Posted in: Disc Reviews by M. W. Phillips on June 6th, 2012
“When I saw you, I believed it was a sign… that something new can come into this world.”
John Carter first appeared in Edgar Rice Burroughs’ Barsoom magazine serial nearly a century ago in 1912. The science fiction pioneering Carter stories captured the imagination of masses and inspired countless authors and directors. For example, George Lucas himself has stated there would be no Star Wars without John Carter of Mars. It took nearly a century to get it to screen and in time countless others have mined the series for inspiration.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on June 5th, 2012
"Blacks are mentally inferior, by nature subservient, and cowards in the face of danger. They are therefore unfit for combat." - U.S. Army War College Study 1925
Obviously, there's another story to be told here. George Lucas says that he's been wanting to tell this story for over 20 years. It's a story that has often been told in both film and documentary form. In none of those cases has the movie been made into the kind of spectacle film that we find in Red Tails.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on May 31st, 2012
At first glance it would be very easy to say that Beyond doesn't really offer us anything terribly new in the crime drama genre. For the most part I would tend to agree with that criticism. I would counter with the argument that a very good film doesn't need to be very original to be good. Sometimes the value in a movie lies in the fact that it does what it does do extremely well. That's how I would describe the sleeper direct-to-video release Beyond.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on May 21st, 2012
At first glance Haywire appears a bit out of character for the likes of director Steven Soderbergh. It's not that he hasn't delivered action films in the past. It's that he's never quite tied himself to such a tried and sometimes true formula before. When you first look at the press for Haywire you're going to pretty much dismiss it as a standard action-hero film that follows in the mold of a Steven Seagal/Chuck Norris mold with a touch of Bourne Identity thrown in to meet the more recent trends.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by M. W. Phillips on May 10th, 2012
“If my family can’t live in this house, you sure as hell can’t either!”
Daniel (Frank Grillo) and Beth (Jaime King) Sohapi picked up a great deal on a recently foreclosed house, and they’ve invited a handful of friends over to celebrate. A tornado threatens the area, but everyone is partying in the basement, which has been recently reinforced as a tornado shelter. Things look great in suburbia until three frantic and deadly bank robbers, Ike (Patrick Flueger), Addley (Warren Kole), and Johnny (Matt O'Leary), return to their childhood home following a botched bank robbery.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on April 19th, 2012
"This is how it starts..."
You know, it's getting awfully hard to make an original alien invasion film. Most filmmakers have accepted the obvious and go for mind-blowing f/x and never mind the story. Still others go the trendy found-footage route. I was pleasantly surprised that The Darkest Hour appears to prove that there just might be more than just fumes in the creative tank after all. I'm not going to try to convince you that the film doesn't rely on much of the tried and true standby material.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on April 11th, 2012
War Horse began life as a novel by Michael Morpurgo and went on to become a relatively successful Broadway play. I haven't read the book, and it's hard for me to imagine the material on the stage. But in the hands of Steven Spielberg there is little left to the imagination. This is definitely one of his most inspired films and contains some of the more beautiful and compelling images. That's saying a lot when you think about the many iconic images Spielberg has brought us
Posted in: Disc Reviews by J C on March 22nd, 2012
Even though I'm guilty of doing it myself, I always laugh a little when I hear someone complain that certain actors "just play themselves": as if you or I actually know these celebrities personally and have the authority to say what they're like in real life. Of course, what we really mean is most movie stars have found a screen persona that has connected with audiences and — in the spirit of giving people what they want (or laziness) — tend to stick pretty close to that image, adding only a tweak when we catch on to their game. (I mean, do we really want to see Sylvester Stallone tackle Hamlet? Wait, that would be amazing!)
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on March 2nd, 2012
"Even today there are organizations that have America as their prime target. They would destroy the safety and happiness of every individual and thrust us into a condition of lawlessness and immorality that passes the imagination."
The phrase could very easily describe the world we face today. The above quote could very well have come from a post-9/11 narration, but it didn't. It was spoken nearly a century ago by the long-time director of the FBI, J. Edgar Hoover.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Michael Durr on February 16th, 2012
Somehow, I should have known that when my wife started to read the Twilight Series, I would eventually get dragged into watching the movies. The first one, I probably saw three times, the second one, only once. The interesting thing was that my wife was turned off by the movies and I am not sure I remember how the third one ended up. But low and behold, the fourth chapter of the series did not escape my grasp. Not because of my wife, but because of my webmaster knowing I am a glutton for punishment. Enter Breaking Dawn.
