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Mission: Impossible – Rogue Nation (UHD Blu-ray) (4K)

Posted in Disc Reviews by J C on July 13th, 2018

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“This may very well be our last mission, Ethan…make it count.”

You wouldn’t know it from looking at him, but Tom Cruise was 53 years old when he did this film. So it’s only natural to wonder how many more Missions the indomitable superstar has left in him. Well, if Rogue Nation is any indication, the above quote is meant to be more winking than prophetic. Just like its tireless star, the fifth installment of the 19-year-old Mission: Impossible film franchise is spryer, tighter, and more energetic than its age might suggest with the sixth just about to drop at the box office
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A Quiet Place (UHD Blu-ray) (4K)

Posted in Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on July 12th, 2018

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You might call me jaded, but I am pretty disappointed by the state of horror movies. It’s not just the last few years. The truth is I haven’t seen 10 really good horror movies in over a decade. Now that I’ve had a chance to see A Quiet Place, that number isn’t going up. A Quiet Place is not a really good horror movie. It ends up making a lot of the same mistakes that filmmakers think define a horror film in the modern age. It relies too heavily on jump scares and characters who do some of the most idiotic things, thus placing them in a somewhat self-created dangerous situation. But I will make the argument that A Quiet Place is still a pretty good horror film because
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Mission: Impossible Ghost Protocol (UHD Blu-ray) (4K)

Posted in Disc Reviews by David Annandale on July 9th, 2018

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“The Secretary is dead. The President has invoked Ghost Protocol. We’re shut down. No satellite, safe house, support, or extraction. The four of us and the contents of this car are all that remains of the IMF.”

The fourth Mission: Impossible entry exchanges digits for a subtitle, and brings in Brad Bird to direct his first live-action feature. So the man whose The Incredibles made fun of the sort of thing that is the bread-and-butter of the M:I franchise is brought in to revitalize said franchise. Result? Job done. Gotcha. You thought I was going to say, “Mission accomplished,” didn’t you?
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Mission: Impossible 3 (UHD Blu-ray) (4K)

Posted in Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on July 8th, 2018

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“You can tell a lot about a person’s character by how they treat people they don’t have to treat well.”

It had been a decade since Brian De Palma’s Mission: Impossible hit theatres to box office success, established a new blockbuster franchise, and added ‘action hero’ to Tom Cruise’s resume, and six years since John Woo’s highly stylized follow-up raised the franchise to new box office heights. In 2006 the long-awaited third installment arrived amidst controversy about Tom Cruise’s crazy off-screen antics. It was feared that the happenings of Cruise’s personal life would somehow bring down this movie
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Mission: Impossible 2 (UHD Blu-ray) (4K)

Posted in Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on July 5th, 2018

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“This is not Mission: Difficult, Mr. Hunt. It’s Mission: Impossible. Difficult should be a walk in the park for you.”

After four years and nearly $200 million at the box office, it was only a matter of time before Paramount and Tom Cruise would partner again for a new Mission Impossible film. This time the move would be completely toward the action and stunts and farther away from the television series. The hiring of John Woo to direct the second film put quite a punctuation mark on that move.
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Mission: Impossible (UHD Blu-ray) (4K)

Posted in Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on July 3rd, 2018

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“Well, you think about it, Ethan, it was inevitable. No more cold war. No more secrets you keep from yourself. Answer to no one but yourself. Then, you wake up one morning and find out the President is running the country without your permission. The son of a bitch, how dare he. Then you realize, it’s over. You are an obsolete piece of hardware, not worth upgrading, you got a lousy marriage, and 62 grand a year.”

The more things change, the more they tend to remain the same. In 1996 Paramount was nearing the end of a run of feature films that started with a 1960’s Desilu Studios television series called Star Trek. That same year the studio was beginning a run of feature films based on a 1960’s Desilu Studios television series that at one time shared an actor with Star Trek, Leonard Nimoy.
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Forrest Gump (UHD Blu-ray) (4K)

Posted in Disc Reviews by J C on June 27th, 2018

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“Run, Forrest, run!”

Forrest Gump is one of the most beloved films to be released in the past 25 years. The movie received critical love (to the tune of 6 Oscars, including the Academy Award for Best Picture) and commercial love (this was the highest-grossing film of 1994) upon its release. For better and worse, Gump can be seen as a reflection of its good-natured, dim-witted hero: it’s a classic example of heart triumphing over head. Time — and, specifically, the internet — hasn’t been nearly as kind to Gump as it has to several other films released the same year, but the movie endures thanks to some unforgettable sights, sounds, and a miraculous lead performance.
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Unsane (UHD Blu-ray) (4K)

Posted in Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on June 27th, 2018

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Remember when Steven Soderbergh told us he was retiring from filmmaking? Since that time he has been behind two of Hollywood’s most unique films in a long time. Lucky Logan was a refreshing kind of heist film that made it more of a comedy with wonderful character studies. Now comes Unsane, which employs a completely unique form of filmmaking itself. The entire film was shot basically on an iPhone. That’s not entirely true, because he did use various lens configurations that aren’t exactly standard on the typical cell phone. Still, he used the phone as the actual digital recording device.
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Jack Reacher (UHD Blu-ray) (4K)

Posted in Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on June 26th, 2018

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“Who is Jack Reacher? Born Jack, not John. No middle name. He’s a ghost. Served in the military police. A brilliant investigator, troublemaker, too. And two years ago he disappears. You don’t find this guy unless he wants to be found.”

