Posted in: Podcasts by Gino Sassani on May 19th, 2015
The Drownsman is out from Anchor Bay this week. Sofar I've had a chance to talk to the writer/director and one of the actresses on the film. This time I got to talk to The Drownsman himself. Ry Barrett plays Sebastian Donner who is, indeed The Drownsman. I had the chance to talk to Ry about the gig and what it was like wearing all of that "stuff". Want to know what he said? Bang it here to listen in on my conversation with Ry Barrett
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on May 19th, 2015
"As you know, in less than two hours liquor will be declared illegal by decree of the distinguished gentlemen of our nation's Congress. To those beautiful, ignorant bastards. Rest assured that, dry though the country may be, I am in the midst of concluding arrangements that will keep Atlantic City wet..."
HBO has finally released a full series set of Boardwalk Empire on Blu-ray. This is an HBO trend that has gone full tilt in the last year, seeing such hits as The Sopranos, True Blood and soon The Wire all coming in wonderful full-series releases. They look great on your video shelf. Together they create a tremendous number of hours of quality television. I love having it all in one place. If you're new to the show, what better time to climb on board? Here's a primer on what you're going to see. I almost envy you folks who will watch it all for the first time in one sweep.
Posted in: The Reel World by Archive Authors on May 19th, 2015
We all love underdogs. Even if we think we're the greatest thing since chipped beef on toast, secretly we think we're the underdog. No matter how great our life is, we don't think it's good enough, and everyone's out to get us. Pitch Perfect was a movie about underdogs, and it was an underdog itself. It was a movie about women, nerds and dorks. Just in case you think I'm being insulting, I actually think all three of those things are great, but they are not always given the respect they deserve. The first movie was thrown out in the marketplace with the expectation that it would starve and die. Instead it did very respectable business which only grew when it went to the home viewing audience. Pitch Perfect made $65 million, and now Pitch Perfect 2 has made over $70 million in it's first weekend. The sequel only cost $29 million to make. The characters in the movie are still underdogs, but clearly the producers of the movie are not.
So what's all the excitement about? Nothing much. Just an underdog story about a bunch of girls and their sometimes dopey boyfriends. They are an a capella singing group in college that fought their way to a championship only to lose it in the beginning of the second movie with a massive fail wardrobe malfunction. The story isn't too much different than the first. Just more of the same. They have to fight their way back from disgrace and failure. We can all identify with that.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on May 18th, 2015
"A man of your age has no excuse for looking or behaving like a fugitive from a home for alcoholic music hall artistes."
Sound like anyone you know? Johnny Depp is one hell of a talented actor. There are few in the industry than can so completely inhabit a character. He has an uncanny ability to make you forget Johnny Depp the actor and lose yourself in his performance. He is a chameleon physically and expressively. Unfortunately, Johnny has had trouble finding box office gold lately. You see, he's having a lot of fun at our expense. But it's not just we who are footing the bill for his tomfoolery. The studios are handing out hundreds of millions of dollars for box office misses like The Lone Ranger, Transcendence, Dark Shadows, The Rum Diaries and the animated Rango. Depp appears interested only in making films where he can have a blast on screen and doesn't appear all that concerned if the film makes any money or if the audience feels like they've been invited into the party. You can now add Mortdecai to that list. There's absolutely no question that Depp is having a blast, but if you paid anything at all to see it, it was at your expense.
Posted in: No Huddle Reviews by J C on May 18th, 2015
“Nobody’s innocent. Everyone’s hiding things.”
The citizens of Broadchurch — the fictional seaside town that was rocked by the murder of a young boy in this superlative British crime drama — learned the above lesson the hard way. In fact, I felt pretty strongly that every compelling secret the series had to offer had surfaced during the show’s outstanding first season. So I was pretty dubious when I heard creator/head writer Chris Chibnall had gotten the band back together for an encore. Having now finished season 2, I’m thoroughly delighted to be proven wrong.
Posted in: The Reel World by Jeremy Butler on May 15th, 2015
It is one of the most anticipated movies of the summer and another subject in the category of can Tom Hardy do no wrong? Mad Max: Fury Road is the reimagining of the iconic film that helped launch Mel Gibson’s career decades earlier. This is not new territory in Hollywood by any stretch of the imagination; remakes have happened so often in recent years that they have practically become their own genre. However, I would like to point out something that will hopefully set this film aside in the eyes of the audience: how often do you see a remake that is overseen by the creator of the original film that you know and love?
