collectorz.com.jpg

AVC MPEG4

The Package (Blu-ray)

Posted in Disc Reviews by Brent Lorentson on February 28th, 2013

Buy at Amazon.com

When an action title comes along and you see the name Steve Austin headlining it, the expectation level shouldn’t be too high (unless, of course, you’re an obsessed fan of Stone Cold). I’ve seen more than my fair share of straight-to-video action films, so it takes a lot to deter me from giving a film a chance, and when it also gives Dolph Lundgren billing, well, the film becomes hard to resist. Tommy Wick (Austin) does work for a crime family to help work off the debt of his brother, who is currently serving time in the state penitentiary.
Read More

Seeds of Destruction (Blu-ray)

Posted in Disc Reviews by Jeremy Butler on February 25th, 2013

Buy at Amazon.com

“God never would have intended this.”

Has anyone ever noticed the pairings that tend to occur in disaster films? A lone scientist with an expertise in a particular field of study partners with a lone government agent or soldier to prevent a cataclysmic event that will result in the destruction of mankind, whether the disaster is manmade or an act of fate. This was in the case in Godzilla (American version), Independence Day (there may be some controversy on whether this qualifies but you must admit that the main focus was on Smith and Goldblum), miniseries Asteroid, and now it would seem Seeds of Destruction.
Read More

The Master (Blu-ray)

Posted in Disc Reviews by J C on February 24th, 2013

Buy at Amazon.com

“If the average civilian had been through the same stresses that you have been through, undoubtedly they too would have developed the same nervous conditions.”

The first time I saw The Master, I really didn’t like it. It was a terrible feeling. I’m a huge Paul Thomas Anderson fan, and Boogie Nights is one of my 10 favorite films of all time. So I walked into that theater excited to see what was being called a landmark achievement: the “Scientology movie” that wasn’t really about Scientology (but actually kinda was) helmed by one of the most talented directors working today.
Read More

Argo (Blu-ray)

Posted in Disc Reviews by Brent Lorentson on February 23rd, 2013

Buy at Amazon.com

Ever since Ben Affleck stepped behind the camera and took on the role of director, I’ve found myself not only becoming a fan of his work but believing the man has greatness ahead of him. When I first watched Gone Baby Gone, I was more than a little impressed; after all, it was his first time at the helm. But then Affleck released his follow-up film, The Town, and it blew me away. Sure, there were some great movies that came out that year, but the fact that it didn’t make the list of best picture nominees I just can’t understand.
Read More

Deadfall (Blu-ray)

Posted in Disc Reviews by J C on February 22nd, 2013

Buy at Amazon.com

And you thought Thanksgiving dinner with your family was tense. For most of us, it doesn’t get much worse than critical parents, competitive siblings or that weird side dish no one really wants to try. (There always seems to be about a gallon of that stuff too.) Consider yourself lucky: unlike the poor souls in Deadfall, you’ve probably never been chained to the dinner table — not literally, at least — nor had a psychotic Eric Bana point a gun at your face.
Read More

Skyfall (Blu-ray)

Posted in Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on February 20th, 2013

Buy at Amazon.com

“Were you expecting an exploding pen? We don’t really go in for that sort of thing anymore.”

It was 1962, and Ursula Andress emerged from the tropical island surf sporting a provocative swimsuit, and a tradition was born. The seductive scene would become the first iconic image in a line that has lasted a half a century and counting. Fifty years; 23 movies makes it the longest-running film franchise in motion picture history. He had many faces over those 50 years: Sean Connery, Roger Moore, Timothy Dalton, Pierce Brosnan, George Lazenby, and even David Niven, Peter Sellers and Woody Allen in a 1967 spoof. For the last three films he’s been played by Daniel Craig.
Read More

Game of Thrones: The Complete Second Season (Blu-ray)

Posted in Disc Reviews by J C on February 19th, 2013

Buy at Amazon.com

“There’s a king in every corner now.”

Game of Thrones is definitely one of the best shows on TV right now, and it might be the most ambitious television series ever produced. Ambition and quality don’t always go hand in hand. (See, Cloud Atlas. No, seriously…watch it. I’m one of the people who really enjoyed that convoluted mess.) The second season of Game of Thrones — a massive undertaking that took its cast to Iceland and Croatia, in addition to its Belfast base — performed a minor miracle. It deepened, expanded and improved upon an already excellent show.
Read More

Undefeated (Blu-ray)

Posted in Disc Reviews by J C on February 17th, 2013

Buy at Amazon.com

“You think football builds character? It does not; football reveals character.”

The open secret about sports movies is that they’re not really about sports. Most of the great ones use the games people play as a dynamic arena to tell universal stories about struggle, underdogs overcoming impossible odds, greatness and redemption. You don’t have to know a nose guard from a mouth guard to enjoy a football movie. By that same token, Undefeated may chronicle a grueling real-life high school football season, but I wasn’t surprised to see it play out like a lot of fictional sports flicks.
Read More

Mimesis (Blu-ray)

Posted in Disc Reviews by Jeremy Butler on February 15th, 2013

Buy at Amazon.com

“What’s the matter? Don’t you like role-playing?”