We’ve found him. The character of Jack Reacher comes from a series of thriller novels written by Lee Child. From the very start you know that this is going to be a different kind of Jack Reacher than fans have come to know and love from the books.
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Pacific Rim: Uprising

Posted in Disc Reviews by Brent Lorentson on June 19th, 2018

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When Pacific Rim first came out, I had a blast with the film. It was the ultimate giant-monster-versus-giant-robot film that my inner ten-year-old has wanted to see for so long. Sure, the film had some dialog issues, but the world that Guillermo del Toro created with the film was so over-the-top and beautiful that the bad dialog was easy to forget. It knew what it was, brainless eye candy, and it delivered in a big way. Now we have the sequel coming out; del Toro is no longer at the helm, and in his place we have Steven S. DeKnight whose previous directorial efforts have been episodes from Daredevil and Dollhouse. Does the sequel hold up? Well, to put it bluntly, not even close.
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Love, Simon (UHD Blu-ray) (4K)

Posted in Disc Reviews by Brent Lorentson on June 17th, 2018

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Despite falling into the “coming of age genre”, Love, Simon is actually so much more than your typical mainstream teenage film. In the 80’s John Hughes ruled the box office with his films, everything from Sixteen Candles, Weird Science, Pretty in Pink and of course The Breakfast Club were the films that spoke to the kids of the era. It’s been a while since a film has come along that has fit into the genre that has managed to handle the awkwardness of being a teenager while also toeing the line of being heartfelt and humorous. Over the years there have been attempts to capture the essence of the 80’s John Hughes films, but these seem to always fail by either going to raunchy or attempting to make the lead characters cool and popular.
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Tomb Raider (2018) (UHD Blu-ray) (4K)

Posted in Disc Reviews by Brent Lorentson on June 14th, 2018

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For some reason, adapting video games into good films has been the nut Hollywood just can’t seem to crack. The Resident Evil series has been successful, but I wouldn’t say it really holds up to the game. Personally, Silent Hill has been the only adaption I’ve really enjoyed, and that film has divided fans as well. As for the Tomb Raider franchise that kicked off in 2001, sure, it had some fun sequences. And with Angelina Jolie becoming a hot commodity at the time, it’s not too much of a surprise that it did well at the box office. Now 17 years later, the time has come for Tomb Raider to get a makeover and work its way through the reboot machine.
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Terminator Genisys (UHD Blu-ray) (4K)

Posted in Disc Reviews by Jeremy Butler on June 13th, 2018

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“A straight line…you just go, and you never…look…back.”

Well, I hope you’re ready to have everything you know about the Terminator franchise turned on its head. As a franchise known for his alternative timelines where the things we come to know are often turned around, my previous statement may sound like the usual bread and butter to you. However, I must say that I feel like the latest incarnation of the franchise, Terminator Genisys, has really outdone itself this time.
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Jurassic Park 25th Anniversary Collection (UHD Blu-ray) (4K)

Posted in Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on May 30th, 2018

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“Welcome to Jurassic Park.”

With those words begin an adventure that started with the legacy of Willis O’Brien’s The Lost World. You see, dinosaur films are nothing new; they have held our childlike fascination since the industry was born. Jurassic Park was, however, something very new when it thundered into our cineplexes and forever into our imaginations 20 years ago. The marriage of brand new CGI technology with Stan Winston’s superbly detailed animatronics models transports you back 65 million years in time.
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Annihilation (UHD Blu-ray) (4K)

Posted in Disc Reviews by Brent Lorentson on May 29th, 2018

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The film is based on a series of books that I had never read, and from what I understand the film takes many liberties with the storyline and characters. As his sophomore effort behind the camera, there were high expectations for what Garland would do, and the result I believe is one of the most divisive films I’ve seen in a while. This is the kind of film that gets me excited for the future of cinema, not just because I loved the film, but I love the conversation it can provoke with other filmgoers.
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Die Hard 30th Anniversary (UHD Blu-ray) (4K)

Posted in Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on May 23rd, 2018

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“Just another American who saw too many movies as a child? Another orphan of a bankrupt culture who thinks he’s John Wayne? Rambo? Marshall Dillon?”

So the great debate rages on. Is Die Hard a Christmas movie or just a movie that happens to be set at Christmastime? Recently Stephen Amell from Arrow told a press group that his favorite Christmas movie was indeed Die Hard. He’s not alone there. I’ve had the debate a few times myself. Unfortunately, I come down on the side that Die Hard is not a Christmas movie. Here’s my criteria.
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Red Sparrow (UHD- Blu-ray) (4K)

Posted in Disc Reviews by Jeremy Butler on May 23rd, 2018

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“Don’t give them all of you, Dominika. Hold something back. That is how you will survive.”

