Posted in: Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on January 20th, 2011
The Freebie is a festival friendly drama-comedy about Darren (Dax Shepard) and Annie (Katie Aselton) ailing sexual relationship. The film is interested with relationships after they pass the lust stage. How do couples maintain a healthy romantic relationship? Darren and Annie strive for ways to spice up their situation and the idea eventually becomes one night of freedom from each other to explore other options. The film is shot very intimately and the audience will be shocked at the warmth conveyed by direction. The tension explored in this film is not typically deployed in this genre. This film showcases a perspective that could surprise viewers, I know I was.
Both Dax Shepard and Katie Aselton are able to deliver solid performances. I have always been skeptical of Shepard’s acting chops given his track record. However, he delivers a subtle and strong performance. His scenes with Aselton always have naturalistic approach and the direction only amplifies this. The intimacy and warmth in scenes is overwhelming. Aselton also directs and she uses a variety of tight portrait shots to convey emotion. I commend the effort and was surprised at how invested I found myself in the characters.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on January 20th, 2011
Denis Leary and Friends presents: Douchebags and Donuts includes stand up sets from Adam Ferrara, Lenny Clarke, Whitney Cummings and Denis Leary. Also, there are musical performances by The Enablers featuring the Rehab Horns. All proceeds from this event (as well as portions of the DVD sales) went/go to Denis Leary’s charity, The Leary Firefighters Foundation. The support and charitable disposition that Denis Leary has maintained toward firefighting is well documented and it is nice to see his attitude has not changed. I am certain that all of you can guess the material that will be explored in these performances and the majority of you will not be surprised whatsoever. However, there are some laughs throughout.
Denis Leary’s meal ticket throughout his career has been to pull no punches and leave no stone unturned. His material is usually always motivated by his unwavering hatred toward popular culture and his throwback mentality. Leary’s set is his typical abrasive self. A popular theme in stand-up comedy is to have screens on stage to emphasize the comedian’s set and also provide some visual aids to help their performance. Leary has added this to his comedic repertoire and it works well with his material. My only critique with his set is that it can often be redundant. If a particular joke does not go as expected, Leary tends to yell his punch lines louder and I found myself annoyed. Other than that, his set is a standard profanity laced tirade against any and all things in popular culture.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on January 19th, 2011
"In the beginning there was darkness. And then bang, giving birth to an endless expanding existence of time, space, and matter. Now, see further than we've ever imagined. Beyond the limits of our existence. In a place we call The Universe."
Up until now these History releases have been season sets of the documentary series. This release is the first which appears to be a planned series of specific subject titles. It does create a bit of confusion when you see a series called The Universe and all of the episodes on the set deal with our own back yard, a place we call the Sol System, or Solar System, for those of you unfamiliar with the name of the star that happens to brighten your afternoons, particularly for us here in Florida on an August day. But while it's true that the series itself has explored most of the known, and quite a few of the unknown, corners of creation itself, this set once again focuses on those objects that orbit the star Sol. The Sun is at the center of our system, and the same can be said for this season of The Universe. Our local star is featured on several of the episodes on this collection. If there's a theme here, Sol would be the theme.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on January 19th, 2011
When I first started watching the new comedy concert by Kathleen Madigan, I grew somewhat fearful. She was introduced by Lewis Black, who appears to be one of her closest friends. That scared me more than a little. Lewis Black is nothing but an angry old man who preaches tolerance of anyone who agrees with him. If you don't agree with him, you are subject to the most venomous of attacks of hatred I've ever seen from a stand-up. If Kathleen Madigan was going to be a female Lewis Black, this was going to be a long hour, indeed.
I was pleasantly surprised. I suppose I shouldn't have been. It seems the lady has been around the block for over 20 years. Somehow her name has escaped my particular notice. If I had been familiar with her work, I would have known that she doesn't roll anything like Lewis Black. Darth Vader, he rolls more like Lewis Black. Check that. Vader did have a couple of lucid moments where he wasn't pure evil. No one rolls like Lewis Black.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on January 19th, 2011
Written by Diane Tillis
When I first heard about Hot in Cleveland, I thought the show would be a modern remake of The Golden Girls. Both shows have four older, single women, living under one roof, as they try to survive each day with a little bit of humor. Before watching the show, I was worried that Hot in Cleveland would appear to be a hasty decision by TV Land because they wanted to jump on the Betty White bandwagon. However, I truly enjoyed the first season more than I thought I would. Hot in Cleveland is not a rip-off of The Golden Girls. While they have many similarities, they also have more differences.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on January 18th, 2011
Written by Diane Tillis
You know him from Baywatch, Knight Rider, and America’s Got Talent. After nearly four decades in the entertainment business, David Hasselhoff created quite a name for his career as a pop icon. Now at a point in his dwindling career, Hasselhoff takes the plunge to be the center of attention at a Comedy Central Roast production. The man of a thousand voices, Seth MacFarlane (Family Guy), hosts the production.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by William O'Donnell on January 18th, 2011
A young dreamer named Power is fired from his mining job just before his union-leader father instigates a strike. Wishing he could be a drummer, but never getting the chance to play an actual kit, Power does not know what to do with his constant ambitions that make him air-drum 24/7. Fate steps in and he discovers an underground movement of air-drumming that all leads to a major event in New York city where he will have a chance to face off against a billionaire country-music star, who just so happens to be the son of the evil Copper Mine owner who is treating his Union friends, and family, so unfairly.
