Posted in: Disc Reviews by Brent Lorentson on December 17th, 2020
When I first saw The Strangers, I have to admit I was pleasantly surprised by how much that movie stuck with me. Sure, there have been plenty of home invasion flicks over the years, but The Strangers is definitely right up there with the best like Funny Games and Inside. Writer and director Bryan Bertino is one of modern horror’s underappreciated creators. He is so good at keeping things simple, utilizing small casts and single settings, and keeping the horror relatively grounded in reality. With The Dark and The Wicked, he gives us his best work to date, and for me one of the best horror films in years. Personally, this is my favorite new horror release since 2016’s The Autopsy of Jane Doe. I’m sure plenty of people will disagree with me, and for as much love as I have for Hereditary, what The Dark and The Wicked did that honestly very few horror films manage to do is genuinely get under my skin. This movie actually creeped me out, and it didn’t use big gory FX or go for cheap jump scares. This literally is a master class in creating tension and delivering a story to audiences that starts off in familiar territory but takes us in new and fresh directions.
“You shouldn’t have come here.”
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on December 17th, 2020
"Chances are if you are watching Season 3 you like it."
Kevin Costner plays John Dutton. The name itself recalls those years as a kid watching the myriad western shows that crossed our television screens throughout the 50's and 60's. He's the owner of Yellowstone Ranch, which takes up hundreds of square miles and borders on the national park of the same name, which we never do get to see. What we do see are the other borders of the Yellowstone. It borders a large and mostly impoverished Native American reservation. The ranch has apparently existed with an uneasy peace with the residents of the reservation. But there is a new chief in town. He's Thomas Rainwater, played by Gil Birmingham. Rainwater has some kind of a grudge that we never got to completely understand in the first season. He's a political beast who has turned Dutton and his ranch into a common enemy to fuel his own popularity and ambition.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Brent Lorentson on December 12th, 2020
When you check out the poster and Blu-ray cover art for this film, you could easily think that this was yet another cheesy teen romance, but the film is something else entirely. There is a bit of teenage romance in the film, but mostly the focus is on the mental health of the film’s protagonist, Adam (Charlie Plummer) and his struggles with schizophrenia. It’s a heavy topic, and somehow the film manages to tackle the topic in an honest way without being overly depressing. This was challenging material, especially when your target audience is under the age of 18, and during the time of COVID, it’s a bold move for a studio to put out a film with this kind of heavy subject matter. I didn’t expect to like this film, if I’m being honest, and I’ll happily admit that the film surprised me. That doesn’t mean that the film doesn’t come with its share of problems, but are they enough to discourage someone from checking out this film?
The story is told to us by its protagonist Adam in a way where it seems as though he’s talking to his therapist, but we never see this person, so it may have been better if he were just speaking to the audience, since the perspective has him talking to the camera in a medium shot during these sequences. He introduces us to his condition, and we see the situation unfold that had him removed from his school, basically an accident during class that resulted in his friend getting a bad burn. This should have been a tragic and traumatic scene, but it comes off a bit silly when we see one of the personalities he sees, the bodyguard, go and fight a bad CGI black whirlwind that creates the chaos in the classroom. It’s early on with this scene and every scene involving this “dark cloud” where I feel director Thor Freudenthal was the wrong choice for this project. Sure, he may have experience and success with doing family films like Diary of a Wimpy Kid, but this film needed to be a tad darker in tone and, well, the ending of this film is just absurd and basically craps over all the realness most of the film presents.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on December 11th, 2020
"Our true enemy has yet to reveal himself."
If anything, the third part of the Godfather series of films is symbolic of when too many sequels are greenlighted, and consequently, the film is doomed to fail. More often than not, the reason why these films crash and burn is because of major studios acting like Adelphia executives and wanting more money, and in using the previous films’ successes as leverage, they lose sight of things like quality. It’s happened to other trilogies. And if you put together previous films with the reputation that the first two Godfather films have, the only question left to answer is whether or not the third film would be a minor or major letdown. Most of the essential players returned, with the exception of Robert Duvall. (Duvall said Francis Ford Coppola never really negotiated with him, while Coppola says that Duvall asked for more money, so who knows?) Mario Puzo helped out with another part of the story, so why did this film not live up to the hype?
