The Movie:

Made for the Showtime Network cable channel in 1994 for the Rebel Highway series, Robert Rodriguez's Roadracers never got the DVD justice it deserved (though it did come out on VHS) but thanks to Echobridge and their efforts, it's now available almost twenty years since it was made. For those who haven't seen it before (and it has been tough to come by), the storyline is set in the fifties and follows a teenage rebel type named Dude Delaney (David Arquette) who likes to drive fast and wail on his guitar much to the dismay of the local sheriff, Sarge (William Sadler). Dude's a troublemaker, and seemingly proud of it. The sheriff and Dude have a past though - years back the law ran Dude's father out of town, so there's no way they're going to like one another.

You know who does like Dude though? Donna (Salma Hayek). And Dude likes her back. She hangs off of him...Read the entire review

The Movie:
Ghosts Don't Exist would seem to have a lot going for it. It's an upstart, independent film in the vein of The Last Exorcism or Paranormal Activity, documenting the travails of a ghost hunter going to investigate a house supposedly haunted by his own dead wife. It's got a realistic feel, a great premise and high production values. Despite all of this, however, it ends up being mediocre at best.

Brett (Phillip Roebuck) is the television ghost hunter in question. He has decided to retire after the death, apparently at the hands of an incompetent doctor, of his wife, but is pressured by the suits at his network to do one last show. At first, he's reluctant to travel to the isolated home of Travis Garner (Joe Hansard), thinking he's a crank, but when the man describes his wife's birthmark, something he could not have known from watching the show, he agrees t...Read the entire review

THE MOVIE:

Heist is the sort of movie that plays a rap song over its closing credits, which recounts almost the entire plot that immediately preceded it. As a corollary, Heist is the sort of movie which can have almost its entire plot contained in a rap song. That should tell you all you need to know.

You want more? Masochist. Alright then, let's start at the very beginning, a very good place to start. As the film opens, we catch David (Tim Aslin) and Erik (Erik David) in a real bind. They've just stolen from the wrong cartel boss, Luis (Christian Mendez) and now must face the consequences. They agree to pay him half a million dollars under rather unfortunate circumstances. By that I mean, one of them gets a nightstick stuck where the sun don't shine, thus taking the word 'nightstick' to a sickeningly literal level. At this point we meet Erik's brother, K (Rick J...Read the entire review

Sometimes, life is defined by luck. There's no accounting for it, it just happens. So goes the story of Gabor Csupo and Arlene Klasky, a pair of Hungarian animation producers with a bleak future after "The Simpsons" booted them in favor of Film Roman after only one season. As luck would have it, the duo instead hit it big with the popular kids show "Rugrats", when Nickelodeon introduced Nicktoons in the mid-90's. Their distinctive art style started to become synonynous with the network when the pair went on to create subsequent shows, like "Aaahh!!! Real Monsters", "Rocket Power", and "The Wild Thornberrys" before eventually going back to the well, and spinning their original hit into a second series, called "All Grown Up". Still, their work on the cult comedy "Duckman" seems to hint at Csupo and Klasky's desire to create fare for older audiences, and now, two years after the fact, their feature-length...Read the entire review

I've had many reactions to movies over the years, but Play Dead elicited a true rarity: complete and utter bewilderment. And I don't mean bewilderment as to what the plot was, who the characters were or things like the geography of scenes, what I mean is: who is this movie intended for? How did all of these actors read it and decide they wanted to do it? How did a co-writer/director (actor Jason Wiles, marking his sophomore directorial effort) with a completely nonsensical movie have the organizational and leadership skills to direct the final product? And most importantly, why did anyone buy it and offer to put it on DVD?

