Posted in: Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on April 4th, 2015
"It's a comedy...hopefully."
It's been six years since Hugh Grant teamed up with director Marc Lawrence. It's their fourth collaboration. It doesn't appear that Lawrence is willing to direct a film that doesn't feature Hugh Grant, because he hasn't. Let's just say the fourth time wasn't the charm. In fact, it wasn't even all that charming. And the problem is that Grant and Lawrence have attempted to build careers out of making Grant charming. By now they're just trying too hard, and the result is a poor showing that was in desperate need of a Rewrite.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on April 3rd, 2015
They started as a local band in Philadelphia. By 1972 they had released their first album on the national stage called Whole Oates. The duo has been together for over 40 years and have remained playing through most of that time. Even with stops for solo projects, Daryl Hall and John Oates have remained a team throughout those years. It's rather rare for a rock team to remain together and friends for so long. Their endurance has paid off in so many ways, but 2014 would be a year they would see a lot of that hard work and partnership be recognized as they became the first Philly band inducted into the Rock And Roll Hall Of Fame. They are also the best selling duo in recording history. Sounds like the books can be closed on Hall & Oates, right? Wrong. It's also true that in all of their world tours the group never played Ireland. That mistake was corrected when Hall & Oates appeared at the historic and intimate Olympia Theatre in Dublin on July 15, 2014. High-definition cameras were on hand to record the event. And now Eagle Rock Entertainment is releasing the historic event on Blu-ray. It's Hall & Oates Live In Dublin.
While the core duo for whom the act is named has remained intact all of those years, many musicians have come and gone. Fortunately, for this release the band featured here is one of the best the duo has ever assembled. This is absolutely one of the tightest groups of performers I've seen or heard in quite a while. The longest-standing member of the band is sax player Charlie DeChant. He's been with the guys since the fun started in the 1970's. His riffs provide much of that Philly sound that makes the Hall & Oates experience one of the more unique ones around. There's a fusion of rock, funk, and old time rhythm & blues to the sound, and it's distinctive. Count Charlie has one of the huge contributors to that element. The band here also features three members of the 1970's Average White Band. We're talking about Eliot Lewis on keyboards, Brian Dunne on drums, and bass player Kyle Jones. Both bands had a very similar vibe, and the combination is one of those natural things that just work out perfectly. Throw into the mix guitarist Shane Theriot and percussionist Porter Carroll, and you have a recipe for good music.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by J C on April 2nd, 2015
“For the first time in four years, I can say what I really think.”
It may have taken four years for fictional U.S. Vice President Selina Meyer to make her boldest political move yet, but Veep was finally able to achieve all-around greatness in just three. I know there are fans of HBO's caustic comedy series who would argue the show was already great, and I agree there have absolutely been many flashes of foul-mouthed brilliance throughout its run. But it wasn't until Veep had Selina Meyer try to outgrow the show's title in season 3 that the series itself ascended to another level.
Posted in: The Reel World by Archive Authors on March 31st, 2015
Most true life stories are remarkable in some way. If you can get to the truth of real-life history, it almost always unearths treasures of understanding. Art is the process of revealing hidden truth and beauty in real life. Woman In Gold is the story of a painting that was sold for $135,000,000 in 2006 to an heir of Estee Lauder. It was the highest price for a painting at the time. There is a remarkable story that takes place around the painting. It involves the Nazi theft of art in World War II. A previous film, Monuments Men, tackled the subject a couple of years ago. The challenge that both films faced is making the subject of art important when mixed with the chaos and horror involving human life during the period. Then there is the painting itself, which is so iconic that it was called the Austrian Mona Lisa.
Woman In Gold covers a lot of ground from the creation of the work itself (also known as Portrait of Adele Bloch-Bauer I) by Gustav Klimt in 1907 through the traumatic and catastrophic war years to the eventual battle to find justice and closure.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on March 31st, 2015
Most movies are just not very good. Lots of money goes into turning out boring, repetitive garbage. You watch it and then dispose of it and make room for the next thing. There are some who do more, but the more you do, the greater the risk. Most filmmakers are not given the freedom to take really big risks, but someone who has been given the opportunity to take the big risk is Christopher Nolan. Interstellar is $165,000,000 gamble shooting for the moon. Actually Nolan is shooting for something way past the moon. He wants to take us to another galaxy. There is so much speculative science in this film that it is mind-boggling. The cutting edge of real science is, frankly, getting crazier and crazier. The average person really has no idea how crazy, but Interstellar is going to try to show us just how crazy. The true nature of some of the elements of the theory of relativity and other related theories is that they defy all logic.
