Posted in: Disc Reviews by J C on August 24th, 2018
“Who do you think you are, Jackie Chan?!”
I'm going to do my very best to describe how insane this movie is, but it still might not be enough. I want to try and be fair because there aren't many people who have worked harder to entertain audiences than Jackie Chan. The 64-year-old martial arts legend has more than 100 acting credits to his name in a career that has spanned well over 50 years. Naturally, there are bound to be some turkeys along the way. Unfortunately, Bleeding Steel — an obnoxiously incoherent sci-fi departure for the action star — firmly (and gloriously) falls into the turkey category.
Chan stars as Lin, a Hong Kong special agent with an ailing daughter who is in critical condition. Lin is rushing to the hospital to be by her side when he gets an urgent work call about a witness that needs to be protected. The witness is Dr. James, a geneticist who has been working on creating a mechanical heart(!) and bioengineered blood to create super soldiers. Lin chooses duty over his daughter and rushes to protect Dr. James just in time to be ambushed by a deranged, mech-enhanced villain named...Andre (Callan Mulvey), who looks like Darth Vader without his helmet on. Lin and his team face off against Andre's stormtrooper-sequel army, Dr. James gets caught in the crossfire, and half a dozen explosions later we finally get the Bleeding Edge title card. (Yes, everything I've just described happens in the first 15 minutes!)
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on August 23rd, 2018
"This is not just about Gotham. This is all about Bruce Wayne."
It really is about Gotham. And it's about Jim Gordon. It's also very much about Bruce Wayne. The third season ended with Bruce finally starting to embrace his vigilante role, but it was crude and very much only a shadow of the hero he will become. There's a reason why all of the episodes of this season are subtitled The Dark Knight. Bruce is becoming more and more like Batman. Bruce even confronts his future alter-ego in a vision state. He's being propelled to that future because of Gotham and because he's also being manipulated toward his destiny by none other than Ra's Al Ghul himself, played by Star Trek: Deep Space Nine's awkward Doctor Alexander Siddig. He's taking center stage this season, and he knows Wayne's future and sees himself as the guiding force to make sure he gets there.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by J C on August 20th, 2018
“We take a look back at the films that helped shape, change, and innovate the world of documentary.”
Between the rise of streaming services like Netflix and the growing number of nonfiction films making noise at the box office, documentaries have never been hotter…or more accessible. At the very least, they certainly don’t feel like the cinematic equivalent of eating your vegetables anymore. As a result, this feels the perfect time for Mill Creek to release the first two seasons of IFC’s obsessively hilarious comedy series Documentary Now!
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Brent Lorentson on August 19th, 2018
“Welcome to the future.”
This is how Josephine (Ellen Burstyn) introduces a church group that is touring her geodesic home, which also doubles as a museum dedicated to inventor R. Buckminster Fuller. Josephine and her grandson, Sebastian (Asa Butterfield) have their own way of living in their home, a place where it is assumed Sebastian has never left long enough to experience how the real world functions. His interactions with the public don’t stretch beyond the casual tourists who come by the home, and as a teenager he’s never experienced “junk food” of any kind. But Sebastian’s reality crumbles after his grandmother has a stroke in the middle of a tour and he meets Jared (Alex Wolff).
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Brent Lorentson on August 17th, 2018
When it comes to films about man vs. nature, we typically see films where they are defending themselves in the wild where weather and predators are the biggest dangers they have to face. (The Grey and The Revenant are the titles that first come to mind.) In the new release Flora, writer/director Sasha Louis Vukovic is here to show us that there is more to fear than wolves and bears, but how deadly pollen can be. Somewhere I can imagine M. Night Shyamalan is happy to see that someone else has tackled this subject since his disastrous film The Happening made a whimper at the box office years ago. Fortunately for Vukovic, he didn’t make the same mistakes and instead has crafted a film that is perhaps one of the more realistic horror scenarios that has come out in some time.
