Archive Page 197
October 15th, 2017 by Brandon Peters
Finally, The Bridge on the River Kwai is making its debut on 4K Ultra-HD Blu-ray which also comes the year it is celebrating its 60th anniversary in its existence. “Finally?” you ask? Well, last year it had been noted that this one was being done and ready to go and then…nothing. Now we are toward the end of the year, which it was almost exactly a year ago that it was spotted. Also on that list was Lawrence of Arabia, which PLEASE make that one soon. The Bridge on the River Kwai nabbed Best Picture and Alec Guinness an Academy Award, taking home seven total (Out of eight nominations, not too shabby) and pretty much sweeping away the major categories. You can order yourself a copy below from the Amazon link (Which they site, as always, says “thank you” with each click), to have when it arrives on the format October 3rd. Continue reading ‘The Bridge On The River Kwai: 60th Anniversary Edition (4K UHD Blu-ray Review)’
October 15th, 2017 by Jason Coleman
Keeping up with indie film is hard indeed – but somebody’s gotta do it! Up for encapsulated dissection this week is crop of seven new indie outings that cover any and every genre the avid film fan might be seeking. Tales of child trauma revisited, the past enlightening dangers of sleepwalking, inspiring stories of survival, monster movies on a small scale, revenge seeking lethal ladies, the woes of finding money and old horror yarns revisited all make up the flicks covered in this weeks Encapsulated Movie Reviews. Check out the skinny on Una, Sleepwalker, 6 Below: Miracle on the Mountain, M.F.A., Blood Money and Dementia 13 below!
Continue reading ‘Encapsulated Movie Reviews – Seven New Indie Titles’
October 13th, 2017 by Brandon Peters
Just in time for the first final quarter of the calendar year holidays we are getting, once again, all of the Peanuts TV specials! But this time, Linus, Lucy, Charlie Brown, Woodstock, Peppermint Patty, Snoopy…all of them, they are coming to 4K Ultra-HD Blu-ray. Yeah, crazy, I know, right! But, Warner Bros feels that you need to have these in the most pristine, tip top presentation you can possibly get. So, the question is…how much of an improvement will it be on these old 2D hand drawn animate film cells. Well, read on and we’ll find this out together. This release will be available (Or may be already available, depending when you’re reading this) on October 10. You can also go ahead and pre-order yourself a copy (Which helps the site, as well) by clicking the Amazon logo below. Continue reading ‘Peanuts Holiday Collection: Deluxe Edition (4K UHD Blu-ray Review)’
October 13th, 2017 by Jason Coleman
My previous stomping grounds Starpulse.com has streamlined and simplified their content and as a result years of my column Forgotten Friday Flick has been taken down. And while there is no shortage of films to cover in the future, there were a few movie notables really near and dear to me that I didn’t want to get lost in the shuffle. So over the next month or so I’m going to be resurrecting and reposting a few now deleted past picture gems in an effort to keep their lesser-known movie legacy alive. We’ll begin with a scary piece of cinema that ran on October 12, 2012 in an effort to keep the theme of Halloween front and center – welcome to Forgotten Friday Flick! Today’s film is so much more then a simple tale of horror, even though it carries the moniker of being from the writers of the Saw sequels. It’s an engaging mixture of the thriller and serial killer genres, but told with distinctively creative character flair. One house. A killer. A thief. Let the games begin. We’re jumping headfirst into the box of…The Collector!
Continue reading ‘Forgotten Friday Flick – “The Collector”’
October 12th, 2017 by Jason Coleman
The column for the penny-pinching film fan is once again in full swing, only this time around we’re scouring the bargain bin for bare bones Blu-ray’s to see if they cut the collectable movie mustard. Titles that may already have lush editions or perhaps not, but that come in on the less expensive side and as a result won’t break your wallet. But are these past notable nuggets worth investing merely for the movie and menus alone? We’re gonna provide the answers including film dissection and quality in skinny form (dog ratings here represent the film and the disc quality together!), so check out the Blu-ray Roundup reviews of the recently released Flatliners (Steelbook), Night of the Living Dead and Vice Versa all below! (Tech specs are at the end as always for those who demand it!)
