Hey folks, Harry here… Really sorry about the end of year poop out with the Picks & Peeks column. BNAT tore me up and then I had this mind numbing upper respiratory system that plagued me for pretty much the rest of December. Horrible thing. Coughing fits, cloudy unfocused head and cold medication that made me whoozy. I know, nut up. But I really have to be in a writing mood to do these just how I like. So here ya go – a whole mess of content! As usual the images all link over to Amazon, where if you pick up the item in question through the link, the column gets a small percentage which help keep its best efforts in place. Stay healthy – it’s getting crazy out there!
Tuesday, December 10th, 2013
DESPICABLE ME 2 3D Blu Ray
Ok – so I’m that grump that isn’t in love with DESPICABLE ME, it’s ok. I get it, but there’s something about it that turns me off. I think that the minions are so adorable as to make my teenager genes to hate them on that basis alone… but then, they’re also irresistible – which makes it impossible to not giggle at their antics – and I have to say, I’m greatly looking forward to the MINIONS movie. I do know that if you have the capacity for 3D, this is a very very fun 3D home experience. They’ve also put a ton of little fun Minion minis and the disc is fully loaded. So many love it, that my so-so feelings hardly matter. It makes the kids laugh constantly.
FAST & FURIOUS 6
The final Justin Lin chapter of the FAST & FURIOUS series… though technically TOKYO DRIFT comes after this film… well, you know what I mean. Paul Walker’s death in a car will forever haunt this series now, but rather than hop on that bandwagon, I’d rather celebrate the sheer joy of this series. The superheroics of it. How it shows you impossible things that your brain effortlessly believes… or rather accepts or wants to instantly celebrate. Like… that Tank scene. You know the moment. If you don’t, see it. The physics are ALL WRONG. DEATH is the only answer to that setup, BUT… I love it. Like the neverending runway that was seemingly built for a retro-prop using Star Destroyer… or something. I’m glad they’ve figured out a way to continue the series and use Paul’s work on the new film, there’s a special teaser for it on this Blu Ray!
DOCTOR WHO 50th ANNIVERSARY SPECIAL: THE DAY OF THE DOCTOR 3D Blu Ray
This is a disc that provides such a kick. Having a great Doctor Who episode at home in Blu Ray 3D… The 3D Paintings – so badass…. Gallifrey… fucking awesome. Hell, just the Tardis moving in 3D. Tom Baker in 3D. It’s just more than we deserve. There are extras. Two minisodes. 14 minute behind the scenes. 47 minutes that explains the whole of DOCTOR WHO. But really – this episode rocks the dick clean off my 3D setup! It’s terrific. It really is great to just geek out with this! Next time my nephew comes over, we’re probably watching this 3 times. Just saying!
MARY POPPINS Blu Ray
I love MARY POPPINS, but then I also breathe air, ingest a bit too much food, have lived 42 years on Earth – and for pretty much all that time, I’ve known these songs, these characters and have always loved it and always will. I love the wicked streak in Julie Andrews’ portrayal. Wish this had been a series. Would’ve liked to have seen more. And this Blu Ray allows that dream to be explored. Seriously. Back in 2004, there was this 10 minute thing called THE CAT THAT LOOKED AT A KING that stars Julie Andrews taking two children into a chalk drawing! So it’s like a little mini-Mary Poppins short! It rules. There’s a 14 minute BECOMING MR SHERMAN, which as much as it is about Mr Sherman, it’s about making you aware that Disney made a film called SAVING MR BANKS, as Jason Schwartzman sits down with Richard Sherman, who he plays in the film. Its nice, but I kind of dislike it being on the disc, as there’s not nearly enough extras content for this masterpiece. As one of the great triumphs of Disney’s career, I’d think it’d be better. Instead we get a bunch of standard def reused extras. Great, but they could have upgraded all this. Probably should have. Still, ya gotta have Mary Poppins!
