Showing posts with label latest movie. Show all posts
Showing posts with label latest movie. Show all posts

Sunday, April 12, 2015

Blu-ray Released - This Week on Blu-ray: April 14-21

For the week of April 14th, Shout Factory is bringing the Australian horror feature The Babadook to Blu-ray. With this feature, director Jennifer Kent makes one of the most impressive feature-length film debuts in recent memory (she got her start as an actress and has appeared in such films as Babe: Pig in the City); The Babadook is an emotionally resonant, viscerally terrifying chiller that deserves comparison with Roman Polanski's Rosemary's Baby and Stanley Kubrick's The Shining - it's that good. 

   
Like those films, The Babadook transcends its horror trappings through a strict commitment to nuance and character, in this case Amelia Vannick (Essie Davis), a hospice-care nurse suffering from a brutal case of depression, and with good cause: still reeling from her husband's sudden death (The Babadook is light on gore, but it earns its stripes with some brief, horrifying flashes of how he died), Amelia finds herself more and more distanced from her son Samuel (Noah Wiseman), whose obsession with fighting monsters makes him a social pariah at school and a source of alien, uncomfortable tension for Amelia. She can barely look at him without wanting to scream, and as her anxiety rises with the intensity of Samuel's troubles, Kent's got us, so persuasive is her aesthetic realization of postpartum stresses.

It helps, too, that Davis and Wiseman are so phenomenal as the fraught mother-son pair - if the Academy Awards didn't treat horror films like second-class citizens, both performers could have had legitimate shots at Oscar nominations. In fact, we'd be willing to watch a straight drama about their psychological battle of wills, so it's all the more impressive that when Kent shifts into full-scale terror, she's able to enrich the human drama already on display. 

See, Amelia and Samuel find a children's picture-book called Mr. Babadook (and the illustrations alone have an expressionistic menace that would give Tim Burton nightmares), and after reading it, they invoke a vicious, relentless spirit determined to claim their souls. 

The monster itself - a looming, top-hatted monstrosity that wouldn't be out of place in The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari - is scary (though Kent enhances its creep factor through the quick, fleeting glimpses we get of it - we never see it long enough to make rational sense of the damn thing), yet what lingers is the suspicion that it's only feeding off the psychic torment that Amelia and Samuel were already giving off. This is a brave, fearless work of art, and while some have criticized it for a third-act that bears some similarities with the end of the first Nightmare on Elm Street, Kent and her team are wise enough to adhere to their own chilling rule about the title character: "You can't get rid of the Babadook." 






Source: http://www.blu-ray.com/news/?id=16473

Sunday, March 29, 2015

Latest Blu-ray/DVD movies review on End of days of March, 2015

Click the titles below for the most comprehensive reviews of Blu-ray and DVD discs online, and watch for new reviews as more Blu-ray/DVD discs are released. 

Halt and Catch Fire (TV Series 2014-)



 
Overview: 
 
Halt and Catch Fire main action takes place in the Silicon Prairie area of Texas. Like its sister Silicon Valley in California, Silicon Prairie is known as one of the hottest beehives of technology in the country. But there are more to these bespectacled computer geeks than meet the eye. Representatives of the big computer giants and personal computer titans wage battle daily to be the first to come out with the latest tech gadgets and software innovations. Before long, old lies begin to surface that make former comrades start to question their inventions and their loyalties. 

Selma (2014)




Overview: 
 After seeking the help of President Lyndon B. Johnson and being refused, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. and other civil rights leaders led marches from Selma to the Capitol building in Montgomery in March 1965. The first march, now known as "Bloody Sunday", took marchers across the Edmund Pettus Bridge and into brutal treatment at the hands of the police and others, hospitalizing seventeen. Despite the hatred, the marchers returned to the bridge two days later in peaceful response. In the weeks that followed, the marchers, now protected by armed forces, reached Montgomery where Dr. King gave his famous "How Long, Not Long" speech. 

Spare Parts (2015):
Blu-ray / DVD release date May 5, 2015



  
Overview: 
 Real life meets the big screen in the true story of four undocumented, struggling Mexican-American students living in Arizona who find themselves unlikely competitors in a NASA-sponsored robotics challenge. Faced with adversities such as a modest budget and a lack of experience, the teacher-led quartet formed a robotics club in an inspired attempt to defy the odds by competing against mighty MIT for the top prize at the annual underwater robotics competition. 

