Posted in: Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on January 23rd, 2016
I have to admit that I'm not much of a Keanu Reeves fan. However, I'm a huge fan of Keanu Reeves movies. Let's face it, Keanu can be quite wooden with as much screen presence as a test pattern. OK, I'm showing my age with that line. But one thing he knows how to do well is pick great films to star in. From The Matrix and the recent very hit John Wick to the underrated The Devil's Advocate, Reeves can sure pick 'em. The worse case scenario here would be Keanu in an uninteresting movie. Well...Knock Knock. Who's there? An uninteresting Keanu Reeves film.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Brent Lorentson on January 21st, 2016
Have you ever stumbled across someone’s diary? At first glance it may look innocent enough, but for the person with dreams, fears and confessions, it is that friend and confidant that will listen to its author as they bare their soul and not be faced with judgement. In The Diary of a Teenage Girl, not only do we get a peek into the secret life of Minnie Goetze (Bel Powley), but we are taken on a journey of experiencing first love and sex through the eyes of a 15 year-old girl. It’s sweet, it’s tragic, but where this film’s strength comes at its audience the strongest is with its honesty, which for some may be a bit too sobering of a reminder of what life is like as a teenager
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Jeremy Butler on January 21st, 2016
Here comes another in the long line of movies featuring a WWE superstar. Boy, I tell you, the floodgates open after The Rock (although now he goes by Dwayne Johnson) proved it was possible to move from wrestling stardom to silver screen stardom. That said, none them have really made the leap successfully since him; however, that is not from a lack of trying. This time around, Randy "The Viper" Orton looks to try his luck in the sequel to a WWE sponsored film in The Condemned 2.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on January 21st, 2016
"Did you ever have a dream but didn't know where it started?"
Some dreams did indeed start with the box office flop Nomads. It was the first starring role in a feature film for future James Bond Pierce Brosnan. It was also the first film directed by John McTiernan and his only screenwriting credit to date. Both would go on to have quite flourishing careers, and I suspect neither spends much time looking back at Nomads, and with good enough reason. And those careers did not take long. For McTiernan his next three films would be, in order: Predator, Die Hard, and The Hunt For Red October. The film also sports a score by legendary Bill Conti
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on January 19th, 2016
The Intern tackles a pretty important issue. Age gaps are the elephant in the room that no one wants to acknowledge. The issue is confusing to address, because a lot of people don’t even know what age group they belong to or don’t care. But the differences are very real, and they cause enormous alienation and division. Baby Boomers and Millennials are two examples which are represented here by Robert De Niro and Anne Hathaway, who has a daughter starting the first grade, so another age group is represented. To be clearer, Baby Boomers are born between 1946 to 1964, Generation X 1965 to 1980, Generation Y/Millennial 1981 to 2000 and Generation Z/Boomlets after 2001.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by J C on January 18th, 2016
“In our experience, almost everything ends in death.”
Given its morbid-sounding title, I suppose you can also say that in the case of Rosencrantz & Guildenstern Are Dead, things *start* in death as well. The inevitability of death — a notion that is simultaneously profound and crushingly simple — is one of several big picture ideas explored by the small potatoes title characters. Rosencrantz & Guildenstern Are Dead, now making its Blu-ray debut, is equal parts brilliant and befuddling. But as thought-provoking and exhilarating (and funny!) as the exchanges are, I'm not entirely sure this material was meant to be presented as a movie.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Brent Lorentson on January 13th, 2016
In 2012 Sinister had its release and horror fans seemed to be divided on the film. For me, I dug the mythology of Bughuul, an evil spirit who appears in 8mm family films that seem to always end in some new gruesome way. He’s a character the horror genre needs, as I see him as a silent hybrid of Jigsaw (from the Saw franchise) and Freddy Krueger (from the Nightmare on Elm Street franchise), where he’s a killer who gives us unique kills in some unsettling locations. Now with the release of Sinister 2, do the filmmakers step up their game and deliver us more from the possible new icon of horror? Sort of; just not how I would have expected it.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on January 10th, 2016
Popular opinion and so-called critical opinion often seem to careen off cliffs like lemmings in increasingly unpredictable ways guided by whims and subtle shifts in the proverbial winds. I find myself shocked by things praised and things condemned. Sometimes I feel like a little boy who sees a naked emperor while everyone else is shrieking how much they love the new elegant ensemble. In this case, I'm seeing a lovely presentation while there are many who are whining. Part of the problem is that Season 2 of True Detective is considerably distinct from Season 1.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on January 9th, 2016
"I'm under some medication for a medical condition so I may not be seeing this correctly. But I'm pretty sure I might be seeing some of your students possibly eating Mr. Peterson. Again it could be the medication."
Cooties starts out with the grossest sequence in the entire film. You might not want to start this film if you're eating, particularly if you're eating chicken nuggets. Ben Franklin once warned us that there were two things one should never see made: laws and sausages. He might just as well have been talking chicken nuggets.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on January 8th, 2016
"The techniques change, the victims change but it's still a question, "How do these things happen? How are they institutionalized?"
“I was just following orders.” It was the plea heard by too many of the Nazi war criminals during their trials following World War II. It wasn't enough to spare them the consequences of their actions, of course. Six million people were exterminated, experimented on, or tortured. The excuse just didn't hold water. But was it at all valid? Could an otherwise "good" person be turned into something evil just because someone in authority told them to do it? Just how far would an average human being go toward hurting another person whom they have no provocation to hurt just because they are told to do so?
