Posted in: Disc Reviews by J C on August 3rd, 2017
“My persona's very, like, witty yet narcissistic.”
These self-aware words are spoken by Hannah Horvath, the on-screen alter ego of Girls star/creator Lena Dunham during the premiere of the show's final season. Of course, anyone who's watched Girls knows the “witty yet narcissistic” label applies to practically every character in Dunham's often flawed (and even-more-often brilliant) HBO dramedy. So while this final batch of episodes includes some superb moments, it's not a total surprise that this polarizing series concludes its run with a frustrating finale that is more satisfying for the show's creators than it is for its fans.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Brent Lorentson on July 31st, 2017
Ever since Lionsgate acquired the Vestron Video collection and has been re-releasing these remastered titles, I have to say I’ve been in nostalgia heaven. I remember seeing these VHS boxes in the horror section at my nearby video store and renting many of these to get my weekly horror fix. Waxwork was always a box cover I always appreciated, but one of the most memorable was Warlock, because in the sea of black VHS boxes with gory box art, Warlock was this white box with the mysterious Julian Sands and this menacing shadow in red. I even remember seeing the trailer attached to my VHS copy of The Monster Squad, and I always dug the trailer for the film, but it took forever for me to finally get to see the film. Now jumping ahead two decades later, I’m getting to review this trilogy. I have to say this is the title from the Vestron series I’ve been the most looking forward to.
Director Steve Miner (Friday the 13th 2 & 3) helms the first film in the series from a script by David Twohy, who would go on to create the little sci-fi gem Pitch Black. Despite how the cover art may look for this film, and even though it is about a warlock (Julian Sands) hoping to eradicate all existence, the film really doesn’t play out as a horror film. In many ways the film feels more so like The Terminator or Highlander. Not that this is a bad thing, but the trailers are a bit misleading.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by J C on July 26th, 2017
“I'm done with crazy.”
When it comes to movies about psychotically wronged women, the crazier things get, the better. Unfortunately, the makers of Unforgettable — a dull domestic drama/wannabe thriller — never got the memo. It's a shame because the movie had some of the ingredients to be a deliciously pulpy thriller, including an amusingly unhinged turn from one of its stars. But in the end, this comes off as a Lifetime movie that slipped through the cracks, fell upwards, and was accidentally released in theaters.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on July 14th, 2017
"Freedom has a price. I died 7 years ago. Left behind a brother, a wife, a son, but the dead talk if you listen. They're there with you. Reaching out. Trying to tell us something. Because not all deaths are the same. Some are real. Some are a story. Question is: do you believe the story? Was the man who died who you thought he was? The dead talk. If you listen..."
The same can be said for dead series. Fox has been riding a wave of series revivals that have brought shows back from the dead in a limited-run event series format, and it has actually been doing well for the network. 24 was revived a couple of times. These episodes were used to take us from one lead character into another it was hoped could lead the way for a renewed franchise. While the series worked, the full revival did not. Perhaps the best example of Fox's event series is the six-episode return of The X-Files after so many years. It was a bit inconsistent, and six episodes were too few to tell a real good X-Files story arc. The series will return again with a slightly longer run. The most recent event series at Fox was Prison Break. At nine episodes it turned out to be just the right fit to tell another story of the brothers and their cohorts. It's now available on Blu-ray, and it's worth a look, but only if you have watched the first four seasons of the show's regular run. Otherwise things can get a bit confusing, and some of the nice subtle nods won't really pay off for you at all. But if you're a fan, it's worth the space on your video shelf.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Brent Lorentson on July 5th, 2017
When a film like The Belko Experiment comes along there is a part of me that wonders, how far off is the film from reality? Films like Death Race 2000, The Running Man, The Purge, and Battle Royale have all flirted with the idea of the government using murder as a form of entertainment while also using it as a way to control the public. You look at the violence in the world and how numb we’ve all seemed to have gotten towards violence in the news and our favorite TV shows. I can’t help but wonder, would it be so crazy to see murder on our television screens? Looking back at history and the gladiator times, there was murder for entertainment, where families would cheer on the bloodshed and carnage. So when I look at film like The Belko Experiment, it’s something that frightens me, more so than any creature feature Hollywood can concoct. After all, how well do we really know how governments around the world function? Perhaps a film like this wouldn’t become a reality in the states, but in places like North Korea or Russia or even South America, is it really out of the question for a game like this to go on? In a building with no windows in the middle of nowhere, is it a crime if no one is around to hear the screams? James Gunn (Guardians of the Galaxy) pens a script that takes a harsh look at what people will do to survive under the harshest conditions, and at the helm we have Greg McLean (Wolf Creek) directing the action. Are you ready to take part in the experiment?