  
White Collar (TV Series 2009)



 
Overview: 
 
White Collar is a procedural drama in which a team of FBI agents solves crimes in the upscale world of art and finance. Neal Caffrey, played by Matt Bomer, is a con artist and art forger who has agreed to work with the FBI in exchange for his release from prison. He has a good heart, but he is constantly battling his instinctive urge to betray others act in his own self interest. Every episode features a new crime that somehow draws Neal closer to solving the season's core mystery. The season-long arcs usually concern Neal's past and the people who caused his good nature to evolve into something untrustworthy. Neal wants to be the sort of person who can do right by others, but he is afraid that he will never be satisfied by staying in one place for too long.

Monday, March 23, 2015

DVD & Blu-ray reviews: From Paddington to James Gandolfini's final film The Drop

Paddington (PG) Paul King DVD/Blu-ray (95mins) 

“They will not have forgotten how to treat strangers,” maintains Aunt Lily to Paddington, bound for London with his marmalade sandwiches. Will the natives, Londoners, have forgotten their manners? Most of them, sadly, but not Sally Hawkins’s kind-hearted illustrator, who takes pity on the bear (sweetly voiced by Ben Whishaw), to the annoyance of her uptight husband (Hugh Bonneville) and his easily embarrassed daughter. Her housekeeper (Julie Walters) and son, however, want the furry fellow to stay. A subplot involving Nicole Kidman as a psychotic taxidermist is not as absorbing as the main plot, which is: can a middle-aged bore find a place in his heart for a displaced Peruvian bear? A beautifully scripted children’s film with jarfuls of heart. 
**** 


The Drop (15) Michael R Roskam DVD/Blu-ray (106mins) 

Barman Bob (Tom Hardy) is the kind of “softie” who allows an old soak to not pay her bar tab and who rescues injured pitbull puppies from garbage cans. His conniving cousin (James Gandolfini) is a bit harsher in this Dennis Lehane-scripted crime drama. When Bob’s bar, owned by menacing Chechens, is robbed, Bob is charged with tracking down the readies. Martin Scorsese is an obvious influence on this tense, Brooklyn-based movie, with a nuanced performance from the late, great Gandolfini, while Hardy channels Marlon Brando as the mysterious Bob. “Nobody ever sees you coming, do they Bob?” 
**** 

Network (15) Sidney Lumet Blu-ray (121mins) 

“I’m mad as hell and I’m not going to take it anymore,” wails Peter Finch’s depressed newscaster during a live broadcast in Sidney Lumet’s prescient, incensed exploration of TV news and corporate America in 1976. Paddy Chayefsky’s script sizzles with indignation but it’s the acting that compels, particularly from an Oscar-winning Faye Dunaway as cut-throat producer Diana and Ned Beatty’s devilish CEO (“The world is a business”). Network isn’t subtle but it is mad as hell. 
**** 


Rollerball (15) Norman Jewison Blu-ray (125mins) 

“Corporate society takes care of everything,” maintains John Houseman’s sinister CEO in Norman Jewison’s satirical exploration of a dystopian future. James Caan convinces as Jonathan E, a gladiator-like star in the brutal world of Rollerball who rebels against an iniquitous system. “They’re afraid of you, Jonathan, all the way to the top, they are...” 
*** 


Two Night Stand (15) Max Nichols DVD/Blu-ray (86mins) 

Miles Teller, a less interesting John Cusack lookalike, has a one-night stand with fellow slovenly New Yorker Megan (Analeigh Tipton). She tries to leave his Brooklyn pad in a huff but finds herself snowed in. So we’re stuck with this tedious pair for an uncomfortable, gag-free period of time. It’s supposed to be a romantic comedy, but it fails on both counts. Watch an episode of Girls instead. 



Source: http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/films/reviews/dvd--bluray-reviews-from-paddington-to-james-gandolfinis-final-film-the-drop-10121426.html 

Monday, March 9, 2015

Blu-ray /DVD Released - Coming Soon on March 10, 2015

Summary: New DVD and Blu-ray Releases for March 10, 2015

Fox’s Night at the Museum: Secret of the Tomb headlines this slow release week. The second and apparently final sequel to 2006’s family-friendly hit shifts the story to London’s British Museum. The film was a modest success with audiences and, like previous entries in the series, had mixed reviews from critics. I personally found it to be more enjoyable than the first two films, but most of that had to do with being able to see Robin Williams on screen again. Ultimately it’s a film that will predominantly resonate with younger viewers.