One of the most important things in Interstellar is its attempts to deal with some of the properties of time. The laws of physics tell us time acts differently in different situations. In this movie time rules everything in people's lives, but the main character is given the power to do something with time that most of us don't even imagine. It's important to know some of these situations are described in actual scientific theory. In fact, real science is getting closer and closer to God all the time. Most people who don't believe in God don't expect science to contradict that way of thinking. Interstellar doesn't talk about God, but it comes close to doing something similar. It is science's contention to state statistically there are millions of planets with intelligent life out there. Some of those intelligence forces will seem like God to us. This is simple science, but people have such a wide range of beliefs that no one will ever agree on what is the truth. The reason we don't agree is because mankind is just not smart enough to have real answers.
Posted in: No Huddle Reviews by Jeremy Butler on March 31st, 2015
Grace takes a refreshing approach to unfolding the story; it gets right to the point. When Grace is introduced, she is right in the thick of things, waking up alone half-naked on a beach after a night of excess. She is shown some kindness by a stranger who wastes no time letting her know that she has been where Grace has been and offers her the opportunity to change. Now, naturally, this is too easy; any audience member would see through that. The one thing everyone knows about life is that though as human beings we have the capacity to change, we tend not to do it until something forces our hand; we need a catalyst, and fortunately the film provides a great one: the threat of jail time.
OK, OK, albeit the threat of jail time is a bit cliche when it comes to forcing someone’s hand, it is arguably the best way to get someone to do the desired action; otherwise police would have to find a new tactic to get criminals to testify against one another. Grace is ordered to attend mandatory Alcoholics Anonymous sessions to help her get a handle on her problem. As to be expected, she resists at first. In this area the film does not strike any new chords, Grace repels in your typical ways: hostility, avoidance, etc. However, during this period it is where the supporting cast becomes important, especially those we come in contact with through the mandatory AA sessions. For it is their addition that helps move the plot along.
Posted in: Podcasts by Gino Sassani on March 31st, 2015
There’s a new horror film out from Anchor Bay. It’s called Muck, and it’s actually the middle part of a trilogy. If you find that more than a little bit confusing, Upcomingdiscs is here to help you sort it all out. We’re going to be delivering a series of interviews with cast and crew to answer all of those burning questions. Our final interview was plagued with some connection issues so I won't get to share much of my interview with Lachlan Buchanan. He plays Troit in the film. It's only a snippet but you should bang it here to listen to some of my chat with Lachlan Buchanan.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by J C on March 30th, 2015
“There's money flying all over Silicon Valley, but none of it ever seems to hit us.”
There's a lot to like about HBO's Silicon Valley, which debuted last year with a confident, clever freshman season that took merciless aim the tech capital of the U.S. My favorite thing about the show — besides hyper-specific jokes aimed at geeky targets like the many endings of “Mass Effect 3” — is that it portrays (and makes fun of) each aspect of the cutthroat tech industry, from the self-important, aggressively eccentric billionaires to the scrappy, proverbial guys in a garage.
Posted in: No Huddle Reviews by J C on March 27th, 2015
There's a mile-long list of Hollywood movies that have been re-titled in foreign countries to hilarious effect. I've personally had much less experience with foreign productions being re-branded for American audiences, but Diamond Heist seems like one of the more egregious examples you're likely to find. The DVD cover has professional tough guys/straight-to-DVD MVPs Michael Madsen and Vinnie Jones brandishing weapons while accompanied by a vague explosion and the wonderfully generic tagline, “Payday is only a bullet away.” In other words, there's nothing here that suggests this Hungarian import is actually an action/comedy about male strippers.
To be fair, when you read back the key parts of that last sentence — “Hungarian action/comedy about male strippers” — it's not hard to see why there was some re-tooling in order to maximize the film's prospects in the U.S. Diamond Heist was originally titled Magic Boys, even though the Chippendale's-style action is less Magic Mike titillating and more Full Monty slapstick.
Posted in: News and Opinions, Site News by Gino Sassani on March 26th, 2015
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