American Mary (Blu-ray Review)
As a child growing up in the 80’s I always lived in fear of losing one of my hands after I witnessed Darth Vader cut of his own son’s hand in Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back. I went to great lengths to devise robotic hands and whatnot out of any material I could find lying around the garage and house. Sadly, cardboard limbs just don’t suffice for the real thing. See what kind of traumatic effect violence in films can have on our youth? Haha. However, it’s good to know that if I learned nothing else after watching today’s Blu-ray subject, American Mary, the human hand can be reattached if it hasn’t been more than 8 hours since the amputation. Of course, situations may vary. But hey! That’s very nice to know. And we all know that knowing is half the battle. Furthermore, I also learned the same holds true for the arm clocking in at no more than 4 hours since amputation and fingers at 12 (DISCLAIMER: I have no factual data to prove this…just going by what was taught in the movie’s classroom). With that being said, the future is looking bright for my phobia that still to this day haunts me. But I digress… Continue reading ‘American Mary (Blu-ray Review)’
The apocalypse has been quite a popular topic for film in recent years. It has also been handled in various forms; from disaster drama (2012, Knowing), to the various zombie films (the upcoming World War Z), to romantic dramas (Seeking a Friend for the End of the World, a film I will continue to go to bat for). Even the provocative, avant-garde filmmaker Lars von Trier took a stab at the end of the world with Melancholia. So with the end of the world as such a popular subject for film, why not see it as a broad studio comedy? This Is The End is a wild joke-fest about the world coming to an end, as well as something akin to The Avengers of comedies, given that it stars many comedic actors all playing versions of themselves in a weird sorta-pseudo-sequel to every Judd Apatow-produced comedy, even though he had nothing to do with this film. Regardless, This Is The End is a hilarious, no-holds bar, star-filled extravaganza that manages to bury some interesting themes within its very bawdy self.
There is a big mystery regarding Anchor Bay’s Charlie Zone. Why is this movie called Charlie Zone? It’s not a character’s name or code name. It’s not a place. It’s not a mission. What is it? I have no desire to backtrack through it to find out in the event I missed it. I didn’t catch it the first time. The film is a dull journey to rescue a junkie and return her to her family that keeps opening new door after new door in terms of the mission’s severity. It’s all really confusing and drags on. The film also has a hard time balancing what it really wants to be. It tries its hand at drama, action, thriller, mystery and even horror, falling flat and uninteresting with every attempt. The movie does think it’s smarter than it is which kind of feels insulting to the viewer. You’ll never guess anything that’s coming, mostly because you have no clue as most turns are not earned or built up very well. 
The wait is finally over! All of Jason Voorhees machete wielding adventures will finally be gracing blu-ray players on Friday, September 13th. Both of Jason’s slasher icon colleagues, Freddy Krueger and Michael Myers, have already had their full oeuvre on blu-ray for a while now, so it’s high time Jason finally got his. Thanks to Warner Bros purchasing video distribution rights from Paramount last year, this is the first time the full series has been available in one box set. Not only will you get the first 8 Paramount adventures, but the New Line additions as well. And Freddy Krueger even makes an appearance. Paramount began releasing the original films on blu-ray in anticipation of the remake, but stopped after the first 3. Fans of the series have been pining since. Even getting the disappointing news a few years back that Paramount didn’t feel there was an interest in releasing the rest and found it a financial risk. Warner Bros has swooped in and saved the day for fans. Your wait is over. This set is getting some royal treatment and you shouldn’t be leaving Crystal Lake unhappy! 
Writer/director Joss Whedon is in a pretty good place right now. He is coming off making one of the biggest films ever (The Avengers), which had the bonus pleasure of being pretty universally well-liked, and has essentially elevated from being loved by geek audiences all over to being a filmmaker who has the ability to do whatever he wants. That’s a bit of an exaggeration, but Whedon has made, of all things, a new adaptation of William Shakespeare’s Much Ado About Nothing, simply because he needed a palette cleanser of sorts. Here’s a film that was made by Whedon, while on vacation from making The Avengers, using his own home in Santa Monica and a cast consisting of many friends/actors he has worked with before. As a result, the title ‘Much Ado About Nothing’ works as a double meaning for the film overall, as it is entertaining, but slight. Some may want to make more of a big deal out of it, but I would say even Whedon is just happy with having done something like this, with little thought of it as a big game changer as far as his oeuvre of films is concerned.