The film takes us back to 1929 when a team of students head out into an uncharted forest to meet up with their professor on an expedition to study the local flora. Unfortunately, when they arrive their professor is nowhere to be found. To make matters more dire, the supplies they were expecting to be at camp for them to survive have been destroyed, and the only way out of the forest is by foot and more than a few weeks’ hike to civilization. While this is a nice setup with many horror elements in place, the film never quite commits to being a horror film.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on August 17th, 2018
"Some of you may know he history of The Section. Rumors of operatives going rogue, the Whitehall assassination. None of that matters now. What matters is that Section 20 stood for something. They were the soldiers who kept going when others fell, who saw the odds and didn't blink, who got the job done, even when it meant paying the ultimate price."
Two years ago I wrote a review for the fourth and final season of the Cinemax series Strike Back. Now here I am telling you about the fifth season. So what's up with that?
Posted in: Disc Reviews by J C on August 16th, 2018
“Nothing...no one...will ever separate us. We are one.”
Four young siblings take this vow shortly after arriving in America from Great Britain, having just experienced their latest tragedy. Unfortunately for them, these words are spoken less than 10 minutes into Marrowbone, so you just know their vow is bound to be severely tested. But while the movie looks and sounds like a typical horror flick on the surface — and is even largely set in what seems like a classic haunted house — Marrowbone is much more of a soulful, spooky family drama than it is a bloody good time.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on August 15th, 2018
"Thanos Is Coming..."
Whenever a filmmaker is doing a middle film in a trilogy, or merely a film that's intended to be a companion film in a series, they often talk about attempting to capture The Empire Strikes Back. For years it's been the standardbearer for anyone trying to end a blockbuster with a cliffhanger knowing it might be years before the ending is resolved for the audience. That's harder to do today than it was in the 1980's. I often say that the only thing wrong with instant gratification is that it simply takes too darn long. The Avengers: Infinity War is exactly that kind of film. It ends with huge elements left up in the air, but at least we'll only have to wait a year for its resolution. After watching how Anthony and Joe Russo have handled this nearly impossible task, I think the bar has now shifted. In Empire Strikes Back lexicon, let's just say the Russos just pulled out a huge chunk of carbonite, and future filmmakers will be using this as an example of how to pull of that herculean task in the future. The Avengers: Infinity War is finally here, and it pretty much lives up to all of my expectations. Now my expectations are going to need a bigger boat.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on August 15th, 2018
In September there is going to be a new film in The Predator franchise called The Predator. It's directed by Shane Black, who actually starred in the 1987 original film and soon after went on to develop the Lethal Weapon series and make a bit of a name for himself in the buddy-cop genre. It's no surprise that Fox wants to capitalize on the release by giving us UHD/4K releases for the other three films in the franchise. Let's try to forget those Alien vs. Predator disasters and focus on the three films of this particular franchise. I don't yet know what to expect from the upcoming film. I was glad to take a journey back in time with the other films, and this 4K release is just the ticket for you to upgrade those nasty DNR crapfests that were the original Blu-ray releases and see these films once again as they were originally meant to be seen.
This was the film that brought together two tough guys who both made it into acting after having big careers in athletics. The two would also share a bit of an odd future, as both would eventually serve as governors in the real world. Of course, I'm talking about Arnold Schwarzenegger and Jesse Ventura. No one knew about their political futures then, but the reality puts Predator in a lost of historically significant films as well as the beginning of a new franchise.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on August 15th, 2018
"My name is Oliver Queen. After five years in hell, I returned home with only one goal: to save my city. Today I fight that war on two fronts. By day, I lead Star City as its mayor. But by night, I am someone else. I am something else. I am the Green Arrow..."
Who the heck is this Green Arrow of whom you speak? If that's your first question, you need to go back a couple of grades and catch up with the rest of us. The comics are good place to begin, but the television universe is its own place and not tied so tightly to the DC comic book universe. Your best place to go to catch up would be the first five seasons. It'll be worth the effort, and I can get you started with those reviews found here. This review will not contain spoilers from the sixth season but very well must contain some from the previous year. So if you're not caught up, do that first.