GREAT MUPPET CAPER / A MUPPET TREASURE ISLAND Blu Ray
These two have been released on Blu before – and this is just a repackaging of those two Blu Rays in one package for under $20. Which is what you have to pay for each one separately. SO HALF OFF!!! A good sale is always good to share and these are fun. I really dig MUPPET TREASURE ISLAND. I love that the Henson shop made a puppet out of me. That’s just insane. Sorry, sometimes it just spills out. I love the Muppets so much. Beaker and Janice are faves! How about you?
MAN OF TAI CHI Blu Ray
Keanu Reeves channels Crazy Nick Cage for his character in the film, but as a director – he shows a fantastic strength for shooting a badass martial arts film. Every fight is shot with a different style and when you see the big fight at the end – it gets old school in a way that literally had me laughing as I watched the film. This does have an audio commentary between Keanu and star Tiger Hu Chen. Sometime, I really need to listen to that! That has to be an experience, right? The making of is a short not-quite 8 minute job that’s entertaining, but far from satisfying. Would’ve loved extensive coverage of the fight processes. This feels old school in a very good way! Still prefer NINJA 2: SHADOW OF A TEAR though.
THE BIG GUNDOWN Blu Ray
Sergio Sollima’s THE BIG GUNDOWN is one of the greatest non-Leone Spaghetti Westerns, but I can’t call it the best… that honor goes to Sergio Corbucci’s THE GREAT SILENCE for me. That said, THE BIG GUNDOWN is tremendous, operatic and a real thrill. Morricone’s score is tremendous and you’ll be getting a CD with 53:49 of the score! The extras are tremendous – and as a lover of Spaghetti Westerns this is just a great delight of a Blu! This is how to watch Lee Van Cleef be amazing!
ADORE Blu Ray
Alright girls. You and your BFF. Your Girlfriend you’ve known and loved forever. Y’all each have sons. Later, when they’re really hot… You’re totally going to switch sons and get romantic right? EWWWWWWWWWW!!! This is that Girls Night film that will just freak everyone in the room out. Seriously! Naomi Watts and Robin Wright are the besties playing out this scenario – and yeah – it’s R rated cuz THEY GO THERE! And it is soooo icky. But it’s kind of fun as a result, while also being really really icky. Best friend kid sex. Nope. No thank you. Fun flick though.
THE ROOFTOP Blu Ray
Remember Jay Chou? He played Kato in that Seth Rogen GREEN HORNET. Well, he’s directed a Thai Musical about rooftop thug romance – and if fucking rules. Hardcore ruleage. The wheelchair musical number is what first captured me, but then – the lush photography and fanciful nature of the settings just made me exhaustively love this flick. He’s that tough guy falling in love for the first time, who can only express himself with song – and fucking A that’s awesome. More like this please! Very beautiful film!!!
Tuesday, December 17th, 2013
ELYSIUM Blu Ray
For me, this is a must own Blu Ray. ELYSIUM is a film that I love to study in much the same way that I did DISTRICT 9. That’s due largely to the process that Neill Blomkamp goes through in designing, conceiving, directing and his laser focus on the post-process which results in such sumptious science fiction. The behind the scenes peek at Neill’s process is something that any young thirsty filmmakers would do good to watch. Just watching how the robotic police, emergency and military characters were originally conceived versus how they evolved into the characters we saw in the film… it’s amazing. Neill begins with the science fiction tech and begins to reverse engineer his films to fit the world he’s built and I love that. There is an aspect of putting the cart before the horse, but it allows him to more fully understand the world that he has to play in. As for ELYSIUM the movie? I find it gets stronger with each viewing. The healing beds are something that I’ve heard about 5 conversations about at REHAB. Love it when science fiction flicks display future tech and then I see real world folks in the field talking about the real probability of it coming to exist. We live in amazing times. Even if HER wins the prize for Science Fiction movie of the year for me. We’ve had a strong year.
