Posted in: Disc Reviews by Brent Lorentson on February 2nd, 2018
Bad Robot, in my eyes, is simply the best at keeping things a secret. In this day and age, to be able to surprise audiences is just about an impossible task. When the first Cloverfield trailer was released in 2007 in front of Transformers, it was a trailer that had us all guessing up until its release. In my opinion Cloverfield was one of the best found-footage films to come out and was a grand achievement, considering it was a monster film that had been pretty much been kept under wraps until its actual release. Bad Robot managed to surprise us again, releasing a trailer for 10 Cloverfield Lane that set the internet on fire with theories and hopes for this to be a long-awaited sequel. But is that what this really is?
What I want to go ahead and get out of the way is, if you’re hoping for spoilers, there will be none, other than to say if you are expecting a big-budget extravaganza filled with monsters destroying cities, this is not that film. You will feel cheated. Instead, what 10 Cloverfield Lane delivers is something more intimate than I would have expected, and it takes the thriller genre back to its basics.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on January 29th, 2018
It might be hard for me to admit, but there are certain instances where having an ultra-high-definition transfer of even a modern film is not necessarily a better thing. The UHD 4K release of Cloverfield is one such instance. There is no question that the transfer is about as sharp and clean as anything I’ve seen on Blu to date. The problem is that it only helps to accent the stylistic flaws inherent in this kind of film. The most noticeable improvement is in the first third of the film. Of course, that part of Cloverfield is about as entertaining as watching paint dry. I still don’t care about these characters and their party ramblings any more now than I did before. The fleeting shots of the creature do look better, but you still better hit the pause button if you want a good look.
The entire film takes place inside the camcorder of a character named Hud (Miller). Hud was given the recorder to document the goings on at a farewell party for Rob (Stahl-David). Rob is about to leave New York for an executive position at a company in, of all places, Japan. I suspect the destination to be one of many Godzilla nods Abrams offers in the film. Hud is doing his duty diligently when the building shakes and half of New York loses power. A television report informs the partiers that an oil tanker has overturned in the harbor near Ellis Island. The people take to the streets, and from here on all of the events are seen only through the lens of Hud’s camcorder. We’re treated to rather fast-paced and too often jarring images of New York crumbling around these people. Buildings collapse in images eerily reminiscent of 9/11. There are explosive fireballs and screaming jets overhead. We hear someone cry that “It’s alive,” and from that moment we get very fleeting glimpses of the large creature causing all of this devastation. It is also shedding smaller parasite creatures that find tasty humans throughout the city. We never really know what this creature is or where it came from. We honestly never get very many good looks at it. Rob wants to go across town and check up on his girl, Beth (Yustman). Wherever our small troop goes, it seems the creature is never far behind.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on December 22nd, 2017
Most movies are just not very good. Lots of money goes into turning out boring, repetitive garbage. You watch it and then dispose of it and make room for the next thing. There are some who do more, but the more you do, the greater the risk. Most filmmakers are not given the freedom to take really big risks, but someone who has been given the opportunity to take the big risk is Christopher Nolan. Interstellar is $165,000,000 gamble shooting for the moon. Actually Nolan is shooting for something way past the moon. He wants to take us to another galaxy. There is so much speculative science in this film that it is mind-boggling. The cutting edge of real science is, frankly, getting crazier and crazier. The average person really has no idea how crazy, but Interstellar is going to try to show us just how crazy. The true nature of some of the elements of the theory of relativity and other related theories is that they defy all logic.
One of the most important things in Interstellar is its attempts to deal with some of the properties of time. The laws of physics tell us time acts differently in different situations. In this movie time rules everything in people's lives, but the main character is given the power to do something with time that most of us don't even imagine. It's important to know some of these situations are described in actual scientific theory. In fact, real science is getting closer and closer to God all the time. Most people who don't believe in God don't expect science to contradict that way of thinking. Interstellar doesn't talk about God, but it comes close to doing something similar. It is science's contention to state statistically there are millions of planets with intelligent life out there. Some of those intelligence forces will seem like God to us. This is simple science, but people have such a wide range of beliefs that no one will ever agree on what is the truth. The reason we don't agree is because mankind is just not smart enough to have real answers.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on December 11th, 2017
When I was a young boy I loved playing with my toys. We didn't have Transformers in those days, but we did have Major Matt Mason, plastic dinosaurs, Hot Wheels and Creepy Crawlers Thingmaker sets. Yeah, in those days a toy could cause third-degree burns and no one really worried about getting sued. Kind of takes the fun out of being a kid today. You know who else, I bet, loved to play with his toys? Michael Bay. I bet he had the coolest toys in his neighborhood. He probably wasn't the best guy to be friends with, however. He didn't invite the kids over to play with his toys. He likely charged you a nickel to watch him play with them. It's many decades later, and Michael still has the coolest toys on the block. Only now you have to cough up twenty bucks if you want to watch him playing with them. Sadly, that is what the Transformers film franchise has been reduced to. We're all watching the rich kid playing with really cool toys.
