Gossip Girl: The Complete Sixth and Final Season
Posted in No Huddle by Archive Authors on February 19th, 2013
Gossip Girl ran six years on the CW and is based on a series of books written by Cecily Von Ziegesar. It is about the very rich and young of the upper east side of New York City. The gossip girl of the title has remained secret throughout the series but is revealed in the final episode. I won’t be revealing the secret. The series is best described as glossy fun. It is a soap opera in the extreme with a heavy emphasis on fashion and all of the expensive toys of the ridiculously rich. It also deals primarily with teenagers who are “maturing” while trying to deal with the difficulties of a life that has no boundaries.
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Contest: Win Interview With a Hitman On Blu-ray From Well Go USA
Posted in Contests, Expired Contests by Gino Sassani on February 18th, 2013
Our friends over at Well Go USA have given us three copies of Interview With A Hitman on Blu-ray to give away. “Trust no one. Feel nothing. Never lose. This is Viktor’s (Luke Goss) code. This mantra took him from the slums of Romania to the pinnacle of his profession – as a murderer for hire. Viktor knows the value of life more than most, which makes him the perfect killer. But after a ruthless betrayal by his bosses, he escapes to London, joins a new “family,” and finds himself caught in a vicious underworld power struggle. Viktor is now better, faster and more ruthless than ever before, but an encounter with a dark beauty offers him a chance at new life. But can he ever hope to escape the ghosts – and buried secrets – of his past? ” 3 lucky winners will get in on all of the excitement.
To win just follow these instructions.
- Fill out your name and email address in the comment form below – your email address will remain private and visible only to us.
- Do not post your address as an actual comment! Instead – Tell us who your favorite action star is.
- Only those comments that answer our question will be considered.
Contest is now closed Winners are ky2here, Dawn Cook and Timmy Shore
Winners are notified by E-mail. If you did not get a confirmation E-mail from us, check your Spam filter and contact us. Any prize not claimed in 2 weeks will be forfeit and be placed in the end of year contests next Holiday Season.
Undefeated (Blu-ray)
Posted in Disc Reviews by J C on February 17th, 2013
“You think football builds character? It does not; football reveals character.”
The open secret about sports movies is that they’re not really about sports. Most of the great ones use the games people play as a dynamic arena to tell universal stories about struggle, underdogs overcoming impossible odds, greatness and redemption. You don’t have to know a nose guard from a mouth guard to enjoy a football movie. By that same token, Undefeated may chronicle a grueling real-life high school football season, but I wasn’t surprised to see it play out like a lot of fictional sports flicks.
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Ben 10 Omniverse: A New Beginning, Vol. 1
Posted in No Huddle by Jonathan Foster on February 16th, 2013
“When lives are on the line, it’s hero time!”
What would you do if you had a gadget that allowed you to transform into different alien creatures? Think about it. If a good and virtuous person found it, they would use it to help others and protect the planet. If it fell into evil hands, they would use it to gain power and cause havoc. Everything comes down to the question of how that power is used. Unfortunately for Earth, Ben Tennyson found the alien gadget in question.
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Mimesis (Blu-ray)
Posted in Disc Reviews by Jeremy Butler on February 15th, 2013
“What’s the matter? Don’t you like role-playing?”
I was on the verge of writing this film off as another zombie flick hoping to capture on the popularity brought about by the AMC series The Walking Dead, but then….BAM! It brought forth a plot twist that veered it away from all other zombie movies and grabbed my attention. It was no longer a zombie film; it was much more interesting.
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Hello I Must Be Going
Posted in No Huddle by Brent Lorentson on February 15th, 2013
I remember watching Heavenly Creatures and believing Melanie Lynskey would break out and become a star. I never would have guessed her co-star Kate Winslet would be the one to emerge from the film and be the A-list actress she has become. After all, when you watch Heavenly Creatures, it’s hard to believe this was the first role Lynskey had in front of a camera; I would have imagined she was destined to play some great roles through her career. Unfortunately that’s not the case, but I’m glad to see at the very least she has a career up on the screen.
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A Good Day to Die Hard
Posted in The Reel World by Gino Sassani on February 14th, 2013
“Guess who?”
In case you haven’t been paying attention, 2013 is turning out to be the year of the returning action stars. The Governator Arnold Schwarzenegger teamed up with Korean action director Jee-woon Kim to deliver a very entertaining ride in The Last Stand. Sly Stallone teamed up with action icon Walter Hill to bring us the not-so-entertaining Bullet To The Head. Of course, perhaps the most eagerly awaited return was Bruce Willis back in the role that made him an action star in the first place.
