Posted in: Disc Reviews by J C on April 30th, 2013
Before Jay & Silent Bob, Harold & Kumar, and Seth Rogen, James Franco and their current band of merry stoners, there was Cheech & Chong. In terms of pot humor, they were the trailblazers who happily blazed on screen and on stage. The comedy duo’s popularity hit its apex with the release of 1978’s Up in Smoke, which became the year’s highest-grossing comedy. Still, Richard “Cheech” Marin and Tommy Chong’s roots were always in music.
They released nine albums in the ‘70s and ‘80s, winning the Grammy for Best Comedy Album in 1973’s “Los Cochinos.” Some of their most famous songs and routines — including “Dave’s Not Here”, “Earache My Eye”, and “Let’s Make a Dope Deal” — have been re-imagined in Cheech and Chong’s Animated Movie!, the new Blu-ray that was released suspiciously close to April 20. (Unfortunately, this year’s 4/20 didn’t fall on a Tuesday, which is the day most home video titles are released.)
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on April 17th, 2013
The computer-animated feature film has reached the point where you don't have to be one of the big boys to play. While Pixar and to a lesser extent Dreamworks have dominated this feature form pretty much since its inception, there have already been a handful of independent films that have managed to leave their mark on the landscape. Now the foreign market is getting into the act as well. A Monster In Paris, or Un Monstre a' Paris, is the result of that evolution.
The story is a rather weak one, to be sure. It's 1910, and there is a creature running around the streets of Paris. It is the result of a flea's exposure to a scientist's formula to make things grow. Like all of the good monster films of the Universal era, this monster is terribly misunderstood and doesn't want to hurt anyone. He is attracted to a theatre where Lucille (Paradis) is the featured singer and performer. The flea makes himself known to her, and instead of acting in fear, Lucille embraces the flea's musical talents. Together they take the stage by storm.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by William O'Donnell on April 11th, 2013
The boogeyman, who goes by the name Pitch Black, is gaining power by turning children's dreams into nightmares. An alliance of fantasy characters, North (Santa Claus), (the Easter) Bunny, Sandman, and Tooth (Fairy), come together to face this opponent. They call themselves Guardians who have sworn to protect all of the world's children. In this adventure they recruit a new member, Jack Frost, who is on his own personal quest of discovery.
Big budget CG animated films are largely excuses to have enormous chase scenes, or other similarly fast pace sequences, which amount to being the equivalent of a guitar solo for computer animators. This film is no exception. At least here the graphics are justified since that we are dealing with characters who are rooted completely in imagination and fantasy. If we want the Easter Bunny to have super-teleporting abilities and to live in a complex network of tunnels that is populated by various sizes of walking eggs...we can imagine it so. If we want to see the Tooth Fairy work out of a floating palace that is teeming with hummingbird style minions...why not make it happen? Every scene is an enormous spectacle. Our main villain and the Sandman both deal with...well..sand particles that each move in their own pattern on the screen...I can only imagine the animators losing their minds over having to choreograph all of them.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by William O'Donnell on March 18th, 2013
Worlds Away is the tale of a young woman named Mia who happens across a debilitated circus, where she is enchanted by the performance of an Aerialist. Mid-performance, both she and the aerialist are sucked into a parallel universe that is littered with strange, seemingly supernatural circuses. Both are lead from performance to performance in an attempt to escape, or at least find each other.
Each performance we see is taken from a pre-existing Cirque Du Soleil show (most of which a part of their Las Vegas lineup). Only the portions featuring Mia and the aerialist traveling to, through and from them are unique to this film. The story is not new to the Cirque world as I have seen the story of someone brought into the magical/surreal world of amazing acrobats many a time before. The idea is to have the audience identify with that character and share in their awe of these uncanny performers.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by J C on March 12th, 2013
“I don’t know if I’m an alcoholic, really, I just drink. I drink a lot.”
Movies that deal with alcoholism tend to either be relentless downers (Leaving Las Vegas, When a Man Loves a Woman) or use drunkenness as a catalyst for Hangover-style shenanigans and tipsy laughs (Arthur; Dean Martin’s entire act). In other words, drunks on film don’t usually look like Mary Elizabeth Winstead in Smashed, the brisk, well-acted dramedy from writer-director James Ponsoldt.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Brent Lorentson on March 6th, 2013
Normally when I see trailers for films about “inspiring true stories” I try to remind myself to avoid that film at all costs. Sure I’ve seen more than a few of these kinds of films, but that’s the problem with them, once you’ve seen one you’ve seen them all. When Chasing Mavericks was brought to my attention I was ready to ignore, but then I gave it a quick look at IMDB and to my surprise it had two directing credits, Curtis Hanson (L.A. Confidential, which just so happens to be in my all-time top ten films) and Michael Apted (Gorky Park, Nell, Gorillas of the Mist), and with that my mind was made up. And lucky me it turned out to be one of my favorite films I’ve had the opportunity to review.
