Posted in: Disc Reviews by J C on March 25th, 2014
Besides the fact that it stars Leonardo DiCaprio and that it’s essentially a white collar gloss on Goodfellas, you’d be forgiven for thinking somebody other than Martin Scorsese directed The Wolf of Wall Street. I don’t mean to suggest Scorsese has lost his masterful touch or his passion for filmmaking, both of which were on display as recently as two years ago in the wonderful Hugo. It’s more that after spending the better part of the 21st century making strong, serious dramas, I didn’t necessarily expect Scorsese to make his funniest, loosest and most audacious picture in decades.
“I want you to deal with your problems by becoming rich.”
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on March 21st, 2014
"The problem is you don't know my pain or emptiness. But now you're going to know how it feels to be me."
Mitch Brockden (Cooper) is an ambitious up and comer in the Chicago prosecutor's office. He has a reputation for being aggressive, and he doesn't lose cases. He's respected and liked by his colleagues. That's the man we first meet. But after a night of some power drinking with his buds, we are introduced to another Mitch Brockden. This Mitch is selfish and a coward. When he ends up hitting a man while driving drunk, his instincts tell him to call an ambulance from a pay phone so it can't be traced to his cell and drive away. You see, Mitch has a lot to lose. He's up for getting a DA job. He has a wife and a brand new baby. He's afraid the DUI accident will derail that life. Unfortunately for Mitch, it's his decision to run away that causes the most damage.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Brent Lorentson on March 20th, 2014
Remember the first film that kept you awake at night? The film that had you keeping the light on, when every strange noise you heard was that of some monster you were all but certain was lurking in the darkness waiting for your eyes to finally close? For me it was that thrill that got me excited about horror films, where every Saturday I’d watch Creature Feature, and in the evening I’d channel-surf till I found some horror film to keep me up into the late hours of the night. Texas Chainsaw Massacre, The Exorcist, The Beyond and many others were the films that I would grow up and hold up on a pedestal as the modern classics of horror. As I watch the new wave of horror coming out, sure, there are plenty of titles that are really fun, but the films that leave a mark, the ones we’ll be talking about 10 to 20 years from now, where are they?
Here Comes the Devil is one of those films.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on March 19th, 2014
"Beautiful. Powerful. Dangerous. Cold. Ice has a magic that can't be controlled."
Like the very best that Disney has offered over the decades, Frozen has its roots in a very old classic fairy tale. Walt himself was interested in doing the Hans Christian Andersen story The Ice Queen immediately following Snow White And The Seven Dwarves. The film was given a production number along with some brief notes. Nothing else remains of the idea, and no one knows exactly what Walt intended or why the story was put on hold. The same thing had happened to another Andersen classic, The Little Mermaid, which took 40 years to finally go from Walt's original investigations to the Disney classic film it is today.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Brent Lorentson on March 18th, 2014
OK, in case you didn’t know this about me, I’m a sucker for South Korean action cinema. Sure, the 90’s were ruled by Hong Kong, but for about a decade South Korea has been killing it by putting out some of the most visually stunning action films in years. For a quick crash course in how simply bad-ass and epic their cinema is, I highly recommend checking out The Chaser and A Bittersweet Life. With Commitment we get a new entry in the spy genre that hasn’t been explored stateside.
Myung-hoon (Choi Seung-Hyun, a Korean pop star also known as T.O.P) and his sister are stuck in a North Korean labor camp after their father is killed in South Korea working as a spy. Myung-hoon is offered a chance to protect his sister and stay alive, only it requires him to go into training as a spy and travel into South Korea and await word for his mission.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by J C on March 17th, 2014
“If something was to come your way, I mean something so irresistible that you just had to have it, do you think you could sacrifice everything for it and not regret it?”
When it comes to down-on-their-luck men in movies, that “something” could be any number of things. Oh, who am I kidding? It's pretty much always a woman or a large sum of money. In Swerve — a twisty Australian thriller that goes down a number of familiar roads — our hero is tempted by both.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by J C on March 14th, 2014
“One small fact: you are going to die. Despite every effort, no one lives forever.”
The Book Thief is narrated by Death, who opens the film with these sobering words. It is also set in Germany during the years leading up to World War II. On paper, the best-case scenario for this film appears to be “well-executed, watchable downer”, while the worst-case scenario is “do we really need *another* movie about WWII?!” But fans of Aussie author Markus Zusak’s 2005 best-seller know better. The Book Thief uses the silky specter of death to tell a beautifully affecting story that celebrates life.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on March 13th, 2014
"Greece, that hard and timeless land, where even the stones speak of man's courage, of his endurance, of his glory. And none more eloquently than this lonely pillar in a desolate pass, some 200 miles north of modern Athens. Across the hush of 24 centuries, this is the story of a turning point in history, of a blazing day when 300 Greek warriors fought here to hold with their lives their freedom and ours."
From that introduction you might guess that this is a review of Zack Snyder's 300 or the newly minted follow-up 300: Rise Of An Empire. That guess would be wrong. While 300 might be based on Frank Miller & Lynn Varley's graphic novel, the inspiration for that comic was the 1962 film 300 Spartans, which was, of course based on the famous battle described in both films and the comic book.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Brent Lorentson on March 13th, 2014
Takeshi Kitano is to yakuza films as Robert DeNiro is to American gangster films. Whether it is in front of or behind the camera, Beat (his stage name) Takeshi has had a long, fruitful career, with many of his successful films like Sonatine. Fireworks, Brother and Outrage delving into the Japanese criminal underworld. His talents don’t only fall between acting and directing; he’s also worked as editor and writer for many of his films. He’s an artist whose films have found their way onto US shores, and for those that are fans of yakuza cinema, when a new film by Beat Takeshi comes along, it’s something you simply have to check out.
Beyond Outrage is a follow up to the 2010 release Outrage (this being the only sequel Takeshi has directed). It’s five years following the events that occurred in the previous film, and the yakuza underworld is in the midst of a struggle over not just what clan is in control, but who is in power within the clans. Ishihara (Ryo Kase) is the second in command of the Sanno clan; he’s young and power-hungry and believes the clan should be moving in a more modern direction. Unfortunately the senior members of the clan are more traditional and feel the new direction things are going is not to their benefit.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by J C on March 12th, 2014
British badass Craig Fairbrass looks more like the henchman in an action movie than the hero. (To be fair, Fairbrass looks like the lead henchman who always gives the hero a little more trouble than you’d expect, but he looks like a henchman nonetheless.) The actor has worked steadily in England and Hollywood, including a role in Cliffhanger where he played one of John Lithgow’s (you guessed it) henchmen. With The Outsider, Fairbrass earns a story credit and the right to play the hero in this junky, bruising, low-budget cross between Taken and The Limey.
Fairbrass plays Lex Walker (strong name), an English mercenary who receives word that his estranged daughter Samantha has been found dead in Los Angeles. When he arrives to identify the body, he discovers the dead girl in the morgue is not Samantha. The good news is his daughter isn’t actually dead, but the bad news is she’s still missing. Lex goes on a brutish warpath through Los Angeles in search of Samantha. Along the way he enlists the help of her boyfriend Ricky (Johnny Messner) and Margo (Shannon Elizabeth), an opportunistic acquaintance of Samantha’s. Lex’s investigation puts him on a collision course with Schuuster (James Caan), Samantha’s shady former employer, and Det. Klein (Jason Patric), who is trying to solve the mystery behind Samantha’s non-murder.