This film does spend a good chunk of time riding on the one-note quirkiness of its man child lead character and his oddball dreams of air-drumming, and does not get saved by the token love interest or ethnically broad supporting characters. But this film does find moments where it moves past the potential to be another rehashed, super-quirky Napolean Dynamite clone (though it strays close). It clings tightly to the RUSH worship of other contemporary comedies such as I Love You Man into rides it into a sentimental and surprisingly moving story about spirit. This almost exclusively occurs in the third act so the audience will have to hold tight until then.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Michael Durr on January 15th, 2011
Well, I've been about a month off since my last review and the rest was sorely needed. I visited my folks, thought about my future and spent the holidays enjoying life and trying to do somethings I wouldn't normally do with my paying job and my writing gig. So, the first movie I crack open is Fire on the Amazon with Sandra Bullock, Craig Sheffer and produced by Roger Corman. Wait, Roger Corman, king of schlock and “B” movies? Hrmmm, I feel another vacation coming on.
Fade in, we see the Amazon jungle. Turtles, macaws and monkeys, oh my. Somewhere, a tree falls. (too easy of a joke and too early). Suddenly, we flash to a runway and a plane coming in from the air. RJ (played by Craig Sheffer) gets off the plane and gets right to work. For you see, he is a photographer and he's been sent here to get the scoop on the destruction of the rainforest. But in order to better understand the situation, we must get a little history about the opposition.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by David Annandale on January 14th, 2011
This documentary tracks a year in the life of Joan Rivers. We begin at a relatively low ebb in her career, with her finding it difficult to land desirable gigs. She throws herself into the production of an autobiographical play that debuts in Edinburgh, and her hope is that the London reception will be glowing enough to provide enough momentum for a Stateside production. Meanwhile, she and daughter Melissa are contestants on Celebrity Apprentice. As the film follows the ups and downs of these efforts (concentrating particularly on the play), Rivers opens up about her life and career.
This is a very smart, enormously entertaining, and very funny documentary. There is plenty of footage of Rivers in performance from all stages of her career. For those whose exposure to her has been limited to snippets of red carpet interviews and jokes about her plastic surgery (and I am one of those benighted souls), this film will be a revelation. There's a reason why this woman became famous in the first place – she is one ferocious stand-up comic, and as good as the footage here is, it leaves the viewer hoping for more. That's a good thing. There are, though, one or two less felicitous gaps in an otherwise very revealing doc, most notably what, precisely, was behind the erratic behavior and unexplained disappearances by Rivers' long-term manager. But this is a trivial quibble. The film is a piece of work indeed: sterling work by directors Ricki Stern and Anni Sunderberg, and brave work by Rivers.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by BABY on January 14th, 2011
Baby here. Yeah, I'm the German shepherd/chow mix that runs security here at Upcomingdiscs. I also get called upon to help out with the dog movie reviews from time to time. Now, somebody needs to get themselves a good book on proper mammal identification around here. You see, Alpha And Omega is about wolves. I'm a dog. That spells D O G. Look at it this way. That's God spelled backwards, and that's no coincidence. If you doubt me, just let me get a couple of seconds with one of the delivery guys. Now wolves are a whole different animal. I know there are nut jobs out there who say that dogs did something called evolving from wolves, but those same guys call you humans a bunch of monkeys. Get my point? And that spells F A N G. Dogs are these nice furry buddies who sleep in your bed on cold nights and eat tissues on your nightstand when you're not lookin'. Okay, so I get in a little trouble for that last thing. Wolves are wild animals who don't really do any of those cute snuggly things. If you spell wolf backwards you just get flow, which reminds me of something else I get into trouble for. And that spells B A D. Now Gino says I have to pull my weight around here and write a wolf movie review. Well, I'll show him who's boss. I won't do it, and that's final.
(ed. note: We've had a long talk with Baby and after threatening to take her ball away, I think we've come to an understanding.)
![Universe: Complete Season 5 [Blu-ray] dvd cover art](https://upcomingdiscs.com/ecs_covers/universe-complete-season-5-blu-ra-large.jpg)
![Kathleen Madigan: Gone Madigan [Blu-ray] dvd cover art](https://upcomingdiscs.com/ecs_covers/kathleen-madigan-gone-madigan-blu-large.jpg)
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