Those looking for a little more sophisticated should consider The Liberator, a Venezuelan historical drama about Simón Bolívar and his role in the Latin American Wars of Independence in the late 18th century. The film was Venezuela’s official entry for the Academy Awards and stars édgar Ramírez (Zero Dark Thirty, The Bourne Ultimatum). Or perhaps, The Red Ten, Lifetime’s mini-series based on the Bible inspired novel by Anita Diamant starring Minnie Driver, Morena Baccarin and Rebecca Ferguson.

Horror fans have Late Phases: Night of the Lone Wolf, a grisly drama about a blind Vietnam vet (Nick Damici) who moves into a retirement community plagued by mysterious deaths.  

As a huge fan of Ronny Yu’s 1993 The Bride with White Hair (not so much David Wu’s sequel) I was interested in seeing White Haired Witch. The film stars Fan Bingbing, which probably explains why the film was fairly successful because the movie itself, while beautiful to look at, is a narrative mess. Apparently the script does more closely follow the original source material, Liang Yusheng’s novel Baifa Monü Zhuan, than Yu’s version did, but that only makes the story more confusing that it should be. A Blu-ray release of Yu’s film would be more appreciated. 

Older films getting new releases include the 30th Anniversary Edition of John Hughes’ coming-of-age The Breakfast Club, as well asThe Sound of Music: 50th Anniversary Edition that was teased at this year’s Academy Awards with a performance by Lady Gaga and the Criterion Collection’s release of Fran?ois Truffaut’s underappreciated 1964 romantic drama The Soft Skin

Top 1. Devil May Call (2013)

Blu-ray / DVD release date March 10, 2015


Overview: 

Samantha was once on the other end of the crisis hot-line phone. She lost her vision and wasn't sure how she'd cope with her new darkness. The person on the other end of the phone saved her life, so she's spent her time since giving her time to those in need too. After spending the last year listening to people's pain and offering them a sympathetic ear, Sam is leaving the hot-line. One of her regulars doesn't want her to leave. For the past year, she's been keeping this man alive, and he doesn't want to see her leave. He shows up at the hot-line offices because he feels betrayed by her leaving him. What she doesn't know is that he's a serial killer bent on having her for himself. 

Top 2. The Legend of Korra (TV Series 2012-)

DVD Release Date  March 10, 2015


 
Overview: 

A teenage girl named Korra has three of the four elements (Earth, Water, and Fire), and now seeks to find the final element, Air. In her journey, she travels to Republic City- a metropolis that is fueled by steampunk technology. At first, it seems like a place where benders and non-benders thrive, but Korra soon finds out that Republic City is crawling with crime and the city is in danger of being torn apart. Korra focuses on her air bending training while also fighting off the dangers of the city. 

Top3. Night at the Museum: Secret of the Tomb

Blu-ray / DVD release date March 10, 2015

 
Overview: 

The museum comes alive at night. Old statues, monkey exhibits and figurines all come alive with the help of magic. The power comes from The Tablet of Ahkmenrah. Larry Daley, the night watchman at the museum, has saved the tablet and the museum before. He must save the museum's magic yet again. This time, the tablet's magic is dying, and Larry must leave on a quest that will take him around the world. It's the only way he can find a way to save the tablet's magic. He must join some of the most famous museum exhibits and favorites to keep the magic from dying completely. 

Source: http://www.kutv.com/entertainment/features/movie-reviews/stories/New-DVD-and-Blu-ray-Releases-for-March-10-2015-100218.shtml

Sunday, March 1, 2015

Best New DVD Releases: March 2015 In Home Entertainment

Summary: Another week, another slew of new DVDs,Blu-ray to conquer. This week ending March 3, 2015 will see the DVD movie release of one of the biggest films of 2014, a creepy Steve Carell that no one really cares about (hey, just being honest), and more!  
 
