Posted in: Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on September 5th, 2012
“Ride into this world all alone. God takes your soul. You're on your own.
The crow flies straight, a perfect line on the devil's back until you die.
Gotta look this life in the eye”.
If you've already read previous reviews, skip ahead to find out what's new this season. When these guys send a message, they don’t use Western Union. Not only will they blow up your warehouse, but they’ll catch one of your guys and plant a stick of dynamite in his butt cheeks to set off the explosion. That’s the world of the motorcycle club, the Sons Of Anarchy. In the wake of The Shield, FX stays true to form with the latest from that show’s alumni Kurt Sutter. Sons Of Anarchy has a familiar tone and quality to it for fans of that now-gone cop drama. There’s a lot of handheld camera stuff, and you have very similar themes.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on September 5th, 2012
"There is a town in Maine, where every storybook character you've ever known is trapped between two worlds, victims of a powerful curse. Only one knows the truth, and only one can break her spell."
ABC has had a very important asset going for it for years. It's one that the network has seldom taken any advantage of. That asset is its parent company. You see, ABC is part of the Walt Disney family. With the rich history of stories the studio has in its arsenal going back to the 1920's, it was only a matter of time before some clever people decided to find a way to use that rich history in a television series. That time has arrived and the result is Once Upon A Time. It's the most clever and original series to hit the tube in a long time.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Brent Lorentson on September 4th, 2012
Before watching this Blu-ray my knowledge of Staind consisted of only what I’ve heard in passing on the radio. I wouldn’t call myself a fan or go so far as to say I dislike them, I simply view (or hear) them as something to fill the void when the radio is on. Where I did grow a bit of an appreciation for the band was in an interview that’s included on the disc that turned out to be more insightful than the standard fluff piece you may expect.
But I’m getting ahead of myself.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by M. W. Phillips on September 4th, 2012
“Money, right yeah it matters, but it’s one piece of the puzzle. Let me tell you something. Sometimes who you are doing business with is a lot more important than the business that you are doing.”
When How to Make It in America season two begins, Ben (Bryan Greenberg) and his best friend, Cam (Victor Rasuk) return from their business trip to Japan after spending their new-found cash on a load of “Japanese soft cotton” hoodies they intend to silk screen with their new Crisp fashion label and find a way to mass distribute. Ben’s ex-girlfriend Rachel (Lake Bell), now unemployed, hits the job market and scores a gig with an uptight home improvement magazine. Thug with a heart, Rene (Luis Guzmán), continues his rocky road to legitimacy, enjoying the new-found success of his Rasta Monster energy drink while struggling to please his skeptical girlfriend Debbie (Andrea Navedo).
Posted in: Disc Reviews by J C on September 3rd, 2012
"A military mystery that lasted 2,000 years."
White Vengeance assumes a certain level of knowledge about ancient Chinese history that, except for all you ancient Chinese history scholars reading this review, most of us don’t have. As a result, the film’s disorienting opening act had me constantly backtracking to figure out who was who, and why they were betraying or trying to assassinate each other. In other words, I started to feel like getting to the end of this ambitious movie might take a little under 2,000 years.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Bob Ross on August 31st, 2012
I never really meant to have 3D TV in my home theater. But our Sony Blu-ray player was 3D-ready, and the receiver and monitor both needed warranty replacement about the same time. Bingo: All I needed were a couple pairs of glasses ($40 each at Amazon) and some 3D programming. Having seen almost every 3D big-screen release already, I was pretty sure the TV version would be an inferior format. I was wrong. The electronic-shutter glasses beat the heck out of those old red-and-green gimmicky glasses. They work as well as the polarized lenses at the multiplex.
