Posted in: Disc Reviews by J C on December 16th, 2014
“You know what the sad thing is? We’re a good team.”
Up until they teamed up to star in The Skeleton Twins, there was nothing sad about the team of Kristen Wiig and Bill Hader. Regardless of how you feel about the quality of Saturday Night Live in recent years, Wiig (the only cast member to earn an Oscar nomination — for co-writing Bridesmaids — while still appearing on the show) and Hader (with "Stefon" and a laundry list of impressions that ranged from Alan Alda to Al Pacino) were clear standouts. So you'd expect their first post-SNL big-screen team up to be a laugh riot. That's not exactly the case.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by J C on December 9th, 2014
“I wish...”
There's no shortage of wishing (not to mention pining, longing, yearning, etc.) in some of our most beloved fairy tales. Into the Woods — the Tony-winning Broadway musical created by Stephen Sondheim and frequent collaborator James Lapine — illustrates what happens when certain characters get their storybook ending. Since there's a big, shiny Disney adaptation on the way, it made sense for Image Entertainment to offer a performance of the stage show on Blu-ray. However, I wish...some more effort had been put into this release.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by J C on November 28th, 2014
“How the hell did this happen? I mean, I’m on the other side of the planet, and people know who I am and they’re laughing at my jokes.”
Despite his status as one of the biggest draws in stand-up comedy, Jeff Dunham really does seem taken aback by his success. On one hand, you wouldn’t necessarily expect a ventriloquist to be one of the hottest names in comedy in 2014. Then again, the hard work and precision he has put into his act is evident every time he takes the stage. For his latest comedy special, Dunham packed up his puppets and took his show on the road like never before.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Brent Lorentson on November 24th, 2014
As adults we somewhat have a better understanding of how our dreams work and understand that those fears of the dark when we were children were somewhat silly in retrospect. But when we were kids, the nighttime was a mysterious time that held so many possibilities, where the magic in the world around us was something that was very real for us all. In the new Spanish language animated feature Nocturna, the first-time filmmakers (Adria Garcia & Victor Madonado) seem to have tapped into that childlike wonder and have crafted a film that I simply adore.
Tim (originally voiced by Helene Bizot) is a young orphan boy who like most young kids has a fear of the dark. To help him with his fears, he has become fascinated by the stars above, and on the roof top of the orphanage he has mapped out many of the constellations, but his favorite of all the stars above is Adhara. For Tim this is his last connection to his mother, who has told Tim that anytime he feels alone or frightened he basically will always have this star to count on. Unfortunately, one evening Adhara seems to vanish from the sky.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by J C on November 24th, 2014
“Welcome to the 21st century!”
Sylvester Stallone has dedicated the better part of the last decade to giving moviegoers what they wanted 20 years ago. It started with 2006's Rocky Balboa, which closed out Stallone's signature franchise in the satisfying manner fans have been craving since 1990's Rocky V debacle. We’ve also gotten another Rambo sequel, as well as long-awaited team ups with icons both real (Schwarzenegger in Escape Plan) and cinematic (Grudge Match was “Rocky vs. Raging Bull”). But Stallone's biggest recent success is the veritable fantasy team of action stars he's assembled for the Expendables films.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by J C on November 21st, 2014
Breaking news: anyone who goes to see movie called Into the Storm is probably more interested in “the Storm” than they are in any of the people running away from it. The good news is the film understands this, to an extent, and clocks in at a slender 89 minutes. Of course, the titular Storm doesn’t appear for every one of those 89 minutes. This is very bad news because Into the Storm is populated with characters and storylines that are both forgettable and irritating. It’s basically Twister with somewhat better effects, but much less interesting people.