PERCY JACKSON: SEA OF MONSTERS 3D Blu Ray
While a definite improvement over the original PERCY JACKSON movie, it still just doesn’t capture me. Albeit I’m probably not the target audience for this film, though I feel if a series about Mythologically based characters isn’t for me… I’m just shocked. I love Mythology – and I know a lot of kids that love the book series that the films are somewhat based upon, I’ve yet to run into any that LOVE these movies. The reason – there’s just a general boredom by the performers that has me disengage and the design teams on these films just seem to not have their hearts into it. The creatures don’t make me want to revisit or dive into an ART of book. They’re just… limp. But this film is a lot more fun than the original. It still fails to find a place in my heart. I do know that some of the book lovers really like this film, so for those folks, it seems to be doing its job! The 3D is pretty fun.
THE LONE RANGER Blu Ray
Personally, I’d hold off picking this title up until Disney unleashes the Blu 3D version. I don’t blame Disney for trying for a double dip, they lost their hat on this one, but frankly the hyperbole of hate this film has found is just not shared by me. That original screening of the film that I had was one of the worst screening experiences I’ve had in a theater in my life, and I still kind of enjoyed it. When the screener came – I was watching the film from the perspective of Quentin Tarantino naming this film to his top ten of the year. I can see it. The film is a progressive throwback by Gore Verbinski – that I think was too far from the mark most people were expecting for a movie called THE LONE RANGER. Disney’s marketing was atrocious. Never using the theme in their trailers was a huge mistake. Especially since they were using it freely in the movie itself. Shifting the weight from The Lone Ranger to Tonto was something that freaked folks – but Johnny Depp’s Tonto upon further thought is not only a great tribute to the antics of Buster Keaton… but also, oddly enough, I feel the role pays tribute to Dustin Hoffman in LITTLE BIG MAN – and the film itself wants to be a kissing cousin to that “tall tale!” The old age Tonto make up also reminds me of Dick Smith’s amazing work on LITTLE BIG MAN. I do think they went a bit too far with making Armie Hammer’s Ranger too goofy. Had they worked a bit harder to show a real founding of their friendship – it probably would have resonated stronger with audiences, but since neither character particularly liked the other much at all through the film… neither did the audiences that bothered to seek the film out. Time will probably be a bit kind to this film. It is better than most give it credit – and should absolutely not be on any bottom ten of the year list.
KICK-ASS 2 Blu Ray
I find this film to be a stunning disappointment. Jeff Wadlow just isn’t Matthew Vaughn. The snap of the first film isn’t here. Instead, it relies on gross out gags and questionable High School humor. Questionable, because I do wonder if people laugh at it. The end melee may very well be the worst conceived, edited and shot action finale in quite some time. The film’s one solid action number is the Hit Girl vs A Van of Bad Guys – and even that isn’t enough to make me want to keep the film. It just feels like the laziest most unKickass sequel that anyone could have come up with. Which is a damn shame cuz I like Aaron Taylor-Johnson, Chloe Moretz and Jim Carrey’s characters – they just don’t really have much of anything to do. This just had more potential – and what we got isn’t something I’m prepared to settle for. Especially when it is called KICK-ASS 2. The disc is loaded with extras, but much like the film, it wasn’t anything that kicked my interest up an inch.
PREDATOR 3D Blu Ray – Ultimate Hunting Trophy Limited Gift Set
Every now and then waiting is the right thing to do. This column is late – this hit on December 17th, but had I written then, I’d just be writing a piece talking about how cool this looks, but today (Jan 3rd) I opened my mail to find this staring back at me. Now – it comes wearing the mask, which is magnetically adhered to the Predator, but lifts off revealing one ugly motherfucker! It’s actually really nice and has a significant heft to it. The BluRay box is stored in the base which comes out the back of the piece. This set is sold out via AMAZON, but there’s 5 available on there via “other sellers.” For starting at $339.85. Why so much? Apparently this set is limited to 500 copies. Personally, if I was Fox, I’d made about 5,000 of these suckers and lowered the cost to under $200, that said. It’s kind of epic! But realize - $324 is essentially what you’re paying for the Predator head, cuz the PREDATOR 3D Blu Ray can be had for under $15 at Amazon. How is it? Well, it is pretty goddamn spectacular if you love Home 3D like me. I’ll get more into the film and the conversion in the actual BLU release below. This thing rocks!