There appears to be nothing Jennifer Lawrence can’t do. She is an Oscar winner, the face of a successful movie franchise, and now she is a Russian spy who specializes in seduction techniques. Now in the looks department, there are scores of men that would gladly hand over their social security number for the opportunity to be seduced by J Law, so her casting was a no-brainer. But she went much deeper than that, showing an unparalleled intellect and natural aptitude for the world of espionage.
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Gladiator (UHD Blu-ray) (4K)

Posted in Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on May 22nd, 2018

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“My name is Maximus Decimus Meridius, commander of the Armies of the North, General of the Felix Legions and loyal servant to the TRUE emperor, Marcus Aurelius. Father to a murdered son, husband to a murdered wife. And I will have my vengeance, in this life or the next.”

After nearly 20 years, it’s hard not to already consider Ridley Scott’s Gladiator a classic. But not in the same way we think of Blade Runner, which has become more of a cult classic, or Alien, which has all the trappings of a genre film, blending horror and science fiction into a nice little package
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The Matrix (UHD Blu-ray) (4K)

Posted in Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on May 22nd, 2018

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The Matrix (1999) was a landmark film in the Sci-Fi genre. While its box office intake was dwarfed by Episode 1, it was The Matrix that had people talking. Andy and Larry Wachowski’s story of a post-apocalyptic world where humans serve as biological generators of energy for the machines that rule the planet challenged people’s perceptions of what reality was. Computer hacker extraordinaire Neo (Reeves) has this gut feeling that life isn’t all that it seems to be. Turns out he’s right in a big way. A group of revolutionaries led by the thought-to-be-mythical Morpheus (Fishburne) open his eyes to the Matrix.
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Braveheart (UHD Blu-ray) (4K)

Posted in Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on May 16th, 2018

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“I shall tell you of William Wallace. Historians from England will say I am a liar, but history is written by those who have hanged heroes. The king of Scotland had died without a son, and the king of England, a cruel pagan known as Edward the Longshanks, claimed the throne of Scotland for himself. Scotland’s nobles fought him, and fought each other, over the crown…”

Mel Gibson had a bit of a rollercoaster life for a while there.
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Fifty Shades Freed (UHD Blu-ray) (4K)

Posted in Disc Reviews by Jeremy Butler on May 8th, 2018

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The world’s most erotic novel series is coming to an end with the release of the final chapter, 50 Shades Freed. Dakota Johnson and Jamie Dornan reprise their roles as Anastasia Steele and Christian Grey, as the pair enters wedded bliss. Their romance has been a whirlwind, going from meeting to marriage in what seems to be less than six months. However, when it’s right, it’s right; besides, it’s rare that you find someone with the same taste, if you know what I mean. Naturally, happily ever after won’t come as easily, as our couple will have to face an old enemy and a new challenge that could threaten to tear the two of them apart.
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Maze Runner: The Death Cure (UHD Blu-ray) (4K)

Posted in Disc Reviews by Jeremy Butler on May 4th, 2018

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For Dylan O’Brien, it just seems like his start just keeps getting bigger and bigger. Going from the awkward best friend on MTV’s Teen Wolf to becoming a leading man on the silver screen, he has shown charm and charisma normally only seen in veterans. Another great way a star distinguishes himself is to get attached to a franchise, something he has done with the Maze Runner trilogy. Of course, Maze Runner: The Death Cure spells the end of that run; given his performance in the film, it does not spell the end to his rise. An entertaining and engaging conclusion to the franchise, Maze Runner: The Death Cure follows former glader turned revolutionary Thomas as he continues his battle against his former employers WCKD,
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The Post (UHD Blu-ray) (4K)

Posted in Disc Reviews by John Delia on April 26th, 2018

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Several movies have been released over the past three decades that defend the press or show the importance of the media to inform the public. This is one of them that for the most part does reveal the inner sanctum of one newspaper as it deals with exposing the government for wrong decisions leading to the death of thousands in the Vietnam War. While the script does reveal the sadness of human life losses that could have been avoided, unfortunately the film uses it to glorify newspapers using old news.
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Suicide Squad: Hell To Pay (UHD Blu-ray) (4K)

Posted in Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on April 13th, 2018

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When David Ayer’s Suicide Squad film was released a couple of years ago, the reviews were certainly mixed. One of the biggest complaints from the diehard fans was that Warner opted for a PG-13 version of the film, which took away much of the edge of the material. One only need look at the success of Deadpool to understand that there is a place for a comic film that pushes envelopes and doesn’t shy away from an R rating. It almost appears that the new Warner/DC animated feature film Suicide Squad: Hell To Pay would attempt to make up for that decision. This may very well be an animated “cartoon” film, but it’s a hard-edged R-rated experience that doesn’t shy away from brutality, blood, and violence.
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The Greatest Showman (UHD Blu-ray) (4K)

Posted in Disc Reviews by John Delia on April 11th, 2018

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by John Delia, Jr.

“Everyone has an act.”

One man’s determination to rise from rags to riches helps find a place for the unwanted few. His strong desire to become someone special and with the ability to convince others to believe in his dream, P.T. Barnum creates history and the circus.
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