Wait, no, that's not true: I know why someone put it out on DVD. Someone -- in this case, Echo Bridge -- put it out on DVD because it stars the unbeatable combination of Chris Klein (who has already been in one of 2009's Read the entire review

It's a curious thing how low the bar has been set for the rowdy college sex comedy. I'm sure it will come as no surprise to most readers that American Virgin is not a particularly funny movie. Then again, for a direct-to-DVD "comedy" with a generic title like American Virgin, it's surprisingly "better" (read: mediocre-er) than one would expect, and for a direct-to-DVD sex comedy co-starring Rob Schneider, it's probably some sort of masterpiece (still mediocre). I can't say I was enthralled by any of the events the movie dreamt up, but at least they washed over me in a semi-pleasant way, and I occasionally thought I might like to see some of these people in better movies.

Priscilla (Jenna Dewan) is raised to believe in chastity by her parents at a young age, and she takes the message to heart so strongly it earns her a free ride to college, thanks to a scholarship from the "Can't Hurry L...Read the entire review

THE MOVIE:

Few true crime tales have so fascinated filmmakers as the 1969 Tate/LaBianca murders, from the two TV movies of Helter Skelter to the grindhouse and exploitation "dramatizations" to numerous documentaries dating back to the 1973 Oscar nominee Manson. And it is, no doubt, a dramatic story, symbolizing (for many) the bloody end of the hippie era and a shocking example of the sheer randomness of violent crime. But why is Hollywood so drawn to this tale? Well, first, it all happened right in their back yard--and the most famous victim was one of their own, Sharon Tate, the beautiful actress and wife of famed director Roman Polanski. But there are all sorts of peculiar connections within the story--from the vague Beach Boys associations of murderous mastermind Charles Manson to the star-powered clientele of hairdresser victim Jay Sebring. Those associations are, in theo...Read the entire review

A month or two ago, I watched "Crime Scene University", a Discovery Channel show about forensic investigation. Some of it was pretty interesting, but a good portion of the show was overproduced and clearly hacked to pieces in order to create dramatic arcs for each episode. Now, we have Discovery Health's "Dr. G: Medical Examiner", following Orange County medical examiner Jan Garavaglia as she investigates the bodies that are brought in for autopsy. Once again, the show is fairly interesting, but the voice-over narration, bumpers, and editing are all somewhat desperate grabs for viewer attention. "Dr. G" also introduces an all-new factor: the inability to show the majority of what the show's actually supposed to be about.

IMDb shows that these episodes are surprisingly old: "Dr. G" has been on the air for five years, and this first season set collects 12 episodes that were first broadcast between Octo...Read the entire review

The Film:
There appears to be no end in sight to zombie movies, especially the low budget variety produced by filmmakers looking to make names for themselves. After all, it was zombies that launched the career of George Romero, and the living dead have continued to be the monster of choice for countless directors for over forty years. Joining this list is New Zealand filmmaker Logan McMillan, who wears multiple hats in the ambitious-yet-flawed mix of horror and comedy, Last of the Living.

Set months after the zombie apocalypse, Last of the Living finds three slackers surviving the rise of the living dead by hiding out in abandoned homes and ransacking grocery stores. Morgan (Morgan Williams), a self-absorbed jackass, and Ash (Ashleigh Southam), a hopeless goofball, are childhood best friends. The third member of their party is Johnny (Robert Faith), a whacked out rock drummer ...Read the entire review

Truth be told, Lonely Street isn't really anything special. As a comedy, it only elicits a handful of chuckles, as a mystery it deosn't hold much intrigue, and even as far as offbeat stories about a still-living Elvis and his present whereabouts goes, Don Coscarelli's Bubba Ho-Tep has the market cornered. On the other hand, it's a cynical time filled with cynical movies, and in the end, the attitude Lonely Street won me over. I mean, who doesn't want to believe The King is as cool as ever, hiding out in a mysterious mansion somewhere, debating whether or not to make a comeback?