PREDATOR 3D Blu Ray
I was actually holding off buying this disc cuz I’d seen reviews online that were bitching about large sequences of the film not having depth – One singled out the opening space shot as having no depth. Well, I just sat down with Father Geek, put on our active shutter 3D glasses, loaded the 3D Blu Ray into my PS3 (yes, still rocking it) and had my PowerLite Home Cinema 5010 projector hitting my glass bead screen and… WOW. The first “Wow” that came out of Dad came during that Space shot. I do know that I’m less of a fan of the 3D TV experience. Projection wins hands down for me. Complaining about how Dark PREDATOR is visually shows a pretty basic lack of understanding of the film. Yeah, those black and red helicopter interiors are dark, but boy does it look amazing in 3D. The Jungle is just jaw dropping. They shot PREDATOR around the Palenque area in the Yucatan Peninsula in Mexico. The waterfall that Arnold falls into, I swam in at age 6. And the 3Ding of that jungle might actually be some of my fave stuff. If I’m wrong on the 3D, then I feel bad for friends, cuz I’m definitely gonna screen this to them and I am ABSOLUTELY CONFIDENT it kicks ass cuz the old man and I just raved like lunatics at one another after it was over. Now – this is my favorite Arnold Scwarzenegger film. The cast is just amazing and fairly intimate. Outside of the Oak, you got Carl Weathers, Bill Duke, Jesse Ventura, Sonny Landham, Richard Chaves and SHANE BLACK fighting side by side in a hot sweaty jungle rain forest – and John McTiernan’s action masterpiece (to me) is PREDATOR… When Stallone called to get my take on THE EXPENDABLES, I told him to watch PREDATOR about a hundred times, cuz it is absolutely a masterclass on how to handle MEN ON A MISSION! Kevin Peter Hall as the Predator is one of the great monster performances of all time. The physicality and motion – all brilliantly cool looking in 3D. You know THE handshake? To see those bulges bulge out of the screen, it just sent me into geekgasmic giggles. I’m coming fresh off of watching this – but I fully intend to watch the hell out of this disc, just as I have TOP GUN 3D and WIZARD OF OZ 3D. Are there parts that look odd in 3D? I think so, the Predator vision in 3D is weird. And that first big fall of Arnold’s looked a bit dodgy. But that’s it for me. McTiernan brilliantly composed this film fully aware of the real 3D space that they were working in. That rack-focus to Sonny’s Billy giving Arnold some intel was one of my fave shots for exactly that reason. With the depth brought out, it just looks incredible. That first shot of them crossing the log, check out the lower left corner of the screen to see how far the rabbit hole goes. If you’re geeking out you’re your 3D at home, under $15 is a steal for this. I wish that Peter Berg had watched this before directing LONE SURVIVOR. Sure that’s a true story, but PREDATOR is just easily the better film. So happy with this title!
PRISONERS Blu Ray
I watched this film while my nephew was staying with us over the holidays and I have to say… Having a kid in the house, even if they were safely snoozing the night away, while watching this film… it’s just brutal. I paused the film 3 times to just check up on the boy. People that kidnap children should probably be burnt to death in a public square. Now, PRISONERS is a brutal film, where Hugh Jackman and Terence Howard’s daughters are taken. A suspect is found that was in the proximity, he’s creepy (Paul Dano plays the suspect) and there’s something very off about him. He seems to be tormenting Hugh Jackman. Saying things that only he can hear, leaving no witnesses. Jake Gyllenhaal is Detective Loki – a working class detective that knows the reality of cases like this – and when he is forced to release Dano’s Ruby Sparks on a lack of evidence, Jackman decides to take matters into his own hands. The title PRISONERS has more resonance than you would at first think of. It’s really really a terrible situation. Maria Bello plays Jackman’s wife who is just laid low by this incident. She’s self medicating to not feel anything. She just wants to wake up with her daughter back. Viola Davis plays Howard’s wife – and I LOVE HER IN THIS FILM! This is a movie to watch and ask yourself morally what you would do? Trust in the system or do everything and anything to get your kids back? This is a superior film by Denis Villeneuve, which isn’t surprising as INCENDIES was excellent as well. Paul Dano is amazing, yet again! Hugh Jackman has amazing range.
