The Movie:

Not surprisingly, in this 2009 straight to video Steven Segal epic, the man plays a former special forces operative. His name is Shane Daniels and at the beginning of the movie we see how he was sent to jail for a crime he didn't commit. You see, some thugs were hassling his wife and he was going to mess them up but good but he didn't, someone else did. We never learn who but it doesn't matter, Shane goes to jail for six years. He's cleared when some DNA evidence is admitted and the man lets him free, but in the interim, the foxy wife who gave him lap dances and let him play with her perky boobs leaves him to move on with her life.

Understandably upset about the loss of the B-cups, Shane takes to wandering around Seattle. He stops in at a liquor store and some toughs try to rob him. He warns them to back off by uttering the classic line ‘used to, like, you know, ...Read the entire review

The Movie
I'm ashamed to admit that until listening to the new audio commentary on this second release of The House on Sorority Row, I didn't know it was filmed in my backyard. For a genre aficionado like me, it's embarrassing--especially considering I grew up in the area and have lived here most of my life. Maybe I've just been too blinded by our other claim to horror fame--the Exorcist steps in Georgetown--to notice the bounty that has been there all along, less than an hour away in the Baltimore suburb of Pikesville. I've also been to the campus of the University of Maryland, completely unaware that it too hosted a shot in one of my favorite slasher movies of all time...Read the entire review

Mutants and Monsters Double Feature: Uninvited/Mutant:
Greydon Clark's eighties schlockfest Uninvited mostly earns its titular status, as after a while you'll wish you'd never let it into your DVD player. But, like a vampire, once you've invited it in, it's free to do as it chooses, and in this case Uninvited, like a vampire, sucks. It's no small blessing then, that Uninvited is so monumentally off its nut that it's quite enjoyable - in a forehead-slapping kind of way.

Combining those age-old horror tropes - Wall Street criminals trying to shelter funds, and a poisonous mutant cat - Clark wins the prize for most coked-up horror concept of 1987 - not that I'm in any way trying to imply drugs were involved in this production. It's just the surfeit of pink-and-black polka-dotted bikinis, Lacoste shirts, yachts and so on have me strongly flashing back to Miami Vic...Read the entire review

Most filmmakers fall into one of two camps: those who make films as art, and those who make films as entertainment. Me, I don't think the gap is that hard to bridge, but for some people, the idea that their work might cross over from the intended side to the other is just horrifying. Sally Potter's independent film Rage is a single-camera "interview" movie that simply seats each of its actors in front of a greenscreen (which changes several different solid colors in the movie) and lets them talk to the camera. This is the kind of premise with the potential to bridge that gap; artistically, it's minimalist, reducing the craft of the filmmakers to the bare elements (something that always excites high-minded auteurs), but many of these faces are familiar, and depending on their topics of conversation, there's nothing that says the end result has to be philosophical or intellectual.

Rage is...Read the entire review

I have never played a Massive Multiplayer Online Role Playing Game (MMORPG) or any online co-operative game. The closest I've come is going into a chat room with a virtual world and people represented by avatar's back in, oh, '97 or '98- forget the name of it, sorry. Basically all I did was wander around and annoy people, talking like a pirate, silently stand right between two people chatting, etc, until I was booted, then my friends and I would laugh and move on to whatever goofy pursuit we were doing that weekend.

While I've known both average Joe's and total nerds who are avid video and/or role playing gamers, my basic image of the kind of people who really dedicate years of their lives to a virtual fantasy world isn't that far removed from the World of Warcraft episode of South Park. I just don't understand how one doesn't grow bored with meaningless fantasy accomplishment or can form a true frie...Read the entire review

I'm sure that no matter who you are, you know someone who plays a Massively Mulitplayer Online Role Playing Game (MMORPG). Maybe it has been a positive influence on their life and maybe it hasn't been. Whatever the case may be there's no denying the impact that MMORPGs have on the gaming society and our culture in general. It's a worldwide phenomenon and there are several games, though World of Warcraft seems to get the most focus these days.

In 2008 Director Juan Carlos Pineiro-Escoriaza released his film Second Skin for the SXSW Film Festival. It was lauded for it's all around quality and it quickly gained ground with the gaming community. Since I'm also a game reviewer here at DVD Talk I suppose it's only natural that I give the release of the DVD for Second Skin a shot. What I found was a solid film about the lives of those addicted to MMORP...Read the entire review

THE FILM

The concept of the man-child confronting his own immaturity has been prime fodder for screenplays for a few years now, exploring a generation's woes as it moves from the rush of childhood to the cold reality of adulthood. "Full Grown Men" brings nothing innovative to the conversation, instead treading water in a pool of clichés, trying far too hard to state the obvious. Peter Pan syndrome is a tremendously interesting psychological condition, but "Men" would rather make tiresome action figure jokes and spotlight whining characters. Blah.

