Posted in: Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on October 16th, 2013
"We always thought that alien life would come from the stars, but it came from deep beneath the Pacific."
The only thing we seem to love more than giant monster movies are movies about giant dudes going a few rounds with said giant monsters. It was huge television fare in the 1960's and 1970's. We had Ultraman, Space Giants, and Johnny Socko. All of them were Japanese imports that gave us daily or weekly monsters doing the old "Tokyo Stomp", and just when things appeared at their darkest, the giant hero would arrive and give us a show more akin to the weekend wrestling shows than anything else. We'd get choke-holds and body slams that would make the rubber suits jiggle as they fell. It was all in good fun and appears to have pretty much disappeared from the television and film landscape. That is, until Guillermo del Toro brings us one of the summer's eagerly awaited tentpole films: Pacific Rim.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on October 16th, 2013
Direct-to-video sequels of successful animated films are tricky at best. The video release is usually a sign that either the studio is trying to cash in quickly on the franchise or they are just not confident enough in the sequel to put it up on the big screen, usually with good reason. Smaller budgets mean less impressive animation and a lack of A-list voice actors. Every studio has been guilty of one or the other and more often both. But what's the story when the original film made a disappointing $25 million at the domestic box office? That usually signifies that a sequel of any kind is not likely in high demand. Such is the quandary of Alpha & Omega 2: A Howl-iday Adventure.
The original film wasn't near as bad as the box office figures would have you believe. It was pretty much an average computer-animated feature film. It had a very solid voice cast that included such talent as Justin Long, Danny Glover, Dennis Hopper and Christina Ricci. It just didn't have a lot of punch to it, and it fizzled. I'm not sure how anyone thought that this one would have any more heart or punch after you take away the great talent and substitute relatively unknown names. That doesn't mean untalented, by any means. They do pretty much what's expected of them here. I just wish I could say it was entertaining.
Posted in: The Reel World by Archive Authors on October 16th, 2013
Gone With The Wind is the most popular film of all time still to this day if you talk about adjusted dollars. The Birth of a Nation was the most popular film of all time for a considerable time prior to that. Both films could be said to have a benign view of slavery and white supremacy, although it would be easy to use much stronger language than that. In most circles, both films have been considerably discredited due to this myopic view. Both films almost completely ignore or disregard the incredible cruelty of using human beings as a commodity for commerce. Even that doesn't begin to address the evil. Slavery continues to subjugate and demean up to 30,000,000 people worldwide to this very day, but it was sanctioned by law in much of the United States until after the Civil War. The horror, indignity and monstrous unfairness of it all cannot be overstated. Those involved in the abolitionist movement prior to the Civil War were driven by a fanatical and fervent desire to expose the abominable hypocrisy that was prevalent. A small core of free men and women of all races risked their lives to fight the abomination.
12 Years a Slave was a book that was written as a true account of the blind evil of the time. It is now a movie by young director Steve McQueen (that's his real name; he is obviously not the dead actor). In Saratoga Springs, a young highly regarded musician has a beautiful family and home. His name is Solomon Northup, and he has a good life. He is intelligent, friendly and eager to make the most of his talents. He is persuaded to assist two entrepreneurs with a venture and travel to Washington, D.C. After much success and celebration he wakes up to find himself in chains, and so begins the 12 years. He is transported on a slave ship and changes hands among owners over those 12 years. He is, after all, property. He is now part of a “peculiar institution”.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by J C on October 15th, 2013
Embrace of the Vampire is a remake of the 1995 erotic bloodsucker thriller of the same name. The original’s only greatest claim to fame is that it starred Who’s the Boss? cutie Alyssa Milano in her first, ahem, “grown up” role. In other words, the bar wasn’t exactly sky high for the remake. (This is not Gus Van Sant doing a shot-for-shot remake of Psycho.) The well-made newer film certainly “embraces” the erotic thriller DNA of the original. Unfortunately, it doesn’t seem overly concerned with the "vampire."
Charlotte Hawthorn (Sharon Hinnendael) is a shy college student who arrives at a co-ed campus after previously attending an all-girls Catholic school. We are quickly introduced to her friendly roommate Nicole (Tiio Horn) and Eliza (C.C. Sheffield), Charlotte’s snarky rival on the fencing team. We also learn Charlotte suffers from violent, vivid dreams — involving sex and buckets of blood — that lead to her waking up in unexpected places.
Posted in: No Huddle Reviews by Jeremy Butler on October 15th, 2013
Me and my big mouth; as you may have guessed it wasn’t destiny that brought me and the first season of Teen Mom together. Reality television is not one of my favorite programs. So by now I imagine that it is pretty obvious that I went into this program with high reservations. But as it turns out, even I wasn’t about to keep them up the entire time. Deciding to think of it as a long-running documentary, I see the importance of a show like this in regards to raising awareness among teenagers considering becoming sexually active, and after watching I am grateful that a show like this exists.
