Posted in: The Reel World by Archive Authors on June 11th, 2015
I don't enjoy writing negative reviews. It's a struggle when the film experience was joyless and then to have to go back and relive that. I also don't enjoy reading reviews by other critics that get everything completely wrong. It's even worse when almost all the critics get it wrong. Even worse than that is when I see critics dumping on a film that's actually good, but that's a story for a different day. How can I say Spy is so bad? Because I had to sit through the movie. I can get some enjoyment out of even the worst movies, and that's true here, but I would not recommend it to unsuspecting viewers. I do imagine a lot of people will enjoy the movie despite themselves if they are paying for babysitters, etc. Again, I do think every movie has some entertainment value. I will try to find it in the new movie Spy. The first good thing I can say is that Spy is a chick flick that lets chicks save the day. They don't look great doing it, but they save the day. That's one of the problems. Almost no one looks good in this film.
The film has a great cast. Melissa McCarthy is the big star, but she shares billing with Jason Statham, Jude Law, and Rose Byrne. You can also throw in sturdy supporting players like Allison Janney and Bobby Cannavale. There are plenty more, but those are the names. I will say that the person who comes off the best is Rose Byrne. She plays a super-bitch super-villain who you truly believe doesn't like anyone. She dispatches people with the unpleasant venom of someone who doesn't like the service she is receiving at a restaurant. Jason Statham has the thankless job of making fun of himself. He seems game, but he doesn't really pull it off. He gets some of the funniest material but almost flubs most of his lines with his mush-mouth delivery. Jude Law gets the part of the perfect James Bond-type spy, but you get the hint of embarrassment in his facial mannerisms like he's trying too hard to spoof the trope.
Posted in: Contests, Expired Contests by Gino Sassani on June 10th, 2015
Our buddies over at Arc Entertainment have given us a few treats for our loyal readers. The Squeeze is out now on DVD. A young golf talent gets caught up with a ruthless gambler. All he wants to do is take care of his family and now it might cost him everything. It's a mix of a con film with the added interest of golf. Arc Entertainment has given us 3 copies to give away. Here's your chance to see how it ends on us.
To win a copy, just follow these simple instructions.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on June 9th, 2015
"Some things stay the same. I mean the gamer is the game."
Stop me if you've heard this one before. A newspaper reporter and a cop go into a bar... It sounds like a setup for a pretty lame joke. It's actually the story of how one of the greatest television shows to ever air got started. It was the brainchild of two real-world players who hadn't yet seen their worlds portrayed accurately in television of film. They set out on a mission to change all of that. And, changing all of that is exactly what they did.
Posted in: No Huddle Reviews by J C on June 9th, 2015
“You look at life like it’s a burden. Life is a gift.”
The best thing about Rectify — SundanceTV’s excellent, thoughtful slow-burn of a Southern drama — is that it gives equal weight to each of those viewpoints. Daniel Holden has spent more time as death row inmate than he has as a free man. As an 18 year old, he was convicted of the rape and murder of a teenage girl and spent the next 19 years in prison awaiting his execution. Daniel was suddenly freed after DNA evidence vacated his sentence, and season 1 showed him struggling mightily to adapt to life on the outside. (It also showed the outside world struggling mightily to adapt to him.)
Posted in: Podcasts by Gino Sassani on June 8th, 2015
Every science fiction fan knows who David Hewlett is. I've been a fan since his first appearance as Dr. Rodney McKay on the original Stargate SG-1. The character was such a memorable one that he became a regular when Stargate: Atlantis was launched. Hewlett is also responsible for the plague that kills off the humans in the new Planet Of The Apes series of films. Now he's gone behind the camera for Debug out this week on DVD. He wrote and directed the film which stars his old Atlantis buddy Jason Momoa, the future Aquaman. It was a special treat for me last week when I had the opportunity to spend a few minutes on the phone with him. We talked about McKay and the new film. Now you get to listen in on that conversation. Bang it here to listen to my chat with David Hewlett
Posted in: The Reel World by J C on June 5th, 2015
“If you call out to one of the dead, all of them can hear you.”