Packing up his collectibles, leaving his child and disapproving wife behind, Alby (Matt McGrath) is on his way to the Central Florida theme park Diggityland to recharge his juvenile outlook on life. Without much money, Alby looks up his old best friend Elias (Judah Friedlander) to reconnect, finding his hesitant former pal is already on h...Read the entire review

Bruce (Johnny Yune): "I was once run over by a Toyota. Oh, what a feeling!"

That's pretty much the level of humor in They Call Me Bruce (1982), a sorta parody of '70s martial arts movies, with Korean-American nightclub comedian Johnny Yune the unwitting bagman for broadly stereotyped Mafioso. It's a curiously innocuous film - on one level this cut-rate comedy is miserably bad, with terrible jokes outnumbering the good ones by about 20 to 1, yet like its main character it's also so naïve and eager to please that it's hard to entirely dislike.

Liberation Entertainment's DVD is uncut and in 16:9 enhanced widescreen (unlike Madacy's DVD from April 2003), but the transfer is well below par and rife with edge-enhancement and combing that distracts from the fun.

Read the entire review

]]> Blu-ray https://www.dvdtalk.com/reviews/review/37715 Thu, 25 Jun 2009 21:23:56 UTC Recommended

As New

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York Stories rings in its twentieth anniversary and with Paris, je t'aime not all that far in the rear view mirror, Tokyo is the latest...Read the entire review

]]> DVD Video https://www.dvdtalk.com/reviews/review/37584 Sat, 13 Jun 2009 23:48:51 UTC Highly Recommended

Note: The majority of this review is taken from my theatrical review of Tokyo!, although it's been slightly revised to reflect my opinion of the film having viewed it a second time.

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I can still remember how hyped up I was for Lionsgate's 2005 release Three...Extremes, which snagged Fruit Chan, Takashi Miike, and personal favorite Park Chan-Wook for a trilogy of horror stories. Unfortunately, it was a massive letdown; not even Chan-Wook's "Cut" segment could raise my flagging interest. So when I heard about Tokyo! luring Leos Carax, Bong Joon-Ho and my all-time favorite director Michel Gondry for three stories about Japan's bustling capital city, Read the entire review

]]> DVD Video https://www.dvdtalk.com/reviews/review/37054 Sat, 09 May 2009 15:05:58 UTC Recommended

The Movie:

Directed and co-written by Adam Fields, One-Eyed Monster is bring promoted as a comedic homage to Alien, The Thing and porn, and that pretty much sums it up. While the film actually features a few scenes of reasonably effective tension, more often than not this a movie that is played with tongue placed firmly in cheek.

The story follows the small cast and crew of a porno movie as they head up to a remote mountain location to shoot their film. Once they get there, they get stranded when a hefty blizzard moves in on the area, making it next to impossible to head down back towards civilization. If that weren't bad enough in and of itself, the lead actor, Ron (Ron Jeremy) has run into a little problem where his most famous characteristic literally runs away with itself when his schlong gets possessed by a strange being from outer space.

As this li...Read the entire review

]]> DVD Video https://www.dvdtalk.com/reviews/review/37152 Wed, 06 May 2009 20:41:00 UTC Highly Recommended

The Specials:

David Frost's 1977 interviews with former President Richard Nixon were, at one time, merely the most viewed (and arguably most important) political interview in history. These days, they're a cottage industry. Writer Peter Morgan dramatized the interviews (and the events leading up to them) in his brilliant play Frost/Nixon, which had successful and critically acclaimed runs in London and on Broadway. The play featured Michael Sheen as Frost and Frank Langella as Nixon; both men reprised their stage roles for Ron Howard's excellent film adaptation last year. Sometime in between, Frost published a book (with the same title) of his reflections on the events, while Vivendi Entertainment hurried out a Read the entire review

]]> Theatrical https://www.dvdtalk.com/reviews/review/36685 Fri, 20 Mar 2009 11:43:00 UTC Highly Recommended

Note: I have since reviewed the DVD of Tokyo!. This review reflects my initial experience, and the "feature" part of my DVD review is a revision based on a second viewing.

