Maleficent (Blu-ray Review)
Disney’s Maleficent was not only one of the biggest hits of summer, its one of the biggest movies of the the 2014 cinema-going year. The film has grossed over $241 million just domestically and dominated worldwide taking in over $757 million. Its another instance in helping prove that female-led and driven blockbusters should be more commonplace in our theatrical release slate. The film also goes to show Angelina Jolie is just a genuine superstar. She doesn’t do many films of this ilk anymore, but when she does, people will flock out to go and see it. Plus, there’s also the perfect joining of her and Disney to take on this character for the film. A film that tells a different angle on a classic fairy tale.
Continue reading ‘Maleficent (Blu-ray Review)’
Back in 2oo6, I was a big big fan of the sort of musical film Once. Love the movie, loved the soundtrack even more. It was a daring film, because above all else, that music had to be excellent in order for the film to truly work, and it did. Then, it wound up winning an Academy Award for one of its songs, all was great and then I never really followed anyone involved from the film afterward. Writer and Director John Carney has made two films since, but I didn’t know about them until I looked him up for this review. He returns to craft another music based film, this time focused in a bigger city, with bigger stars and a story dealing with a similar musical mission to Once, but this one with a little more promised success and bigger ambition. And wow, Keira Knightley isn’t too bad of a singer. I was surprised to learn she actually sang for her own songs that were performed in the film. 
Life Of Crime interested me because it features characters from Jackie Brown. On any given day, Jackie Brown is either my absolute favorite Quentin Tarantino film or at the very least Top 3. Life Of Crime takes place with Ordell, Louis, Melanie and brief appearance from Ray in the year 1978. This was a festival touring film that wound up playing in theaters finally around the end of August. A side note, I’m just curious, but the film takes place in 1978 and features a scene with Will Forte trapped in a closet and he begins smashing his way out of the door just like Michael Myers did in the original Halloween. I’m wondering if this was intentional, as Forte strangely knocks the pieces of the door out in the same manner that Michael did even. Oh well, the Halloween season is upon us, so I thought I’d take note of that. 
Remember that huge 4th of July weekend this past summer that everyone overly criticized, yet didn’t realize no “majory” blockbusters or anything were released? You know, that the film Tammy got most of the blunt negativity from? There was another film that showed up, the found footage kids sci fi movie Earth To Echo. Earth To Echo was deemed a disappointment, but a further look at it…it was actually a pretty nice success story. The film only had a budget of $13 million and wound up taking in $38.9 million domestically. Factoring in overseas money, it made an additional haul for a total of over $45 million dollars. That’s almost four times its budget back. A very very very good investment. So, this movie was actually a pretty darn big success even if it was huffed at by “experts”. The film is hitting Blu-ray to the possibility of just adding to that financial success and possibly bringing in some more fans. 
Don’t look now, but apparently we are on Wrong Turn number 6. Personally, I haven’t seen any of them past the original. That one had Eliza Dushku, Jeremy Sisto, Emmanuelle Chriqui and Desmond Harrington and was the only one of these released theatrically (Others played at events like ScreamFest and the like). When I signed up for Vudu I got Wrong Turn 2 for free but I’ve not watched it. That one was directed by Joe Lynch and actually was critically acclaimed with a unanimous approval that its better than the first film. I’ve still not had a chance to check it out, but I want to. Every one following has been reviled though. So, of course I’m going into part 6 with the lowest expectations. And I hope I can keep up having missed the 4 previous installments. 
The Prince is brought to us from producers behind last year’s films Lone Survivor and Escape Plan. That’s a weird balance as I really enjoyed one of those quite a bit and sort of despised the other. And if you want a clue as to which, lets just say its the one that wasn’t based on a true story. The film boasts an impressive one-two punch of actors for me as I’ve never seen two of my favorites, John Cusack and Bruce Willis in a film together before. According to my research this film did play in theaters, but seems to be more of a straight to video or Video OnDemand kind of film. And no, there’s absolutely nothing wrong with that as there have been some truly terrific films going by way of VOD over the past couple years and sort of the replacement of sorts for an outlet for independent genre films. 
Millennium Entertainment brings us the home entertainment release of the crime-thriller, Good People. The film feature plenty of prestige and award respect flaunting talent in front of and behind the camera. Let’s just start listing off shall we? Academy Award nominee Henrik Ruben Genz directs the all-star cast lead by Academy Award nominee James Franco, Academy Award nominee Kate Hudson, Academy Award nominee Tom Wilkinson and Omar Sy of Gregg Senko’s favorite film that he loves The Intouchables. Written by Kelly Masterson (Same person who wrote Snowpiercer!) and adapted from the book of the same title by Marcus Sakey, Good People. 
Well, I never saw the original Planes, so right out of the gate know that my only experience with the Disney Planes films is this one here today. The original film really didn’t catch my interest as it looked like it was a cash in of Cars, which I’m not too big a fan of. And also it came and went and nobody really seemed to care or craft any buzz or praise for it. I didn’t even think it took the box office too big, but apparently it did good enough to get this sequel. That, or like Cars, the toys were just selling like hot cakes and they needed another go round. Even being a novice going into a sequel blindly without knowledge of the first, I was still open to this Dane Cook-led film to surprise me. Sometimes lowered expectations can help in situations. 
In honor of See No Evil 2 releasing this week from Lionsgate and WWE Films, and with Jacob Goodnight donning a mask for the new outing, it seemed fun to look back as some of my favorite or creepier slasher masks of all time. Here’s a list of 10, but I could have gone further as there are many masks and such that could have made the list as well and maybe you could shed light on them below. How does one qualify? Well, you have to don a mask that covers your face for your killing. No, Hannibal Lector’s restraint does not count, sorry. He’s not willing loving that masking popping it on so he can kill. And people like Freddy and Chucky are cool, but they are moreso monsters and we’re looking at their actual faces. Anywho, here’s my pick of Ten Creepiest Slasher Masks in alphabetical order by film. 
The month-long horror wishlist continues with the Sawyers!
Akkad is a name that’s been so very familiar to me for many moons. My very favorite film of all time begins with the words “Moustapha Akkad Presents”. That name is forever the keeper of The Shape of our nightmares, Michael Myers. Many know and remember the last Moustapha, but the keys are now in his son, Malek Akkad’s hands now. Malek began following in his father’s footsteps being a production assistant on Halloween 4: The Return Of Michael Myers. Beginning with Halloween: The Curse Of Michael Myers, he was a producer from then out and now the main man when it comes to all things Haddonfield. The series now begins with “Malek Akkad Presents”. Why all the Halloween talk? Because he’s now taken to the director’s chair (First time since 2002) for Free Fall. Free Fall isn’t his first directorial work, but its his first feature film. I was immediately drawn to the prospect of seeing what he could do here. 
I normally don’t do this, nor have I ever done this before, but I can’t help it. I need to start this John Wick movie review off by quickly discussing the plot of the film from a very high level because it’s actually the very reason why I wanted to see this film. Keanu Reeves plays a former hitman that comes out of retirement to avenge the death of his dog. Yes, I said his dog! Now tell me, how awesome is that? I sound like a little girl here, but I dare to utter the words awesome sauce! I love animals so much, much more than most people in life, so when I learned of the premise of this film I just screamed YES! It’s exactly the kind of film I would go pay to see and given the right circumstance I too would totally extract revenge on someone if they purposely harmed one of my dogs. Let that be a warning to everyone. Haha. So what say you? Y’all ready to talk some John Wick? I am! 
