Posted in: Random Fun by Gino Sassani on June 28th, 2010
Hey Gang,
Posted in: Contests by Gino Sassani on June 28th, 2010
Our friends at History have graciously given us 2 copies of Ice Road Truckers The Complete Season Three on High Definition Blu-ray to give away.
To enter to win a copy of this Job To Die For Adventure, just follow these two steps...
Remember that this is a High Definition Blu-ray release. Please be sure you have a Blu-ray player.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by William O'Donnell on June 27th, 2010
There is a “Convenience Store Killer” running amok in Los Angeles, killing patrons and shop owners and stealing the security camera footage for his own collection. Our heroes are a misfit band of workers who are having a poker night while locked inside their damaged store (the damage being on the door...so they are stuck until morning...see what they did there?) and soon the killer targets them.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by David Annandale on June 24th, 2010
Bill Williamson (Brendan Fletcher) is an angry young man. His boss treats him badly, he can't get good service at the local coffee shop, and his parents are trying, none too subtly or smartly, to get him to move out. He hangs out with a friend who talks a big talk about changing the world, but does nothing. Bill, by contrast, is about to do something: gearing up with so much body armor he becomes a walking tank, he begins a gigantic massacre in town, beginning by blowing up a police station, and going on to gun down anyone who crosses his path. There is, however, rather more method to his madness than might appear.
The indefatigable Uwe Boll here brings us a film that echoes the likes of Falling Down, Targets and Elephant. (And in typically modest fashion, on the commentary track he feels he has improved on Falling Down.) This is one of Boll's better films, blessed by an excellent lead performance by Fletcher, convincing improvised dialogue (which does produce a couple of grammatical howlers, but hey, so does real-life dialogue), and intense hand-held camerawork. There are some genuinely witty moments, too, such as the scene where Bill enters a bingo hall, and is completely ignored by its denizens. Even at a brisk 85 minutes, however, the film doesn't have quite enough plot, and thus the rampage itself feels a bit too long. There is also too much reliance on flash-forwards, which ultimately telegraph the resolution too far ahead. As for that resolution, it isn't without a certain cleverness, but it does tend to muddy the film's social commentary. But social commentary there is, and there is quite a bit to admire about this effort.
Some of the reds are bit too strong, but otherwise the colors are excellent, as are the contrasts, blacks and flesh tones. There are moments where the film shifts to webcam footage, and the difference is clear and convincing. The overall look of the film is rich without venturing too far outside of a realist aesthetic (the exception being a gigantic explosion early on, but as far as the transfer goes, everything still looks very nice). The aspect ratio is the original 2.35:1 anamorphic widescreen.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on June 23rd, 2010
Whenever there is a disaster, there are always the inevitable questions that follow. Where did it all begin? Could it have been avoided? What can we learn from this? No, I'm not talking about the oil leak in the Gulf. Hollywood is no exception. You have your disaster movies like Earthquake, and you have your movies that are disasters like Waterworld. Of course there are even disaster movies that are also disasters like the recent 2012. Some disasters you never see coming. But, many such events could have been predicted and possibly avoided if only the right folks had been paying attention. This is the story of one such event: Showgirls.
I guess you could say that it all started with Basic Instinct. The film was directed by Paul Verhoeven and scripted by Joe Eszterhas. You remember the movie. It starred an as yet unknown Sharon Stone as the girl who dared Michael Douglas to arrest her for smoking in the interrogation room. There were ice picks, torrid sex scenes, and a few gender- bender moments. The film was a small affair with a budget under $50 million. It took the world by storm and raked in almost $400 million in the worldwide box office. It became that film that everyone talks about. Water cooler conversations were dominated by the thing. It quickly invaded the pop culture, and even if you'd never seen the movie you knew the common references. So, three years later when the same director and writer team decided to take on the Vegas showgirl world, expectations were high indeed. If Basic Instinct got them talking, Showgirls is going to have them screaming, and so it did ... only not quite in the way everyone had expected. The end result? A mere $20 million at the box office. In less than a few weeks Showgirls had become one of the most disappointing movies in the history of the industry.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on June 23rd, 2010
The Griffins, residents of Quahog, Rhode Island, aren’t the standard sitcom familial unit. The patriarch, Peter, a thick-necked, thicker-accented simpleton, has a wonderful grip on eighties television shows and bad musical groups, but lacks in social graces (soiling oneself at a neighbor’s funeral?). His wife, the animated-hot and ever-loving Lois, seems hell-bent on keeping some semblance of normalcy in the household, even if it means burying her feelings and ignoring reality a bit. Their oldest child, Meg, is the very definition of unpopular, but trying. Chris, her thirteen-year-old brother, is a dense lug who fears the evil monkey only he can see. Baby Stewie is a two year old with Rex Harrison’s voice, Howard Cosell’s vocabulary, and Napoleon’s lust for world domination, but his family treats him just like any other two year old. Finally, their dog, Brian, is a well-read, well-spoken hound who’s trusted enough to babysit, even if he’s known to take a martini or two. Family Guy is the almost always hilarious story of their lives and their struggles.