Continue reading ‘Blu-ray Roundup – 3 Past Picture Titles (Blu-ray Reviews)’
October 12th, 2017 by Aaron Neuwirth
You may not have known it, but Will Ferrell and Amy Poehler starred in a comedy together this year. It was The House, the kind of film that takes a fun premise and drowns it in extended takes that yield the funniest isolated results but don’t do much to make the film gel together as a whole. Not screened for critics and released with no fanfare, the film was a bomb and fell on the lower end of the spectrum for comedies headlined by Ferrell in particular. Now it is available on Blu-ray and the film is as suspected – perfectly fine for watching once, because of how many funny people are involved.
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Continue reading ‘The House (Blu-ray Review)’
October 12th, 2017 by Aaron Neuwirth
I suppose it was inevitable to see Jackie Chan enter the ‘old man action’ phase of his career. More specifically, The Foreigner finds Chan entering this part of career when it comes to his English-speaking roles in films given a wide release in America. Chan has maintained a steady level of popularity as an international action star in both dramas and comedies, but here’s a film that gives his American fans a chance to look at Chan in the kind of role that has given actors like Liam Neeson and Denzel Washington a career surge. Chan, of course, excels at the action, but his gravitas helps as well, along with a strong counter role offered up by Pierce Brosnan.
Continue reading ‘‘The Foreigner’ Finds Jackie Chan Taken To A Dark Place (Movie Review)’
October 11th, 2017 by Aaron Neuwirth
The last few years have been very nice to Frank Capra, as his classic films have been given brand-new remastered releases. The Criterion Collection put out It Happened One Night and Sony has put out some of his Columbia Pictures work. Why So Blu’s Brandon Peters has covered Mr. Smith Goes to Washington and Mr. Deeds Goes To Town, which are great films in their own right, and now we have Lost Horizon. This was one of Capra’s more ambitious productions as well as a costly one, but it has plenty of significance in our cinematic landscape. Now the film has been restored in 4K and is the most complete version one has been able to see in the 80 years since its release.
a Continue reading ‘Lost Horizon – 80th Anniversary Edition (Blu-ray Review)’
October 10th, 2017 by Jason Coleman
It’s October fright fans and that can only mean one thing for LA residents – Screamfest time! That’s right kiddies, the blood and gore filled Screamfest Horror Film Festival 2017 (go to www.screamfestla.com for more details!) taking place October 10th-19th at the TCL Chinese 6 Theatres in LA at the Hollywood and Highland Center is officially underway and all carnage loving film freaks are about to have their wildest nightmares come true. Not only are there a ton of great feature films big and small, but also a gaggle of gruesome shorts and even a loving George A. Romero tribute with a free screening to boot. We’re starting our coverage off with a sneak peek into some of the more notable nasty nuggets from this year’s creep crop in our first look at…“What To See.”
Continue reading ‘Screamfest 2017 – ‘What To See’’
October 10th, 2017 by Aaron Neuwirth
This past summer saw writer/director Edgar Wright land a huge hit with his film Baby Driver. That was great news to keep track of, as Wright speaks a cinematic language that I quickly picked up back with Spaced and Shaun of the Dead and have enjoyed ever since. Like his other films, Baby Driver takes a central concept, strips other movies for parts, and builds a Frankenstein monster of a finished product that is so wonderful to watch it’s scary. In this case, we have a car chase/heist movie that also happens to be a musical. However, Baby Driver is not a musical in a traditional sense. Music informs the film in a way that allows for a great sense of rhythm to play throughout this fun ride. Now the sleeper hit has arrived on a Blu-ray packed with extras.