March 3 Blu-ray And DVD Releases:

The Hunger Games: Mockingjay- Part 1
Outlander: Season 1, Volume 1
Tinker Bell and the Legend of the Never Beast
Foxcatcher
Da Vinci’s Demons: The Complete Second Season
Longmire: The Complete Third Season
The Humbling 

Look at some wonderful Synopsis: 

1. The Hunger Games: Mockingjay, Part 1

The Hunger Games: Mockingjay, Part 1
 
Starring: Donald Sutherland, Elizabeth Banks, Jennifer Lawrence, Josh Hutcherson, Julianne Moore, Liam Hemsworth, Philip Seymour Hoffman, Woody Harrelson 

Summary: Having twice survived the Hunger Games, Katniss finds herself in District 13. Under the leadership of President Coin (Julianne Moore) and the advice of her trusted friends, Katniss reluctantly becomes the symbol of a mass rebellion against the Capitol and fights to save Peeta and a nation moved by her courage.

 
America’s favorite actress returns to her breakout role as Jennifer Lawrence reprises Katniss Everdeen, who is faced with a decision to make that could change the fate of an entire nation. Katniss ends up in District 13, and sets out to save Peeta, while balancing her fragile alliance with President Coin. 

2. Foxcatcher 

 Foxcatcher

Starring: Anthony Michael Hall, Channing Tatum, Mark Ruffalo, Sienna Miller, Steve Carell, Vanessa Redgrave

Summary: Foxcatcher tells the true story of Olympic Wrestling Champion brothers Mark Schultz (Channing Tatum) and Dave Schultz (Mark Ruffalo) and their relationship with the eccentric John du Pont (Steve Carell) that led to murder. [Sony Pictures Classics]

 
Rolling Stone calls it, “A mesmerizing masterwork. One of the year’s very best films.” In this disturbing drama, Foxcatcher tells a dark and fascinating story of an unlikely relationship between an eccentric multi-millionaire (Steve Carell) and two Olympic champion wrestlers (Channing Tatum and Mark Ruffalo). Discover the strange bond between the trio, and uncover what happens to the troubled millionaire in this chilling drama, possibly Carell’s best performance to date. 

3.The Humbling 

The Humbling

Summary: Based on Philip Roth’s novel, The Humbling tells the story of a legendary stage actor who has an affair with a lesbian woman half his age at a secluded country house in Connecticut. Simon Axler (Al Pacino) has known nothing but the stage since he was thirteen. When he feels his craft slip away from him, he has a mental breakdown and retreats to the woods to live a quiet life until the daughter of his closest friend shows up at his house. The relationship takes unusual turns as people from their past surface and chaos ensues.  


Wednesday, November 19, 2014

New & Latest Blu-ray/DVD Discs Review - Do not miss

Summary: Really don't want to miss the opportunity to watch your favorite DVDs on your all portable devices anywhere? Getting a hot DVD discs review and choose your favorite one. 
 
1. Dom Hemingway (2013)
  


 

The Buzz: Writer/director Richard Shepard has been working mostly in TV since his experiencing an indie-film breakthrough, The Matador, back in 2005. His career heated up again thanks to "Girls", where he has directed a handful of episodes, some of them featuring the incredible Richard E. Grant, who co-stars here. Jude Law finds himself surrounded by a wonderful principal cast who have found success on television; Law himself seems like a prime candidate for a cable-TV program, right? 
  
2. Afflicted (2013)

 

The Buzz: CBS Films gets into the found-footage niche market with this, the feature debut from filmmaking duo Derek Lee and Clif Prowse, who won big at last year's Fantastic Fest, where Afflicted won Best Director, Screenplay, and Best Picture. Odd that there's been very little promotion for the release though. 

3. Only Lovers Left Alive (2013)
  
 

The Buzz: That Tom Hiddleston is hot enough to cause Tilda Swinton to fly from Tangiers to Detroit is one of many truths to be found in this music-soaked vampire fantasy from Jim Jarmusch, who is flirting with the mainstream for the first time since 2005's Broken Flowers. 

4. Locke (2013)

 

The Buzz: While your average movie-watcher has probably seen Tom Hardy perform in any number of movies -- dating all the way back to his big-screen debut in Black Hawk Down -- he's certainly not a household name yet. This contained thriller might not turn him into a superstar, but we sense that part of its design is to help showcase his leading-man appeal against a more subdued backdrop than, say, The Dark Knight Rises.

