Live at The Isle of Wight Festival 2004 (Blu-ray) (2CD)
Posted in Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on June 7th, 2017
“Is it loud enough?”
What young 1970’s pup, learning to play a guitar for the first time, didn’t, at one time or another, attempt to imitate Pete Townsend’s windmill power chord strum? I count myself in that group. While I was not a very dedicated Who fan, I had an appreciation for the musicianship. There were still songs like Pinball Wizard and Behind Blue Eyes that I would embrace as if they were my own anthems in those days. It would be hard to deny that The Who is one of the most successful rock bands in history. Part of the original British Invasion of the 1960’s, there are few such acts that are even still around, let alone able to fill the huge stadiums and halls of Rock’s yesteryears.
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Prisoner X
Posted in No Huddle by Jeremy Butler on June 7th, 2017
“Time-traveling terrorist, what’s scary about that?”
I’d say there is a lot scary about that. Fortunately, the character that said it was being sarcastic. Can you imagine, how do you battle an enemy that already knows what is going to happen? Prisoner X is a psychological thriller, which attempts to solve this question when a terrorist from the future and the Central Intelligence Agency’s top agent match wits to prevent a dystopian future.
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Bambi: Anniversary Edition (Blu-ray)
Posted in Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on June 7th, 2017
“Good morning, young prince.”
The forest is alive with the news. It travels from tree to tree, from animal to animal. A new prince has been born, and the creatures of the woods gather to welcome the young fawn. His name is Bambi, and he soon wins the hearts of the entire population of the forest. From his first attempts to stand on his wobbly legs to his discovery of the things that surround him in this brand new world, Bambi takes us on an emotional journey through the circle of life.
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Major Crimes: The Complete Fifth Season
Posted in No Huddle by Gino Sassani on June 7th, 2017
After five seasons I don’t really think of Major Crimes as a spin-off from The Closer. It has gone on to establish itself as a much better show than its former version ever was. We have become very comfortable with most of these characters, and the series isn’t really looking over its shoulder anymore, if it ever did. This is one of those shows that’s just easy to watch. There might not be anything groundbreaking going on here, but it feels like that old worn shirt that you love to wear because it just feels good having it on. That’s the kind of thing that can go on for many years, and Major Crimes doesn’t appear at all to be slowing down. It’s become an anchor for TNT, and I don’t see that changing any time soon.
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Becker: The Complete Series
Posted in No Huddle by Gino Sassani on June 7th, 2017
Who says no one likes a guy who’s negative all he time? Becker has got to be one of the most cynical, grumpy, and negative characters to grace our sit-com screens. He’s a guy you probably love to hate, and he’s also hilarious. Ted Danson spent over a decade behind the bar at Cheers and could have easily called it a career. You know, stop while you’re ahead. Instead he climbed right back into the television saddle and reemerged as Dr. Becker. This time he played a medical doctor who hates everything and everyone around him. Refusing to display that little bit of a heart we all know he has, Becker spends most of his life complaining about everything.
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Numb3rs: The Complete Series
Posted in No Huddle by Gino Sassani on June 7th, 2017
Do you believe that a numbers wizard can predict the most random of human actions with mathematical equations so accurately as to know where and when such a person will be? If so, then I suggest you put down that letter you are writing to Santa, finish eating that egg a bunny left for you, go to your pillow and pull together all of the loot you got from the tooth fairy, and plunk it down on season three of Numb3rs. No, that’s not a typo; apparently they believe that letters aren’t good enough to stand on their own, so they inserted a 3 where the e should be. Aren’t they so clever? Not. In the fairy tale world of Numb3rs, all you need is an almost obsessive knowledge of math, and the crooks don’t stand a chance.
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Beauty And The Beast (2012): The Complete Series
Posted in No Huddle by Jeremy Butler on June 7th, 2017
A New York city homicide detective is haunted by the night when her mother was murdered by two gunmen, who themselves were killed by a mysterious being. A decade after that night, she finds out that the mysterious being is still around. As this “Beauty” and her “Beast” finally meet, they start investigating the truth behind their secret ties to each other. The similarities between this adaptation of Beauty and the Beast and any others begins and ends at the title. Originally slated as a reboot of the 1987 series that starred Ron Perlman and Linda Hamilton, this series trades the romance and battle of misfits for crime investigations and military conspiracies.