Jay Mohr plays Bubba Mabry, a private investigator who is hired by man calling himself JG (Mike Starr) to do a job for a mysterious celebrity. That celebrity turns out to be The King (an unrecognizable Robert Patrick, doing his a solid Elvis impression), who wants Bubba to follow another guy who's been pes...Read the entire review

The Movie

Pop superstar Elton John is perfectly clear about what he does not what Tantrums and Tiaras to highlight: no dissection of melodies, no career retrospectives and certainly no "holier than thou" attitudes. That his then-boyfriend, now-partner David Furnish was able to largely capture a portrait of an artist that shies away from the rote cliches that populate music documentaries while still managing to touch upon the very aspects disdained by John is amazing.

After all, one can't help but reflect upon a career as massively successful and multi-faceted as John's, just as venturing to pick apart the art is a temptation worth succumbing to. For better or worse, Tantrums and Tiaras is both a loving document and a furtive attempt to peel back the layers of one of pop music's most enduring talents.

Shot over the course of 1995, while John promoted and t...Read the entire review

Twaddle. Echo Bridge Home Entertainment has released A Very British Gangster, a 2007 documentary on one Dominic Noonan, the notorious Manchester, England crime boss who took over as head of the infamous Noonan gang back in 2003, and who is now sitting in prison on a weapons charge. Directed by British TV tabloid journalist Donal MacIntyre (in an apparent effort to fawn unquestioningly all over this monster), A Very British Gangster revels in letting Noonan endlessly spin his bullsh*t into the camera while MacIntyre inserts pretty pictures of the industrial, downtrodden Manchester - and all to naught effect. This is glorification of someone who doesn't deserve a pedestal, with a faux hands-off moral approach that's as gutless as it is unedifying.

Filmed over a three year span for two shorter TV documentaries on the Noonan gang that MacIntyre then spliced together for this fea...Read the entire review

The Movie
Do we really need shots of ironic motivational posters inserted into bitter office comedies anymore? I get it, but it's played. "Hang in there, baby!" is sooooo Simpsons circa 1997: "Determined or not, that cat must be long dead. That's kind of a downer." Oh, Marge! Just thinking of your quotable observation made me laugh more (once) than this movie. Okay, it's not that bad, but it's not that good, either.

And then there's that damn mustache. It had be a joke within the movie, right? Every time writer/director Blayne Weaver was on screen as asshole sales manager Kirk Hastings, I thought for sure that his ridiculous fake rodent was going to fall off his face (it comes close a fe...Read the entire review

THE FILM

In all my years of critiquing movies, I've never come across a more hot potato title than "Heckler." Ostensibly a documentary regarding the bruised feelings of entertainment folk who suffer verbal excrement flung from the great unwashed masses, "Heckler" instead reveals itself to be an attack piece on critics and their general befuddling uselessness.

The person leading this spiteful charge on the vocal minority? Jamie Kennedy.

Ok, so I exaggerate a smidge. "Heckler" is more of a confused production than a furious one, aiming to assemble a thesis on critics and their troublesome effect on the talent. It's equal parts total goof and a serious indictment of our feverishly over-communicative culture, where everyone feels obliged to chime in with their two-cents worth of disgust. The towering wall of contempt has exhausted Kennedy, and he attempts to grasp why this ph...Read the entire review

"Aronofsky does Scarface" can aptly summarize the tone behind December Ends, a gritty and earnest drug traffic film from freshman writer / director Lee Toland Krieger. It's a solid telling of the familiar ascent-descent formula, one with gorgeously shot breadth and sweeping melancholy surrounding an impossible romance. The formidability within Krieger's film lies in the realism focused on a father and son's mangled hierarchy as the latter plunges into a questionable profession. First-time films shouldn't be quite this good, which definitely bodes well for its director.


The Film:

The Film:
Let's assume for a moment that every story that can be told has already been told, and that there is very little by way of originality floating around out there. If this is the case--and it is--then the problem facing every film out there is how to come across as being original or innovative. And because it is pretty much impossible to be original or innovative, then all a film really can do is fake it; and how well a film fakes it determines, ultimately, how good it is. The problem with Quarter Life Crisis is that it fails to fake it for at least 80 of its 87-minute runtime.