To me, 3D television is sort of like a talking dog: It doesn’t matter what the pooch says, the miracle is that he can speak at all. My Internet hookup provides two 3D channels but they are mainly short demo reels and trailers for films and video games. So now my DVD and Blu-ray collections are joined by a much smaller shelf of 3D Blu-rays. It includes a very view features (A Very Harold and Kumar 3D Christmas is an absolute hoot) and several documentaries, mainly travelogues from the IMAX catalog.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on August 31st, 2012
Anyone who has watched enough of the SyFy original movies has a pretty good idea of what they're getting. The network has made a bit of a name for itself with low-budget to no-budget monster movies. Most of the creatures are mutant and large and appear like they escaped from a bad 1950's drive-in theater. The computer generated stuff usually looks like a kid drew it up on their pocket computer, and the cast is going to be made up of unknowns with a few known names to give the whole thing some street cred. The movies are usually good for a few laughs; some of them might even be intentional. It's all usually harmless fun. But, after watching Jersey Shore Shark Attack I believe that Steven Spielberg must be rolling over in his grave. He's still alive, you say? Wait until he catches this movie on his Tivo. In fact, if he's got it on his Netflix queue, I'm taking Steve in the next dead pool that comes out. Unfairly harsh? A bit too critical? See for yourself, I dare you. I double dog dare you.
The movie is a combination of Jaws meets Jersey Shore meets The Sopranos. And in case you didn't get it yourself, the cast includes Jersey Shore's Vinny Guadagnino in a cameo as a television reporter and The Sopranos’ own Paulie "Walnuts" Tony Sirico in what is basically an extended cameo as a beach club owner.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by J C on August 30th, 2012
It’s impossible for me to discuss what I feel didn’t work in Touchback without talking about the movie’s big plot twist. I’m not even sure it’s accurate to refer to it as a “twist” since it comes in the first half hour and is an essential component of the film. On the other hand, the movie’s official plot description is intentionally vague — for the record, the film’s trailer is considerably more forthcoming — and seems designed to conceal a major part of the story. Having considered all that, I’m only issuing a Mild Spoiler Alert.
Touchback is the story of former high school football hero Scott Murphy (Brian Presley), who led his tiny Coldwater High School team to a state championship in 1991. Unfortunately, Scott shattered his leg when he scored the game-winning touchdown, derailing his collegiate and professional football dreams. Twenty years later, he’s a broken man in more ways than one. He has become a disheveled, bitter soybean farmer who is married to Macy (Melanie Lynskey), the compassionate girl who fell in love with him after his injury, and is jealous of Chris (Marc Blucas), his wildly successful former teammate.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on August 30th, 2012
George Romero created the modern zombie movie in 1968 with his low-budget masterpiece The Night Of The Living Dead. While we can debate the direction the genre has gone in the last 40 years, it's hard to argue that Romero defined the rules of the game with that first film and the series that followed. And while zombies have been populating the comic scene since the early days of Creepy and Eerie, it took the likes of Robert Kirkman and Tony Moore to give us a compelling interpretation of the Romero zombie in the form of a comic book series. That vision is the foundation for the first effort to populate a television series with zombies as the ongoing antagonists. It took American Movie Classics to have the vision to allow this creative team to dream big and put it all on our television screens on a weekly basis.
The first thing you should know about The Walking Dead is that it's unlike any television series you have ever seen before. The images here are intense, and the crew has been given a blank check to create this vision without the burden of censors looking over their shoulders. There are plenty of blood-and-gore effects that rival any of the Hollywood zombie films you've seen in the last few years. The makeup effects are handled by the very capable hands of KNB and supervised personally by Greg Nicotero (the N from KNB). KNB isn't treating this like a television production, and while I personally get tired of the cliché about making a movie each week, this one lives up to the hype. They aren't doing anything different here than they would do for a big-budget film. The zombies look incredible, and the effects are completely first-rate.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by M. W. Phillips on August 29th, 2012
“We decided to tour round Serbia. We’ll go to villages. It will be interesting to see farmers’ reactions to our sexual provocations. Sexual education for Serbs. Widening the horizons. This is our guerilla mission.”
I like to think I am not a prude. My taste in film runs to the controversial, and I don’t shy away from extreme cinema. I think Salò, or the 120 Days of Sodom and Caligula are masterpieces; A Serbian Film impressed and affected me, although I have no intention of watching it again. Even the brief inserts of hardcore porn in “mainstream” movies like Shortbus, Antichrist, Brown Bunny or the previously mentioned Caligula don’t offend me, but I must admit I found The Life and Death of a Porno Gang unpleasant and soulless.
