Close Encounters Of The Third Kind: 40th Anniversary Edition (4K UHD Blu-ray Review)
Many highly touted classic films are celebrating their 40th anniversaries this year. While Star Wars is the poster child for cinema in the year 1977, it was an amazing year for film. Even some that were overlooked that year (Cough, Sorcerer) have been rediscovered and reexamined as classics. Director Steven Spielberg had a contribution to that year, his highly anticipated follow up to his phenomenon Jaws; Close Encounters of the Third Kind. A more straightforward science fiction film compared to Star Wars sweeping space fantasy. Close Encounters would up being another smashing success for Spielberg and it has seen numerous rereleases over the years, including a one-week theatrical run not too long ago. It also continues its journey in cinematic immortality by getting a 4K Ultra-HD Blu-release on September 19th. You can pre-order it below using the Amazon link. Continue reading ‘Close Encounters Of The Third Kind: 40th Anniversary Edition (4K UHD Blu-ray Review)’
Coming out of nowhere and as a complete welcome surprise of Sony announcing the release of vintage 80s horror classic, 976-Evil. Its super notable as the film marks the directorial debut of fright icon and Freddy Krueger himself, Robert Englund. The movie dialed itself up a sequel a couple of years later (Your move now, Vestron!) and Englund would only direct one more feature 20 years later, though he did direct two episode of the Freddy’s Nightmares television show. This nice little release from Sony will be available and ready to kick of your October Halloween horror movie marathons on October 3rd. Pre-order this little bit of fun below, following the review to ensure yourself a copy come new release day. 
Starship Troopers might be the best sci-fi action movie of the 1990s and the one that has held up the best over time. I was a pretty big fan of it when I saw it in the theater opening weekend. Being a huge Aliens fans, it played to those sensibilities, but truly was its own beast. Lost on my was a lot of the satirical brilliance at play by Paul Vehoeven, who had shown this same expertise that is impossible to replicated in both Robocop and Total Recall. These three of his movies kinda form a bit of trilogy. Anywho, its been 20 years since the original Starship Troopers and here they are giving us a new adventure featuring Johnny Rico and resurrecting Dizzy Flores. Oh but, its animated. And this review will be of the standard Blu-ray edition, not the 4K Ultra-HD one. You can pick this up as of last week, September 19th. 
I remember back in 2013 wanting nothing to do with this movie and shamefully saying how awful it looked. However, I also remember flying home on a work trip and being bored out of my mind knowing that I had a long flight ahead of me. The conundrum was that I had nothing to watch on the plane. Eureka! I came up with the idea that I should download Warm Bodies on my iPad to keep me company for the next three hours. After all our own Aaron Neuwirth had originally given this one some nice nods in his movie review originally published 
One of the biggest surprises for summer 2003 was the original Pirates of the Caribbean film. There was a lot of goodwill with that movie and its sequels that would form a trilogy were very highly anticipated. Then came that fourth one, whatever you want to call it. I’m still a big fan of the first two films and can watch the third one, though its rather overplotted and confusing. I saw the fourth once. While interested in the fifth one, I didn’t make it to the theater and it wasn’t really priority viewing for me. It didn’t need me though as the film grossed almost 800 million dollars. What surprised me, though is looking back, this series was clearly more of a fan based one that critic. There is a pretty solid discrepancy among the sequels aside from pretty much agreeing the fourth one sucked. Now we come to the fifth one which has a huge distance between audience and critic. You’ll be able to find out for yourself, or if you’re a fan, own it on 4K Ultra-HD Blu-ray October 3rd. 
Believe me when I say this I never wanted write this 4K Ultra HD Blu-ray review. In fact I never wanted to even see this flick. Call me a glutton for punishment, but I know the real truth. I’m just flat out cheap and don’t want to pay to view it nor do I want to see anyone else on my team remotely speak any praise about it. You see I loved the first Transformers film. It was both epic and adventurous, but the second feature was a bloated, flaming turd. The 
Grunge was all the rage as the music and fashion scene of the 1990s was beginning to take shape. Of course it all started with Nirvana and immediate take off the moment Kurt Cobain started up “Smells Like Teen Spirit”. They single handedly killed the hair metal of the 1980s just upon arrival. Their success opened the door for many others to take a more commercial stage like Pearl Jam, Soundgarden and Alice n Chains. It was the beginning of what would be called the Alternative Rock of the 1990s. In 1996 a documentary was put together to tell the story of the early roots of the Seattle grunge movement. Called “hype!”, Shout! Factory will be putting out a special Collector’s Edition of the documentary that is now 21 years old and old enough to drink. You may also pre-order below in time for the September 29th release. 
