Posted in: The Reel World by Brent Lorentson on July 2nd, 2014
In a summer that has been taken over by giant lizards and robots, it is a little odd to find a little sweet film like Begin Again playing on the screen and competing with the heavy hitters of summer. From the writer/director of indie smash Once we get a film that isn’t just about musicians trying to make their big break, but instead it’s about the heart and pain that goes into the creation we later hear and become fans of. When we first meet Greta (Keira Knightly) she is nursing some heartbreak in a bar, and her friend drags her up on stage to perform her new song.
Posted in: No Huddle Reviews by Gino Sassani on June 30th, 2014
Jim was a Chicago cop who had a disagreement with his boss. That little disagreement was his boss shooting him in the butt for sleeping with his wife. Jim Longworth (Passmore) made out okay. He got a huge settlement and a fresh start in a warm climate. Oh, and you and I got ourselves another one of those smart-aleck detective shows. Not a bad deal, when all is said and done. Much of this used to be covered in an opening credit monologue which has since disappeared. I guess they figure you should know all of this already.
Posted in: No Huddle Reviews by Gino Sassani on June 30th, 2014
"Lucky Bastard was a pornographic website that invited fans to have sex with porn stars. The following footage is believed to be the last video shot for the site."
You know exactly what that kind of an intro means. You should. The found-footage genre has been around even long before it was turned into a modern trend by The Blair Witch Project. Since that time the genre has appeared in both large- and small-budget films. The shaky footage usually covers a variety of sins by the filmmakers. Rarely does the genre have anything clever or new to dispense. That's not exactly true with Lucky Bastards.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on June 30th, 2014
It's a sad state of affairs. The road that Blood Ties has taken to get to this Blu-ray release is far more interesting than the film itself. It all starts with a French film Les liens du sang that was itself a reflection on the American cop drams genre. One of the original French screenwriters collaborated to bring the idea full circle to become an American cop drama. The film made the film festival circuit with mixed reviews and results. For some reason Director Guilaume Canet decided to go back to the editing room and remove nearly a half hour of the original film's running time.
Posted in: No Huddle Reviews by J C on June 30th, 2014
What happens when you splice together the killer-couple kicks of Bonnie and Clyde and Natural Born Killers with the ritualistic depravity of torture porn offerings like Hostel and Saw? I'm not really sure who — if anyone — was looking for an answer to that particular question, but that didn't stop Scavenger Killers from going to extreme lengths to provide one. Unfortunately, this low-budget slasher flick/wannabe satire is entirely too clumsy and non-committal in its tone to pull it off.
Posted in: No Huddle Reviews by Brent Lorentson on June 29th, 2014
When I read on IMDB that this was meant to be a horror comedy, I have to admit I breathed a sigh of relief. After watching Ghost of Goodnight Lane I just simply was left wondering if the laughs were intended or if this was a film that just was delivered so poorly that you just couldn’t help but laugh at it. Having seen now that the film was intended for laughs, I’m still not so sure it’s helps the film any. Though it has a solid story and a decent cast, the execution just falls flat.
Posted in: The Reel World by Gino Sassani on June 27th, 2014
When I was a young boy I loved playing with my toys. We didn't have Transformers in those days, but we did have Major Matt Mason, plastic dinosaurs, Hot Wheels and Creepy Crawlers Thingmaker sets. Yeah, in those days a toy could cause third degree burns, and no one really worried about getting sued. Kind of takes the fun out of being a kid today. You know who else, I bet, loved to play with his toys? Michael Bay. I bet he had the coolest toys in his neighborhood. He probably wasn't the best guy to be friends with, however. He didn't invite the kids over to play with his toys. He likely charged you a nickel to watch him play with them
Posted in: No Huddle Reviews by J C on June 27th, 2014
“I like the fact that there's no desk. I like the fact that he's not wearing a suit and tie. And I like the fact that there's not some over-hyped studio audience being prompted to laugh at topical jokes that we're all gonna forget about in the next few days.”
For its second season, IFC's Comedy Bang! Bang! got bigger and bolder in the way it manically skewered decades of talk show and pop culture conventions. Not surprisingly, the show also got even weirder.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by J C on June 26th, 2014
“It begins as a whisper. A promise. The lightest of breezes dances above the death cries of 300 men...”
It may have started as a whisper, but 300 quickly became synonymous with roaring, instant-classic declarations after it burst onto the scene in 2007. Zack Snyder's muscular adaptation of Frank Miller's graphic novel was an outta-nowhere blockbuster. When a movie achieves that level of success, there's usually a sequel in the works even as the opening-weekend grosses are still rolling in. Of course, that proved to be a bit trickier given what happens to the heroes at the end of 300.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Brent Lorentson on June 25th, 2014
When the first Wolf Creek was released it was one of those films that had a lot of hype around it, and when I got around to watching it, I dug it. It’s one of those films where the more I’ve watched it the more I’ve gotten to appreciate it, not just for its gore, but the film has a solid story, and I appreciated that the film at no time allows you to get too comfortable. At any moment a character could be brutally murdered. It’s the character of Mick Taylor (John Jarratt) who could equally make me smile with his crude outback charm or make me squirm with uneasiness the moment his hands took hold of a weapon.
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