Maulik Pacholy stars as Neil Desai, a just-turned 27-year old that has recently moved in with his girlfriend, Angel (Lisa Ray), and has just gotten promoted at work. But for reasons that are as contrived as they are cliché, Neil can't help but wonder if there is something better out there. Because he...Read the entire review

Conceptually fascinating but disappointingly executed, Big Dreams Little Tokyo (2006) is nonetheless an interesting low-budget independent feature, writer-director-star Dave Boyle's first. Basically, it's a comedy about cultural and linguistic confusion, focusing on an American trying to "be" Japanese and a Japanese-American unsure of his place in the world. It aims for a wry, deadpan approach similar to Terry Zwigoff's adaptation of Daniel Clowes' Ghost World (2001); the main character in Big Dreams, poker-faced Boyd, very much resembles a male version of Clowes' heroine, Enid Coleslaw.

In an unnamed city's Japantown, Boyd (Dave Boyle) is a self-styled businessman in the Japanese manner: formally attired, he bows reverently at potential clients, h...Read the entire review

THE FILM

I try not to throw around the term "unwatchable" too often in my reviews, because nearly all movies have something about them, however infinitesimal, that's worth cheering for.

I also hate to break a personal rule, but "Marigold" is unwatchable; a genuine patience-shredder that aspires to lasso together a creative connection between Hollywood and Bollywood, only managing to make both exalted production hubs seem agonizingly hopeless.

A B-list actress making a career for herself in forgettable sex thrillers, Marigold (Ali Larter) is off to India to make a special appearance in a Bollywood movie. Finding her picture canceled, Marigold befriends a production coordinator who sneaks her into a musical currently filming. On the chaotic set, Marigold meets choreographer Prem (Salman Khan), and an immediate attraction sparks. However, as the two further shape their relat...Read the entire review

The Movie
I can't believe I'm saying this, but the world--and this movie--could use a little more spice...Scary Spice to be exact. Melanie Brown--the former Spice Girl and Dancing with the Stars runner-up--actually situates herself just fine in front of the camera, showing a naturalness and likeable charm. She provides a little light in the otherwise perfunctory but not awful Telling Lies, a 2006 U.K. thriller that must be a television or direct-to-video release.

She stars as Maggie Thomas, a detective who brings in ...Read the entire review

The Movie
It has taken five years for this low-budget Aussie import about a group of vigilantes to reach North American DVD, and before we get too far, let's address the two claims made on the box cover:

1. "Based on a Shocking True Story." The film is apparently based on a group called The Hedge Burners, which supposedly went on an arson/vandalism "rampage" in Melbourne in the mid-1980s.
2. "The Film that Launched a Police Investigation." Apparently, some conservative media watchdog groups objected to the content of this 2003 film, officially filing complaints as it was being shot...which didn't really lead t...Read the entire review
   ]]> DVD Video https://www.dvdtalk.com/reviews/review/33175 Fri, 09 May 2008 16:51:04 UTC Highly Recommended

   "Military intelligence in a contradiction in terms." - Groucho Marx
   
   Imagine "Dead Men Don't Wear Plaid" reworked with vintage military training films instead of detective thrillers, and you've got yourself "Military Intelligence and You!", a brilliant mix of satire, absurdity, and indie filmmaking gusto. The movie takes a handful of productions from the First Motion Picture Unit, the branch of the Army that churned out hundred of training films during World War II - most of them featuring top-level Hollywood stars, and all of them now in the public domain, ripe for the picking. Writer/director Dale Kutzera grabbed a batch, spliced together key scenes from each, filmed some new material to bridge the story, then topped everything off with a big heap of dry narration to tie it all together.
   
   The result is passed off as one of these training films, which, in the effort of entertaining ...Read the entire review

   ]]> DVD Video https://www.dvdtalk.com/reviews/review/33112 Sat, 03 May 2008 15:49:38 UTC Rent It

   The Movie:
   Silver Man (2000) is an uneven film about a bunch of unbalanced people. Much like the characters in this film learning not to judge a man by the color of his skin, you can't judge this DVD by its cover. While it's marketed as a mob movie with lots of action, it's actually a drama with just a little bit of kung fu.