5. Blue Ruin (2013)

 

The Buzz: We're quite intrigued by Jeremy Saulnier's Cannes-award-winning revenge thriller which positions his lifelong friend Macon Blair as a man so haunted by another person's violent act that he fully turns away from conventional society, only to return to it as a novice assassin.

Wednesday, November 12, 2014

Latest Blu-ray Movie Review: Let’s Be Cops

Thanks to 20th Century Fox we had the chance to see Luke Greenfield’s new comedy Let's Be Cops prior to its Australian cinematic release. This is our review of the film, but – as usual – no matter what we say, we recommend that you still go to your local cinema and see the film because there is no better critic than yourself. 

Let’s Be Cops blu-ray review
 
The film follows best mates Ryan and Justin (Jake Johnson and Damon Wayans Jr.), whose lives seem to be going nowhere; Ryan is living in the Past and complains daily about not becoming a professional rugby player due to an injury, while Justin struggles to be noticed as a Video game developer in order to sell his idea for a realistic police-themed game.

Let’s Be Cops blu-ray review

The pair mistakenly dresses as police officers for a masquerade school reunion party, becoming the mock of everyone around. However, after leaving they notice how everyone in the streets looks at them with respect, especially hot chicks. Ryan and Justin decide to embrace their new-found attention by acting like real cops. What was supposed to be a fun one night gig, soon becomes a silly daily routine for these fake cops, and of course this eventually they cross paths with an actual gang.

Let’s Be Cops blu-ray review

Let's Be Cops is a peculiar comedy, since from beginning to end this comedy seems destined to fail. However, despite the unoriginal and predictable plot, the unknown actors and the all-around silliness, this new cop-comedy manages to keep viewers laughing the entire time. This is mostly thanks to the great and at times childish chemistry between Johnson and Wayans Jr. who are definitely capable to carry on with the entire film, delivering a kind of Bad Boys/Rush Hour-type of performance, for a film that could otherwise have been a straight to DVD release.

Let’s Be Cops blu-ray review
 
In addition, Let’s Be Cops is surprises half way through with the incorporation of the always greatAndy Garcia in a minor, but important role, giving the film an extra value.

Overall, Let’s Be Cops is a fun guilty pleasure; Even though most jokes are highly predictable and already spoilt by the movie trailers released for the film, they will still make most viewers laugh throughout the entire film, in spite of the average plot. Absolutely a film made for the sole purpose of entertaining, great to watch with your mates while enjoying a cold beer or two.


Let's Be Cops – In Cinemas 13 November 2014



Monday, October 13, 2014

Enjoy your life - Movie Review – Gutshot (2014)

Movie informations: Gutshot (aka Gutshot Straight), 2014.
  
Directed by Justin Steele, Starring George Eads, AnnaLynne McCord, Steven Seagal, Vinnie Jonnes, Ted Levine,Stephen Lang, Tia Carrere and Fiona Dourif.

Gutshot (2014)

SYNOPSIS: 

A hard-up gambler gets in deep with the underworld when he takes up a bet from a wealthy gangster to pay off his loans. 

movie review - Gutshot (2014)

Don’t be fooled by the poster art for Gutshot as this isn’t a Steven Seagal vehicle, despite his image being the most prominent. Neither is it a Vinnie Jones headliner, as his mug is also all over it, but both actors are part of an ensemble cast that includes Ted Levine (The Silence of the Lambs), George Eads (CSI: Crime Scene Investigtion), AnnaLynne McCord (Excision) and Stephen Lang (Tombstone) in a film that feels a little different in style for all involved, which isn’t a bad thing. 

Jack (Eads) is a professional gambler who has run up a considerable amount of debt and is unable to support his wife and daughter. Fed up with living in cheap motel rooms, scraping a few dollars together in card games and taking beatings from gang enforcer Carl (Jones), who is chasing Jack for $10,000, he accepts an offer from flash stranger Duffy (Lang) to earn some serious cash. However, after a few drinks at a strip club and a few easy challenges from Duffy, Jack goes back to Duffy’s house and things take a turn for the worse when Duffy makes Jack a lucrative offer that Jack refuses, forcing the down-on-his-luck gambler to put his life on the line to protect his family. 