This lesson is very familiar to anyone who has seen either of the first two Insidious films, a pair of old-fashioned (no sex, no gore), highly-profitable chillers. Of course, a potential problem for this third installment was that the characters in these movies really should have learned that lesson by now too. The makers of Insidious: Chapter 3 smartly sidestep that issue by turning back the clock on the franchise. I just wish the rest of the film had more of that ingenuity and fewer blatant, unearned jump scares.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by J C on June 5th, 2015
“To live is to consume.”
Sometimes it feels like we’ve already consumed every conceivable type of Hollywood blockbuster. Besides movies adapted from comic books or, um, older movies, we’ve gotten mega-budget films based on board games and theme park rides. And that’s why I was so excited and intrigued by Jupiter Ascending, especially when The Wachowskis’ nutso space opera was slated to hit theaters during what seemed like a particularly sequel-heavy summer of 2014. The movie, in theory, represented a wholly original vision. Instead, the messy, unnecessarily dense Jupiter Ascending is Star Wars. It’s also The Matrix, The Princess Diaries, Flash Gordon, and even a little Soylent Green.
Posted in: No Huddle Reviews by Jeremy Butler on June 5th, 2015
“Bad boys, bad boys whatcha gonna do? Whatcha gonna do when they come for you?
Bad boys, bad boys whatcha gonna do? Whatcha gonna do when they come for you?”
There are some television series that just have a catchy theme song; COPS is one of those shows. I don’t know what it is, but every time I hear mention of the show, I automatically hear the theme song in my head. I know I can’t be alone in that category; come on, show of hands, how many people hear the theme song in their head or feel compelled to sing it out loud at the mere mention of the show? Yes, yes, I am aware I can’t see any of you; just a bit of fun. So my latest title, COPS Wildest Chases by definition is supposed to deliver the wildest, craziest, most insane chases of one the longest running reality television series in history. On that score, I must admit my disappointment, as the chases that I witnessed in no way lived up to that hype.
So going in I was anticipating a bunch of wild car chases on freeways and interstates culminating in carnage from vehicle wipeouts; what I got was mainly foot chases that in truth didn’t last long. I am aware of the dangerous precedent set by assuming; however, when something is titled Wildest Chases, it should be safe to assume that you can expect at the very least a couple of death-defying stunts, right? I suppose on the one hand this can allow certain people to sleep well at night, because these chases illustrate how good law enforcement is at catching their perpetrators, or how unskillful your usual perpetrators are at getting away (either should provide some level of comfort).
Posted in: No Huddle Reviews by J C on June 4th, 2015
“Man, you are everything I’d hoped for…right down to the hat.”
For six stellar seasons, Justified went about its business in a manner similar to that of its slyly laconic, incorruptible hero Raylan Givens. The key word in that last sentence is “hero.” Justified premiered in the midst of the supposed new Golden Age of Television, which was largely defined by antiheroes like Tony Soprano, Dexter Morgan, and Walter White. Another one of those antiheroes — Mad Men’s Don Draper — recently signed off with a lot more fanfare than Justified got for its excellent last hurrah.
Posted in: No Huddle Reviews by Gino Sassani on June 4th, 2015
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. Years later in syndication the series re-emerged as Ponderosa, and a handful of TV movies continued the tale into the 90’s.We never have grown tired of the genre that gave us such heroes as John Wayne and Clint Eastwood.
Unlike many of the 1960's Western television shows, Bonanza was all about the characters. You rarely saw a gunfight. There was often a bit of fisticuffs, but usually it ended with a lesson that violence never pays. The show prided itself on using the Western genre to deliver a family kind of show, and it's no surprise that series star Michael Landon would use many of the same kinds of stories and lessons on his own Little House On The Prairie. The Cartwrights are always helping widows, the wrongly accused, and the local Indian population. That help often lands them in hot water.
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