Posted in: Disc Reviews by Brent Lorentson on June 28th, 2017
“First, there is an opportunity. Then…there’s a betrayal.”
It’s been 20 years since the release of Trainspotting, and it’s fair to say a lot has changed in the past two decades. I remember going out to the United Artists Mission Bell Cinemas to see Trainspotting the weekend it came out. I was with my best friend at the time, and neither of us was old enough to buy tickets for the film, so we ended up having to sneak into the film. We’d seen the trailers, and in a time before the internet there just wasn’t much we could find out about it aside from reading articles in the entertainment magazines. To this day, I remember walking out of the auditorium simply floored by the film. Everything from the soundtrack to the visuals just hit me, and this was one of the first times I realized what creative influence a director has on the look and feel of a film. I came out as a fanny of Danny Boyle and the insane kinetic energy he puts into the look of his films. Over the years Danny Boyle has stepped out of the independent film spotlight and become a big-league director with several other award winning films, i.e. Slumdog Millionaire, 127 Hours, and Steve Jobs.
Posted in: No Huddle Reviews by J C on June 28th, 2017
“Dad, this is my boyfriend Martin…”
The tension generated by the first meeting between a young man and the father of the woman he loves has always been a reliable source of conflict. I mean, Ben Stiller and Robert DeNiro managed to squeeze three(!) Focker movies out of that stressful dynamic. All-Nighter fits snugly into that familiar sub-genre while managing to carve out low-key moments of character development and male bonding in between all the noise that comes with this sort of whacky situation.
Posted in: Tuesday Round Up by J C on June 27th, 2017
We don’t usually take too kindly to trespassers around these parts, but we are happy to make an exception this week. Trespass — a 1992 action-thriller starring the late, great Bill Paxton — makes its Blu-ray debut this week courtesy of Shout! Factory. Be sure to keep an eye on the site for our review. Meanwhile, Candy Factory brings us back down to earth with Life of Significant Soil, while Vestron unleashes The Unholy upon us. Finally, make sure to buckle up for our review of Edgar Wright’s Baby Driver a little later this week.
Here's your weekly reminder before signing off for the week (and for June): if you’re shopping for anything on Amazon and you do it through one of our links, it’ll help keep the lights on here at UpcomingDiscs. See ya next week!
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Jeremy Butler on June 27th, 2017
Another shining example of an opportunity to watch a classic film that was before my time. Before had, the only thing I knew about Car Wash was that it was a Richard Pryor movie; however, now I grasp that Pryor is just a pawn in a large ensemble cast. He is far from the most important character, although he is an interesting one as Daddy Rich, but his role pales in comparison of Bill Duke as Duane, or should I said Abdullah, as he prefers to be known now. Car Wash as it turns out is of greater significance than I originally realized and worthy of the title of cult classic, and I do believe a huge portion of that is attributed to the song that was lived on for generation to follow. You all know it, “Working at the Car Wash.” Sing it with me now.
So a majority of the film revolves around Abdullah (Bill Duke), who is considered a Muslim revolutionary. Abdullah also serves a bit of the everyman for the story and our eyes into this world. This is most evident during the ending, where the character reaches his emotional peak while attempting to rob the establishment. In that scene, we see all the emotional difficulty that he has struggled with throughout the duration of the film. Another key takeaway from the scene is the understanding that we all just need a helping hand or someone one to show that they are in corner sometimes.
Posted in: No Huddle Reviews by Brent Lorentson on June 25th, 2017
Since 2011, the trio of Blake, Adam, and Ders have been reporting to their telemarketing job and bringing the laughs to Comedy Central on Workaholics. With the final season now released, it’s time to bid a fond farewell to the trio that has shown us the joys of pranking, slacking, and pot in the work place. Does the show go out with a bang, or does it fizzle before reaching that last episode? I was a little concerned how things would end up because of the years I’ve gotten to really like the show and everyone involved. It’s time to punch in that time card and check out what this final season is all about.
The final season kicks off with Blake (Blake Anderson), Adam (Adam Devine), and Anders (Anders Holm) coming into work as new trainees are being brought into the office. The guys crash the training session and decide to tell everyone they are fired, with the exception of the three youngest trainees and one old man they affectionately name sixty-nine. The guys take the new employees under their wing and show them a day in their life at the office, and this ends up backfiring on them. The new trainees take pranks to a whole other level, and it becomes an all-out prank war in the workplace. I loved this episode, but what I wasn’t expecting is how much more I was going to love this season.
