Why Him? (4K UHD Blu-ray Review)
Why Him? is ordinarily not the kind of film I would go see in the theaters. Had it not been for two key factors I don’t think I would have gone. First it had the very irresistible and hilarious trailers on its side. That Red-band one was insane. Although I went in hoping that all the funny parts were not included in said trailers. Second, there was the nod to “from the makers of I Love You Man.” I love that comedy flick! So as you can see right from the get go I was walking into Why Him? ahead in the count. Now is the moment of truth and also the chance to have fun with the title’s question mark. What did I think of Why Him? That is the question we are all pondering here, right? Why Him? Continue reading ‘Why Him? (4K UHD Blu-ray Review)’
While Rogue One: A Star Wars Story was sold as the first “spin off” of the galaxy far far away, its far from the first side stepping project. Most of it has been through television (Christmas! Ewoks!), books, comic books, video games and other mediums. But, its no stranger to the theatrical front, either. Star Wars: The Clone Wars, while really three episodes tied together, was launched as a feature film in 2008. What Rogue One really represents is an attempt at serious, hardcore canon, live-action films that have as much put into their production and development as that of the Skywalker saga. As much pressure as there was on The Force Awakens to help restore Star Wars and introduce it to a new generation, Rogue One had pressure to show George Lucas’ creation could branch out and do other things while also being a virtual unknown in terms of how something like this might look and feel. Sigh of relief, the movie turned out to be outstanding, was well reviewed and took to audiences globally to a tune of over a billion dollars worldwide and becoming one of the highest grossing films of all time. You’ll be able to own the tale of stealing the Death Star plans on Blu-ray starting April 4th. 
Ahh…the Smurfs. That song; La la la-la la la, Sing a happy song. La la la-la la la, Smurf it all day long. La la la-la la la. Smurf along with me! La la la-la la la. Simple as can be. Next time you’re feeling blue just let a smile begin, Happy things will come to you..So smurf yourself a grin! La la la-la la la, Now you know the tune, You’ll be Smurfing soon! When I was a kid, I was singing along, but after this movie, maybe I’m more in tuned to what cartoon Gargamel said during that opening sequence in the animated (Well, 2D television cartoon animated) “Oooooo I hate Smurfs! I’ll get you, I’ll get all of you if it’s the last thing I ever do! hehehehe!” Oh yeah, we’re here reviewing the debut of the 2011 film on 4K UHD Blu-ray. The sequel to the film is already available on the format (One of the launch titles), but this one is jumping in on 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 first part of the finale of the series, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 1 from 2010. 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 fifth film in the series (Also the longest of the novels), Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix from 2007. It, and the others will be available March 28th. 
The wizarding world of Harry Potter led one of the most impressive runs in cinematic franchise history. Not only did all seven books in the series get adapted, but there were eight films. Aside from one major change due to a death, the films managed to keep its cast intact for the entire telling of J.K. Rowling’s story. Harry Potter started before brand IP became a major thing and it left us as it was becoming one. Being that its one of the most successful and popular cinematic IPs ever, it could only lay dormant for so long. What direction to go with it now that a major eight film story has taken place and the characters completed their important arcs? Well, the answer is backward. J.K. Rowling has returned to give us a new story based loosely off the adventures of a fictional author of a book in the wizarding world. And back in November, we began what is to be a five film journey on its own about events well before even Harry Potter’s parents were around. The magic was not gone, as Fantastic Beasts And Where To Find Them made almost a billion dollars worldwide. It now makes its way to 4K Ultra-HD and Blu-ray March 28th. 
The wizarding world of Harry Potter led one of the most impressive runs in cinematic franchise history. Not only did all seven books in the series get adapted, but there were eight films. Aside from one major change due to a death, the films managed to keep its cast intact for the entire telling of J.K. Rowling’s story. Harry Potter started before brand IP became a major thing and it left us as it was becoming one. Being that its one of the most successful and popular cinematic IPs ever, it could only lay dormant for so long. What direction to go with it now that a major eight film story has taken place and the characters completed their important arcs? Well, the answer is backward. J.K. Rowling has returned to give us a new story based loosely off the adventures of a fictional author of a book in the wizarding world. And back in November, we began what is to be a five film journey on its own about events well before even Harry Potter’s parents were around. The magic was not gone, as Fantastic Beasts And Where To Find Them made almost a billion dollars worldwide. It now makes its way to 4K Ultra-HD and Blu-ray March 28th. 
Illumination Entertainment, the animation studio most known for those darn Minions. Actually, I enjoy the Despicable Me films, its just the one that focused on the little side characters was a giant waste of time (Though, I’m sure those seven and under probably loved it). While that’s the flagship, they’ve actually carved quite a remarkable track record in six short years. All but two of their films have made over a half a billion dollars worldwide. Which, one of those two was The Lorax which did exceedingly well at 348 million worldwide. They hit big in summer and winter in 2016, showing they are much more than the Minion house. The Secret Life of Pets almost made a billion dollars in the summer and the film we are reviewing here, Sing, made over half a billion running up against Rogue One: A Star Wars Story. They appear to be a major force to be reckoned with, holding their own in a world usually owned by Disney and Pixar. Sing proved to be quite popular, not just with audiences, but seemingly winning over critics as well. It comes to 4K UHD Blu-ray on March 21st! 
