Queen: Live at the Rainbow ’74 (Blu-ray Review)
1974 was a year of high achievement for Queen. They had their first two hit singles, ‘Seven Seas OfRhye’ and ‘Killer Queen,’ released two albums, ‘Queen II’ and ‘Sheer Heart Attack,’ and completed major tours across the UK, America and Europe. In the UK, they performed three sold-out shows at the legendary Rainbow Theatre in London’s Finsbury Park, one in March on the ‘Queen II’ tour and two in November following the release of ‘Sheer Heart Attack’. To mark the 40th Anniversary of these shows, fans can finally enjoy Queen ‘Live At The Rainbow 74’, lovingly restored, re-edited, mixed and digitally mastered and including much previously unseen footage. The main show is from November with, as a bonus, the only surviving footage from the March show. This is Queen dazzling their audience with an unforgettable show delivered with a skill and confidence which belied their youth. Continue reading ‘Queen: Live at the Rainbow ’74 (Blu-ray Review)’
Third Person is the latest film from Paul Haggis, director of the on the nose Academy Award winner for Best Picture; Crash. The film was a entrant in the 2013 Toronto International Film Festival where it wasn’t met with the greatest of buzz or accolades. Despite boasting a rather impressive compilation of noteworthy stars and actors in its cast, the film received a minimal release this past summer in June. To date, the film has made over just one million dollars worldwide on an unknown budget. Haggis’ film is making its way to Blu-ray, courtesy of Sony, this Tuesday (September 30).
Farewell, Revolution! You may be missed by some, but I for one am thankful for your departure. Creator Erik Kripke and his writers had nowhere to go with the story, a common fate amongst many television series. Revolution would have been a fine film, or an effective miniseries, but stretching it out as they did makes for an unmemorable and frustrating viewing experience. Instead of actually spending the money with this pile of dreck, the writers could have just placed the actors in front of the television screen and scream things like, “your wife is fat,” or “your children are stupid,” or “you have no friends,” or (most appropriately) “you are stupid.” The outcome would have been just as insulting as the series, which revels in insulting its audience at every turn. 
Based on a long-running hit play by Del Shores, SORDID LIVES became a hit movie where it had a record-setting 96-week run at the Camelot Theater in Palm Springs. On the festival circuit, it garnered numerous awards, including Best Feature awards at the Austin and Philadelphia LGBT Film Festivals, and Best Feature and Best Actor: Leslie Jordan awards at the New York Independent Film Festival. The story didn’t end there either. In 2008, the Logo network produced a season of Sordid Lives: The Series that sort of started before the events of the play but went past them as well. However, it was canceled after just that one season on the network. 
The opening scene of The Dead 2 depicts a man lumbering through a town. That’s basically how the movie works: clumsy, plodding, and with no sense as to where it’s going. I did not see The Dead 1, and after this follow-up, it’s not likely I ever will. At least there are some pretty landscape shots and a handful of effective bursts of gore to tease the viewer, making them believe the film will improve. Don’t be fooled by the rocks that I got. 
Jack And The Cuckoo-Clock Heart is a pretty high profile animated film being imported to us via Shout! Factory from France. This film has some pretty cool roots. Apparently this was based on a concept album by a French rock band (you can see some of the performances at their concerts on the bonus material videos). The singer of the band and songwriter didn’t just stop there, he took to a novel. Following that it became a hit movie that is finally making its way to theaters in the United States on September 4th followed by the Blu-ray we’re about to review on October 7th. And while the Blu-ray features an English track, you do have the option to listen to the French with the original singers performing the parts. 
Bubba Sawyer (or you may refer to him as Leatherface) has turned 40 years old ladies and gents. It was that long ago that Tobe Hooper’s grimy, dark horror film about a group of unlucky youths traveling through Texas shocked and mortified audiences forever. For the 40th anniversary of course we have to get another home video release. But, rest easy folks, this new edition of The Texas Chain Saw Massacre is just a nice Warner Bros-type “same disc with new packaging art” release. Nope, they’ve gone and done a 4K restoration job on it and it looks and sounds better than ever. They’ve also been so kind as to port over all your favorite old extras from the previous DVD and Blu-ray iterations. Unfortunately those won’t be a part of this review as we’ve only been sent the single disc edition. Let’s not boo hoo, though, this is the freakin’ Texas Chain Saw Massacre we’re talking about here. One of the greats! So, let’s do this! 
Transformers Age of Extinction, the fourth film in the Michael Bay Transformers franchise, is both a theatrical movie and a Blu-ray that I wanted nothing to do with. The last two, minus seeing Megan Fox and her sexy thumbs in the second film, were absolute bowel movements in motion. How many times can we see the same story repeated over and over again? Decepticons come down and want to destroy the Earth. Yada yada yada. I’m bored just typing this. I have seen it all before. Should we the movie going public have expected anything less than just more of the same simply because there’s a different looking cast? Initially, the curator of toys in me really couldn’t pass my initial theatrical press screening opportunity up just to see if Michael Bay got any better in the storytelling department or not. And now, the only saving grace for me, is to find out whether or not I was too harsh when I ripped apart Transformers Age of Extinction on my theatrical review. That sole reason, ladies and gentlemen, is why I bothered to show up here. I hope you enjoy the ride. It will probably get bumpy. 
Shout! Factory is distributing the animated film Thunder And The House Of Magic this fall exclusively to Walmart stores starting September 30. So exclusive to Walmart that you can’t even purchase it via the Shout! Factory website. This animated tale featured a limited theatrical run in the US a few weeks ago and was released wide in Belgium last year around Christmas time. The film has a lot of notable music included in the feature including songs by The Cure and Selena Gomez.
When CW first announced that they were doing an Arrow tv series, I was skeptical. Oliver Queen is one of the most liberal and rebellious characters in the DCU, I wasn’t sure how the WB was going to pull it off. Luckily, the first season was a great success, mostly due to lowered expectations (on my end anyway). Arrow The Complete Second Season was really going to be a make or break season for this show creatively. A sophomore slump was the fear I had for the show. Thankfully, it didn’t disappoint. Let’s take a closer look! 
While Halloween: The Curse Of Michael Myers and Halloween: H20 have been given new “Collector’s Edition” style discs in this new Blu-ray set, the previously released Anchor Bay and Scream Factory titles remain relatively the same editions as you can buy standalone. That didn’t stop them from putting additional features for those movies in Halloween: The Complete Collection (Deluxe Edition). That’s what Disc 15 is for. There’s some all new stuff, plus some ported over material. All the more to make this the definitive Halloween set and leave you with really no desire to need anything further from this franchise in the future. The box set really is the complete journey through this franchise for good or bad. 
It’s widely known that the holy grail of the Halloween franchise is the “Producer’s Cut” of the sixth film, The Curse Of Michael Myers. The production overreacted to an unfavorable test screening following its final cut (Made up of 15 year old boys). Joe Chappelle was charged with taking his film and trying to completely change the story, the tone and make it much more graphic and violent. What resulted was a film that was disjointed, uneven and didn’t really make much sense. This wasn’t the internet era where this would have been widely known to begin with. It wasn’t until after the film had released that magazines and the like realized they had promo and set photos that seemed way off from what appeared in the final film. Then, it dropped. One of the most famous bootlegs in history started circulating and showed fans what was really intended for Halloween 6. For years and years fans pleaded to have it released and it many of those plans wound up failing. Now, 19 years later…this dream is finally coming true. Now what do us Halloween fans do with our lives? 