Ever since he was little Jay Moriarty (Johnny Weston) has been fascinated by the currents and the waves they produce. The obsession sets Jay off to learn how to surf, and by the time he’s 15 he’s managed to become one of the best young surfers in Santa Cruz, but the waves he’s conquering just aren’t cutting it. Till one morning he follows a local surf legend, who just so happens to be his neighbor, Frosty Hesson (Gerard Butler), who is going out on an early surf run. Where they end up is at a hidden beach where Jay sees the biggest waves that are colossal in comparison to what he surfs daily, and he watches Frosty. These giants that Jay and many others believed to be nothing more than mythic surf lore are what are called Mavericks. And it is from this day on Jay sets off to try and surf one of these waves. For fear Jay will only get himself killed, Frosty agrees to train him to be able to survive the wave, and he has 12 weeks to get himself ready before the season ends.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by J C on March 5th, 2013
If a movie starring Bruce Willis, Catherine Zeta-Jones, Vince Vaughn and a few other notable names only grosses slightly more than $20,000 — BoxOfficeMojo.com assures us that’s not a typo — does it make a sound? The natural assumption is any film boasting that kind of star power must be pretty bad to be completely ignored by distributors and the movie-going public. Lay the Favorite is a disappointing, low-energy effort, but it certainly deserved to make more money than what A Good Day to Die Hard will probably earn in the time it takes you to finish reading this sentence.
The film follows sweet dim bulb Beth (Rebecca Hall), a stripper who feels unfulfilled in her life and dreams of moving to Las Vegas to become a cocktail waitress. (This movie’s title should’ve been Aim Higher.) Instead, Beth gets a job working for eccentric sports bettor Dink (Bruce Willis) and proves to be something of a gambling prodigy, much to the chagrin of Dink’s scary wife, Tulip (Catherine Zeta-Jones). As Beth and Dink’s relationship becomes more complicated, she gets romantically involved with nice guy journalist Jeremy (Joshua Jackson) and professionally involved with Rosie (Vince Vaughn), a volatile rival of Dink’s.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by J C on March 4th, 2013
By the time we meet most big-screen hitmen, they’ve already attained the level of badass-ery required to be efficient killers. Far fewer movies take the time to examine the circumstances that result in a person becoming a murdering machine. Interview with a Hitman — a British action offering from first-time writer/director Perry Bhandal — stands out from the pack because it’s a surprisingly thoughtful meditation on the consequences of killing.
After a dialogue-free first 10 minutes, we meet Viktor (Luke Goss), a highly-skilled hitman who agrees to sit down for a videotaped chat with down-on-his-luck movie producer Xavier (Patrick Lyster). The interview format is a convenient device that allows Viktor to tell Xavier (and us) about his rough upbringing in the Outlying District of Bucharest in Romania. Even as a kid (an effective, chilling turn by young Elliot Greene), Viktor never backed down from a fight. So after local tough guy Sergei (Danny Midwinter) comes to collect a debt from Viktor’s scumbag father, the boy asks Sergei for a job. Sergei teaches Viktor’s the tricks of the killing trade until an unfortunate incident puts them at odds, and Viktor has to flee the country.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by J C on February 24th, 2013
“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.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by William O'Donnell on January 19th, 2013
Spongebob Squarepants, the flagship cartoon for Nickelodeon for the last few years, has been churning out DVD specials inbetween releases of complete seasons. Sometimes these are linked by a theme (such as the Halloween DVD I reviewed in October https://upcomingdiscs.com/2012/10/15/31-nights-of-terror-spongebob-squarepants-ghouls-fools/ and this would mean taking episodes from numerous seasons. This particular special mostly contains more recent episodes, all of which have some sort of "extreme" or somewhat violent/action oriented story. 
To avoid some redundancy I'll repost my summary of Spongebob from my previous review:
Spongebob Squarepants is the children’s show that seems geared more for the college-age crowd than toddlers. This is not a revelation in cartoons, but I feel like this particular DVD set emphasizes this fact about Spongebob more than previous DVD releases of this show. The zaniness translates to all ages (just as it has from Tex Avery right through Ren & Stimpy) but this particular assembly of episodes displays some unnerving imagery that younger viewers may not be able to appreciate as much as older ones. Yes, there are subtle jokes spliced in that kid’s will not catch (such as Spongebob’s best friend Patrick explaining that looking at clouds helps to calm his “inner demons”), which is perfectl harmless, but it might be a bit much for someone just entering grade school to see Spongebob’s eyes melt before bursting into a pile of spiders or being infested with the ghosts of snakes. Such imagery, to me, is a testament to how little concern this show for being stricly for youngsters, and how much it wants to be lapped up by that media hungry 14-30 crowd.