This is the End is an apocalyptic comedy film where James Franco, Jonah Hill, Seth Rogen, Jay Baruchel, Danny McBride and Craig Robinson all portray fictional characters of themselves as they are forced to face the true meaning of friendship and redemption as the world ends around them. Does that sound stupid to you or what? Well, it certainly does/did to me. When I first saw the trailer to this one I was COMPLETELY stupefied. I was like really? However, a critic must remain open minded and whenever possible check all emotions and biases toward a feature at the door and judge the film accordingly in regards to merit, story, structure, characters, resolutions, themes, acting, etc. So in a nutshell, that’s exactly what I did here. I locked up all animosity I had towards this project and tossed the key out my driver’s window before I walked into Monday night’s press screening. I hoped to be at least mildly surprised like I was with last month’s After Earth, but I wasn’t going to put the chicken before the egg either. I’m all for mediocracy here, isn’t that sad? 
The Philadelphia Experiment is a remake of the 1980s time travel thriller of the same name. I’ve never seen the original. My only knowledge or memory of anything regarding the film is what the VHS box looked like for The Philadelphia Experiment 2, a video store staple in the 1990s. I never picked it up, but it seemed to haunt the SciFi/Horror sections at just about every video store in town back in the day. The events in The Philadelphia Experiment are based upon a legendary urban legend of a government invincibility project regarding cloaking ships in WWII that allegedly took place in the 1940s. The film is only based upon just that notion as it goes far deeper than anything regarding the details what supposedly took place in that experiment. 
On June 5th, 2013, I was happy to attend a double feature of films by Sofia Coppola at the Aero Theater in Santa Monica. Of her films, the features played were Lost In Translation and The Virgin Suicides. In between features, Coppola showed up to participate in a Q&A, where she was open to answering all sorts of questions regarding her films, her directorial style, and approach to different features. I was able to record this conversation and am pleased to be able to present it in its entirety in this post. Continue on to listen to the entire Q&A and learn more about this fun event.
Apparently I have been watching and enjoying a lot of coming-of-age films in recent months (
David Goyer has given us a fair share of memorable comic book turns and adventures. Now he takes to the small screen for the first time since Blade‘s short lived appearance. DA VINCI’S DEMONS proved a success on the Starz network this past season and was quickly renewed for a second season that has already buffed up its writing staff with Jonathan Hickman (The Avengers, The Manhattan Projects) and Matt Fraction (Fantastic Four, Hawkeye). In order to appreciate what they’re going to add, it’s probably best to brush up on Season 1. Whether you’re a fan or you missed it and would like to check it out, you’ll have your chance to catch up this September when Anchor Bay releases the complete first season on Blu-ray (already available for 
Christian movies are usually some of the lowest quality, bottom of the barrel entertainment you can find. Not because of the subject matter. No, I’m not trashing people’s beliefs here. The films usually sport some of the most pedestrian and amateur production values, atrocious dialogue and small-town community theater acting prowess. Oh and their big star is usually Kirk Cameron, in films like the (try your best to hold a straight face and not laugh while watching it) marriage drama Fireproof. The indie film Blue Like Jazz trashes those preconceived notions and delivers a surprisingly normal, hip coming of age story that really can hold its own in the genre with which is mixes its Christian story. As a film amongst others before it, it’s ok. But as an entry into the sea of Christian faith based films, this is a massive triumph. 
The Purge is a good example of an interesting premise being overtaken by idiotic characters. Here’s a thriller that has a killer setup: all crime is legal for 12 hours a year. Even if the film is limited in scope and budget, there are a lot of places one could take this idea and find ways to hit upon social commentary in a violent but exciting sort of way. Unfortunately, The Purge never really delivers on being anything more than a basic home invasion thriller that is not very thrilling. It wastes away its potential originality by having every character behave in remarkably dumb fashion and squanders the chance to play up its 1%-ers-on-a-rampage angle in a way that is anything more than just an excuse for violence. I can enjoy a good thriller, but The Purge misses out on capitalizing on a concept of capitalists committing crime.