THE BEAST WITHIN Blu Ray
Yeah, THE BEAST WITHIN is a horror film that not everyone can take. First, there is an absolutely brutal rape that gets everything started – and the woman ends up pregnant – and she carries the child to term – and… yeah, turns out the Swamp Monster that impregnated her has a ticking time bomb in that baby of hers – and when the son gets older he has to find the truth of his birth – before the beast within explodes. This is 1982 practical graphic gore and transformation! That SHOUT! has put it out on Blu Ray – well, it looks great on Blu and the movie is full on disturbing. If you love practical horror transformations, this has one worth the price of the Blu all on its own. Two commentaries are the main jist of the extras. The Tom Holland screenwriter Commentary would probably be a gas to listen to, haven’t checked it out yet. Ronny Cox is great in this!
CRAWLSPACE Blu Ray
Movies about people inside the walls of your home freak me out. Most recently with THE RESIDENT, but it is a scary movie mainstay that goes back all the way. Secret passages and people under the stairs, like that creepy Harry Potter. Giggle. But ya know, as creepy as they come – they don’t get creepier than having fucking Klaus Kinski stalking you from inside the walls of your home. On a bright sunny day at the beach, if I ever saw Klaus, I’d find the motivation to sprint out of the fucking wheelchair – cuz Zombie Kinski would be even more horrifying! But when you have Klaus Kinski running a women’s apartment house – and Daddy was a particularly twisted Nazi surgeon… and Kinski inherits the tools of the trade. Oh man. Bad dreams bad dreams. Allow yourself to get creeped by Kinski and you’re going to have a damn good creepy unsettling claustrophobic time with this film. The transfer is frankly great, and it does have a director’s commentary and Make Up interview with John Vulich and a 9 minute special feature called… “PLEASE KILL MR. KINSKI” – wish that was a high def special feature, but I’m betting it couldn’t be.
THE WHIP AND THE BODY Kino Blu Ray
Yes! Bava’s THE WHIP AND THE BODY on Blu! This is a film that I first saw in 16mm at my “Uncle Bob’s” – he was a huge Bava geek and had more than a few of his films on film – and it was a real blessing, cuz this film was one of those Bava films that nobody could see really until DVD, but Bob found a print somewhere in his travels and THE WHIP AND THE BODY is one of my fave Mario Bava films as a result. It catches Bava with his directing fetishes firmly planted in his past as well as his future. Making this one of his Gothic Kinks that just does not disappoint. The print is rich with Bava’s colors and shadows. Bava-phile Tim Lucas provides a really great commentary for the film and you’ll get a collection of Bava Trailers to get you feeling the urge to dive into that cinematic joy to discover or revisit – as fans of Bava often do!
THE BLUE ANGEL Ultimate Edition Kino Blu Ray
This film begins one of the greatest cinematic partnerships in the history of cinema. Not just that, but one that my mother espoused throughout my cinematic upbringing. She loved Marlene Dietrich and Josef von Sternberg. THE BLUE ANGEL is the birth of Dietrich’s legendary international sex appeal. I’ve seen them all. THE BLUE ANGEL, MOROCCO, DISHONORED, SHANGHAI EXPRESS, BLONDE VENUS, THE SCARLET EMPRESS and THE DEVIL IS A WOMAN. Nobody made Dietrich look nearly as amazing as Josef von Sternberg – and conversely, Dietrich made his best films. There’s a certain cinemagic to their pairing, and the second you watch THE BLUE ANGEL, you’ll get it. That first dose. It captivated the world, got both of them the hell out of Germany. You get the German version as well as the English cut of the film. I love that I’ve been to Babelsberger studios twice now – which is where this was shot. And there’s magic in that air. The first time I was there, when the film AEON FLUX, broke for lunch – I skipped eating, to just sit alone in that massive stage – cuz I played Lola’s songs from this film and shut my eyes and just feel the magic of Babelsberg! I never hated my mom showing me these films. For me, it was about learning to love the unearthly beauty of a Sternberg film. Black & White has never been so lush in other directors’ hands. If you’re a lady that loves movies and you have yet to discover this partnership, start with this – and seek out those other films. POWERFUL AMAZING FEMALE DRIVEN CINEMA! Dietrich is a marvel for all time, she’ll always be our Lola!