Into the Storm is mostly set in and around the fictional town of Silverton, Okla. A group of storm-chasers — led by cranky, road-weary Pete (Matt Walsh) — has been struggling to film tornadoes, and Pete is taking out his frustrations on the entire team. That includes data-driven meteorologist Allison (Sarah Wayne Callies), who steers the team toward Silverton. The decision looks like a bust until a dissipating system comes back with a vengeance. The storm erupts during a high school commencement ceremony, where Vice Principal Gary Fuller (Richard Armitage) realizes his oldest son is missing (and very inconveniently hanging out in an abandoned paper mill with his would-be dream girl). Gary eventually crosses path with the storm chasers, who help him in his quest to find and rescue his boy.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by J C on November 19th, 2014
Laughing out loud and getting startled out of your wits are two of the most visceral reactions you can have as a moviegoer. For a director to elicit either reaction is challenging enough, which is why I was so delighted to be feeling both during the thrilling, funny finale of Housebound. It’s an even more impressive feat when you consider it was accomplished by a first-time filmmaker working on a shoestring budget.
We first meet Kylie Bucknell (Morgana O’Reilly) as she and an accomplice comically fail to steal money from an ATM. She is a professional screw-up who has battled alcohol and meth addiction. Instead of sending Kylie to her umpteenth rehab program, the judge sentences her to eight months of house arrest at her family’s rustic home. Given Kylie’s unpleasant childhood memories there and the fact that she now has to share space with batty, blabbermouth mom Miriam (Rima Te Wiata), it seems like Kylie might have preferred spending time in prison.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on November 18th, 2014
"If anybody gets up, they're dead. Anybody moves, they're dead. Anybody makes a sound before I leave this movie, ..."
You get the idea. These are the words of one John Wojtowicz, better known as The Dog. On August 22, 1972 he attempted to rob a Chase Manhattan bank in order to finance his male lover's sex change operation so that he could become a woman. The heist was about as amateur as the come and went horribly wrong from the start. In a matter of minutes the bank was surrounded by a swarm of police units and a growing mob of bystanders. In the hours that followed, The Dog interacted with the crowd, gave a radio interview, and managed to whip the crowd into a frenzy by throwing thousands of the bank's dollars out of the front door. If this all sounds familiar to you, it should. While you may not have heard of these exploits directly, you surely saw the movie Dog Day Afternoon. Al Pacino played John Wojtowicz, and now you know where he got the nickname The Dog.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Brent Lorentson on November 17th, 2014
I’m not the biggest fan of Japanese animation. I don’t think it’s awful or anything, but animation is one of those things where I’m just picky about what I like. Though I can say I am a big fan of Hayao Miyazaki (Spirited Away and Princess Mononoke) and most of his work. I think this is worth mentioning, because though I may not be as well-versed in this genre, I’d like to feel I still go into it with an open mind, and I’m always excited to find a title that excites me that I never saw coming. And that it precisely what Patema Inverted did.
Imagine if one day the laws of gravity were broken, and during this time friends and family all around seemed to be randomly sucked towards the sky, and you were helpless to do anything about it. Those who would be lucky to survive and keep their feet planted firmly on ground would have to go on living in this world that had fundamentally changed overnight. But what about those who have been floating up into the ether, what about these lost souls and their fate? This is the fundamental springboard by which Patema Inverted takes us to a world where those who survive live in separate “realities” where some seek to live deep beneath the earth to survive, while others have created their own world in the sky that has evolved as well.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by J C on November 12th, 2014
Welcome to the Space Show looks like what would happen if you combined Steven Spielberg’s E.T. — or the openly-Spielbergian Super 8 and Earth to Echo — with the boundless imagination and quirky charms of anime. The result here is intermittently dazzling, but this particular kid-friendly alien adventure is ultimately less than the sum of its parts.
The film immediately grabs your attention with a high-octane action sequence: two bumbling, strange looking creatures are being pursued through a forest by a spastic smaller blur that looks and behaves as if it’s on fire. What’s most intriguing about this opening is that director Koji Masunari makes it impossible to tell whether we should be rooting for the two creatures to get away or for the pursuer to catch them. After the action-packed prologue, Welcome to the Space Show settles into its main story. A group of elementary school kids heads to a summer camp that has a mildly alarming lack of adult supervision.
