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.
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?
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
Posted in: No Huddle Reviews by Gino Sassani on June 2nd, 2015
Until recently DirecTV's Audience Network was a home for critically-acclaimed shows that somehow lost their feet on another network. It started with Friday Night Lights and more recently Damages. So DirecTV was no stranger to original series production. Now for the very first time the satellite carrier and network have developed their own television series. Rogue would be the first show on the network not to have played somewhere else first. The effort is a collaboration with eOne and Greenhouse Entertainment. From the first ten episodes of the first season, you can bet it's a pretty wild ride and a relatively strong start.
Posted in: No Huddle Reviews by Archive Authors on June 2nd, 2015
by Dustin P. Anderson
Our story follows Sara, a woman who was blinded due to an encounter with a suicide bomber during a tour with the army as a photo journalist. We meet her after she has been blind for three years, and she has met a rich man who has seemingly gained his wealth through investments. After going out for champagne, she comes home to find her boyfriend killed and a man waiting for her with a knife. When the man’s partner comes, it is revealed that her boyfriend made his wealth as a thief and has stolen something precious from the two men who are holding Sara hostage: diamonds.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by J C on June 2nd, 2015
“That’s what you get when you hire a con man.”
As much fun as it is to watch clever, cagey characters try to outsmart one another on screen, the real appeal of movies about con artists is watching filmmakers try to pull the wool over the audience’s eye. It’s an especially tricky proposition when you consider that — thanks to the Internet — moviegoers might be more sophisticated than ever in terms of knowing how movies are supposed to work. (Or at least *thinking* they know how movies are supposed to work.)
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