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Safe Haven
Posted in The Reel World by J C on February 14th, 2013
Even among the crowded field idyllic meadow of big-screen romances, the “Nicholas Sparks movie” has become its own lucrative sub-genre. The only other contemporary authors I can remember achieving that sort of name brand recognition are Stephen King and John Grisham. (When people went to watch a Harry Potter film, they didn’t usually say, “Let’s go see the new J.K. Rowling movie.) It’s easy to spot a Nicholas Sparks movie: the lily white leads usually live in or around one of the Carolinas, where they inevitably get drenched by a romantic, cleansing rain before coming across a pivotal letter.
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Beautiful Creatures
Posted in The Reel World by J C on February 14th, 2013
The conclusion of the wildly popular Twilight saga last fall left a nation of haters high-fiving each other, but it also created a giant, heart-shaped vacuum in Hollywood. Where is the industry’s next big young adult-oriented, human-on-supernatural romance franchise going to come from? Valentine’s Day seems as good a time as any to find out if Beautiful Creatures — based on Kami Garcia and Margaret Stohl’s “Caster Chronicles” series — is up to the task.
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Femme Fatales: The Complete First Season
Posted in No Huddle by Brent Lorentson on February 13th, 2013
When this DVD found its way into my hands, I felt this could go one of two ways; either this is going to be awful, or this is going to be fun as hell. I have to admit I had a little more concern when I saw that the show aired on Cinemax and had never even heard of the show. Despite my concern, the idea of an anthology series inspired by pulp novels and film noir revolving around badass chicks simply sounded too good to resist. The result is a late-night trashy blend between The Twilight Zone and The Red Shoe Diaries.
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Bonanza: The Official Complete Fifth Season
Posted in No Huddle by Gino Sassani on February 13th, 2013
Three-time widower Ben Cartwright (Greene) runs his famous Ponderosa Ranch with the aid of his three grown sons from three different mothers. There’s Little Joe (Landon), Adam (Roberts) and Hoss (Blocker). Set some time in the mid 1800’s, this long-running series followed the family’s many exploits. In the late 1950’s westerns accounted for six of the top ten programs on TV. Only Gunsmoke had a longer run than Bonanza. From 1959 to 1973, Ben Cartwright and his boys rode across the small screen.
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Gunsmoke: The Seventh Season, Vol. 2
Posted in No Huddle by Gino Sassani on February 13th, 2013
The setting for Gunsmoke was the by-now-famous Dodge City, circa 1870’s. Phrases like “get out of Dodge” would enter the popular lexicon as a result of this resilient series. Marshall Dillon (Arness) was charged with keeping the peace in Dodge City. The only other character to see the entire 20-year run was kindly Doc Adams (Stone). Star Trek’s own Doc, Leonard McCoy, took many of his traits from Doc Adams. He was the humanitarian of the city, always looking to help someone. Like McCoy, he had a taste for bourbon and a soft heart underneath a rather gruff exterior and was always ready with free advice.
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Slugterra: Return of the Shane Gang
Posted in No Huddle by Jonathan Foster on February 13th, 2013
Slugterra reminds me of the cartoons from my childhood — like G.I. Joe and Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles — where the good guys are always extolling the virtues of friendship, hard work and fair play. The show also seems to be a cross between Pokemon and Transformers, featuring competitors dueling with little creatures called “slugs” that transform into powerful beasts once they hit 100 mph.
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Bully (Blu-ray)
Posted in Disc Reviews by J C on February 12th, 2013
The image of what a bully looks and sounds like has changed drastically in recent years. When you and I were growing up, a “bully” was probably someone who looked like this and demanded your lunch money. Mean Girls came out less than 10 years ago; but if Tina Fey were trying to get the exact same movie made today, she’d probably have to deal with notes from a nervous studio exec worried that the Burn Book would drive one of the characters to suicide.
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Exclusive Interview With Douglas Schulze: Writer/Director/Producer Mimesis
Posted in Podcasts by Gino Sassani on February 11th, 2013
There’s a new take on the horror movie. It’s Mimesis. I had the opportunity to chat with Douglas Schulze. He’s the writer/director and producer of the film. Why watch horror films when you can live them. That’s the idea behind the film. Why not listen in on our conversation? Bang it here for my interview with Douglas Schulze
Pig – 1334 (Blu-ray)
Posted in Disc Reviews by J C on February 9th, 2013
I didn’t know what to make of this Pig/1334 double bill when I took it on as my latest assignment. All I had to go on were the aggressively grotesque images on the Blu-ray case. I wasn’t yet familiar with the work of Dutch filmmaker Nico B. or former Christian Death frontman Rozz Williams. I did a bit of research, mostly because I wanted to make sure I wasn’t being handed a real-life version of the videotape from The Ring. (Surely, there would be a less drastic way of informing me my services were no longer required on this site.) What I uncovered instead was an intriguing and haunting back story.