That's not to say that Transformers isn't at all entertaining and maybe, just maybe worth the twenty bucks to check out. It's an amusement park ride from beginning to end, and when you see how much Disney or Universal are charging for those these days, it might just be a bargain at that. Just as long as you enter the gates with the understanding that Transformers: Age Of Extinction is going to take you on a thrill ride. Nothing less, and certainly nothing more.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on December 8th, 2017
"In any war, there are calms between the storms. There will be days when we lose faith, days when our allies turn against us. But the day will never come, that we forsake this planet and its people."
Following the events of Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen, the Autobots are working hand-in-mechanical-glove with human authorities (in other words, the apparently all-powerful CIA), keeping close watch for Deception activity, but also helping out in human-on-human conflicts. Meanwhile, Shia LaBeouf has traded in improbably hot girlfriend Megan Fox for the equally improbable Rosie Huntington-Whiteley (an improbability that the script does have some fun with). He is also out of work and dismayed at not being given due consideration as a savior of the planet.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on December 7th, 2017
"Before time began, there was the Cube. We know not where it comes from, only that it holds the power to create worlds and fill them with life. That is how our race was born. For a time, we lived in harmony. But like all great power, some wanted it for good, others for evil. And so began the war. A war that ravaged our planet until it was consumed by death, and the Cube was lost to the far reaches of space. We scattered across the galaxy, hoping to find it and rebuild our home. Searching every star, every world. And just when all hope seemed lost, message of a new discovery drew us to an unknown planet called... Earth."
In this version of Transformers, Earth is caught up in an age-old conflict between two factions of an Autobot society. These sentient mechanical beings ravaged their own planet with war and now threaten to continue their struggle on a new battlefield: Earth. The bad guys are the evil robots called Decepticons. They see Earth as a new place to sow their seeds of destruction and humans as a minor infestation to be eliminated. The leader, Megatron, has been secretly kept in suspended animation by the government since the 1930’s. The good guys are a guardian group of robots called Autobots, led by a bot named Optimus Prime. Both groups are in search of a cube structure that is more than a little reminiscent of a Borg cube, called The Spark. This cube contains the power of life that can be spread to any technological device to create new Decepticons. So our evil friends envision an Earth overrun by newly created bots from Earth’s own machines.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by J C on September 29th, 2017
“These movies that I’ve done, they are massive movies. They take a lot out of you.”
That’s director Michael Bay talking about his decade-long work on the Transformers franchise on the eve of the fifth(!) film’s arrival. The movie also doubles as Bay’s swan song in the director’s chair, so when he says, “They take a lot out of you,” the filmmaker is presumably talking about the massive amount of energy and manpower (and horsepower) these big-budget bonanzas require. The problem is “They take a lot out of you” has also applied more and more to each subsequent movie in this series. Transfomers: The Last Knight isn’t just a bad movie…it is painful and exhausting to watch.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Jeremy Butler on August 30th, 2017
In the vein established by 21 Jump Street of taking a serious television series and transforming it into a comedy comes Baywatch. I’m sure everyone remembers Baywatch, possibly one of the most watched television series of all time that featured buxom ladies like Pamela Anderson and Yasmine Bleeth in tight swimsuits, running in slow motion. Transplanted for a moderate time period, this film adaptation features this generation’s hard bodies such as Zac Efron, Dwayne Johnson, and Alexandria Daddario (those eyes are hypnotic) taking on the established and iconic roles of Matt Brody, Mitch Buchannon, and Summer Quinn.
In Emerald Bay, an elite squad of lifeguards patrols the beach, going above and beyond to protect the people of the community. Led by Mitch Buchannon, this group finds themselves investigating murder and the increase in drug activity, which leads to businesswoman Victoria Leeds, who has a plan to privatize the beach, and surrounding businesses.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by J C on August 21st, 2017
“My name is Chuck Wepner. You don't know me...well, you do know me, but you don't know you know me.”
Unless you're a hardcore boxing fan (or a Jersey boy/girl), chances are you don't know the name Chuck Wepner. On the other hand, you don't have to be a sports buff or a movie buff to know the name Rocky Balboa. Wepner is a former heavyweight boxer, and his 1975 title bout with Muhammad Ali served as the inspiration for Sylvester Stallone's Oscar-winning classic. Originally titled The Bleeder (my two cents...they should've stuck with that title), Chuck is the story of “The Real Rocky.”
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on August 7th, 2017
"In the future, the line between human and machine is disappearing. Advancements in the technology allow humans to enhance themselves with cybernetic parts. Hanka robotics, funded by the government, is developing a military operative that will blur the line even further. By transplanting a human brain into a fully synthetic body, they will combine the strongest attributes of human and robot."
...and resistance is futile. OK. Wrong franchise. Actually, Ghost In The Shell has been with us for quite some time, and fans have been waiting for a live-action film to embrace. And while there are many fantastic elements to this film, it doesn't pull together well enough to meet the expectations of a rabid fan base.