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Tuesday Round Up: June 6, 2017
Posted in Tuesday Round Up by J C on June 6th, 2017
For our first Round Up of June, we are inviting a certain beloved romance to be our guest here at UpcomingDiscs HQ. Disney’s live-action adaptation of Beauty and the Beast is the highest-grossing movie of the year (so far), and the blockbuster arrives on Blu-ray this week! On top of that, CBS/Paramount has released Beauty and the Beast: The Complete Series, along with complete series DVD sets for CBS hits of yesteryear Numb3rs and Becker. Elsewhere, HBO anoints The Young Pope, RLJ Entertainment locks us in a room with Prisoner X, and Shout! Factory shows us Where The Buffalo Roam. Finally, Disney revisits another animated classic that is near and dear deer to fans’ hearts with a 75th anniversary edition of Bambi.
The end of the week also brings a trio of theatrical releases: Bleeker Street introduces us to Megan Leavey, Fox Searchlight gets familial with My Cousin Rachel, and Universal unleashes monster mayhem with The Mummy. Even though it’s a brand new month, the customary reminder still applies here: if you’re shopping for anything on Amazon and you do it through one of our links, it’ll help keep the lights on here at UpcomingDiscs. See ya next week!
Voodoo Black Exorcist
Posted in No Huddle by Dan Holland on June 5th, 2017
Voodoo Black Exorcist (Vudú sangriento), is a bizarre choice to distribute once more in high definition. Some of the imagery in the film is most certainly impressive; however, it doesn’t quite make up for the poor dubbing, editing, and nonsensical story. The film is about ninety minutes long, and realistically, it only demanded my attention for about ten of those minutes before I sank into boredom. Perhaps my greatest disappointment was that it wasn’t really a movie I could have fun with: it was not laughably bad. So where I would normally put some effort into poking fun, I ended up remaining abnormally critical of this old horror film.
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Wonder Woman
Posted in The Reel World by J C on June 2nd, 2017
“You have been my greatest love. Be careful, Diana…they do not deserve you.”
Ever since Richard Donner made us believe that a man can fly with 1978’s Superman — considered by many to be the first modern superhero film — we’ve gotten three different Men of Steel, along with five different versions of Batman (if you don’t count Will Arnett’s voiceover work). Heck, in the last 15 years alone we’ve had three Spider-Men and (incredibly) gone through three Hulks! Yet in all that time, a movie starring Wonder Woman — a superhero just as iconic as all the ones I just mentioned — could never get off the ground…until now. I’m happy to report it was worth the wait.
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Logan & Logan Noir (UHD Blu-ray) (4K)
Posted in Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on May 31st, 2017
“I always know who you are. It’s just that sometimes I don’t recognize you.”
Logan is perhaps one of the most interesting, endearing, and popular characters in the Marvel universe. Wolverine has the distinction of having been created by someone other than Stan Lee and Jack Kirby. While they invented the X-Men team from which the adamantium-clawed warrior was born, he was actually created by the team of Len Wein and John Romita, Sr. in the mid 1970’s. Since that time the character has taken on a life of his own, a life that is as much owed to actor Hugh Jackman as anyone else. The funny thing is that Jackman is really nothing at all like the comic book character, who was actually quite short.
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Tuesday Round Up: May 30, 2017
Posted in Tuesday Round Up by J C on May 30th, 2017
I’m not sure what we did, but it must have been serious. We UpcomingDiscers are generally a law-abiding bunch, so I’m a little surprised that we’ve apparently landed in such hot water. How else to explain this week’s arrival of the Major Crimes division at our door? Naturally, I’m yanking your chain…no one here would hurt a fly. The good news is Warner Bros. was still nice enough to send us Major Crimes: Season 5, and we’ll have a review of the hit TNT cop drama soon. Elsewhere, Film Chest Media goes undercover with Decoy: The Complete Series. Finally, DC’s Wonder Woman hopes to lasso moviegoers into theaters very soon, so be sure to check back for our review later this week.
Here’s your weekly reminder before signing off for the week (and for May): if you’re shopping for anything on Amazon and you do it through one of our links, it’ll help keep the lights on here at UpcomingDiscs. See ya next week!
Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Men Tell No Tales
Posted in The Reel World by J C on May 26th, 2017
“This may seem a peculiar request…but could someone explain why I’m here?”