20th Century Women comes from writer/director Mike Mills of whom I only familiar with his film Thumbsucker, which was one of the first films that was highly recommended to me by Scott Mendelson early on in our friendship. It was a terrific coming of age comedy, the best of what seemed to have a lot of similar ones like it back in 2005, and one of the best films that year. This film, featuring a single mother tasking two younger women with helping to shape her 15 year old son’s adolescence, is my first venture with Mills since. I highly enjoyed the trailer when I saw it back during December (Actually had me cracking up aloud at a few moments), but wasn’t able to get to it during its theatrical run. It looked like another big awards run movie for Annette Bening, but the film wound up only getting nominated for Best Original Screenplay. The film very much offers far more than its lack of award season nods would lead you to believe. 20th Century Women will be available to purchase on (21st century, yok yok) Blu-ray March 28th. 
It sounds very silly to have expectations for or to be really looking forward to a film like Arsenal. A primarily straight to Blu-ray and DVD (I think it played a couple festivals) release where the leads are Adrien Grenier and Johnathon Schaech. And John Cusack, has been less of the kicker than ever in the past couple of years, looking unhappy stuck in some sort of slow rent action movie straight to video hell. The kicker here was someone also kind of stuck there, but who always commits; Nicolas Cage. This trailer actually brought the internet abuzz as he looked to be going full on Cage for this one and was resurreting his Deadfall past with “Eddie”. Maybe Cusack would find it in himself to bring it too. This looked like it could be bringing the right amount of crazy and silly to an otherwise tired looking story. Therein lies the potential I (And I was not alone) was seeing in this movie. Everything seemed like it was on the table, but would it actually pan out. 
In terms of his directorial output, Ben Affleck has had a perfect track record with me. Gone Baby Gone was one hell of a debut for him and surprisingly his least talked about film in his director catalog (It shouldn’t be, its fantastic). That film was based on a novel by Dennis Lehane, which is a well Affleck is seemingly returning to by adapting another one of his books into Live By Night. For critical reception, its been a rough year for Ben Affleck, with Batman V. Superman: Dawn of Justice being thrashed (Though he was almost praised across the board for it) and The Accountant getting a mediocre reception (Though being a rock solid hit). It seemed like, well, at least he has his own film to end the year on. A Ben Affleck film was something we thought we could count on. Though, disappointingly, he’d end the year on a huge double whammy, with more awful reviews and a having his film totally bomb at the box office. This, being the film that followed up his widely praised and Academy Award winner for best picture, Argo. 
In 2016, director Peter Berg and star Mark Wahlberg teamed for a pair of action-oriented films base on real life big headline stories trying to display American heroism. The first was Deepwater Horizon, focusing on the 2010 oil spill and the other was Patriots Day that was about the bombing at the 2013 Boston Marathon and hunt for the terrorists behind it. Patriots Day came out in a limited fashion in 2016 and was spread more wide in early January. Maybe it was too early for this one or just too much else to see, but despite good reviews, the film failed to connect with audiences and underperformed. Its now maybe hoping to find audience at home with its 4K UHD Blu-ray release, coming on March 21st. You can check it out early via streaming and digital, but physical is always the preferred method of delivery and you can ensure yourself a copy on release day by pre-ordering from the Amazon link provided below. 
Passengers is a film that I have a lot of history with personally speaking. The original script for Passengers was written by Jon Spaihts way back in 2007, and had been in development hell for years now. I mention this because not only have my own projects been in development hell, but this very script was my first read in a screenwriting class I took at Cleveland State University way back when. I remember this time period too because at one point the film was set to star Keanu Reeves and Emily Blunt. God this movie would have been fantastic with Emily as the leading female. Eventually in 2014 it it was announced that Sony had won the auction for the rights to the sci-fi flick and here we are. It’s 2017 and Passengers came out theatrically last year, but more importantly it’s finally here in 4K Ultra HD Blu-ray! 
Twenty years ago this September launched a little horror series called Wishmaster. Back when a horror movie could do over fifteen million at the box office and be considered a success, that’s what this was. While coming post-Scream, it was before the effects and wave had taken over (That would come a month later with I Know What You Did Last Summer). In a way, it made the monster one the last one of an era before the Scream-like slashers would take over in iconography before the remakes and Jigsaw carried on from there. Wishmaster did spawn three sequels in a 5 years run from 1997-2002, but none of them ever found major theatrical release (Straight to video in the US). The series and character of the Wishmaster has lied dormant ever since, yet to make a return, but who knows, maybe this set will spark an interest or drum up nostalgia or a new fanbase for the little underground cult series. 
Scream Factory first dipped their toes into the world of Stephen King last fall with its definitive release of the initial classic (And one of horror’s all-time best) Carrie. Now, they are at it again with another of his telekinetic girls with the Drew Barrymore-led Firestarter. Yes, its already on Blu-ray, but that lackluster release is getting a masterful update with Scream Factory’s Collector’s edition. Not only does this boast a lot of brand next extras for this disc, but its been given a brand new 2K transfer as well. As per usual, this thing will be well worth the upgrade, or the holdout you’ve had for the movie (Even just the curious bystander that picks up based on Scream Factory’s choice to release). But, lets dig into this anyway, shall we? The release is set for March 14th, but you can make sure you have one come release day by pre-ordering on the Amazon link below. 
Releasing soon on Blu-ray and Digital HD, the first season of HBO’s new comedy “Insecure” stars comedian Issa Rae as an awkward young black woman just trying to live her life in Los Angeles. The show is created by Rae and Larry Wilmore, of the unfortunately cancelled “Nightly Show” on Comedy Central, and makes a point to tackle the topic of modern female blackness from the lens of an everyday regular person. Issa’s character is not a strong, loud, independent black female stereotype. Instead, she is, as the title of the show might suggest, insecure – in many senses of the term. 