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Brent Lorentson on November 27th, 2020
It was over twenty years ago when The Haunting came out. I remember actually looking forward to this movie, mostly because of its director Jan De Bont, who was responsible for the 90’s summer blockbusters Speed (1994) and Twister (1996). For the record, I choose to pretend that Speed 2: Cruise Control never happened, because let’s face it, that was simply one of the worst films I’ve ever seen. To De Bont’s credit, he’s also the cinematographer of some pretty great films as well; Die Hard, Flatliners (the good one), and Basic Instinct, to name a few. Now another thing that had me excited was where CGI was at the time. The Frighteners had come out in 1996, The special effects in that film were great and they hold up to this day, so really, with a bigger budget, a solid director and cast, this film should have just been amazing. The result ended up being a film that shows what happens when you rely too heavily on CGI for scares rather than crafting good old-fashioned suspense with atmosphere and story.
The 1999 film is based off the book by Shirley Jackson. Sadly it would take nearly two decades more for the superior Netflix adaption of The Haunting of Hill House to release. While the 1999 version may be closer to the book, what is ironic is that it’s about a paranormal study on fear, yet there is nothing terrifying or scary about this film. The film follows so many typical haunted house tropes that even Ray Charles would see these “scares” coming.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on November 24th, 2020
Eddie Murphy has a ton of films under his belt. If you’re like most folks, his antics have long ago become tired and worn out. Come with me now to a time when Murphy was young and full of energy. Trading Places was really only Murphy’s second film after 48 hours. In Trading Places, we get vintage Eddie Murphy. You can tell he was still hungry. Today he simply calls too many performances in. Dan Aykroyd was also at a turning point in his own career. It hadn’t been too long since he lost his longtime partner Jim Belushi to a drug overdose. He was just learning to stand on his own. Put these two guys together today, and there’s not much chance you’d get the solid gold that was possible in 1983. Fortunately for us, there is this HD release of Trading Places, when both actors still felt they had something to prove. The cast was brilliant all the way around. Jamie Lee Curtis displayed her obvious assets for the first time in a film. Known mostly as a scream queen at that time, Curtis was a choice the studio was not at all happy with. The Wolf Man’s own Ralph Bellamy, along with fellow veteran actor Don Amechi, played the Duke brothers to perfection. Finally, Denholm Eliott added his own understated brilliance as Coleman, the butler.
Trading Places was originally written as a vehicle for Gene Wilder and Richard Pryor. That team had had great success with a few films already, and it was felt they were the only ones capable of pulling off this kind of a film. I’m not sure how that might have worked. Certainly it still might have been a funny outing, but somehow I think everything worked out for the best. Trading Places broke many conventions of the time. The black and white stereotypes were a concern, as were other elements. Having a hooker play such a pivotal role was questioned. The studio even expressed some problems with the fate of Mr. Beaks. A little gorilla love went a long way toward the poetic justice these kinds of villains often require. John Landis stood his ground the entire time, refusing to budge. Remove any of these elements, and who knows what we might have ended up with.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on November 21st, 2020
"Things are about to get dangerous."
Keep your hands and feet inside the ride vehicle at all times. At some point in his life, Michael Crichton must have had a really bad experience at Disney World. Maybe he got stuck on a ride, or a ghost followed him home from the Haunted Mansion. Whatever his reasons, the man sure had it in for the amusement park industry. He's created two iconic franchises from the "way out" amusement park idea. His novel Jurassic Park incited all of our imaginations, not the least of which was Steven Spielberg's. That amusement park brought back living and breathing dinosaurs who would entertain park attendees, that is when they weren't eating said attendees. But long before that came his screenplay for the 1973 film starring Yul Brenner and James Brolin called Westworld. It was another future amusement park. This time androids were created to serve out an attendee's darkest fantasies. It was a kind of Fantasy Island meets The Stepford Wives. You could go to Westworld and live out your wild west fantasy. You can shoot it out with outlaws or become an outlaw yourself. You could kill at random and be perfectly safe from the carefully programmed androids that populated this version of the wild west. Of course, just like Jurassic Park, things go wrong. The androids begin to rebel, and the vacationers become the hunted. Three years later came a sequel with Yul Brenner returning along with Peter Fonda in Futureworld. It's been over 40 years, but Westworld has come back, and it's come back big. HBO has now completed three seasons of the series, and things keep getting better.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Jeremy Butler on November 11th, 2020
"And so it began. 30,000 years ago, man discovered his best friend. Dogs were man's best friend and only animal companion for the next 15,000 years. And then cats came into the house, y'all. For the next 15,000 years cats and dogs fought each other, hissing and barking and breaking things along the way. With the emergence of technology, harmless skirmishes grew into diabolical plots as cats and dogs tried to eliminate each other as humans’ companion. Eventually humans grew tired, so dogs and cats had to do something if they wanted to stay the number 1 and number 2 animals in the human household. Cat and dog leaders worked together to stop these plots and formed an organization called The Furry Animals Rivalry Termination... The last decade has been the most peaceful in centuries."