   Silver Man is very much a Canadian movie, Canadian-produced and shot in Toronto, using a lot of Canadian actors. It's a low budget movie, with no CG or explosions, but it has a few big name actors in it (Eugene Levy, Daniel Baldwin, Joe Pantoliano), and it stays entertaining, being a good effort for director Peter Foldy.

   In the film, a young man (Paul Popowich) with a birth defect that keeps all of his skin a dak grey color calls himself the Silver Man and plays the violin in public to survive. He lives by himself in a small apartment near the shore of Lake Ontari...Read the entire review

   ]]> DVD Video https://www.dvdtalk.com/reviews/review/33000 Sun, 27 Apr 2008 01:33:30 UTC Skip It

   The Movie:
   Cruel World is a cheaply made 2005 horror film about a reality show gone wrong. It essentially amounts to MTV's "The Real World" crossed with a slasher film, with a little bit of gorno mixed in. It's almost as exploitative as it sounds, but not quite. It's relatively postmodern about the reality T.V. part; in one scene, the show's contestants each name the reality T.V. stereotype they fulfill. This is clever, but then the Asian girl turns out to know martial arts, so, in a sense, Cruel World becomes the crap it satirizes.

   In the movie, Phillip (Edward Furlong) has been dumped by the lovely Catherine (Jaime Pressly) on a reality show called, "Lover's Lane." Seeking revenge, he comes to the home that Catherine and her new lover live in, courtesy of the network that financed "Lover's Lane," and he arranges for a new reality show to be filmed there. Nine college students have b...Read the entire review

   ]]> DVD Video https://www.dvdtalk.com/reviews/review/32879 Tue, 08 Apr 2008 12:22:46 UTC Skip It

   

   "Nothing is worse off after someone has cared for it." - Alice Smith (dramatic)
   "The cake! He would never forget his own nose!" - Alice Smith (comedic)

   The Movie
   So what's it gonna be, Inside? Are you a drama I'm supposed to take seriously, or a camp fest just itching for a ride through the Mystery Science Theater 3000 ringer?

   Meet young Alex, (Nicholas D'Agosto) an oddball who likes to watch people. Well, actually it's more like spy on them, even breaking into their homes to get a better look. While working at the library, he notices sad couple Alice and Mark Smith (Cheryl White and Kevin Kilner), who frequently check out the same book and leave with mopes on their faces. After befriending kleptomaniac Josie (Leighton Meester), Alex decides to spy on his newfound couple, camping outside their window. His creepy tactics take ...Read the entire review

   ]]> DVD Video https://www.dvdtalk.com/reviews/review/32623 Tue, 11 Mar 2008 21:47:41 UTC Recommended

   Calling it "a low-budget Kiwi black comedy with an obvious nod to the works of Tarantino and Guy Ritchie" makes "You Move You Die" sound derivative and lame, and yet the film is actually a slick little gem, mixing directorial flourish with genuine wit. This is a movie that knows you've seen the premise before, so it opts to just kick back and have fun.
   
   The gimmick of the movie is that the whole thing plays out in real time. It's certainly been done before, but watch how writer/director/star Ketzal Sterling brings a fresh perspective on the trick: the audience is literally brought along for the ride, with many scenes taking place as the cast literally drives from one location to the next. (And yes, it's more exciting than it sounds.) Filmed in real neighborhoods around Auckland, Sterling gets plenty of mileage, no pun intended, from simply letting his characters exist in genuine settings, while h...Read the entire review

   ]]> DVD Video https://www.dvdtalk.com/reviews/review/32333 Tue, 12 Feb 2008 22:43:47 UTC Skip It

   Well, if this isn't the kindest, gentlest, downright cleanest example of the blues I've ever encountered.
   