The first thing that strikes you about Gutshot – apart from Steven Seagal’s ludicrous hair – is that stylistically it feels like one of those post-Lock, Stock & Two Smoking Barrels gangter movies that seemed to be everywhere around the turn of the millennium, especially with the smooth jazz song that plays over the Bond-ish credits. But it doesn’t feel derogatory like a lot of those older films do as Gunshot finds its own feet fairly quickly as we find out why Jack has gone to Seagal’s loan shark Paulie, and why Paulie hands him a gun.

Source: http://www.flickeringmyth.com/2014/10/movie-review-gutshot-2014.html

Monday, July 7, 2014

Movie review: 22 Jump Street

I found the first one hilarious, and I was excited for this one since it was getting massive praise. But jesus, was this movie bad from what I saw. Jokes just fell flat and seemed disjointed and reminded me of a Family guy episode. I made it to the frat party and bounced. Anyone else felt the same?
  


22 Jump Street
(MA15+) ***
Creation date: July 8, 2014 
Director: Phil Lord & Chris Miller.
Cast: Jonah Hill, Channing Tatum, Ice Cube, Wyatt Russell, Amber Stevens, Peter Stormare, Jillian Bell.
  
22 Jump Street, the sequel to the 2012 comedy, brings us more hilarious, laugh out loud moments.  The sequel tells a similar story to the previous film and uses a lot of same jokes.  While the redundancy might slow the movie down from time to time, the film’s self-awareness of being a sequel is just over the top funny.

Jonah Hill and Channing Tatum return as Schmidt and Jenko, the two undercover cops for the Jump Street program.  After the success in the previous film, the Jump Street program received more budgets and our heroes are going to undercover at college this time around.  The movie then follows the same path as the previous movie, and the two partners ended up joining different social groups.  Jenko ends up investigating with the jocky frat boys, and Schmidt ends up with the artsy crowd.  The two begin to resentment each others, but the final stretch put them back together and their friendship never ends. 

 

Review: 'Begin Again' sparkles sometimes but tries too hard


  
Rating: R (for language)
Cast: Keira Knightley, Mark Ruffalo, Adam Levine, Hailee Steinfeld, Catherine Keener
Director and writer: 
John Carney 
Running time: 1 hour, 
41 minutes
   
Writer-director John Carney replays his greatest hit with "Begin Again," a semi-successful attempt to re-create the magic of the Oscar-winning musical "Once," only this time in New York and with a big-name cast.
Get past the wildly improbable "music biz" moments and impromptu performances that feel anything but impromptu, and this all-star cast and several utterly charming scenes give it a sparkle that overcomes the manufactured/trying-too-hard feel of it.

Keira Knightley is a British singer-songwriter summoned, reluctantly, on stage by a busker-pal who is performing in an intimate, down-market bar in Manhattan. Mark Ruffalo plays the only guy paying attention, standing, staring, transfixed by her performance.

A flashback takes us through the bad day Dan Mulligan's had, leading to that moment. He's a drunken has-been of a music "A & R Man," an "artists and repertoire" guru who had the record label he started snatched away from him by his partner (Mos Def). 

 

Tuesday, July 1, 2014

Top movie review about “Snowpiercer (2014)”


  
Movie Information: 

In this sci-fi epic from director Bong Joon Ho (The Host, Mother), a failed global-warming experiment kills off most life on the planet. The final survivors board the SNOWPIERCER, a train that travels around the globe via a perpetual-motion engine. When cryptic messages incite the passengers to revolt, the train thrusts full-throttle towards disaster. (c) TWC-Radius

R, 2 hr. 6 min.
Science Fiction & Fantasy
Directed By: Joon-ho Bong
In Theaters: Jun 27, 2014 Limited
Box Office:$0.2M
Radius-TWC - Official Site 

  
Based on the French graphic novel "La Transperceneige," Bong Joon-ho's "Snowpiercer" begins in the extremely not-too-distant future as mankind launches a final attempt to halt the spread of global warming once and for all. Needless to say, the plan backfires spectacularly and plunges the world into a new ice age that causes the extinction of all life forms. Luckily, before all this happened, wealthy industrialist Wilford (an inspired bit of casting that I dare not reveal), taking several pages from Ayn Rand, constructed a high-speed luxury train that can circle the globe without stopping or suffering the effects of the weather outside. Now, humanity's last remnants reside on the train—the well-to-do people living in comfort in the head cars with the poor and downtrodden masses stuck in back in cramped quarters and forced to subsist on protein bars made from...well, don't ask what goes into the protein bars. 