I was on the verge of writing this film off as another zombie flick hoping to capture on the popularity brought about by the AMC series The Walking Dead, but then….BAM! It brought forth a plot twist that veered it away from all other zombie movies and grabbed my attention. It was no longer a zombie film; it was much more interesting.
Read More

Bully (Blu-ray)

Posted in Disc Reviews by J C on February 12th, 2013

Buy at Amazon.com

The image of what a bully looks and sounds like has changed drastically in recent years. When you and I were growing up, a “bully” was probably someone who looked like this and demanded your lunch money. Mean Girls came out less than 10 years ago; but if Tina Fey were trying to get the exact same movie made today, she’d probably have to deal with notes from a nervous studio exec worried that the Burn Book would drive one of the characters to suicide.
Read More

Pig – 1334 (Blu-ray)

Posted in Disc Reviews by J C on February 9th, 2013

Buy at Amazon.com

I didn’t know what to make of this Pig/1334 double bill when I took it on as my latest assignment. All I had to go on were the aggressively grotesque images on the Blu-ray case. I wasn’t yet familiar with the work of Dutch filmmaker Nico B. or former Christian Death frontman Rozz Williams. I did a bit of research, mostly because I wanted to make sure I wasn’t being handed a real-life version of the videotape from The Ring. (Surely, there would be a less drastic way of informing me my services were no longer required on this site.) What I uncovered instead was an intriguing and haunting back story.
Read More

To Rome with Love (Blu-ray)

Posted in Disc Reviews by J C on February 7th, 2013

Buy at Amazon.com

You don’t usually get too many legendary (and wildly polarizing) filmmakers coming off the biggest hit of their careers — unadjusted for inflation, of course — at age 77. Yet that’s exactly where Woody Allen found himself with To Rome with Love, his pleasant, witty, not-at-all-groundbreaking follow-up to Midnight in Paris. The writer-director originally named this film The Bop Decameron before changing it to Nero Fiddled. I’m guessing somebody (smartly) figured the suddenly buzzworthy director’s next film should have a less esoteric title; and if there was a way to incorporate a European city into the name, even better.
Read More

Peter Pan (Blu-ray)

Posted in Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on February 6th, 2013

Buy at Amazon.com

“All this has happened before and will all happen again. But this time it happened in London. It happened on a quiet street in Bloomsbury. That corner house is the house of the Darling family, and Peter Pan chose this particular house because these were people who believed in him…”

In 1953 with a little help from some Walt Disney magic, generations of children, and adults, of course, would learn to believe in the boy who never grew up
Read More

Flight (Blu-ray)

Posted in Disc Reviews by J C on February 6th, 2013

Buy at Amazon.com

Can a scumbag also be considered a hero? Lance Armstrong fans probably mull that question each time a new, unsavory revelation about the now-disgraced cyclist comes to light. The issue was addressed in 1992’s Hero, which starred Dustin Hoffman as a low-life who saves a group of passengers on a crashed airplane. Flight also takes to the not-so-friendly skies to examine whether it’s possible to reconcile a lifetime of destructive behavior with an extraordinary act of valor.
Read More

That Obscure Object of Desire (Blu-ray)

Posted in Disc Reviews by J C on February 3rd, 2013

Buy at Amazon.com

“I’ve changed a lot. I’m not the same woman.”

Early on in Luis Buñuel’s surrealist gem, a mild-mannered older gentleman named Mathieu douses a beautiful, battered woman with a bucket of water as she desperately attempts to board the train he’s riding. His fellow passengers are stunned, but also understandably intrigued. What possible sequence of events could’ve led Mathieu to this cold and cartoonish gesture? It’s an irresistible hook, and Mathieu proceeds to regale the other travelers —
Read More

The Duellists (Blu-ray)

Posted in Disc Reviews by J C on January 31st, 2013

Buy at Amazon.com

No matter how much you hated Prometheus — parts of it were startlingly dumb, but people who seriously talk about it like it’s the worst film of all time need to take a deep breath — Ridley Scott has a pretty strong case to be included on any list of Top 10 Living Directors. His work has helped redefine genres (Alien, Blade Runner, Gladiator) given us indelible images (that final still from Thelma & Louise) and even provided a few smaller-scale delights (Matchstick Men is my favorite of this group). So I’m proposing we take a quick break from trashing his last movie to discuss his very first one.
Read More

All Superheroes Must Die (Blu-ray)

