Posted in: Contests, Expired Contests by Gino Sassani on July 29th, 2014
Those real cool cats up at Nasser Entertainment must love you guys. They've given us 5 copies of Amber Alert: Terror On The Highway to give away to our Upcomingdiscs faithful. That means you've got 5 chances to dig your teeth into this dramatic thriller. It stars Tom Berener, Torri Higginson and Britt McKillip and produced by real reserve police officer Joseph Nasser. It's a rare look at the national Amber Alert System and an edge-of-your-seat thriller. It's out this week on DVD.
To win just follow these instructions.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by J C on July 29th, 2014
“Don't you ever get tired of vanilla?”
There's a special breed of '80s movie that appears hopelessly dated on the surface yet remains impulsively watchable. (Insert your own, “So you mean *every* '80s movie?!” joke.) The Legend of Billie Jean — with its hilarious-in-hindsight fashion and Pat Benatar theme song — certainly fits the “trapped in the '80s” bill. However, the 1985 film — now making its Blu-ray debut courtesy of Mill Creek Entertainment — still manages to entertain by tapping into the timeless spirit of teenage rebellion.
Posted in: No Huddle Reviews by Archive Authors on July 29th, 2014
by Normandy D. Piccolo
“The shark is an evolutionary marvel that should be respected and revered.”
Posted in: Contests, Expired Contests by Gino Sassani on July 28th, 2014
Our good friends over at Entertainment One what to give you some Hell... Hell On Wheels that is. We're giving away a copy of Hell On Wheels Season 3 on DVD to one lucky Upcomingdiscs fan. This one has it all. We're talking gritty action and wonderful characters. I'll be reviewing the series soon, Spoiler Alert: It's fantastic! It's all here in one place. This 3-disc set is a must have. To win just follow these instructions.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Brent Lorentson on July 28th, 2014
Robin Williams is one of those actors that I just wonder what happened to them. Through the 80’s and 90’s Williams was simply box office gold with his comedic timing and great impressions, but I’ve always been more drawn to the more serious roles Williams delivered. Awakenings, The Fisher King, Dead Poets Society, One Hour Photo, these are just a few of his roles that have stuck with me over the years that made it easy to look past his cinematic missteps.
When a movie like The Angriest Man in Brooklyn comes along, as a longtime fan I can’t help but get a little excited and hope for that spark Williams once brought to each of his characters. Factor in you have writer/ director Phil Alden Robinson who wrote and also directed Field of Dreams, it would seem this film should have “instant success” written all over it.
Posted in: The Reel World by Archive Authors on July 24th, 2014
Lucy is good science fiction. Good science fiction challenges scientists to think about the possibilities. Good scientists think they don't know and want to seek the answers and learn more. Bad scientists will tell you the answers because they know. But they don't know. Science is made by making mistakes and learning from those mistakes and then making new mistakes and learning from them. Through that process myths and half-truths are passed along. For a hundred years science said that we only use about 10% percent of our brain, but now we are told that that was a mistake. They say we can map the brain's electrical activity through advanced medical technology. The truth is we still don't know much. We probably only know 10% about how the brain works. There could be endless investigation into storage capacity, the speed of connections, the purpose of electrical activity, dreams and the subconscious, perceptions, personality and self-awareness. 90% of the brain is made of glial glands which we know nothing about as opposed to the neurons which are what we try to track. There is not even a glimmer of an understanding of how to duplicate how the billions of cells interact.
Lucy has revived controversy over science like no amount of superhero movies have done. It asserts the reality of science instead of the fantasy of Superman and Spiderman. Lucy is a superhero, except she doesn't care much about human concerns. It seems there are more important things than our petty concerns.
Posted in: The Reel World by Archive Authors on July 24th, 2014
Zach Braff had a nice long run on the sitcom Scrubs, but he showed the world he was more than that by writing, directing and starring in the indie hit Garden State. Braff starred in some other movies but didn't get much traction. He's not really a leading-man type. He did have a nice supporting part in Oz the Great and Powerful, but Braff had already demonstrated he can do it all. Hollywood is not too friendly to original ideas, so Braff went to Kickstarter and had success. He asked for $2,000,000 and got $3,105,473 from 46,520 supporters. From there he got Hollywood money, and he has a movie.