   Tricia Brock's "Killer Diller" - no relation to the 1948 musical of the same name - is a gentle tale of barely-criminal criminals who find themselves in a halfway house run by a conservative Christian college; as part of their community service, the residents are required to join a band that plays hymns at old folks homes. One of the convicts, the guitar playin', car stealin', barroom brawl startin' Wesley (William Lee Scott), can't handle the white-bread approach to music, so imagine his joy when he stumbles upon Vernon (Lucas Black), an autistic kid who rocks out on the piano and is eager to sit in with the band.
   
   Loosely adapted from the novel by Clyde Edgerton (who penned the story as a sequel to his "Walking Across Egypt"), this film is downright lazy in its half-baked appr...Read the entire review

   ]]> DVD Video https://www.dvdtalk.com/reviews/review/31882 Sun, 30 Dec 2007 21:20:23 UTC Recommended

   The Movie:
   

   Dark Mind is a low budget independent thriller / drama / noir starring Christopher Masterson of Malcolm in the Middle fame as a paranoid young inventor during the McCarthy era who is both socially awkward and anxious about foreign agents getting a hold of his work, a rather nebulous device he's been working on called the Cube, a device visually reminiscent of the cube from Hellraiser. Masterson's character, Paul, has good reasons to be paranoid. The film establishes him early on as a naïve idealist and a wunderkind inventor when his father and mentor take advantage of him by stealing his work and profiting from it. Left penniless and alone after his mother's death, Paul becomes increasingly isolated as he obsesses over the cube. His only companionship is a young waitress played by Lyndsy Fonseca, who takes an interest in Paul as he spends a lot of time ...Read the entire review

   ]]> DVD Video https://www.dvdtalk.com/reviews/review/31733 Tue, 18 Dec 2007 13:32:54 UTC Skip It

   The Film:
   In the titanic tradition of not-that-good movies about guys beating the crap out of each other--many of them brought to us by the purveyors of fine cinema Menahem Golan and Yoram Globus--comes this film about two men slugging it out in a cage. And just like such classics as Bloodsport and King of the Kickboxers, here we have a movie that trusts its audience's desire to see asskicking will outweigh its desire to see a good film--in which case you're almost in luck with Maximum Cage Fighting. "Almost" is the operative word, because while Maximum Cage Fighting certainly qualifies as a film that is "not good," the asskicking quota isn't quite enough to excuse the never-ending list of other cinematic shortcomings.

   Jason Field stars As Jimmy Garren, the former Tae Kwon Do world champion who now runs his own martial arts school while raising his daughter, Kat...Read the entire review

   ]]> DVD Video https://www.dvdtalk.com/reviews/review/31519 Wed, 28 Nov 2007 13:44:42 UTC Recommended

   The Movie
   

   The stories that can be gleaned from the rough and tumble streets of Brazil are seemingly endless -- but that's not a bad thing. It seems as though ever since Fernando Meirelles' masterful City of God hit the States, the appetite for tales of youth corrupted and overcoming tremendous obstacles has been near insatiable. (Incidentally, Meirelles is listed as a co-producer here.) Antonia, an inspirational film by director/co-writer/producer Tata Amaral focused on four young women from the outskirts of Sao Paulo, is the latest to blend gritty reality and time-tested Hollywood narrative to impressive effect.

   A blurb on the DVD case pegs Antonia as a Brazilian riff on Dreamgirls, which is a bit reductive, since Dreamgirls traffics in a kind of by-the-numbers gloss that's wholly absent from Amaral's film (she co-wrote the screenplay with...Read the entire review

   ]]> DVD Video https://www.dvdtalk.com/reviews/review/31319 Fri, 09 Nov 2007 02:10:04 UTC Rent It

   How much action is too much action? Consider "The Last Sentinel," a B-grade sci-fi shoot-'em-up sure to please those who complain about too much story and not enough bang. Genre fans will get more than their money's worth, and yet the action hits a saturation point, and then plows forward well beyond that. It becomes a matter of way, way, way too much. Gunplay? You're soaking in it!
   