Picking up where its lead-in show, 16 and Pregnant, left off, Teen Mom continues to tell the tale of Amber, Catelynn, Farrah, and Maci now that their kids Leah, Carly, Sophia, and Bentley respectively are now out of their wombs and in their arms; highlighting the struggles that each one must now undertake as they attempt to find balance and incorporate some semblance of their old lives with their new circumstance:
Posted in: No Huddle Reviews by Archive Authors on October 15th, 2013
Leland Orser is an actor. You've seen his face a lot over the years playing deranged or demented or despondent characters. He is married to Jeanne Tripplehorn, who is probably better known from the HBO series Big Love and movies like Basic Instinct and Waterworld. Orser decided to write and direct his first movie and have his wife play his wife in the movie. It is an intense character study that includes other top actors like Laura Linney, Eliot Gould, Kyle Chandler, Jason Ritter and Julie White. Everyone in the movie seems to be in support of Jeanne Tripplehorn, who has been given quite a character to play.
Tripplehorn plays someone who seems to be falling apart. The movie starts with her husband on top of her while she stares distractedly out the window. Their relationship seems to become even more disjointed as the day begins. They both begin to completely unravel. It takes a while to get an idea what might be going on. But this movie is in no hurry to clear things up for the viewer.
Posted in: No Huddle Reviews by Archive Authors on October 15th, 2013
Dave Foley is something of a celebrity, not to overstate the fact. He starred in a famous skit comedy show (Kids in the Hall) and sitcom (News Radio). He's not like super-huge famous, but he has a strong cult following. He also looks like the sweetest and least objectionable person in the world. I say he looks like that. He may be the sweetest person in the world, but he is definitely not the least objectionable person in the world. His standup DVD clearly tries to dispel the notion that he doesn't hold a lot of objectionable views. This DVD is definitely not for everyone. If you’re a very religious and conservative person, this DVD is not for you.
Dave starts of by saying he is not gay. He feels he has to say this, but apparently a lot of people think he is gay, probably because he wore a lot of dresses on Kids in the Hall and was very good at playing women. This leads him into covering sexuality in great detail and in all its awkward glory. He doesn't shy away from covering many very intimate moments from his own life. So let's just say lots of bad words are used. He may be sweet, but he's pretty raunchy.
Posted in: Contests, Expired Contests by Gino Sassani on October 14th, 2013
31 Nights Of Terror is just getting out of control with these giveaways. Our friends over at Mill Creek have given us a Triple Feature horror-fest to give away. One lucky Upcomingdiscs fan will get Deceived with Goldie Hawn, Summer Of Sam with John Leguizamo and The Rich Man's Wife with Halle Berry.
To win just follow these instructions.
Posted in: The Reel World by Gino Sassani on October 13th, 2013
"Try not to be distracted by the cleavage and the hairspray."
It all started out as a mock trailer written by Robert Rodriquez for the 2007 farce Grindhouse. The project combined such talents as Rodriquez, Quentin Tarantino, Eli Roth, Rob Zombie and Edgar Wright. They were all fans of the 1970's exploitation grindhouse films. You can certainly see the influences in the movies these filmmakers have made on their own. Machete was equally a farce and only intended to give you that drive-in trailer feeling during Grindhouse. Along the way the segment staring Danny Trejo became something more.
Posted in: No Huddle Reviews by Brent Lorentson on October 13th, 2013
At some point as we’re getting older I think we all get a little nostalgic for the things we liked when we were younger. For everyone I believe our reasons are different for having this trip to the past, whether it’s playing that old cassette that never seemed to leave our car radio, revisiting old NES games, and most commonly I think it’s the movies and TV shows we looked upon so lovingly in our youth. Sadly, though, these trips to the past seem to leave us scratching our heads, wondering what we were ever thinking. And that would about sum up my experience reviewing Shout’s release of the Nickelodeon series Aaahh!!! Real Monsters.
Before there was Monsters Inc. and Monsters University, there was another batch of monsters that did their best to scare the daylights out of us humans. In this monster-filled world, we follow the adventures of three friends who are in school learning the skills of how to scare humans. Ickis (Charles Adler) is a bit of the reluctant hero of the group; he wants so desperately to be a great monster who can scare the pants off of anyone, but with his short stature and large bunny-like ears he looks more cuddly than menacing. Then there is Oblina (Christine Cavanaugh), a black-and-white-striped-candy-cane-looking creature with giant red lips, and Krumm (David Eccles), a short, chubby creature that can never seem to keep hold of his eyes. Teaching the young students is their headmaster, The Gromble (Gregg Berger), who, like any good monster, is hard to satisfy and loves to scream and scare his young students.
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