Lion (Blu-ray Review)
It takes a lot to make a dramatic feature, based on a true story, into something that hits in the right ways. Because a drama can have the intent to strike at certain chords to ideally generate emotions, there is often a level of manipulation to consider. Lion concerns the story of a lost Indian boy, who loses his family, gains another and then searches to find what he has lost. That is the sketch of a tale that will likely draw up various emotions, but the key is to earn it. The film’s success largely revolves around how it carefully navigates this story’s big moments that go from a more visceral adventure to a cerebral study of loss. It pays off big, as the film received plenty of awards attention for just how effective it ended up being for critics and audiences.
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Sunday nights have proven themselves to be most hardcore night of television in the modern era. Forget about Thursday, Sunday is when all the great shows air. Well, premium channel speaking, I suppose the regular networks still hold their big guns for Thursday. I’d also make an argument for Tuesday being a big night as well. Anyway, I digress. During Game of Thrones season the past few years, HBO has had the best primetime lineup above all else for just one network. Game of Thrones followed by Silicon Valley and VEEP. Amazing, right? This time around, though, for the sixth season, these two fantastic hours of television will be separated sadly. However, VEEP is coming back quickly. And you’ll be able to catch up on all the Washington DC antics from the fifth season with this Blu-ray set on April 11th! 
Director William Byron Hillman wrote and directed a film in 1974 called The Photographer. That film focused on a photographer that had a blood lust and killing spree on the models which he made a living taking pictures of. Funny enough, that also starred Michael Callan. Hillman wanted to revisit that film, but with a more dark, serious and violent approach to the material. He even keeps the same name of the photographer and actor who plays him. That resulted in 1983’s Double Exposure (Which the director refers to as a “prequel”) which has been restored and is getting released in a new special edition Blu-ray by Vinegar Syndrome. Pre-order your copy now for release on April 25th on regular (Or the limited to 1,000 edition) DVD/Blu-ray Combo Pack. 
The original Psycho Cop released in 1989 sort of quietly but moreso was something to be checked out during the late 1980s boom of VHS home video. Said slasher was a super cheapy that has aged itself into something campy. That first film is still awaiting some sort of Blu-ray release. Another four years would pass and suddenly it was getting a sequel, giving officer Vickers another killing spree, something Harry Warden was never even alotted. Psycho Cop Returns is making its debut on the format via the wonderful folks over at Vinegar Syndrome. In addition to a new scan, their release includes a documentary, commentary and interview focusing on the special effects. You can pre-order now for release on April 25th. 
I imagine many people reacted the same way I did when I first saw the trailer for a film titled The Bye Bye Man – by laughing and mocking and questioning why someone thought that title was a good idea. Well, after having seen the film that bears that laughable title, I was able to extend that mockery to every other element of this film’s production. The Bye Bye Man is so immediately recognizable as a bad movie that within fifteen minutes one is forced to start considering if it is worth watching as something to enjoy with friends as a joke. But no, while it is incompetently made and has bad acting, it can’t quite even get being a good-bad movie right as it too often sways into boring territory. Let’s explore what makes The Bye Bye Man absolutely not worth watching. Don’t see it, don’t buy it! 
It wasn’t until I completed my Christmas Eve review of Underworld on 4K Blu-ray (
The 1990s found me knee deep in anything I could consumer horror-wise, no matter what depths the first half of the decade would bring. Though, both with the theater and the rental store, I’m pretty sure I never sat down to watch Tales From The Hood. Maybe I did, but I figured I’d remember it. The film probably came across as too silly for me at the time and I wasn’t really into comedy-horror (I wanted my stuff serious and scary) or moreso wasn’t on the wavelength of it back then. Like what happens so many times, the folks at Scream Factory help to rectify past missed opportunities and give the films the best possible chance to win me over with their Collector’s Edition series of films. Tales From The Hood is entering that fold when they bring it out on April 18th. I’m looking forward to digging into this one as I feel there’s a good chance I’ll have a fondness for the movie that probably would not have been there when it was new and I was in my teens. 