In Bogota, Columbia, Mike (John Gallagher Jr.) is heading into work. He works for Belko Industries which has an office building just outside of the city. On this day, it’s evident that it is not like any other normal day at the office. All the locals at the office have been sent home for the day due to a security threat to the building. All that remain at the office are its 80 American employees that are all led by Barry Norris (Tony Goldwyn). We spend a little time getting to know the employees, Wendell (John C. McGinley) who seems to have an innocent crush or is possibly stalking Adria (Leandra Florez) who is Mike’s girlfriend. There is the new girl at the office, Melonie (Dany Wilkins) and there are also a few familiar faces like Michael Rooker, who plays a maintenance worker in the building, and Sean Gunn, who is the paranoid pot smoker Marty. As you watch the film, there are plenty of faces that look familiar, and that is one of the immediate impressive things about the film: how great the cast is. Sometimes you don’t need A-listers to be a hit; you just need to fill it with the right talent. What works with the casting as well is how believable everyone is in the part. This is one of the first times in a while where an ensemble cast was put together and I could believe everyone fit the part. Whether you’ve worked in an office environment or just in a business with a variety of personalities, right from the get go you can identify with this group, and that is what is so crucial here, because when tough decisions come up and people are about to die, the decisions matter, and several of the kills and darker moments in the film are a punch to the gut.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on July 3rd, 2017
"What have you been up to in your little zoo?"
It appears that we have been due for one of those untold stories amid the many tales of courage and bravery both fact and fiction, real and imagined, that have been told of the World War II era. There have been plenty of the battlefield hero films that include last year's exceptional Hacksaw Ridge from Mel Gibson. Then there are the quiet and unlikely heroes. These are people who did incredible things that were often unknown during the war and often even after it was all over. Schindler's List has become the gold standard for these kinds of emotional war movies. The Zookeeper's Wife is set in the mold of that kind of a film, telling essentially that very kind of tale. Here the action begins with the invasion of Poland, which was the spark that ignited a local territorial conflict into a global event. It is here at the moment of that spark we find Antonina Zabinski, played by Jessica Chastain, who used her small local zoo to save nearly 300 Jews from the Nazi extermination machine, failing with only two souls during the entire war. This is that untold story which most of you will discover for the first time.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Brent Lorentson on June 30th, 2017
From the vaults of Vestron Video has unleashed The Unholy for horror fans to indulge in for the first time on Blu-ray. Growing up and going to a Catholic school, films like The Exorcist and The Unholy managed to be all the more terrifying to me because the prospect of demons coming from hell was thought to be a possibility. Sure, Freddy and Jason could get the young me nervous at night, but what films like The Unholy presented were the kind of thoughts that had me afraid to keep the lights off at night. But does the film hold up decades later? That’s a tough call, but with the new digitally restored version of the film now hitting the shelves, it’s worth grabbing a little holy water and checking out.
Father Michael (Ben Cross) is simply your typical priest and is called out to a location where a man threatening to jump from a balcony is requesting to speak with the priest. Meeting with the man on the ledge, Father Michael seems to feel he’s gotten through to the suicidal man, and through a bizarre incident, Father Michael is pulled from the safety of the room through a window and falls to what should have been certain death. Yet by a miracle or simple luck, the priest manages to survive nearly unscathed, and the members of the church begin to believe he is special, “the chosen one,” and in the process he is placed in charge of his own parish.
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 J C on June 21st, 2017
“We should not be fighting for segregation, we should be fighting for equality.”
That’s the sort of rousing statement any random politician on the campaign trail might use to rile up a crowd of supporters at a pep rally. And even though those words are spoken here by a man in the midst of heavy political turmoil, the beauty of A United Kingdom — a straightforward but nevertheless impactful fact-based drama about forbidden love — is that they are actually born out of an intensely personal conflict.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on June 21st, 2017
"Going on down to South Park and meet some friends of mine."
After 20 years or more, they really do feel like friends. I've known Cartman, Stan, Kyle, and Kenny longer than most real people in my life. Only the Simpsons have been around longer these days. Over those years, South Park has always been a series of stories that rarely connect with each other in any significant way. There have been multi-part episodes, and certain experiences have come back up over the years. Still, we're talking about a universe where killing Kenny had become a running joke and happened pretty much in every episode. Those days are gone, and it's been a while since Kenny met his demise, and now South Park has joined the ranks of the continuing story season. It started a bit last season and has now grown into a full-season story arc with continuing threads from Season 19. I do believe that's one of the signs of the Apocalypse. I'm just sayin'.