This movie is proof positive that Hollywood refuses to let a franchise die. I wasn’t really fond of the original film in the franchise, and I completely ignored its sequel; however, this standalone sequel managed to be mildly entertaining. Granted, it is extremely over-the-top. To the point that it borders on the ridiculous with some of its antics. Like a parrot driving an ice cream truck. Still, I had to remember that I was not the demographic that the film was designed for. This is where I rely on my trusty daughter to help me give these movies a fair shake. Her exact words were, “Is it over yet?” I think that pretty much sums up how she felt about the film. It’s ironic; the movies that I don’t mind so much are the ones that she really doesn’t vibe with. And the movies that she tends to be intrigued by, for me it’s like my eyes are bleeding. I begin to realize how different my daughter and I are.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Brent Lorentson on October 8th, 2020
I always get a little worried when I’m handed a low-budget western. Despite it being one of my favorite genres, I’m just quickly turned off by a film when it visually doesn’t look authentic. I like my westerns dirty and rugged, so when I see characters in costumes that look too clean as though they were just pulled from the rack, it’s a giant pet peeve. What had me intrigued with the film was the involvement of Joe R. Lansdale, who happens to be one of my favorite writers, and he somewhat specializes in the “weird” western genre. Bubba Ho-Tep or The Hap and Leonard series are what most would be familiar with from Lansdale. He may not have the name strength that Stephen King carries, but I’ve come to expect a good time from Lansdale. Granted The Pale Door only has Joe R. Lansdale attached as a producer, though his son was involved at some point with the writing of the script, so is that enough to make this film worth a watch, or is it a disappointment?
Right from the start I just want to say this film gets off to a bad start. I know it’s setting up the relationship between the brothers in the film, but the first 15 or so minutes of this film should have been left on the cutting room floor. In my opinion the film could start right up when the Dalton Gang is robbing the train and the film would have been stronger for it. As for the train robbing sequence, I’m glad the filmmakers openly admit they are “ripping off” the train sequence from The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford. If you are going to rip off a sequence, it’s better when you steal from the best. If you haven’t seen the film, you at least should watch it for the train sequence alone…but keep watching because it’s simply a beautifully shot and well crafted western. Sure, the film is shot on a budget, but I appreciate the effort put into this sequence, and in the commentary the filmmakers reveal this wasn’t even what had been intended in the script, and for what they manage to get with the final product, well, good for them.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on October 3rd, 2020
"You had me worried at first. A new Starman? That'd be big trouble. A real game changer. Imagine my relief. No Starman. Just a silly little Stargirl."
The original Starman was created by Gardner Fox and Jack Burnley back in 1941. Since that time there have been quite a few DC characters that have taken on the mantle of Starman. When DC executive and veteran comics writer/creator was asked to do a series on one of Starman's sidekicks, Pat Dugan and his eventual comic Stars And S.T.R.I.P.E., he was given a directive that he could not use the iconic S.T.R.I.P.E. armor, and that just would have made the series so much weaker. Instead he counter-pitched an idea from the same era of the comics. He pitched the idea of a new Stargirl who would be somewhat based and named after his daughter Courtney, who was tragically killed in a plane crash when she was just 18 years old. He wanted to do something to represent the spirit of his daughter, and the pitch also allowed for the Pat Dugan character to appear without the famous armor. The idea was accepted, and the latest member of the DC television Arrowverse was born. Enter Courtney Whitmore, played by Brec Bassinger in Stargirl. Warner Brothers delivers that first season in a new Blu-ray release of Stargirl: The Complete First Season.
