Posted in: Disc Reviews by William O'Donnell on September 2nd, 2012
This Naval Criminal Investigation Service lead by Agent Jethro Gibbs (played by Mark Harmon) continue to sift through suspense filled tales of deviance in the military that takes them from all the way from political offices to the streets to battle villains.
Previous seasons of NCIS have been covered on this site, such as this:
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Bob Ross on August 31st, 2012
I never really meant to have 3D TV in my home theater. But our Sony Blu-ray player was 3D-ready, and the receiver and monitor both needed warranty replacement about the same time. Bingo: All I needed were a couple pairs of glasses ($40 each at Amazon) and some 3D programming. Having seen almost every 3D big-screen release already, I was pretty sure the TV version would be an inferior format. I was wrong. The electronic-shutter glasses beat the heck out of those old red-and-green gimmicky glasses. They work as well as the polarized lenses at the multiplex.
To me, 3D television is sort of like a talking dog: It doesn’t matter what the pooch says, the miracle is that he can speak at all. My Internet hookup provides two 3D channels but they are mainly short demo reels and trailers for films and video games. So now my DVD and Blu-ray collections are joined by a much smaller shelf of 3D Blu-rays. It includes a very view features (A Very Harold and Kumar 3D Christmas is an absolute hoot) and several documentaries, mainly travelogues from the IMAX catalog.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on August 31st, 2012
Anyone who has watched enough of the SyFy original movies has a pretty good idea of what they're getting. The network has made a bit of a name for itself with low-budget to no-budget monster movies. Most of the creatures are mutant and large and appear like they escaped from a bad 1950's drive-in theater. The computer generated stuff usually looks like a kid drew it up on their pocket computer, and the cast is going to be made up of unknowns with a few known names to give the whole thing some street cred. The movies are usually good for a few laughs; some of them might even be intentional. It's all usually harmless fun. But, after watching Jersey Shore Shark Attack I believe that Steven Spielberg must be rolling over in his grave. He's still alive, you say? Wait until he catches this movie on his Tivo. In fact, if he's got it on his Netflix queue, I'm taking Steve in the next dead pool that comes out. Unfairly harsh? A bit too critical? See for yourself, I dare you. I double dog dare you.
The movie is a combination of Jaws meets Jersey Shore meets The Sopranos. And in case you didn't get it yourself, the cast includes Jersey Shore's Vinny Guadagnino in a cameo as a television reporter and The Sopranos’ own Paulie "Walnuts" Tony Sirico in what is basically an extended cameo as a beach club owner.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by J C on August 30th, 2012
It’s impossible for me to discuss what I feel didn’t work in Touchback without talking about the movie’s big plot twist. I’m not even sure it’s accurate to refer to it as a “twist” since it comes in the first half hour and is an essential component of the film. On the other hand, the movie’s official plot description is intentionally vague — for the record, the film’s trailer is considerably more forthcoming — and seems designed to conceal a major part of the story. Having considered all that, I’m only issuing a Mild Spoiler Alert.
Touchback is the story of former high school football hero Scott Murphy (Brian Presley), who led his tiny Coldwater High School team to a state championship in 1991. Unfortunately, Scott shattered his leg when he scored the game-winning touchdown, derailing his collegiate and professional football dreams. Twenty years later, he’s a broken man in more ways than one. He has become a disheveled, bitter soybean farmer who is married to Macy (Melanie Lynskey), the compassionate girl who fell in love with him after his injury, and is jealous of Chris (Marc Blucas), his wildly successful former teammate.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on August 30th, 2012
George Romero created the modern zombie movie in 1968 with his low-budget masterpiece The Night Of The Living Dead. While we can debate the direction the genre has gone in the last 40 years, it's hard to argue that Romero defined the rules of the game with that first film and the series that followed. And while zombies have been populating the comic scene since the early days of Creepy and Eerie, it took the likes of Robert Kirkman and Tony Moore to give us a compelling interpretation of the Romero zombie in the form of a comic book series. That vision is the foundation for the first effort to populate a television series with zombies as the ongoing antagonists. It took American Movie Classics to have the vision to allow this creative team to dream big and put it all on our television screens on a weekly basis.