Monday, June 23, 2014

Nice movie review: Maleficent- “do not miss it!”

 
Summary:
  
A fairy who was deceived by human in pursuit of his dream of living in a castle – to be a king. Soon the King and the Queen had their first baby. During the grand christening, everyone in the kingdom was invited including the pixies when except for Maleficent. Unknowingly Maleficent came to join with the celebration and gave her gift to the Princess – she’ll prick her finger in a spindle before the sun set at the age of 16 and she will fall asleep just like death. Nothing can ever awake her except for a true love’s kiss. This curse can never be retracted even by the strongest force on Earth. Princess Aurora was then was left by the King and Queen in the custody of the pixies confident that the curse will never happen.

As Princess Aurora grows, Maleficent became fond of Princess Aurora that she loved her as if her own daughter however; no matter how she tried to revert back the curse; she’s always a failure. True enough, no force can ever take it back.

The time has come and the oath has happened. A prince charming came and kissed Princess Aurora but she never woke up. With all regret and sorrow, Maleficent kissed the Princess and she awoke – the kiss of a true love.

Monday, June 9, 2014

Film Review: ‘Burning Blue’

 
Top guns in love struggle against institutional homophobia in a tone-deaf melodrama well past its sell-by date. 

When Quentin Tarantino riffed on the homoeroticism of “Top Gun” in his famous cameo from the otherwise forgotten 1994 indie “Sleep With Me,” little could he have known that, two decades later, the LGBT community would get a fighter-jock opus to call its very own. Optimistically dubbed “Brokeback Top Gun” in some quarters of the Internet, writer-director DMW Greer’s “Burning Blue” certainly harbors such outsized ambitions, but they’re poorly matched by Greer’s leaden direction and a didactic screenplay about the tortured lives of military personnel living in the shadow of President Clinton’s “Don’t ask, don’t tell” policy. Bearing a distinctly musty odor confirmed by its 2011 copyright date, this day-and-date Lionsgate pickup never achieves dramatic liftoff.

Poorly concealing its origins as a stage play (first produced in London in 1995), “Burning Blue” unfolds mostly as a series of stilted, talky scenes set in and around a U.S. Navy aircraft carrier where a couple of hotshot pilots find themselves getting too close for Uncle Sam’s comfort, in and out of the cockpit. To all outward appearances, Lts. Daniel Lynch (Trent Ford) and Matthew Blackwood (Rob Mayes) are a couple of straightlaced — and straight — young recruits with loyal wives/girlfriends waiting for them at home and, if they play their cards right, a couple of highly competitive slots at the Navy’s Test Pilot School. But all those smoldering glances Lynch keeps trading with the guitar-strumming Blackwood in their shared barracks come to a head during a night of shore leave in New York that begins like “On the Town” and ends up somewhere close to “Cruising.”

Greer, who was a Navy chopper pilot himself, certainly deserves credit for wanting to shine a light on the difficult lives of LGBT servicemen working in a climate of thinly veiled persecution — a situation, an end title card informs, that has only marginally improved since the repeal of “Don’t ask, don’t tell” in 2011. But good intentions don’t count for much in art, especially when Greer muddies his own with a fairly ludicrous subplot involving a dogged NCIS investigator who suspects that a “gay cult” may be responsible for three seemingly unrelated fatal flight accidents (the implication being that a gay soldier would rather crash and burn than risk being outed).

It doesn’t help matters that Ford and Mayes both seem to have been chiseled from the same block of wood, with no fairy godmother around to turn them into real live boys. Even if they did, they’d still have to speak or react to dialogue like “Taxpayers get nervous if they start hearing their warriors sniveling” and “We are warriors paid to defend the country, not spill our guts and frolic in the daisies” — a mission that might have stymied even Laurence Olivier.

Given its subject matter, “Burning Blue” turns out to be a surprisingly chaste affair, though nearly all of the actors — even those playing allegedly straight characters — seem to have been directed by Greer to leer at one another with the intensity of sex-starved Victorian maidens. Of the principals, only William Lee Scott shows signs of a real personality as a coy Southern pilot who doesn’t ask or tell, but always seems to be one step ahead of the game. Staged with a complete lack of visual energy, the pic manages to make even its occasional shots of fighter jets in flight about as exciting as a minivan rounding a corner.