   "Sentinel" premiered on the Sci-Fi Channel in May this year, although it appears to not have been made expressly for the network. Which may explain why it's slightly sharper than most of that channel's infamous schlock - but only slightly. It still suffers the same fate as most of the Sci-Fi output: shaky, undercooked story; one-dimensional characters; thrills that barely arrive on time, if ever.
   
   Don Wilson (no longer being credited as "The Dragon") stars as Tallis, a genetically- and cybernetically-enhanced s...Read the entire review

   ]]> DVD Video https://www.dvdtalk.com/reviews/review/30766 Sun, 30 Sep 2007 23:05:24 UTC Rent It

   

   

   This isn't exactly a new statement, but all films---documentary or otherwise---are subjective. It's impossible to craft a series of images, words or abstract ideas without applying some degree of personal bias, though some films do a better job of hiding it than others. As evidenced by its title, of course, Robert Taicher's Rush to War (2004) makes no attempt to remain neutral. We're led around during this series of interviews almost forcefully; talking head after talking head remind us of the precarious spot we're in as a result of America's occupation of Iraq. The information is presented passionately...but in a completely one-sided manner, preventing those who need to hear it from actually listening.

   To get my own personal bias out in the open (and to give the film a fair shake in the proces...Read the entire review

   ]]> DVD Video https://www.dvdtalk.com/reviews/review/30645 Mon, 24 Sep 2007 14:09:52 UTC Skip It

   

   The woods may indeed have eyes, but a brain is questionable, as evidenced by the silly little horror thriller, The Woods Have Eyes, an undistinguished 2005 effort shot down in Florida. Supposedly "inspired by true events," I would imagine those are some pretty implausible, badly staged, tepidly acted, and ultimately boring "true events" if The Woods Have Eyes even comes close to what really happened.

   

   In upper state New York, a group of campers who have known each other for years return for one more summer before their camp ground is sold off. Brothers Carmine and Ernie (Joseph Anthony and Michael Bolten) arrive with Ernie's friend Louis (Taylor Jeffers), and the usual summer camp hijinks begin, including swimming in the pond, smuggled-in fireworks, and scary stor...Read the entire review

   ]]> DVD Video https://www.dvdtalk.com/reviews/review/30578 Fri, 21 Sep 2007 12:13:43 UTC Skip It

   

   Watching Protecting the King, the film biography of David Stanley, Elvis Presley's step-brother and the "youngest bodyguard in rock 'n' roll history," I started to notice something most curious: no one uses the words "Elvis Presley" in the film. Elvis is either referred to as "the Boss," or "the King," but no one actually says, "Elvis." Thinking that somewhat odd, I listened to the director's commentary for Protecting the King, and unless my ears blinked for a moment, D. Edward Stanley, the subject of this thin film bio as well as the writer, producer and director of the piece, never actually said the words "Elvis," either. He only referred to him as "the Boss," or "the King."

   

   Other curiously missing elements from Protecting the King nagged at me. There's...Read the entire review

   ]]> DVD Video https://www.dvdtalk.com/reviews/review/30515 Tue, 18 Sep 2007 11:54:39 UTC Rent It

   The Film:
   When I first heard that there was going to be a movie based on Javier Hernandez's comic book El Muerto, I was pretty excited. The fact that I knew Hernandez in passing had less to do with my interest than the fact that a film based on an independent comic series, if popular and financially successful, could lead to more cinematic opportunities for other comic creators. With Hollywood mining the world of comics for potential blockbusters, most filmmakers have only looked toward the big properties like Batman and Spider-Man as possible film projects, ignoring, more often than not, the wealth of great material found in indie publications. But the reality is that in order to get more films made that are based on comic books most people have never heard of, those movies that do get made need to be good and they need to make money.

   Rechristened The Dead One for its cinema...Read the entire review

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