GHOST TEAM ONE Blu Ray
This film has basically no awareness and that’s just gotta change. GHOST TEAM ONE is a party film. It’s consistently better than you can really expect. A film about a pair of friends that decide to shoot a paranormal investigation of their home that they share with a year+ sober roommate – who loathes them. They discover their home was a brothel of extreme supernatural note – and then just hold on, cuz shit gets real hilarious. This is a bawdry affair – sure you might think you’ve seen this before with those utterly fucking dreadful HAUNTED HOUSE Wayan debacles, but imagine if all the gags worked. Imagine every actor being absolutely believably who they are. That “Pure Comedy Gold… Brilliant!” quote… I can’t really argue with it. I’ve seen the film 4 times now – and a week ago my wife and Movie Night Companion Diana through a GHOST TEAM ONE surprise drinking themed screening for 14 friends – and by the end – we were all in Geisha robes and trashed and cackling like the inebriated goofs we were! This is rated R, for raunchy and ridiculous! After the film came to a close, a cry for GHOST TEAM TWO was chanted! If you have friends that love laughing and screaming together – this film will deliver. But go into it assuming I’m full of shit. It’ll play better that way! Seriously, this film is a GEM of a Movie Night flick! Their sober roommate is just amazing!
Tuesday, December 24th, 2013
INSIDIOUS: Chapter 2 Blu Ray
Once the Christmas Tree is out of the Blu Ray room, I can go in there and get my INSIDIOUS blu, so I can watch these as a double feature as they should be watched. I’ll be honest, when I saw this in theaters, the scares worked on me, but while I liked INSIDIOUS, it didn’t quite migrate to the permanent part of my film memory, so when I saw this sequel in theaters… it took me a while to search through my mind cellar for the information that I needed to be up to speed on the film, but James Wan has done a very good job of creating PG 13 horror that is not only worth it, but scarier than a lot of R rated horror. This makes sense, as some of the scariest horror films ever made show you relatively little – Wan is playing with atmosphere and time and stylistic horror… taking us to other dimensions parallel to our own and giving us a wicked case of the heebie jeebies. Personally, I prefer THE CONJURING, but INSIDIOUS Chapter 2 definitely has more scares per minute.
OK – I just did this as a double feature and holy fuck does it play amazing that way! Yeah, watching this in conjunction with the first INSIDIOUS is a must! Soo gooood! There’s these little mini films that form a Lin Shaye and her team’s origin story. Kind of love that too! Really great!
MORE THAN HONEY Blu Ray
I know we look to giant asteroids or global thermonuclear war for the end of life here on Earth… but what happens if we lose honeybees? How will plant life continue? Will we create mechanical drones to emulate the pollination process? I don’t know, but this documentary is definitely one to see. It is narrated by John Hurt and the reason you want the highest resolution is because you’re going to be amazed by the macro-photography… wait for the bee brainscan or the mite infection scenes. This is great brain food! Important and powerful documentary work… and maybe someone should be working on mechanical honeybees. Right?
Tuesday, December 31st, 2013
DON JON Blu Ray
I love Don Jon. It is a film about our sexual programming. Joseph Gordon-Levitt writes, directs and stars in this fascinating sexy film that’s a very frank discussion about the expectations of what males and females have going into a relationship based upon their media obsessions. His character is addicted to watching porn and jacking it. The girl he’s courting… a smoking hot manipulative Scarlett Johansson is using her sexuality to hook him into her idea of a relationship – which has been conditioned by the rom-coms she loves. And then you have Julianne Moore, an older more balanced and emotional human being that teaches Don Jon a thing or two. I find the film amazing. This could have been just a throwaway, but Levitt digs in and treats the material with a level of intellect that is often missing from “rom-coms” – that’s because this movie defies expectations at every turn. And… TONY DANZA as a dad is just kind of amazing in this film.