Fox never really knew what to do with Family Guy, even though it premiered right after the Super Bowl. It moved around the schedule like a cartoon Bedouin, never getting a chance to claim a timeslot for its own. Its fans followed it, but newcomers never knew where to find the show after its initial viewing. Its humor also didn’t make it a very easy sell to advertisers; it’s a more gruff version of The Simpsons, with far “bluer” material (sort of like if Homer and Marge were involved in an S&M episode). As a result of these obstacles, and in spite of serious protestations from a very large fan base, Family Guy only lasted three seasons. But never count a good series out for the count. Three years after it left the airwaves, Family Guy was back. Now the show is going into its 9th season. Quite a success story.
Posted in: Dare to Play the Game, News and Opinions by Michael Durr on June 23rd, 2010
Xbox Kinect Bowling, Sony Talks About 3DS & Microsoft pushes again for PC Gaming? - Welcome to the column that thinks 3d gaming needs a large slap of reality known as Dare to Play the Game.
I’m back for another week with more World of Warcraft gaming nonsense. As it turns out, I did play my dwarf priest some more but most of my weekend involved getting my troll rogue closer to 80. He started the weekend at about 75 and a half and ended up on Sunday at 77. His gear is starting to get better and my dps is starting to improve. However, the last dungeon I was in, I was still near the bottom though I noticed my dps had improved considerably. I was part of the pack, not behind it.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by BABY on June 22nd, 2010
Hey everybody. Baby, back again to bring you yet another dog movie from a dog's point of view, which is the floor, in case anybody out there really wants to know. You see, Gino won't let me on the furniture in the theater. He says that just because the seats look like chew toys, and smell like chew toys, doesn't mean they actually are chew toys. I mean, really, people. You wanna talk about your special effects, which reminds me of something else I'm not supposed to do in the theater, but let's not talk about that right now.
I wanna play a game we like to call Baby Says. OK, I like to call Baby Says. Baby says take two steps backward. Baby says get back in that delivery truck. Deliver some more DVD's or Blu-rays. Oh-Oh, I didn't say Baby Says, and that spells B A R K. Baby Says send me some treats, and that spells W A G. The truth is no matter how loud I yell, and no matter how loud Gino yells at me, these movies keep showing up on our doorstep. And the latest of these movies is called Air Bud: World Pup. So I guess I better stop talkin' about me and tell you something about the movie.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on June 22nd, 2010
MacGyver (v) To act in an extremely resourceful manner. To utilize everyday items in unconventional ways to achieve a difficult task. I predict it will not be long before you can open your trusty copy of Webster’s and find this character has officially entered our lexicon. There is little doubt but that it is an unofficial part of it now. Crossing over from the realm of pop culture and into our language is a phenomenal achievement for a television show.
I came to the MacGyver party rather late. Like everyone else on the planet, I was certainly aware of the show and the clever abilities of the lead character. Still, with so many other shows to watch, I never saw a complete episode. Then came Stargate SG-1. This was another series I at first avoided. I thought the original film was OK but nothing I’d care to see week in and week out. One day while my wife was taking our neighbor’s dog to the vet I was bored and sat down to an episode on Showtime. I was hooked, not only on the series, but the characters, along with their alter-ego actors. Richard Dean Anderson I found most compelling. I must admit to confusing him at first with the Richard Anderson of The Six Million Dollar Man fame (Oscar). Finally I sat down to some MacGyver on DVD.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on June 22nd, 2010
"The Douglas family is back and ready for seconds in volume two of the second season of My Three Sons. Join America's favorite pipe-smoking single dad Steve Douglas as he raises sons Mike, Robbie, and Chip with a winning combination of laughter, love and world-class fatherly advice."
Just to look at it you would think that My 3 Sons was a Disney production. Its star Fred MacMurray had appeared in many Disney films of the 50’s and 60’s and is most likely recognizable from those appearances. Two of the three boys were also known for work with Disney. The eldest boy, Mike, was played by Tim Considine, who starred with MacMurray in Disney’s The Shaggy Dog. Middle son Robbie was played by a former Mickey Mouse Club Mouseketeer, Don Grady. The youngest son, Chip, was played by Stanley Livingston, the only non Disney alum in that group. Another reason for the confusion is the decidedly Disney-like material the series covered. Steve Douglas (MacMurray) was a widowed single parent who was trying to balance his job with that of raising his three sons. Most of the stories involved the warm and fuzzy heartwarming stuff that Disney had pretty much cornered the market on in the films. Whatever troubles arose, no problem was so bad that a heart-to-heart talk couldn’t fix it. The style would prosper and continue in the form of 70’s shows like The Brady Bunch. The four guys were also joined by Steve’s father-in-law, Bud, played by I Love Lucy favorite William Frawley. That was no surprise, since the show was actually produced, not by Disney, but the Desilu studios.

![Ice Road Truckers: The Complete Season 3 [Blu-ray] dvd cover art](https://upcomingdiscs.com/ecs_covers/ice-road-truckers-the-complete-sea-medium.jpg)


![Showgirls (15th Anniversary Sinsational Edition) [Blu-ray] dvd cover art](https://upcomingdiscs.com/ecs_covers/showgirls-15th-anniversary-sinsati-medium.jpg)