a Continue reading ‘Baby Driver (Blu-ray Review)’
October 9th, 2017 by Brandon Peters
Ah, you sat yourself through a half of a Monday Night Football game that you could’ve cared less about, but were ultimately rewarded when Lucasfilm dropped our first full on trailer for Star Wars: The Last Jedi. Rian Johnson’s follow-up to JJ Abrams’ insanely successful The Force Awakens will continue the saga of Rey, Finn, Poe and Kylo Ren and promises more Luke Skywalker and Princess Leia. Joining up on this new film will also be characters like Rose, DJ and Vice Admiral Holdo (Played by Kelly Marie Tran, Benecio del Toro and Laura Dern, respectively). Also at this time, the tickets go on sale and hopefully aren’t crashing every theater and ticket buying’s respective websites as they usually do (You’d think they’d have enough time to perfect and prepare for this, but alas). The film opens December 15th, but you know you’ll be there December 14th at 7pm. Continue reading ‘Its Time For The STAR WARS: THE LAST JEDI Trailer To Begin!’
October 8th, 2017 by Gregg Senko
Inmate #61727054. Surely that’s a number that proves irrelevant to most of us. We live in a land where prisoners are more than abundant. However, some are more famous than others and few more so than inmate #61727054, better known as Bernard L. Madoff. Bernie Madoff lived up to his last name and ‘made off’ with a disgustingly enormous sum of $65 billion of other peoples’ money. Director Barry Levinson (Good Morning, Vietnam) brought this tale of financial deceit to HBO earlier this year in the form of the bio pic The Wizard of Lies starring Robert De Niro as Bernie Madoff and Michelle Pfeiffer as his wife, Ruth Madoff. The film now makes its way to Blu-ray and we’ve got all the details on this disc from start to finish.
Continue reading ‘The Wizard of Lies (Blu-ray Review)’
October 8th, 2017 by Jason Coleman
Sorry about the lateness of this weeks cinematic skinny dissections, but I wanted to fit in all the glorious flicks I possibly could for maximum movie watching wattage. So below are a whopping ten film reviews from good to bad to keep you up to movie date. Tough guys on a manly mission of mayhem, sci-fi stories, docs on dancers and haunted houses, strange estranged siblings, Christmas carnage, scientists gone psycho, surfing sabbaticals, wayward girls kidnapped for profit and malevolent lighthouses all make up the subjects of the films in this weeks Encapsulated Movie Reviews. Check out the reviews of the films Brawl In Cell Block 99, The Osiris Child: Science Fiction Volume One, Bobbi Jene, Haunters: The Art of the Scare, Barracuda, Better Watch Out, They Remain, Rip Tide, Trafficked and The Forlorned below!
Continue reading ‘Encapsulated Movie Reviews – Ten New Indie Titles’
October 6th, 2017 by Jason Coleman
With new house moving, movies and mountains of life it’s been a few weeks since the last past picture dissection. (Sorry folks!) But it’s also a few weeks since the passing of one of my favorite actors the late, great Harry Dean Stanton. A classic character actor who added so much to his roles, Stanton shined playing the wisecracking Brett in Alien, the headstrong Brain in Escape From New York, the cunning cop in Christine, the vengeful father in Red Dawn (“avenge me!”) and soothing dad in Pretty In Pink and of course excelled in the myriad of memorable collaborations between himself and auteur David Lynch. (Plus my movie Dad states that Paris, Texas is Stanton’s finest film!) So in tribute to the passing of one fantastic actor I’m pairing up my Forgotten Friday Flick this week with a smaller cinematic Harry Dean Stanton nugget that some of you might have missed. A quirky and clever outing that mixes the everyday business of taking from those who don’t pay their bills with the outlandish idea of aliens from another planet for maximum odd egg memorable movie results. It’s 4am, do you know where your car is? More than likely its been jacked by a…Repo Man!
