Posted in: No Huddle Reviews by J C on October 10th, 2016
“There can only be one queen.”
After navigating treachery at every turn in French court and having to cope with a deadly plague throughout the first two seasons of Reign — the CW's campy, compulsively watchable adaptation of the Mary, Queen of Scots saga — season 3 was meant to introduce Mary's most formidable foe yet. Queen Elizabeth I of England becomes a regular character on the show and Mary's chief rival from afar. But in telling the story of two warring queens (while trying to service the series' many established characters) the show stretches itself too thin and loses some of the fizz that made it a guilty pleasure.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on October 7th, 2016
"Did I miss anything while I was gone?"
Did you ever. Banshee came to an end with this, the fourth season, and it did not go quietly, to be sure. But it's not how it ends, but how this final season begins that's a bit of a mystery. There is a time jump of a little over 18 months that will cause you to feel like you might have missed something. If that doesn't confuse you, the season's constant tripping around in time will turn this season into a show very different from the Banshee we've come to know and love. It's not just one or two timelines that are presented here. The time can shift by any number of days, weeks, or months. Still the "current" story takes place nearly two years in the future. Fans appear to be divided on the season's dramatic departure from the show's style. The question has to be whether the team knew it was their final season from the beginning and felt the need to cover more ground to tell what story they had left to tell.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Brent Lorentson on October 6th, 2016
“Are you food or are you sex?”
When it comes to director Nicholas Winding Refn, he’s a director from whom I’m never all too sure what to expect. For me Drive is one of my favorite films in the past ten years, while Only God Forgives simply bored me; despite the stunning imagery, it had nothing else going for it.. His films going even further back are just as much of a mixed bag, so coming into The Neon Demon I knew better than to get my hopes up, and that I should just go ahead and let the film stand on its own, as it should. Even reading about its debut at Cannes, it was met with a mix of boos as well as applause, which was all I really needed to get interested in this film after seeing the visually impressive trailer. At a glance it appears to be nothing more than the story of Black Swan (2010), only instead of following dancers, this is a film that thrusts the viewer into the world of modeling. Just where do I stand on this film? Well, it’s stuck with me since our screening days ago, and I’m still processing everything.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Jeremy Butler on October 5th, 2016
“Be the hero of your own story.”
Not the funniest addition to Kevin Hart’s reign as the king of comedy, but still a welcome sight. This time around, Hart teams with Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson for Central Intelligence. I’ve been anticipating this movie since behind-the-scenes footage leaked earlier this year, and the official trailer did nothing but fuel the flames of my excitement. After watching it, I can say that despite a few predictable plot twists, I still found the overall product to be extremely funny and worthwhile.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by J C on October 3rd, 2016
“Warning! The truly unusual motion picture you are about to see contains many scenes of graphic violence. It is not intended for the faint of heart, nor the young and impressionable.”
Anyone who makes it all the way through 1987's Blood Diner — a gleeful, inspired exercise in bad taste — can't say they weren't warned. That being said, the tongue-in-cheek disclaimer that precedes the film still may not be enough to prepare you for the utter silliness and depravity that follows.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Brent Lorentson on October 1st, 2016
“I guess I’m just not used to being chased around a mall in the middle of the night by killer robots.”
It’s October, and that means it’s the start of 31 Nights of Terror, and this year we’re kicking things off with one of my guilty pleasures growing up, Chopping Mall. This came out at a time when slashers were pretty much a dying genre, but there was still a demand to have horror films up on the big screen. I never got to see this in theaters, but I remember the VHS box art from my local mom-and-pop video store. The idea of the robotic hand clutching a shopping bag with a head on it was something that gripped the teenager in me. Sure, the film is nothing like what the box art teases, and the original title Killbots is a far more accurate title, but from a promotional standpoint, in the vein of the old Roger Corman films, I get why they did this. So what’s it all about? Well, grab your keys, grab your wallet, because we’re about to take a trip to Park Plaza Mall and see what it’s all about.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by J C on September 30th, 2016
“A creature that gestates inside a living human host…and has concentrated acid for blood.”
If you're a fan of sci-fi, horror, or action films, chances are you're also intimately familiar with the creature at the center of the Alien franchise. Ridley Scott's 1979 original is a masterpiece of space horror, so it would've been foolish for any follow-up to try and replicate the same formula. Instead, James Cameron's classic sequel succeeds by transplanting an entirely new genre into the series (Aliens is basically a war movie) while maintaining the sense of terror that made its predecessor a classic. You can get a fresh look for yourself now that Fox has released a 30th Anniversary Edition.
Posted in: No Huddle Reviews by J C on September 27th, 2016
“This is when we roar.”
When Fox’s Empire premiered in early 2015, it became an instant sensation that re-wrote the ratings record books. The show’s mix of high drama and hip-hop obviously struck a chord with an underserved segment of TV viewers. Of course, that also means expectations were sky high for this second season. While Empire has inevitably lost some of the sizzle from its unprecedented debut, this unapologetically over-the-top soap rap-era has also managed to avoid the dreaded sophomore slump.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Dan Holland on September 26th, 2016
When it comes to titles from Blizzard Entertainment, I was always more into the Starcraft and Diablo franchises. I played World of Warcraft (WoW) for a small period of time when it became a popular MMORPG (Massive Multiplayer Online Role Playing Game), but my interest in the game quickly died. The aesthetics were a little too cartoony for my liking, plus, you paid for a subscription. Regardless, I am just one fan of Blizzard: WoW caught on like wildfire. I still know people who are playing the game to this day. The question, however, is whether or not this franchise would make a great cinematic adaptation. I will admit that I am not an expert on the Warcraft lore, by any means, but I know enough about popular culture and its many fandoms to look at this film objectively.
Sitting in a theater, you are always treated to interesting pre-screening conversations. More often than not, they are being led by fans of the source material. Here are samples of some of the conversations I overheard:
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Brent Lorentson on September 22nd, 2016
Growing up I was obsessed with the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles animated series; it was the Saturday morning cartoon I just couldn’t get enough of. When I couldn’t watch the cartoon, I’d be playing with the toys and eventually the video game back in the original Nintendo console days. So when the movies came out, my parents had no choice but to take me to see them. Back in those days we had the turtles in rubber suits; as a kid the experience was fun but still just not as good as the cartoon. As I got older, well, those original films seem to hold up less and less, and when the news came that an updated version of the film would be coming out I got a little excited, that is till I saw the trailer for the 2014 film. Sure, it had elements from the cartoon, but it just didn’t look inspired; it just looked like a generic kids’ film with passable CGI. The result was simply a blunder, and I would have thought the days of seeing a Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle movie were numbered. But here we are in 2016 with the new film Out of the Shadows ready to hit the big screen, and, folks, it’s been nearly 30 years in the making, but FINALLY we get the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles movie we’ve been waiting for.
Stepping in to fill the shoes as director is Dave Green. He’s relatively a newcomer in Hollywood, but it’s his vision I believe is responsible for the success of the film. His previous film Earth to Echo is simply a wonderful kids’ adventure film that captures the energy of the 80’s Spielberg films, most notably ET. Well, he carries that love for the 80’s into this new installment of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles franchise and injects so much life into it, my inner ten-year-old was cheering with glee over this film. This is just about the closest I’ve seen an animated series come to life on the big screen and manage to retain what made the animated series so much fun. This isn’t a film for grownups; instead this is a film that targets the ten-year-old in all of us, the one who doesn’t question the logistics of flying manhole covers, talking brains, or humans transforming into hulking beasts.