OK, OK, perhaps this is not entirely new territory as well, except I am certain that Mad Max fans all over the world leaped for joy when news broke that the architect of the originals, George Miller, had decided to helm the remake as well. Heck, it wouldn’t surprise me to learn that is the underlining reason that many of you folks intend to see the movie. And it is in that spirit that I would like to impart a piece advice upon the future audience: put the past out of your mind when you are watching this. It is not a continuation, it is an origin story. Yes, I know that it seems like a simple concept, and maybe I am rehashing thoughts you have already had, but for argument’s sake, just do what I ask, and I promise you will have a far better experience.
Posted in: No Huddle Reviews by Dan Holland on May 14th, 2015
Once more I dive into the deep chasm that is filled with contemporary, independent exorcism films. Reading the title, An Irish Exorcism, what can be expected of this film? I was hoping for the film to bring focus to what it means for an exorcism to be “Irish.” Do Irish Catholics perform exorcisms differently than other Catholics? Is there a world-famous exorcist who travels to Ireland in order to succeed in saving a child’s life, where countless priests have failed? Wherever your imagination takes you after reading the title is a step toward a more creative film. The only thing that sets An Irish Exorcism apart from other cookie-cutter exorcism films is that it is set in Ireland.
An Irish Exorcism tells the story of Lisa (Anna Davis), a college student researching exorcisms, as she pieces together video interviews and other evidence for her final class project. Father Quinn (Paddy C. Courtney), a more progressive priest, helps Lisa get in touch with the more traditional Father Byrne (Brian Fortune) for her project. Father Byrne is reluctant to help, but allows Lisa to document the possession and subsequent exorcism of a local girl in order to finish her project. As you may have guessed, the film is presented to us as “found footage,” complete with an introductory disclaimer stating the “credibility” of the images that follow.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by J C on May 14th, 2015
“To truly know a man, you must walk in his shoes.”
On the lone special feature of any substance included on this Blu-ray, director/co-writer Thomas McCarthy admits The Cobbler was inspired by the well-known idiom listed above. I’m all for getting as many original ideas on the big screen as possible. But even if you don’t think basing a feature film on a popular saying is a shaky proposition, The Cobbler severely underwhelms because it totally fails to capitalize on its high-concept premise in an intriguing way.
Posted in: Podcasts by Gino Sassani on May 13th, 2015
The Drownsman is now out from Anchor Bay. This time I talked with Caroline Palmer. Caroline made her feature film debut with The Drownsman. I had a great time talking with her. Now you can find out what we talked about. Bang it here to listen in on my talk with Caroline Palmer.
Posted in: No Huddle Reviews by Gino Sassani on May 13th, 2015
If you were around in 1972, television was a very different place. By midnight most stations were shutting down to the tune of the national anthem. After that there was a test pattern and a high-pitched ring that would fill your screen until dawn when programming would resume. Of course, there were also only three networks, and, if you were lucky enough to live in a large market, a handful of local stations. All good people were expected to be safely tucked into their beds long before 1:00 AM. It was a very different world from today when we get 24-hour programming on over 200 stations or more. Oh, and there was no home video, in case you thought you could just pop in a movie for your late-night viewing pleasure. Video games? Forget it. In just a couple of years, you were going to get Pong.
The music business was also very different in 1972. It was the age of the singer-songwriter and rock bands who actually played instruments. Music was sold on vinyl record albums, and there was no MTV or VH1. If you wanted to see your favorite band perform, you went to a concert. There were dance shows that went all the way back to the 50's with Dick Clark's American Bandstand or Soul Train. But these shows featured performances that were lip-synched to the familiar recordings. These were almost never live performances. If you were lucky, your favorite band might show up on Johnny Carson or Ed Sullivan before that. Downloading music meant you worked at a record store, and you were unloading boxes of albums from the back of a delivery truck. Even the Walkman was a decade in the future. Bands just didn't have access to the fans the way they do today. All of that started to change on August 19, 1972. That was the day The Midnight Special arrived, and things would never be the same again.
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