NINJA 2: SHADOW OF A TEAR Blu Ray
Tired of CG Ninja bullshit? You want a real man to man Ninja fight? NINJA 2 played at FANTASTIC FEST last year and I missed it, but I got to chat with director Isaac Florentine quite a bit. He sent me a Blu screener of this with my named burned in – and I fell in love. First off, Scott Adkins will fuck you up. Watching him do martial arts, it strikes me a lot like watching Chuck Norris do martial arts. There’s a power to it. A poise. Watch his body positioning throughout this film and then observe the power he’s throwing with his moves. It’s fucking brutal in that way that when you see it – YOU MAKE NOISES. You know those kinds of martial arts films? Where the impacts are so real and hard that you can’t help but emphatically feel the blow and make a complete fucking wuss sound effect of your own in response? Yeah. He fights THAT WELL. Here… Scott plays a character whose going to go on a revenge quest that isn’t about punishing the men that did him wrong. It is, but he takes care of the men he believes fucked his life over, but that’s just the beginning, because when you fuck Scott Adkins’ life over, he’s just not going to kill you. He’s gonna kill your whole clan, the people that taught your clan to kill and there will be a whole lot of collateral head trauma and broken bodies left along the way. In otherwords, this is a story of a REAL MAN. Giggle. If you live for a good fight flick, life just got a whole lot better!
HELL BABY Blu Ray
I found this a bit unwatchable. That might be a little hard, rather… I didn’t continue to want to watch it. It seemed to expand time. You know films that make life drag and feel miserable? I love Rob Corddry, but that was making the experience worse, because I didn’t like to see him in something as flatly awful as this. I just felt like life was too short, time to move on. But comedy is a varied thing. Perhaps you’ll dig it. But both me & Yoko voted this title off the screen after about 40 minutes. It exhausted us.
CBGB Blu Ray
Do you have a love for the underground punk rock world? Then this movie is for you. Or if you just love Alan Rickman, you’ll love the film. If you want to see Snape & Ron Weasley in the same film again, you’ll love it. Actually, I don’t think I know people that won’t love this film. The CBGB was a real NYC club that was the hot bed for the punk scene. This film makes it seem amazing!
NIGHTMARE CITY Blu Ray
Fucking Umberto Lenzi’s NIGHTMARE CITY given the pristine treatment of Blu Ray. I first saw this on a friend of mine’s abused VHS… stretchmarks pocked every funky awesome makeup effects sequence. But finding this type of horror in those days was next to impossible. Watching NIGHTMARE CITY on Blu feels like an extravagance. Full 2:35:1! And for those of you that love varied variations of zombies, you need this – if only to double feature with ZOMBIELAND… You’ll see why! Heh. You get a nearly 50 minute Umberto Lenzi interview… but the treat is the film itself. As a film lover, getting titles like this like this… well, it’s extraordinary. Just be sure to watch the English version… that’s the original language. Now don’t you want a zombie flick where the zombies use weapons? Of course you do – you’ll even get Mel Ferrer in a Zombie flick! Real horror fans won’t hesitate! This is the awesome stuff!
The New Year kicks off with a WICKER MAN Blu, 3rd Season of STAR TREK ENTERPRISE on Blu, CLOSED CIRCUIT Blu, KILLING FIELDS Blu, WE ARE WHAT WE ARE Blu, Criterion’s lustful THRONE OF BLOOD Blu, TEQUILA SUNRISE Blu, COAL MINER’S DAUGHTER Blu, THE ACT OF KILLING Blu, BADGES OF FURY Blu, GORILLAS IN THE MIST Blu, CASSANDRA CROSSING/DOMINO PRINCIPLE Blu, BIRTH OF THE LIVING DEAD, I’M SO EXCITED Blu, original CAPE FEAR Blu, FIDDLER ON THE ROOF Blu and more!