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Identity Thief
Posted in The Reel World by Gino Sassani on February 8th, 2013
Between Jason Bateman (Office Space and Horrible Bosses) and Melissa McCarthy (Bridesmaids and Mike and Molly), whose career seems to be most on fire right now? The idea of these two pairing would at first glance appear to be comic gold. Instead the result is a road trip film that had me asking if it were over yet. When we first meet Sandy Patterson (Bateman), he’s just your average businessman trying to support his family. With a new baby on the way, more money is just what he could use, and when he discovers the only people getting bonuses are his superiors, this rubs him the wrong way, and rightfully so.
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Cherry Tree Lane
Posted in No Huddle by Brent Lorentson on February 8th, 2013
What makes the horror genre so unique is that it doesn’t have any rules, but it has one goal: to scare us. And the weirdest thing I find about horror is that so many people enjoy being scared, and, well, some of us have watched some pretty rotten things all in the name of a cheap thrill (my reasoning for watching A Serbian Film). Lately the trend in horror is to be in the world where our heroes on the screen are put through some very “real” situations and it kind of poses the question: how far is too far?
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Side Effects
Posted in The Reel World by J C on February 8th, 2013
Steven Soderbergh has had a one-of-a-kind career. And if the director is to be believed, that filmmaking career comes to a close with Side Effects. (At least theatrically speaking; his Liberace biopic, Behind the Candelabra, is scheduled to air on HBO later this year.) Soderbergh may have best exemplified the idea of making “One for Me, One for Them.” (Even if the director firmly disagrees with this notion.) The theory dictates his “One for Them” flicks usually had the word Ocean’s in the title and helped fund his micro-budgeted, “One for Me” experimental films.
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To Rome with Love (Blu-ray)
Posted in Disc Reviews by J C on February 7th, 2013
You don’t usually get too many legendary (and wildly polarizing) filmmakers coming off the biggest hit of their careers — unadjusted for inflation, of course — at age 77. Yet that’s exactly where Woody Allen found himself with To Rome with Love, his pleasant, witty, not-at-all-groundbreaking follow-up to Midnight in Paris. The writer-director originally named this film The Bop Decameron before changing it to Nero Fiddled. I’m guessing somebody (smartly) figured the suddenly buzzworthy director’s next film should have a less esoteric title; and if there was a way to incorporate a European city into the name, even better.
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Peter Pan (Blu-ray)
Posted in Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on February 6th, 2013
“All this has happened before and will all happen again. But this time it happened in London. It happened on a quiet street in Bloomsbury. That corner house is the house of the Darling family, and Peter Pan chose this particular house because these were people who believed in him…”
In 1953 with a little help from some Walt Disney magic, generations of children, and adults, of course, would learn to believe in the boy who never grew up
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Flight (Blu-ray)
Posted in Disc Reviews by J C on February 6th, 2013
Can a scumbag also be considered a hero? Lance Armstrong fans probably mull that question each time a new, unsavory revelation about the now-disgraced cyclist comes to light. The issue was addressed in 1992’s Hero, which starred Dustin Hoffman as a low-life who saves a group of passengers on a crashed airplane. Flight also takes to the not-so-friendly skies to examine whether it’s possible to reconcile a lifetime of destructive behavior with an extraordinary act of valor.
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Animaniacs: Volume 4
Posted in No Huddle by J C on February 6th, 2013
“It’s time for Animaniacs. And we’re zany to the max. So just sit back and relax, you’ll laugh ‘til you collapse. We’re Animaniacs!”
I am a 30-year-old man, and I didn’t need any help remembering the lyrics to the Animaniacs theme song. (Yikes! That sounds like a confession I should be making at my next Man-Child Anonymous meeting.) Similar to the influential work of Tex Avery and Chuck Jones, Animaniacs served as the first exposure many children in the ‘90s had to classical music and literary masterpieces.
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The Love Section
Posted in No Huddle by Jeremy Butler on February 5th, 2013
The Love Section is not a very grabbing title if you ask me, but to each his own I suppose. The new film is the latest product coming out of One Village Entertainment; the film does have some things going for it: an absolutely gorgeous leading lady (hubba hubba), a unique pairing of leads, and a very funny supporting character. However, the plot is not swimming in uncharted waters. Ali (Lawrence B. Adisa, Grindin) is a 32-year-old real estate agent and a ladies’ man, bouncing from woman to woman with very little desire for a permanent commitment.
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Exclusive Interview With Paul Andrew Williams: Writer/Director Cherry Tree Lane
Posted in Podcasts by Gino Sassani on February 4th, 2013
I had a nice little chat with Paul Andrew Williams. It was our most long-distance interview yet. He was in Jolly Ole’ England and was nice enough to stay up late to talk to me about his latest film Cherry Tree Lane. We’ve got a review forthcoming. This is a most interesting and quite intimate look at a home invasion. Bang it here to listen in on our chat Paul Andrew Williams