Posted in: Disc Reviews by Brent Lorentson on October 16th, 2017
For the most part it seems the summer blockbusters tend to be sequels, superhero films, or CGI bonanzas that are simply eye candy to get us to the dark auditoriums to escape the heat. It’s rare that something comes along that is so clever and fresh as Baby Driver. Personally I’ve been a fan of Edgar Wright from the moment I first saw Shaun of the Dead; he was a writer and director who I felt knew how to make films fun. When he was set to direct his dream project Ant-Man, I was excited to see him finally get a chance to do a giant tent-pole studio film, but weeks before filming was set to begin, he got pulled away and replaced. When it was announced he was working on an action-comedy named Baby Driver, well, I was excited, but the film’s title had me scared, fears of him doing something along the lines of Baby’s Day Out ran through my mind, but then as the cast started to assemble, I couldn’t help but get excited. Kevin Spacey, Jamie Foxx, Jon Hamm, Jon Bernthal … and these were simply the co-stars. Then when the first trailer dropped, this became the title of the year for me to keep an eye on. While this might not be the kind of film that gets nominated for best picture, for me this had potential to simply be an experience, the kind of fun you hope to have when you see a movie.
So who is Baby? Ansel Elgort heads this film with the title name, and for most he’s a guy who’s come out of nowhere. He’s been in The Divergent series and The Fault in our Stars, but Baby Driver is his first step into the spotlight, and as I mentioned above, he is surrounded by some major talent. The casting of Baby is key. Picking a relative unknown works, because the audience doesn’t know what to expect from this guy, and this works in the film as he’s surrounded by some dangerous heavy hitters in the crime world and they see this kid with his I-pod, they can’t help but wonder what’s up with this guy. Our intro to Baby Driver, wastes no time at showing us just what Baby can do as he is the getaway driver for a bank heist in Atlanta.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on October 11th, 2017
"C'mon, you apes, you wanna live forever? I have only one rule. Everybody fights, no one quits. The bugs have breached Mars, and the Federation's fleet is too far to help. It's up to us to save the planet. On the bounce, Troopers! The only good bug is a dead bug! Oorah!"
Robert Heinlein wrote the Starship Troopers novel in 1959. Since that time it has taken on many forms from pulp fiction to comic books. It was finally translated on film in 1997 by director Paul Verhoeven and scripted by Edward Neumeier. The film wasn't greatly received at the time but became a bit of a cult classic thanks in no small part to home video. There were attempts at live-action sequels, but none of them enjoyed any real success at all. One of the problems with the franchise on film is the inability to really showcase some of the iconic equipment described in the original novel. And while Verhoeven's film actually did a pretty good job with the alien bug race, the film wasn't able to feature the amazing suit technology that was the core of the Federation military's fighting force. So the suits just never became a part of the cinematic universe of Starship Troopers. That all changes with Starship Troopers: Traitor Of Mars.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Brent Lorentson on August 4th, 2017
An action film with a running time of 89 minutes should mean that it’s going to be lean on the story and keep things moving at a fast pace. S.W.A.T: Under Siege delivers just that, but unfortunately in the process delivers something that we’ve seen many times before. The film is being branded as a sequel (by name only) to S.W.A.T (2003), the film with Colin Farrell which was an adaptation from the TV series from the 70’s. S.W.A.T: Under Siege has nothing to do with any of the previous incarnations, and has relocated from sunny California to Seattle Washington. But is the film worth checking out? Well I’m not a fan of sequels that go straight to DVD, but this film does dangle a wild card for the audience that convinced me to give this a shot, Michael Jai White (Spawn, Black Dynamite).
It’s the 4th of July and the S.W.A.T unit is ready to have a short and easy day so they can get home and enjoy the holiday with their families. But what kind of an action movie would it be if the holiday didn’t take a turn for the worse with terrorists and a lot of gun fire? The team gets a call about a big shipment that’s being made at a shipping yard, with the DEA taking lead they head to the warehouse that turns out to be something more dangerous than it seems. After an intense firefight, instead of finding drugs or guns in a shipping container, they find a man The Scorpion (Jai White).
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Brent Lorentson on June 28th, 2017
“First, there is an opportunity. Then…there’s a betrayal.”
It’s been 20 years since the release of Trainspotting, and it’s fair to say a lot has changed in the past two decades. I remember going out to the United Artists Mission Bell Cinemas to see Trainspotting the weekend it came out. I was with my best friend at the time, and neither of us was old enough to buy tickets for the film, so we ended up having to sneak into the film. We’d seen the trailers, and in a time before the internet there just wasn’t much we could find out about it aside from reading articles in the entertainment magazines. To this day, I remember walking out of the auditorium simply floored by the film. Everything from the soundtrack to the visuals just hit me, and this was one of the first times I realized what creative influence a director has on the look and feel of a film. I came out as a fanny of Danny Boyle and the insane kinetic energy he puts into the look of his films. Over the years Danny Boyle has stepped out of the independent film spotlight and become a big-league director with several other award winning films, i.e. Slumdog Millionaire, 127 Hours, and Steve Jobs.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Brent Lorentson on June 16th, 2017
It used to be when you had a straight-to-DVD release, you knew better than to set the bar too high. From time to time you would find that occasional gem that slipped through the cracks and turned out to be something awesome, but this was a rare occurrence. With the way films are released now, the talent you are seeing in straight-to-DVD releases has improved, as have the budgets, since getting a film on the big screen has become a greater financial challenge. I mention this only because I look at a title like Kill’em All and wonder if they even cared. The actors are here and doing their job, but it’s the figures behind the scenes that I’m calling out here. Is this simply a cash grab to exploit the fans of Van Damme, or did they believe they had something special on their hands? I’m a fan of Van Damme, and seeing that this is a film directed by Peter Malota a stuntman from Van Damme’s heyday (Double Impact and Universal Soldier), you just kind of hope for better action, but sadly this all seemed so lazy.