The first thing you should know about The Walking Dead is that it's unlike any television series you have ever seen before. The images here are intense, and the crew has been given a blank check to create this vision without the burden of censors looking over their shoulders. There are plenty of blood-and-gore effects that rival any of the Hollywood zombie films you've seen in the last few years. The makeup effects are handled by the very capable hands of KNB and supervised personally by Greg Nicotero (the N from KNB). KNB isn't treating this like a television production, and while I personally get tired of the cliché about making a movie each week, this one lives up to the hype. They aren't doing anything different here than they would do for a big-budget film. The zombies look incredible, and the effects are completely first-rate.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by M. W. Phillips on August 29th, 2012
“We decided to tour round Serbia. We’ll go to villages. It will be interesting to see farmers’ reactions to our sexual provocations. Sexual education for Serbs. Widening the horizons. This is our guerilla mission.”
I like to think I am not a prude. My taste in film runs to the controversial, and I don’t shy away from extreme cinema. I think Salò, or the 120 Days of Sodom and Caligula are masterpieces; A Serbian Film impressed and affected me, although I have no intention of watching it again. Even the brief inserts of hardcore porn in “mainstream” movies like Shortbus, Antichrist, Brown Bunny or the previously mentioned Caligula don’t offend me, but I must admit I found The Life and Death of a Porno Gang unpleasant and soulless.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on August 28th, 2012
"This is where society dumps its worst nightmares."
In 1978 John Carpenter created a landmark horror film in Halloween. While it certainly can't be called the first slasher film, it was absolutely the first commercially successful slasher movie and set up the pattern that we're still following today. Carpenter created a new kind of Hollywood monster: the mindless human-shaped killing machine. Michael Myers with his William Shatner rubber mask would eventually give birth to the likes of Jason and Freddy.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on August 28th, 2012
"They should ban Halloween in this town."
By the time we got to the 5th installment of the Halloween film franchise, there might have been fans thinking it might be time to ban its sequels. Even the return of young Danielle Harris and Donald Pleasence couldn't save this train wreck of a movie. It ranks as the worst of all 10 Halloween films at the box office and has been conveniently forgotten by the fans of the franchise. Yes, it even made less money than Season Of The Witch. It looks like we're about to be reminded of just how horrible horror can really be.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on August 27th, 2012
When you see a cast that includes names like Robert DeNiro and Forest Whitaker, you have justifiable high expectations for a solid experience. Add 50 Cent to the mix and past experience will tell you that not even a teaming of Robert DeNiro and Al Pacino can save the picture. The rapper-turned-actor has certainly found himself cast with enough Academy Award power that the transition should have been more successful than it has been. The fact is that 50 Cent hasn't appeared to have learned anything from rubbing elbows with so many Oscar statues. Freelancers is another example of a bad actor bringing down considerably better talent to a less than mediocre range.
Malo (50 Cent) is a street kid who has had a few scrapes with the law growing up. He's a child of the streets, but he and two of his street friends managed to clean up their lives enough to enter the police academy. Now he's graduated and following in his dead father's footsteps. He's immediately taken under the wing of his father's old partner Captain Joseph Sarcone (DeNiro). Suddenly he skips directly to plainclothes and introduced to his "birthright", a world of elite corrupt cops led by Sarcone.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by William O'Donnell on August 26th, 2012
The “cast” of Jersey Shore have returned from their adventures in Italy as Season 5 is back to the American location that is the show's namesake. This means a return to their familiar zones for more partying and more...talking about how they partied.
Offering up any sort of synopsis of this show would purely consist of something along the lines of: (Person) got drunk and hooked up with (Person) which angered (Person) at a party. (Person) then talked about it endlessly except to go to the gym, tan or drink. Repeat this formula for each episode for all Five Seasons.