Film Review: 'Burning Blue' 

Reviewed on VOD, New York, June 6, 2014. MPAA Rating: R. Running time: 104 MIN. 

Production
A Lionsgate release of an Articulated Pictures production in association with Harbor Picture Co. Produced by Andrew Halliday, DMW Greer, Arthur J. Kelleher. Executive producers, John Hadity, Mike Harrop, Sig De Miguel, Stephen Vincent. Co-producers, Lester Petracca, Nicholas Petracca, Michael Sirow, Andrew Tobias. 
Crew
Directed by DMW Greer. Screenplay, Greer, Helene Kvale, based on the play by Greer. Camera (color), Frederic Fasano; editor, Bill Henry; music, James Lavino; music supervisor, Ruy Garcia; production designer, Robert Savina; art director, Jack Ryan; costume designer, Amy Lynn Zwart; sound, Mikhail Sterkin; sound designer/supervising sound editor, Marshall Grupp; re-recording mixers, Cory Melious, Tony Volante; associate producers, Rick Buhr, Dan Critchett, Michael Nutt; line producer, Kamen Velkovsky; visual effects supervisor, David Isyomin; visual effects, & Company; stunt coordinator, Manny Siverio; assistant directors, Daniel Lulgo, Shahrzad Davani, Thomas R. Kazansky; second unit camera, Erin Henning; casting, Sig De Miguel, Stephen Vincent.

With
Trent Ford, Morgan Spector, Rob Mayes, William Lee Scott, Cotter Smith, Michael Cumpsty, Michael Sirow, Mark Doherty, Chris Chalk, Tracy Weiler, Gwynneth Bensen, Jordan Dean, Johnny Hopkins, Haviland Morris, Karolina Muller, Dylan Rafferty Brown, Tammy Blanchard. 

Thursday, June 5, 2014

Movie review: ‘Fault’ moving, not mawkish

  
Last summer, “The Spectacular Now” was the teen-trauma film of note, being based on a well-regarded bestseller and starring an up-and-coming Shailine Woodley. 

This year, it's “The Fault in Our Stars,” which shares many attributes with its predecessor including having roots in a popular young-adult novel, screenwriters Scott Neustadter and Michael H. Weber, and a much-better known Woodley, who moved up to star status with “Divergent” earlier this year. 

Like “Spectacular,” it walks that fine line between moving and mawkish without falling too far over to the latter side. Unlike that earlier film, though, which didn't make a huge splash in the mainstream, “Fault” looks to become the teary alternative to all the boom and bang of the summer superheroes. 

Woodley plays Hazel, the typical outgoing teen-next-door living the middle-class life in suburban Indiana: Except she has cancer, and has to travel with an oxygen tank wherever she goes. One of those places is a youth support group where she meets newcomer Gus (Ansel Elgort, also from “Divergent”), who has lost a leg to his disease. 

They strike up a friendship that quickly escalates into something more as they wrestle with issues of fate and mortality. As with “The Spectacular Now,” it's refreshing to see teenage relationships handled with grace and depth instead of the usual snark and cynicism. Director Josh Boone (“Stuck in Love”) stays out of the way stylistically and lets the considerable naturalistic chemistry between Elgort and Woodley be the draw. 

Their conversations, wavering between youthful bravado and grim determinism, feel authentic as does their budding romance. That's no doubt due in some part to John Green's book on which the film is based. 

Nat Wolff (“Palo Alto,” “Admission”) as mutual friend Isaac, a support-group member who is losing his sight because of cancer, seems at first an awkward attempt at comic relief, but his role deepens as events become more serious. 

That doesn't mean there aren't moments that ring false. Laura Dern, as Hazel's concerned mom, is one-dimensional while Willem Dafoe as Van Houten, an author who has been inspirational to Hazel, is painted in such cartoonish strokes that he seems more like a convenient plot point than a real person. Also, at just over two hours, “Fault” sometimes moves slowly and veers frustratingly close to TV-movie-of-the-week territory. 

Still, that doesn't dim the bright light at the heart of the story. That's really the only special effect that this film requires. 

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