Suzanne (Autumn Reeser) is a nurse who has managed to survive a massive shootout that occurred at her hospital. She’s the only witness that the FBI has to what went down. Peter Stormare and Maria Conchita Alonso play the pair of agents who are interrogating Suzanne in a very over-the-top good cop/bad cop sort of manner. If the interviewing skills by the agents aren’t enough to make you groan, the tough-guy banter Suzanne gives the agents is beyond frustrating, since every answer she gives is heavy with the sarcasm. Stormare is better than this; he can be menacing and be a threat on screen, but here his character is so over-the-top it’s hard to believe he would pass a character profile check to be an agent.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Jeremy Butler on April 24th, 2017
The WWE is like a dog with a bone, refusing to let this franchise as well as its other one (12 rounds) go. I will give them this: they are maintaining some consistency with Mike “The Miz” Mizanin reprising his role of Jake Carter for the third time for The Marine 5: Battleground. This time around, however, the series won’t just star one WWE superstar, but six. That’s right you read correctly, six WWE superstars have come together for this action film. With the addition of The Mix come Bo Dallas, Heath Slater, Curtis Axel, Naomi, and Maryse Ouellet Mizanin. Didn’t recognize any of those names? Don’t worry; me neither, as my days of watching wrestling ended with the end of the attitude era.
This time around, Jake Carter has returned stateside and is now working as an EMT. Working to make a difference, he finds himself drawn into a conflict with a notorious biker gang. After the murder of the president of their club, biker Alonso (Bo Dallas) is tasked to hunt down the shooter and gain revenge for the club. Accompanied by two more murders in the club (Curtis Axel and Naomi), they track the perpetrators to an underground parking garage at an amusement park. At the same time, Jake and his partner are called to the scene to find one man dead and the other critically wounded. With the bikers on the hunt, Jake must make the difficult choice, which turns out not to be a choice at all, of staying or leaving the man to his fate. I’m sure you all know what decision he made. Keeping them all alive will require all his acquired skills, especially when the bikers’ reinforcements arrive, leaving him severely outnumbered.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by J C on March 13th, 2017
“Life's pretty simple, you know. It's long periods of waiting broken up by brief moments of change. That's it...that's all it is.”
100 Streets tells three barely-connected stories set in the same one-square-mile area of present-day London. (The neighborhoods of Chelsea and Battersea to be exact.) The stories are each quite compelling in their own right, and they're performed by a talented group of actors. Unfortunately, the movie is occasionally bogged down by distracting, pseudo-profound soliloquies like the one at the top of this review. I appreciate the stabs at thoughtfulness and depth, but they come off as forced here and are more likely to make you roll your eyes than inspire you.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by J C on September 7th, 2016
“Anyone can betray anyone.”
The word “spy” tends to conjure images of international intrigue and attractive people getting into exotic adventures. But don't blame John le Carre. Despite being one of the most successful and prolific spy novelists of the past century, le Carre's stories tend to be aggressively un-sexy, morally murky tales that focus on the psychological toll of intelligence work. That's why it's interesting to find that The Night Manager — a British miniseries that also aired on AMC — manages to straddle both sides of the spy fiction fence.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on August 12th, 2016
James Spader is Raymond "Red" Reddington. If you have not yet watched an episode of The Blacklist I will tell you from the beginning that you just can't start here. Season 3 hits the ground running as the consequences of some major storylines from the previous year start to play out. I found myself having to take the time and catch up on Season 2 because we didn't get that year to review. It was clear to me from the start that there was no way to truly enjoy this release if I wasn't caught up. The trouble I go through to keep you guys informed. It's a tough job but someone has to do it. So, if you're not up to speed this is your chance to pick up all three seasons and do some serious binge watching. Make sure you stretch every now and again. Keep yourself hydrated and avoid the fatty/sugary junk foods. It'll be worth it because The Blacklist takes you on one heck of a three year run and I'm already looking forward to season 4. But go no farther if you're not up to speed.
If you're still with us then you know that Liz Keen (Boone) shot the country's Attorney General because he was part of The Cabal and threatened her future. She's also been framed for a terrorist attack that she did not commit. Now her partner Donald Ressler (Klattenhoff) is in charge of the task force because Cooper (Lenox) is also implicated in the crimes of Keen and Reddington. Ressler is not totally convinced she is guilty and hopes that she'll be cleared in the courts. But he is completely dedicated to bringing her in. The rest of the team is rather divided. None of them believe she is guilty and they end up being drawn in by Reddington to help behind Ressler's back. Aram (Arison) has already gone too far over the line but it has earned him the gratitude of Reddington. It's a chit he has to call in before the season ends. Samar (Marno) uses her Mossad connections to help to the point that Ressler has her fired.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on June 8th, 2016
“Who you gonna call?”
By now everyone knows the answer. Dan Aykroyd, Bill Murray, Harold Ramis, and Ernie Hudson are the Ghostbusters. As their ad proclaims, they’re ready to believe you. Ghostbusters was originally conceived by Aykroyd as a vehicle for John Belushi and himself. When Belushi died, reportedly from a drug overdose, the project sat on the shelf a few years. Harold Ramis would eventually team up with Aykroyd and finish the script. It’s been said that “Dying is easy. Comedy is hard.” Leave it to these …two knuckleheads to combine the two and create a phenomenon. Like pretty much anyone else, I’ve seen Ghostbusters many times in the last 20 years. And just like all of you, I’m still not tired of it. I am, however, done with the repetitive theme song.