Posted in Disc Reviews by Jeremy Butler on January 30th, 2013

Buy at Amazon.com

How exactly do you make a superhero movie without the powers? Answer: Have them wake up with their powers being stripped from them. All Superheroes Must Die is a superhero tale that from the title you can tell is fated not to end in the traditional way that superhero films end: with the righteous prospering and the wicked suffering. What the film title doesn’t let you know, however, is how underwhelming the film is. It does have an interesting startup, I’ll give it that.
Read More

Paranormal Activity 4 (Blu-ray)

Posted in Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on January 28th, 2013

Buy at Amazon.com

Here’s the thing. Fans of the franchise should be pleased with the latest entry. The series has been a solid October tradition for some time now. When you consider the low cost of creating one of these films with the proven box office numbers, this was all really a no-brainer, to say the least. You’re going to get more of what you are expecting, and the film throws in enough new angles and tricks to keep the idea as fresh as possible. However, there is a flip-side to all of this. I don’t think it’s very likely that you can enjoy this film quite so fully if you have not seen any of the previous films.
Read More

Taken 2 (Blu-ray)

Posted in Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on January 25th, 2013

Buy at Amazon.com

We’ve seen action films like Taken enough times that we’ve become a little immune to the formula. But then again, Liam Neeson wasn’t your typical action figure, and so the movie was able to take audiences by surprise. It’s not that Neeson hadn’t already established himself as a fine actor. He just didn’t fit the mold we are so used to seeing. Things have changed in the couple of years since Taken had its box office run. Neeson has now done more action films, and he’s started to look more the part.
Read More

Officer Down (Blu-ray)

Posted in Disc Reviews by J C on January 24th, 2013

Buy at Amazon.com

I see an Oscar nominee, an Emmy nominee, an actor who has carried two successful TV shows, and the bad guy from the highest-grossing movie of all time. In other words, I see more talent than you would ordinarily expect from a straight-to-DVD drama. Then again, I also see Soulja Boy, but he’s not the problem. Instead, Officer Down squanders a few fine performances and a solid premise due to some seriously (and unnecessarily) muddled storytelling.
Read More

The Possession (Blu-ray)

Posted in Disc Reviews by Brent Lorentson on January 23rd, 2013

Buy at Amazon.com

Anytime a horror film is released with a religious element, I can’t help but be a little interested. The film that first won me over for this sub-genre was, of course, The Exorcist, and ever since seeing that film I keep hoping that one day a film will hold up to it in quality, but it seems I’ll be waiting a while. That’s not to say there haven’t been some good films to come out along the way. The Possession is one of those valiant attempts that brings something fresh to the genre but never quite reaches its full potential.
Read More

Love Me (Blu-ray)

Posted in Disc Reviews by Jonathan Foster on January 23rd, 2013

Buy at Amazon.com

When I first received Love Me, I thought it was going to be just another angsty teen drama. (Something along the lines of Dawson’s Creek.) That notion was quickly disabused, however, when a young girl is stalked and attacked in the opening scene. From there, the film jumps ahead three months, with the town still reeling from her disappearance. While discussing how eerie the case is with her friends, Sylvia Potter (Lindsay Shaw, TV’s Pretty Little Liars) quite literally bumps into rich pretty boy Lucas Green (Jamie Johnston, TV’s Degrassi: The Next Generation) and falls for him instantly.
Read More

Compliance (Blu-ray)

Posted in Disc Reviews by J C on January 20th, 2013

Buy at Amazon.com

If Compliance weren’t based on true events, the film’s plot would immediately be dismissed as implausible and insulting of its audience’s intelligence. (Same with Argo.) As the story of an incredibly committed prank caller and his unwitting prey progresses, there’s a pretty good chance you’ll repeatedly roll your eyes. There’s an even better chance the eye rolling will be followed by a feeling of outrage — definitely toward the caller, but maybe even toward the gullible victims — when you remember this stuff actually happened.
Read More

Jackie Chan: Crime Story / The Protector (Blu-ray)

Posted in Disc Reviews by Brent Lorentson on January 17th, 2013

Buy at Amazon.com

Shout Factory this week releases a Jackie Chan double feature that I can actually stand behind and say, “Yes, buy this.” Chan has been churning out movies since the early 60’s, and with a rumored retirement looming, soon we’ll only have his vast catalog of films to gush and cringe over. Though I think it is safe to say his body could use a break; after all, how many broken bones has this man sacrificed all in the name of cinema?
Read More

Branded (Blu-ray)

Posted in Disc Reviews by Jonathan Foster on January 17th, 2013

Buy at Amazon.com

Do you realize how much you’re affected by advertising? Branded attempts to answer this question while showing us where our world is headed if the trend continues. Mishka Galkin (Ed Stoppard, The Pianist) is Russia’s advertising whiz kid. When Mishka meets Abby (Leelee Sobieski, 88 Minutes, The Wicker Man), they immediately become friends, despite the fact that she is the niece of Bob Gibbons (Jeffrey Tambor, TVs Arrested Development, the Hellboy movies), Mishka’s boss.
Read More

«< 46 47 48 49 50 >»