there is pain in The Handmaid’s Tale might be the biggest understatement of 2018. The series is set in a dystopian near-future in which women — even the ones who are supposedly part of the ruling class — are enslaved and tortured in a variety of heinous ways. Handmaid’s Tale immediately became Hulu’s flagship show and picked up an Emmy for Best Drama Series last year. So expectations were high for this second season, which too often proves to be torturous for viewers as well.
“God send me an obedient woman.”
Posted in: Disc Reviews by J C on December 7th, 2018
“They destroyed the man I was, but then I was reborn. And this time I came out breathing fire.”
Season 1 of Westworld — HBO’s mega-budget adaptation of Michael Crichton’s 1973 film of the same name — spent a lot of time exploring the nature of reality and humanity through a high-tech theme park’s robotic hosts. And while the show still has plenty of time for those themes, the second season can be tidily summed up with a phrase that nods to another Part II of an iconic sci-fi franchise: The Hosts Strike Back.
“I used to see the beauty in this world…but now I see the truth.”
If you’re not familiar with Westworld, both the 1973 movie and the show center around an adult-themed amusement park that allows its guests’ most perverse and violent instincts to run amok.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Brent Lorentson on December 6th, 2018
As a fan of The Conjuring films, I keep hoping that these spinoff films will manage to step up and be on par with The Conjuring, but instead they just keep letting me down. But that doesn’t stop the hordes of fans from still seeing these films; after all, the pair of Annabelle films were box office hits, and The Nun had a nice theatrical run as well, earning over $110 million. The Nun is a bit of a departure, as it takes us back to 1952 and is set in Romania to deliver a gothic horror story that seems as though it’s a bit of a nod to the old Hammer films from the 1950’s on into the 1970’s. Does the film deserve its box office success? Well, thankfully I didn’t have to take a vow of silence, and I can tell you all about it.
The film wastes no time in setting the tone and delivering the terror as we see a pair of nuns walk through the bowels of an abbey in Romania as they open a big, scary door that has the inscription “God Ends Here”.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Jeremy Butler on December 6th, 2018
“Sometimes when you trust your impulses, incredible things can happen.”
I doubt this is what Jesse Usher’s character had in mind when he used it as a pickup line for Bella Thorne’s character. However, Ride does feature what turns out to be an extraordinary night for these two characters as they find themselves at the mercy of a demented individual with a .44 Magnum. This movie has been on my radar for a while, and it was a movie that I jumped at the chance to review. I’m fortunate to say that I was not disappointed, although I did find the ending to be a bit anticlimactic. When I saw the runtime for this film, a mere 77 minutes, I anticipated that the thrills would be over fairly quickly, but the story managed to pack quite a bit into this brief period.
James is a struggling actor by day, and a rideshare driver by night.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Michael Durr on December 3rd, 2018
This year, I have gravitated more towards watching movie courtroom dramas. I watched Anatomy of a Murder for the first time. The same could be said for the Verdict with Paul Newman. I re-visited A Few Good Men in glorious 4k with pleasing results. Then I got an opportunity to review The Third Murder, a courtroom drama that takes a look at the Japanese court system when one lawyer decides to seek the truth. Even though I was about to go on review hiatus for the holiday season, I eagerly wanted to take a look, and I am glad I did.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Jeremy Butler on December 3rd, 2018
So this was not one of Nalyce’s favorite films to watch, but she was a trooper and watched it till the end. Benji Off the Leash is a digitally remastered telling of the 2004 film. To its credit, the story surprising holds up. Even more to its credit, my daughter was actually able to follow the story. I mean, I had to explain certain parts, like who was Benji? And explain the profession of dog breeding, a profession she automatically decided was a bad job given that to her eyes it broke up puppy families. However, once we cleared that hurdle, we were able to continue the movie. Full disclosure, my knowledge of Benji beforehand was nonexistent. I mean, I knew the name, but not the significance. Fortunately for me, there is a decent opener so that I could catch up.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by J C on November 29th, 2018
“I get it. You’re taking me back in time to show me my mother and father, and I’m supposed to get all goosey and blubbery. Well, forget it, pal…you got the wrong guy!”
Bill Murray was the absolute best at being a jerk on screen during the 1980s, which made him the right guy to step into the role of a modern-day Scrooge. Charles Dickens’ “A Christmas Carol” had been adapted countless times before Scrooged and there have been dozens of versions since the movie’s 1988 release. But while this sarcastic, intentionally gaudy update isn’t exactly the most faithful version of Dickens’ classic tale, it remains a personal childhood favorite.
Posted in: No Huddle Reviews by J C on November 29th, 2018
“It’s handled, baby.”
Scandal, which followed the exploits of elite Washington D.C. fixer Olivia Pope and her torrid on-again/off-again relationship with the president of the United States, was never the Best Drama on television. But if the Emmys handed out a prize for “Most Drama,” this Shonda Rhimes-created soap opera would’ve been a shoo-in each of its seven seasons. So the fact that ABC released the final two seasons of Scandal in a handy bundle means there are almost too many twists and turns to count.
If you’ve never been Scandal-ized before, here’s a quick primer: Olivia Pope (Kerry Washington, who earned a pair of Emmy nominations for her work on the show) and her crisis management team of “gladiators” — which over the years included violently loyal techie Huck (Guillermo Diaz), the intense and enigmatic Quinn Perkins (Katie Lowes) and her former assassin boyfriend Charlie (George Newbern), along with the focused and capable Abby Whelan (Darby Stanchfield) — find themselves entangled with Washington D.C. power players, including President Fitzgerald “Fitz” Grant III (Tony Goldwyn) and his wife-turned-presidential hopeful Mellie Grant (Bellamy Young), who later vies for the Oval Office against Fitz’s Machiavellian former chief of staff Cyrus Beene (Jeff Perry).
Posted in: Disc Reviews by J C on November 28th, 2018
“…I’ll show you how to be rich.”
HBO’s fantastic and fiercely funny Succession is about a group of people who are great at being rich…and not much else. The show’s fictional Roy family controls the powerful conglomerate Waystar Royco, which bears more than a passing resemblance to the late Rupert Murdoch’s media and entertainment empire. The show would be entertaining enough if it merely lampooned the spoiled brats who stumble into becoming masters of the universe. But Succession goes to another level by wringing legitimately powerful family drama out of an objectively absurd and despicable cast of characters.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by J C on November 23rd, 2018
“Not all heroes wear capes.”
To put things mildly, Warner Bros. still has a bit of ways to go before its stable of DC Comics superheroes catches up to Disney’s dominant Marvel Cinematic Universe. However, Warner and DC have long had the upper hand on both the small screen (The Flash, Legends of Tomorrow) and with their animated, direct-to-video offerings. One of those small-screen flicks — 2015’s Justice League: Throne of Atlantis — has just been granted a nifty “Commemorative Edition” 4K release before Aquaman splashes onto the big screen next month.
