Posted in: Disc Reviews by Michael Durr on July 27th, 2011
A mockumentary is a piece of satirical entertainment that is shot like a documentary except it is fictitious and never really happened. Like my first marriage, HEYOOOO! (okay, not really) They can be funny or serious but they are often shot to be of the former. Sometimes, they can be pretty interesting or funny but more often than not, they tend to be just like most documentaries. Boring, pointless and liable to cure insomnia. We shall proceed to investigate Brother’s Justice which mocks movie making.
Dax Shepard has an idea. He calls one of his best friends, Nate Tuck who is a producer and tells him to come right over with a camera. Nate says he will need a couple of hours to get things together, Dax asks if he can make it a half hour, the producer says I will try to be there in forty five minutes. At this point, I am already wishing for Nate to slam down the phone and walk away.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Michael Durr on June 5th, 2011
Many times when you see a trailer over and over, one has to ask themselves: Do they really want to see the movie or is repetition to the point of acceptance playing its fatal card? In the case of Legend of the Fist: Return of Chen Zhen, I had seen the trailer several times in front of Ip Man and the sequel. I wasn’t sure if I was anxious for the movie, so much that I really wanted to see Donnie Yen go absolutely crazy with his kicks and amazing martial arts.
The First World War is going on across Europe. The Allied Forces aren’t doing so well. In 1917, one hundred and fifty thousand workers were dispatched by the Chinese government to help the Allied Forces. Each of these workers were given a wristband for identification and the imprint left behind by these markers were symbols of survival. These workers fought and also did manual labor on the lines. We join the story with a mighty blast as we start our story in France.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Michael Durr on April 23rd, 2011
There are usually two schools of thought when it comes to judging sequels. One tends to be very harsh on the proceedings expecting it to surpass the original (which it hardly ever does) in all aspects of film-making. The other still expects a good film but realizes that this sort of thing is usually financially driven and just hopes for something that can favorable stand against the original. I happen to be in the later crowd. But, I certainly found myself inching towards the former when I received the blu-ray package to review Ip Man 2, Legend of the Grandmaster. Let's go inside, shall we?
Ip Man (played Donnie Yen)has escaped from Foshan and has made way with his family to the Hong Kong of the 1950's. His wife, Cheung Wing-Sing (played by Lynn Hung) is pregnant with her second child. However, the family is barely making ends meet. Cheung can't work much and Ip Man's martial arts school isn't going as well as planned. They can hardly cover rent and school fees for their son, Ip Chun (played by Li Chak).
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Bob Ross on March 17th, 2011
Connections between Eastern and Western cinema aren’t new, but they do seem to be proliferating. Back in 1964, Italian maestro Sergio Leone borrowed from Japanese genius Akira Kurosawa, turning Yojimbo into A Fistful of Dollars. Just last year, Korean writer-director Lee Jeong-Beom looked to the West for multiple influences, and the result is The Man From Nowhere, a psychological action-thriller that alternately engages, confuses and kicks major butt.
The film was a late-summer hit in its homeland, but it’s probably OK that the rest of the world had to wait until now for this technically superb Blu-Ray release. Subtitled gangster yarns don’t sell well in the American market – at least not the ones that rely on gritty plotting instead of high-wire special effects. In other words, this is no Crouching Tiger, kids. That’s more of a Chinese development. Like Leone’s Man With No Name, The Man From Nowhere is an enigmatic antihero, and the main reason you root for him is because everyone else in the picture – rival gangs and creepy cops – is more disturbed than he is. The exception is an innocent young girl who becomes a kidnap victim whom our hero vows to rescue.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on October 4th, 2010
It's a classic moment in holiday cinema history. Ralphie, Flick, and Swartz are gathered around a flagpole in the dead of winter. Flick is scoffing at the idea that your tongue will stick to a metal surface under these extreme cold conditions. So Swartz commits a small violation of etiquette when he goes right for the triple dog dare. There isn't any way out for our friend Flick. The results are predictable, but nonetheless hilarious. I wish I could say the same for the teen angst film Triple Dog. For me, there truly was no way out. You, my gentle reader, might yet save yourself.
Eve (Fast) is having a birthday sleepover. The guests include her best friend Chapin (Robertson), who is a bit of a loudmouthed troublemaker. She's carrying a pretty dark secret that is causing her to act out and behave in a self-destructive manner. There's also Liz (Taylor-Compton) who is the dark school outcast. She's nicknamed "rat girl" because she carries a pet rat in her backpack. She and Chapin really do not like each other. Liz wasn't really invited, but their mothers are friends and she's pushed into the sleepover party. Cecily (Parish) is the rich girl in the group. Her father owns a local store. She's also the proper class president and academian in the group. Sarah (Tennant) is a strait-laced Catholic girl who is the uptight do-gooder in the group. Finally there is Nina (McKillip), who is the typical dumb blonde girl in the group.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Michael Durr on July 28th, 2010
Wilson Yip and Donnie Yen have done a lot of movies together in the last five years including Dragon Tiger Gate, Kill Zone, and Flashpoint. This duo has had a knack of combining strong stories with fantastic martial arts. In 2008, they decided to take on the story if Ip Man, the grandmaster of the martial art Wing Chun. Ip Man also had a few famous students including the legendary Bruce Lee. Can Wilson Yip and Donnie Yen produce another quality martial arts flic?
In the 1930’s, Foshan was the center of Chinese martial arts and had plenty of masters willing to teach anybody who was willing to learn. But the most skilled man of martial arts in all of Foshan is not on the front lines teaching students. He’s back in his mansion with his wife and child and goes by the name of Ip Man (played by Donnie Yen). Ip spends his days training and studying his art of Wing Chun much to his wife, Cheung Wing-sing’s (played by Lynn Xiong) dislike.
![Brother's Justice (Bluray + DVD Combo) [Blu-ray] dvd cover art](https://upcomingdiscs.com/ecs_covers/brothers-justice-bluray-dvd-com-large.jpg)
![Legend of the Fist: The Return of Chen Zhen (Collector's Edition) [Blu-ray] dvd cover art](https://upcomingdiscs.com/ecs_covers/legend-of-the-fist-the-return-of-c-large.jpg)
![Ip Man 2 (Collector's Edition) [Blu-ray] dvd cover art](https://upcomingdiscs.com/ecs_covers/ip-man-2-collectors-edition-blu-large.jpg)
![The Man from Nowhere [Blu-ray] dvd cover art](https://upcomingdiscs.com/ecs_covers/the-man-from-nowhere-blu-ray-large.jpg)
![Triple Dog [Blu-ray] dvd cover art](https://upcomingdiscs.com/ecs_covers/triple-dog-blu-ray-large.jpg)
![Ip Man (Collector's Edition) [Blu-ray] dvd cover art](https://upcomingdiscs.com/ecs_covers/ip-man-collectors-edition-blu-r-large.jpg)