Posted in: No Huddle Reviews by Dan Holland on June 25th, 2017
The concept of eternal recurrence was (arguably) brought to the mainstream in 1993 with the release of Groundhog Day (1993). Certain films such as Run Lola Run (1998) and even an episode from The X-Files, “Monday” (1999), have managed to capture the strange, yet sad, philosophical nature behind repeating a single day. Since then, many variations of the concept began to meld with time travel, adding more distractions from the concept itself, only borrowing the basic premise: Just as space and time are infinite, so are our collective existences (in theory). Life of Significant Soil is closer in relation to the former films mentioned; however, it allows the raw emotion of experiencing a traumatic event to helm the ship.
Drawing a significant amount of inspiration from Milan Kundera’s novel, Unbearable Lightness of Being (another text which foregrounds eternal recurrence), the film concerns the failing relationship of Addison and Conor. As they continue to relive the last day of their relationship, they begin to pick up on the fact that their life is indeed repeating, and they begin to take steps to stop the inevitable from taking place. Even after seeking help from their neighbor Jackie, or Conor’s friend, Hue, they can’t seem to find the correct equation to set their life back on course.
Posted in: No Huddle Reviews by Gino Sassani on June 23rd, 2017
If there is a television series in the history of the industry as American or timeless as The Andy Griffith Show, I haven't seen it. You'd be hard-pressed to find someone with strong negative feelings about the series. It was one of those organic and comfortable productions that reached deep into the core of rural America. Even if we lived in a bustling city, there were aspects of the show that still rang true. It was populated with the kind of familiar faces so that it wasn't hard for anyone in the audience to smile in remembrance of a character they've known in real life. And even after 50 years, the series still speaks to that certain aspect of the friendly small southern town. A lot of the credit for that peaceful easy feeling must be credited to the titular star Andy Griffith himself.
It all started as an episode of The Danny Thomas Show called Danny Meets Andy Griffith in February of 1960. In October of that same year, the first episode of the show ran. That was the first time television audiences took a trip down to Mayberry. There they met Andy Taylor (Griffith), a widower with a young son named Opie, played by future Happy Days star and superstar director Ron (it was Ronnie then) Howard. The relationship could be summed up in the popular series opening that found the father and son heading to their favorite fishing hole with poles slung on their shoulders. All the while, the soon-to-be-famous whistled theme put us in just the right mood. Andy was helped out at the house by Aunt Bea (Bavier), who always had something "mighty fine" cooking or baking in the oven.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on June 22nd, 2017
"You wanted me back. I'm back."
Keanu Reeves has enjoyed somewhat of a career renaissance thanks in no small part to the success of John Wick in 2014. There he teamed up with some stunt friends of his going back to The Matrix, and together they brought a new action hero to the screen that was as much graphic novel as it was action film. It would become the directing debut of the stunt team of Stahelski and David Leitch. Along with their action star, everyone stuck to what they knew and refused to overcomplicate the whole thing. That led to a box office haul of $86 million worldwide and a respectful enough budget to make a sequel seem like a good possibility. It took three years, but that possibility has turned into John Wick: Chapter 2.
Posted in: The Reel World by J C on June 22nd, 2017
“These movies that I’ve done, they are massive movies. They take a lot out of you.”
That’s director Michael Bay talking about his decade-long work on the Transformers franchise on the eve of the fifth(!) film’s arrival. The movie also doubles as Bay’s swan song in the director’s chair, so when he says, “They take a lot out of you,” the filmmaker is presumably talking about the massive amount of energy and manpower (and horsepower) these big-budget bonanzas require. The problem is “They take a lot out of you” has also applied more and more to each subsequent movie in this series. Transfomers: The Last Knight isn’t just a bad movie…it is painful and exhausting to watch.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by J C on June 21st, 2017
“We should not be fighting for segregation, we should be fighting for equality.”
That’s the sort of rousing statement any random politician on the campaign trail might use to rile up a crowd of supporters at a pep rally. And even though those words are spoken here by a man in the midst of heavy political turmoil, the beauty of A United Kingdom — a straightforward but nevertheless impactful fact-based drama about forbidden love — is that they are actually born out of an intensely personal conflict.
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