I remember it like it was only yesterday. It was a cold, blistering day back in 2012 when my writing partner, girlfriend and I were sharing a conversation with producer Tyler Davidson (Compliance), an Ohio native, in a quaint Chagrin Falls, OH cafe. We were talking about our feature film project and also discussing his next one. The one on the tip of his tongue that day was a movie called Toy’s House, which ironically was filmed mostly in the Chagrin Falls area that previous summer. Later on I came to find out that the film’s title had been changed to The Kings of Summer, but not before it made its debut under the Toy’s House moniker January 19th at the 2013 Sundance Film Festival. I believe its first public showing under the new name was at the Cleveland International Film Festival on April 3rd last month. Regardless of the name, congrats on all your success Tyler! I loved Compliance a lot (it made my Top 10 of 2012 list 
One would have thought that following the box office success of Wedding Crashers, Vince Vaughn and Owen Wilson would have teamed up again sooner in an effort to ride on top of that momentum. Especially given that instead of doing a redundant sequel to a film, they have instead come up with a new premise that has some relevance to society today, even if setting the base at Google feels kind of dated, let alone an excuse to promote Google as the greatest thing their ever was. The Internship is a new comedy from Vaughn and Wilson, but only time will tell (or at least the box office totals this upcoming weekend) whether or not audiences are still looking forward to seeing this duo play around in films together. Of course, whether or not the film is a solid comedy will also factor in and I can at least say that I had a good time overall, despite various issues. Maybe jumping into the premise of this movie about new beginnings will reveal more.
Every so often an idea or a treatment comes across that’s so ludicrous and insane that you just can’t help wondering if it can be properly pulled off and executed, I don’t want to say flawlessly, but let’s loosely use the word skillfully for the time being. The Purge just so happens to be one of those movies that caught my eye as of late, well rather my girlfriend’s, but I was the one who reluctantly signed up for the brutality and punishment here within so let the games begin. Err…I mean The Purge. You see, The Purge is an annual 12-hour period from evening to morning, in the not so distant future, during which ALL CRIME is legal and emergency services are suspended and non-responsive. Yep. You read that right…and I repeat…ALL CRME IS LEGAL…murder, rape, theft…you name it. See! I told you this concept sounded ludicrous, but I’d be the first to admit that I was hellbent curious to see how this would work and play out on the big screen. The believability aspect and suspension of disbelief are two things I take very seriously in my films. So here we are. Let’s get down to business. What say you? The Purge… 
We’ve seen all sorts of ways the world is going to end. There have been asteroids, aliens, earthquakes and floods. And all have been done countless times. But, never have I seen something boasting another planet on a destruction course headed right toward us. Not the biggest planet, mind you, little ‘ol Mercury. And Mercury is one heated angry moe foe charging straight toward us. Lives will be lost. Sacrifices will be made. Good effects will cost too much money. You’ve seen these circumstances before, but sometimes it’s ok to run through them again. Collision Earth makes for a nice time waster that is both nothing all too special but pretty far from foul. 
Film is a visual medium in which to craft visual tales. Unlike programming on radio airwaves before it, a movie is able to let you see what is going on and keep you engaged primarily with what you are seeing with your eyes. Someone never conveyed this to director Waymon Boone. The Devil’s In The Details is an incredibly boring experience, guised as a thriller, but is mainly just audibly telling you what is happening with no visual reference on screen and nothing to keep someone engaged. Its runtime is almost literally filled with just a telephone with a voice coming from the other line. There’s a little bit of shoot ’em up and a couple punches thrown at the end, but its far too late and unable to salvage this beyond snail paced film. 
Have things been going good lately? Are you feeling happy? Wanting to kick it down many notches? Down The Shore will gladly help you out. As a big fan of Famke Jannsen and finding James Gandolfini a plus when added to any cast, I was able to find medium expectations prior to viewing Down the Shore. While it pretty much delivers on the performance front, its rather a downer movie that slightly tests your patience. It has really no light spirit anywhere to be found. I just wish for a second this film or somebody in it could have cracked just the tiniest little smile. I understand the subject matter is a downer, but still. The film tries to be the furthest thing from “feel good movie” as it can. Some decent performances surround a film that tries to embrace a group’s depression over a lost loved one while unraveling their past’s dark secrets and confronting them once and for all. 