That question is posed slurred by Jack Sparrow, Johnny Depp’s perpetually sloshed swashbuckler, during his very first appearance in Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Men Tell No Tales. Given that this is the fifth film in a faded franchise — and that Depp probably needs the money — the answer for why any of this is happening appears to be painfully obvious. Which is why I was delighted (and frankly a little shocked) by how much fun I had watching this latest entry, which manages to entertain while openly plundering the original movie’s winning formula.
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Baywatch
Posted in The Reel World by Jeremy Butler on May 25th, 2017
In the vein established by 21 Jump Street of taking a serious television series and transforming it into a comedy comes Baywatch. I’m sure everyone remembers Baywatch, possibly one of the most watched television series of all time that featured buxom ladies like Pamela Anderson and Yasmine Bleeth in tight swimsuits, running in slow motion. Transplanted for a moderate time period, this film adaptation features this generation’s hard bodies such as Zac Efron, Dwayne Johnson, and Alexandria Daddario (those eyes are hypnotic) taking on the established and iconic roles of Matt Brody, Mitch Buchannon, and Summer Quinn.
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XX (Blu-ray)
Posted in Disc Reviews by Brent Lorentson on May 25th, 2017
While I’m not usually a fan of gimmicks involved in trying to get my attention to see a movie, I’ll happily take an anthology of a found-footage film, simply because the odds of me finding something I like in the anthology are greater. VHS 2 is personally my favorite anthology film out there; even though it suffers from having to be a found-footage anthology, it at least delivers several unique perspectives and stories. I find it hard to believe a horror fan out there can’t enjoy the film. With XX the anthology presents us with a unique proposition when it comes to horror, four tales that are all crafted and presented by women. A rather unintentional taboo notion when you consider horror has been a boys’ club for many years, but we are in a new era, and with this anthology this is the business card that is here to show us what they got.
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Ice – Season 1
Posted in No Huddle by Brent Lorentson on May 23rd, 2017
It’s not often that a show can come along that impresses me with its talent in front of and behind the camera; then when the show premieres, it is just bad for a couple of episodes and then manages to bounce back. There are just so many options that if you don’t come out swinging, your show is going to be passed up for something else. I still feel like we’re in the Golden Age of television despite some of the best series in the past decade having already been retired from the airwaves (Breaking Bad is sorely missed despite Better Call Saul). There is still so much out there that sometimes good stuff gets overlooked, and it’s not till DVD rolls around that you can discover a show, and that is the case for the new series Ice.
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Alien Covenant
Posted in The Reel World by Jeremy Butler on May 18th, 2017
Alien Covenant is a perfect example of making a plan and sticking with it, because if you don’t you may be infected by an alien organism that will explode out of your chest. Graphic, I know, but informative, right? The latest installment in the Alien franchise picks up sometime after Prometheus and continues to pursue the critical question that was posed in the previous film: who created life? An intergalactic colonial expedition comes to face to face with their worst nightmare. It’s ironic how a mission to preserve life results in so much death.
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The Frank Sinatra Collection: The Timex Shows Vol. 1 & 2
Posted in No Huddle by Gino Sassani on May 18th, 2017
“Just give us those good old songs.”
Last year Eagle Vision released four discs that were collectively known as The Frank Sinatra Collection. But when a man’s been singing for nearly 70 years, you can’t hold a career like that on just four discs. There was always going to have to be more. The more arrived in the shape of three more DVD’s brimming with Sinatra vintage shows. But that still wasn’t going to be enough. Now there are two more discs that bring us the classic Frank Sinatra Timex specials. This was a series of four specials that aired in 1959/1960. Each had a theme that carried through the broadcast hour.
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Get Out (Blu-ray)
Posted in Disc Reviews by J C on May 18th, 2017
“Sometimes…if there’s too many white people, I get nervous.”
Some of the very best horror films/psychological thrillers succeed by taking a relatable source of anxiety and cranking it to 11. For example, The Exorcist can be viewed as the worst-case scenario for anyone suffering a crisis of faith, while The Shining taps into the madness of being cooped up with your family for too long. Get Out works because it uses the nerve-wracking experience of meeting your significant other’s parents for the first time as a jumping-off point to tell a subversive, insightful, and entertaining story that mashes together Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner and The Stepford Wives.