M. Night Shyamalan has been the butt of many the general filmgoers jokes and received such visible and audible ire from audiences whenever even a trailer of his plays and his name shows up. The director took a steep drop after being heralded as the next great thing following The Sixth Sense, Unbreakable and Signs. But, in 2015, he broke his rotten streak and made The Visit, a truly fun, low budget horror film that really took him back to square one. While one film a full on comeback does not make, you still have to give the guy credit and realize he could be on to something. Shyamalan smartly chose to stick with the low budget studio Blumhouse for his follow up, Split which wound up dazzling audiences this past January, becoming one of his biggest and Bluhmhouse’s biggest releases ever. You can own or check out Split when it comes to Blu-ray on April 18th. 
While I didn’t make it to the theater to see it, Office Christmas Party had my interest and attention. You put Kate McKinnon in something and you’ve immediately got that from me, but the movie looked like a little bit of escapism lunacy that would probably be a fun time. It opened the weekend right before Rogue One: A Star Wars Story showed up to take all the moneys (Moana was taking the moneys at this time, about to tag another Disney fighter into the ring), but managed to do some pretty solid business despite rather middle of the road to negative reviews. And now, its coming home to Blu-ray where it will probably find even more of a life. You can grab the film to own beginning April 4th! 
A movie that is truly absolutely everything its title says it is; Monster Trucks. The film is literally about a truck that is pretty much controlled by a monster. Star Lucas Till says “Its everything the title says it is”. Its a trailer that was sort of groaned at and laughed at or people weirded out by a “What the heck is this?” reaction. So, yeah, it was pretty much dead on arrival. When it opened in January, its numbers underwhelmed. I couldn’t find the budget, but from the sounds of it, this thing cost too much and lost a lot of money. However, for the scoffy adults, this movie was obviously not made for them (or was it?). Now, we’ll see if a generation of kids picks up on this movie when it comes home on April 11th to Blu-ray (Digitally March 28th). 
Like it or not I’m going to start this 4K Ultra HD Blu-ray review of Planet Earth II off by admitting I’m not generally a fan of documentaries. Unless the subject matter really interests me I tend to find them boring and rather uninteresting. I’m sorry. I’m just wired ignorantly like that. However, if you’re and A//V enthusiast like us all here there’s no denying the special place 
Ben Wheatley’s name being attached to this latest collaborative distribution effort from Scream Factory and IFC Midnight, titled Tank 432, brings me a little bit of enthusiasm and expectation. I don’t know much about Wheatley’s cameraman turned director, Nick Gillispie, but he shot the movie Wheatley made that put him on my “list”. That would be Kill List from a few years ago, which turned heads with how awesome it was. If you haven’t seen that one, try and find it and give it a watch as soon as you can. Its a bit of a genre mish mash, with familiar thematics, but done in its own sort of way. Tank 432 is being sold as a military thriller that “unfolds like a delirious, pulse-pounding puzzle” and a “a mind-bending plunge into hallucinatory terror”. I’d not heard of it til now, but am eager to see how this one delivers. It will be available on both Blu-ray and DVD on April 4th, so get your pre-order in now. 
I’m going to start this one by giving you the same ramble I did last year. 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 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 
In celebration of the 4K Ultra HD release Fantastic Beasts and Where To Find Them, the latest adventure and series starter in the wizarding world lived in by J.K. Rowling’s Harry Potter, Warner Bros is format jumping the original films in the series. They’ll all get that higher resolution with High Dynamic Range applied to them, to look sharper, prettier and newer. In my opinion, Warner Bros has been one of the more impressive studios when it comes to upgrading their catalog titles to 4K. One would think they are going to a lot of attention to one of their biggest franchises ever. They are releasing them in waves, with the four David Yates films (The back half of the series) being the first to come out. No date is set yet for the first four, but they’ll be here soon enough. This review will focus on the final chapter of the series, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 2 from 2011. It, and the others will be available March 28th. 
In celebration of the 4K Ultra HD release Fantastic Beasts and Where To Find Them, the latest adventure and series starter in the wizarding world lived in by J.K. Rowling’s Harry Potter, Warner Bros is format jumping the original films in the series. They’ll all get that higher resolution with High Dynamic Range applied to them, to look sharper, prettier and newer. In my opinion, Warner Bros has been one of the more impressive studios when it comes to upgrading their catalog titles to 4K. One would think they are going to a lot of attention to one of their biggest franchises ever. They are releasing them in waves, with the four David Yates films (The back half of the series) being the first to come out. No date is set yet for the first four, but they’ll be here soon enough. This review will focus on the sixth film in the series, Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince from 2009. It, and the others will be available March 28th. 