The Devil’s Candy comes from director Sean Byrne who gave us the beloved little indie/underground horror film, The Loved Ones back in 2009. Now, Scream Factory and the folks over at IFC Midnight are teaming up (Surprise, right?) to bring it to Blu-ray This film had been done since 2015, but finally was getting show around just this very year. Its a fresh, newer, modern horror movie to add to their slowly yet quickly expanding library of modern horror films that themselves are already under ground. This one will be releasing on September 19th, so don’t everybody at once rush down to click on that attractive, helpful Amazon link. Oh and did I mention it has the star of Can’t Hardly Wait, That Thing You Do, Poppa Georgio himself, Ethan Embry as a metalhead? 
Tra La Laa! Captain Underpants: The First Epic Movie is coming to the greatest format in all the land: 4K Ultra-HD Blu-ray. Or, depending on when you’re reading this juicy, informative and amazing intro paragraph that is lightly treading water, it could be out already. Yeah, actually its out already. The film was released on September 12th, giving you the chance to vindicate yourself for missing it in theaters. Its a sweet fun little movie that was really good, but unfortunately audiences didn’t take a chance on it. But, hey, that’s okay, now it can be this little Cult kids movie that is based of the very popular book series (Of which I am not familiar at all). The film features the vocal talents of three very different comedic actors; Kevin Hart, Ed Helms and Thomas Middleditch. Tra La Laa! 
Two seasons of VEEP on Blu-ray in the same calendar year? What kind of awesome time to be a fan of great, top notch comedy is this? Yes, it is coming back again next year, but they have announced the show will be ending its run in the seventh season. All good things must come to a close and VEEP seems to have found its natural time. And boy has it made its mark. For every year the show has been on the air, Julia Lous-Dreyfus has won herself an Emmy for her role as Vice President/President/Former President Selina Meyer. That’s an incredible streak and a record for such. Will she cap it all off with a seventh win? We’ll have to see, but you can see her most resent representation of winning talent when the sixth season arrives on Blu-ray from HBO on September 12th. 
When It Comes At Night released this past summer it was met with much approval upon the critical reviews. However, once those pesky general audiences got their hands on it, it was seen as all of a sudden being divisive and controversial. They hated it. Using the Tomato meter, the critics wound up giving it an 89% (Acutal: 7.4/10) while the general audiences saw it to be more of a 44% (4.4/10). One very fresh the other very rotten. Primarily, this happens when a film is “different”, unique, outside the box and tries something newer. In this case, the crime might have been assuming that the audiences that were going to buy a ticket to see it generally were smart. 
A lot of this is going to be a rehash of my already published 4K Ultra HD Blu-ray review 
There is no mistaking the quality of programming that comes from HBO. Productions like Westworld, True Detective and Game of Thrones continue to wow audiences with their exceptional writing, acting and direction. As those series are currently some of the mainstays of HBO, it can be easy to overlook the original films that come forth from the cable giant. One such movie is The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks. There are a great deal of stories in our nation’s history that would never be told if it weren’t for the perseverance and preservation of a few determined folks. Mrs. Lacks’ story is one such case.
A lot of this is going to be a rehash of my 4K UHD VUDU review of this title formerly published 
I’m going to start this one by giving you the same ramble I do year after year covering this HBO title. Working in the IT industry myself I can’t tell you what a breath of fresh air it is to see people going through the same stress, trials and tribulations as myself in the industry. I may not exactly be involved directly in a tech startup company, but I know how things work in corporate America/Silicon Valley and sometimes HBO’s hit comedy series Silicon Valley hits oh so close to home for me. You can read all about my take on Season One in my 2014 Blu-ray review over 
It’s time for my September ritual! The Big Bang Theory returns to the Blu-ray format. Truth be told I’m excited to be covering the release for the fourth year in a row now. You can find Gregg Senko’s Blu-ray review coverage of Season 3 