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Wonder Woman: Commemorative Edition
Posted in Disc Reviews by Brent Lorentson on May 18th, 2017
With its original release in 2009, DC and Warner Bros have set up the release of Wonder Woman the animated film to help ramp up excitement for the live-action release of the new Wonder Woman film that is set to hit the big screen in a matter of weeks. For some of those readers who may think animated film means it’s just for kids, what WB and DC have done together with the animation department I wish managed to translate to their live-action releases. The DC/WB animated films in my opinion are phenomenal and honestly have set a high bar for me, because these translations have just been superior to the live-action films, and most come in short of the 90-minute mark
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Divorce: The Complete First Season (Blu-ray)
Posted in Disc Reviews by J C on May 17th, 2017
“Look, as lousy as the marriage is, the divorce is going to be much, much worse.”
The subject of divorce isn’t exactly a laugh riot in real life, so the makers of HBO’s comedy series tracking the dissolution of a decade-long marriage had their work cut out for them. Divorce (not surprisingly) takes a darkly comic approach to the hostile material; the problem is the show seemingly forgot about the part where we’re supposed to want to spend time with these people every week. The series also marks the HBO return of star/executive producer Sarah Jessica Parker…call this new show No Sex in the Suburbs.
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Heat: Director’s Definitive Edition
Posted in Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on May 16th, 2017
There was a 20th anniversary edition of Michael Mann’s Heat planned a couple of years ago by the folks at Warner Brothers. There was hope of a 4K restoration and more. The rights ended up reverting to 20th Century Fox before any of that could happen. Now Fox has released something they are calling The Director’s Definitive Edition, but it is the same cut and print of the film as used in the last Warner Brothers’ Blu-ray release. So I really can’t tell you what is definitive except for a couple of new and more recent bonus features.
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Tuesday Round Up: May 16, 2017
Posted in Tuesday Round Up by J C on May 16th, 2017
The surprise box office smash of 2017 has arrived at UpcomingDiscs HQ! (You might not believe me, Elaine, but it’s true.) Universal was generous enough to send along a copy of Get Out, Jordan Peele’s socially-conscious thriller. We’ll have a review of the movie’s Blu-ray release later this week. Meanwhile, Eagle Rock Entertainment does it their way with The Frank Sinatra Collection: The Timex Shows Vol. 1 and 2, while Entertainment One keeps things cool with Ice: Season 1. Finally, Warner Bros. gets animated with Wonder Woman: The Commemorative Edition, which spotlights the Amazonian icon in cartoon form a few weeks before she is set to hit the big screen.
But wait…there’s more! We’ll also have an out-of-this-world review for Alien: Covenant shortly after Ridley Scott’s latest sci-fi opus hits theaters this Friday. Now it’s time for your customary reminder before signing off for the week: if you’re shopping for anything on Amazon and you do it through one of our links, it’ll help keep the lights on here at UpcomingDiscs. See ya next week!
The Wall
Posted in The Reel World by Brent Lorentson on May 12th, 2017
Director Doug Liman has been a director whose career I’ve enjoyed following since I was in high school and first saw Swingers. It was one of those cool independent films that appeared in the mid-90’s when independent films were all the rage. A couple years later he did the film Go which I felt beautifully captured the rave culture that had taken the states by storm but the film was quickly overlooked. Then he got his big break with The Bourne Identity and as his career expanded to Mr. and Mrs. Smith so did the budgets ie: Edge of Tomorrow. Now with the release of The Wall Liman seems to have gone back to his roots in a way in creating one of the most intimate and intense war films to hit the cinemas, despite its major release being set by Amazon Studios.
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King Arthur: Legend of the Sword
Posted in The Reel World by Jeremy Butler on May 12th, 2017
So it finally happened; I found a Guy Ritchie film that I didn’t enjoy. I wasn’t expecting much from King Arthur: Legend of the Sword, but it is worth noting that I got even less than I expected. I know that sounds cruel, and I will admit that there were a few thing that I did enjoy, but the amount of things that went wrong versus what went right is not a close margin. Before we get into it fully, let me issue this disclaimer: the sword in the stone, which is known in the film as Excalibur, according to Arthurian legend is not really Excalibur, which is a different sword that Arthur was given after he became king.
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