Wish I Was Here starts with a typical suburban family arguing over breakfast. The head of the family, Aidan Bloom (Braff) is generally dissatisfied with many things. Soon we learn he's not really head of the family. He's an out-of-work actor who has to worry about his kids’ Hebrew school payments. Sarah Bloom (Kate Hudson) holds down the steady job. 12-year-old Grace Bloom (Joey King) cherishes her heritage much more than her younger brother and is mortified she might have to go to public school. It turns out the school is part of a deal he made with his dad, Gabe (Mandy Patinkin). Gabe was paying for the school because it was important to him, but he won't be able to do it anymore, because something serious is happening that he needs to deal with.
Posted in: No Huddle Reviews by Archive Authors on July 24th, 2014
There are people who love horror films and only horror films. For these people, they can never get enough. They will look at anything and everything. There are the people who like movies about high school and sports. Then there are people who like to see hot chicks. All Cheerleaders Die wants to make everybody happy. It starts out with a girl making a student movie about the cheerleading squad. The girls on the squad show off what cool witches with a B they are since they look out for their dogs on the football team. Unfortunately, one of their routines ends tragically with the head of the squad landing on her head from a great height. This opens a vacancy on the squad which is filled by the girl who made the movie, Maddy (Caitlin Stacy from I, Frankenstein) . They all bond pretty quickly at their first big party. Another girl, Leena (Sianoa Smit-Mcphee) is trying to warn her about something but doesn't succeed. The boys come over, but they know it's a girls-only night, which is cool. Leena, on the other hand, is definitely not cool, because she seems to be into occult practices, but it's hard to tell how serious she is about it. Hannah (Amanda Grace Cooper) is curious and listens to an explanation of what Leena does. Leena throws rocks on the ground which seems to be part of a witchy voodoo practice. Leena also has very, very heavy eyeliner.
In the middle of this is the captain of the football team seeing some girl/girl kissing, making him jealous, so they imbibe on drink and smoke. He also plans on playing major head games with the cheerleaders. Things get ugly real quick and it turns into all-out war. The fighting starts out in the woods where they were partying. A car race ensues which leads a car in the river, and the only way to fix things is with black magic. So a little coven is created, and there are tensions on every side: a perfect situation for death.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by J C on July 24th, 2014
One of the miracles of modern technology is its ability to shrink the world down so you can practically (well, proverbially) hold it in the palm of your hand. The cheerily square Smithsonian Channel series Aerial America goes the other way. In fact, the best thing about the show is how it uses technology to fill every inch of your screen with some of the most famous — along with some of the more underappreciated — U.S. landmarks, employing a larger-than-life/bird’s-eye point of view most of us wouldn’t otherwise be able to enjoy.
A quick primer if you’ve never seen the show (as I hadn’t prior to popping in this Blu-ray): the series debuted in 2010, and each hour-long episode is devoted to a different U.S. state or region. Every one of those episodes is solely comprised of stunning, leisurely aerial shots of that respective state’s natural and man-made landmarks, along with a brisk history lesson courtesy of narrator Jim Conrad.
Posted in: No Huddle Reviews by Brent Lorentson on July 23rd, 2014
When I first picked up this title to review it was a film I knew nothing about other than what the DVD cover revealed, which as it turns out was very little. I like going into most films cold so there is no room for expectations to get in the way. With such a generic title and a cast that had a few names that rang a bell and knowing nothing about the story, I figured the film had equal chances to be good or simply a stinker I’d forget by the weekend. As it turns out, Gangster is a gritty little drama that not so much took me by surprise but instead left me wanting so much more.
Paul Ferris (Martin Compston) had it rough as a kid, always the target of bullies, while also developing a quiet admiration for the local Glasgow crime boss. Witnessing an execution before even turning a teenager, it shouldn’t come as a surprise that this admiration would soon develop into emulation towards the bullies in his neighborhood.
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