Continue reading ‘Forgotten Friday Flick – “Repo Man” (Harry Dean Stanton Tribute)’
October 6th, 2017 by Gerard Iribe
Emerging from a NY subway on her way home from college, Lucy (Brittany Snow, Pitch Perfect) discovers her neighborhood of Bushwick engulfed in utter chaos. Trying to escape the violence, Lucy seeks refuge in the basement of Stupe (Dave Bautista, Guardians of the Galaxy), a former Marine on his way out of town to find his family. As the unlikely pair navigate through a hail of gunfire and lethal explosions, they learn they are in the middle of a civil war as Texas attempts to secede from the US. With the clash between local residents and the militia escalating, Lucy and Stupe must rely on each other in an impossible race to get out of the city and survive another day.
Continue reading ‘Bushwick (Blu-ray Review)’
October 5th, 2017 by Aaron Neuwirth
With the success of the surprisingly pretty good Curse of Chucky back in 2013, writer/director Don Mancini has once again found a way to put together a film that displays the intrigue, entertainment, and horror that comes with the killer doll named Chucky. Cult of Chucky is the seventh entry in the now 29-year-old series and the second direct-to-video release. Given the current model of finding old properties and making them new again, I was surprised when ‘Curse’ was somehow not given a theatrical release, but with plenty of strong films finding an audience without that theatrical benefit these days, I’m pretty happy with getting ‘Cult’ as it is. It helps that ‘Cult’ is a pretty solid entry that will easily delight old fans as well as bring joy to those looking for some fresh ideas. Thanks to an unrated Blu-ray release that goes along with a same-day (R-rated) Netflix release, everyone has the chance to see what our favorite ‘Good Guy’ is up to.
Continue reading ‘Cult of Chucky (Blu-ray Review)’
October 4th, 2017 by Brian White
To say that I was not looking forward to the original April 16th theatrical release date of Kick-Ass would be like saying that I would rather watch a SD DVD of my favorite film over its superior HD counterpart. It’s just not going to happen. My obsession with this film happened way back on the magical date of July 24, 2009. It was on that very day, within Hall H at Comic-Con 2009 in San Diego, that I was introduced to the world of Kick-Ass. I never wore a grin so large in life as compared to when we, the captive audience within Hall H, were treated to not only the film’s Red Band trailer, but also exclusive clips highlighting the mayhem and action of the eccentric cast. Weird thing is, the film had no distribution deal as of yet. It was shown first at Comic-Con to gauge the public’s interest. And if memory serves me correct, the panel even got a standing ovation by the end of its time slot. Not long after, Lionsgate, one of my favorite movie studios sealed the deal to distribute Kick-Ass nationwide. And that was a great day indeed. Sadly, Nicolas Cage was absent from the 2009 Comic-Con panel, but this girl (see below), Chloe Moretz (aka Hit-Girl), won the audience over with not only her youth and innocence, but also her, for lack of a better term, “kick-ass” action sequences. I’m a firm believer that Kick-Ass would not be half the film it is without Hit-Girl.
Continue reading ‘Kick-Ass (4K UHD Blu-ray Review)’
October 4th, 2017 by Brandon Peters
Illumination and Universal Pictures Home Entertainment present Despicable Me 3 on Digital and Digital 3D November 21, 2017 and on 4K Ultra HD, Blu-ray™, DVD and On Demand December 5, 2017. The characters beloved by everyone – Gru, his wife Lucy, their three adorable daughters—Margo, Edith and Agnes—and the Minions provide hours of family fun in this heartwarmingly subversive comedy from Academy Award®-nominated producer Chris Meledandri (Despicable Me Franchise) and directors Pierre Coffin (Despicable Me Franchise) and Kyle Balda (Minions 1 & 2, The Lorax). Hailed as “the best Despicable Me movie yet,” by Ali Plumb of BBC Radio 1, with over $949 million in global ticket sales, Despicable Me 3 is the ultimate holiday gift, with almost an entire hour of exclusive bonus features including an all-new mini-movie, a never-before-released deleted scene, and much more! Continue reading ‘The #1 Animated Movie Of The Year, DESPICABLE ME 3 Arrives On 4K Ultra-HD 12/5’