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I can still remember how hyped up I was for Lionsgate's 2005 release Three...Extremes, which snagged Fruit Chan, Takashi Miike, and personal favorite Park Chan-Wook for a trilogy of horror stories. Unfortunately, it was a massive letdown; not even Chan-Wook's "Cut" segment could raise my flagging interest. So when I heard about Tokyo! luring Leos Carax, Bong Joon-Ho and my all-time favorite director Michel Gondry for three stories about Japan's bustling capital city, I kep...Read the entire review

]]> DVD Video https://www.dvdtalk.com/reviews/review/36612 Fri, 13 Mar 2009 11:53:11 UTC Rent It

Chances at honest adolescent emotion are rare in Hollywood, so it's a bit of a letdown to discover that "Girls Rock!", which gets right up close and personal with the aching problems of a handful of troubled teens, is a pinch too superficial, too hollow, too slight to really click. As a lengthy promo reel for Portland, Oregon's Rock n' Roll Camp for Girls, it makes the sale (learn guitar with Sleater-Kinney? Where do I sign my daughter up?), but as a film, there's no clear center, just a pile of almost-there revelations and random statistics.

Indeed, the stats are revealing but unnecessary, and they ultimately get in the way of getting us closer to understanding the subjects. Filmmakers Shane King and Arne Johnson (nobody understands girl power like middle age dudes!) slam the movie to a halt every so often to shove out stats (set, annoyingly, to fast-movin' punk visuals, as if the movie is desp...Read the entire review

]]> DVD Video https://www.dvdtalk.com/reviews/review/36301 Sun, 15 Feb 2009 23:18:05 UTC Highly Recommended

THE FILM

What begins as a paean to the musical release of wiggles soon morphs into a sobering reveal of feminine pre-teen dejection in "Girls Rock!," an intelligent, eye-opening documentary that gives young women a chance to open their tightly-guarded hearts and explore their talents and bliss.

The place is the "Rock 'n' Roll Camp for Girls," located in Portland, Oregon. For five days every year, the camp welcomes a small bustle of pre-teen and teenage girls assembling to expose their inner P.J. Harvey. The camp's intent is to get these girls and their burgeoning gifts comfortable with musicianship and band dynamic, but what really occurs at this retreat is a spiritual awakening of confidence, brought on by the power of performance.

Directed by Arne Johnson and Shane King, "Rock" is fractured filmmaking concerned with two dynamics of the camp: the first, of course, is the bir...Read the entire review

]]> DVD Video https://www.dvdtalk.com/reviews/review/30875 Sat, 06 Oct 2007 14:16:04 UTC Highly Recommended

The Movie:
Unless you are on vacation in New York, live in New York, or are a theater critic, the world of Broadway plays and musicals has mostly been foreign to everyone else...until now. With Dori Berinstein's documentary "Show Business: The Road To Broadway," viewers can finally get a glimpse at the frantic world of Broadway.

The documentary focuses on four musical shows in the 2003/2004 season. There's "Wicked" which is about the wicked witch from the "Wizard Of Oz." There's "Avenue Q" which is an adult puppet musical reminiscent of "Sesame Street." There's also "Taboo" the Rosie O'Donnell produced Boy George musical, and "Caroline, Or Change" which is a dramatic musical set in Louisiana during the Civil Rights movement. We get to see the evolution of the play as it's being written, rehearsed, premiered to the public, and eventually vying to win Tony Awards.

Even though some viewers...Read the entire review

]]> DVD Video https://www.dvdtalk.com/reviews/review/30351 Mon, 10 Sep 2007 02:21:17 UTC Highly Recommended

The Movie

The agony of Stephanie Daley is in the details. Writer/director Hilary Brougher's sophomore effort (following 1997's The Sticky Fingers of Time) peels back the layers of small-town life, revealing the festering wounds that suppurate beneath even the most placid exteriors. Grounded by a pair of astonishing performances from executive producer Tilda Swinton and Amber Tamblyn (a long ways from "Joan of Arcadia" here), it's a film that revels in the messy minutiae of life, capturing the way subtle events can rip apart a life.

Tamblyn, whose work as the titular character is nervy and exhilarating, expertly portrays a young woman negotiating with adulthood, still shackled to a life of religion and expectation but desperately wanting to experiment. The results of one night become life-changing as Stephanie finds herself embroiled in legal proceedings, being...Read the entire review

]]> DVD Video https://www.dvdtalk.com/reviews/review/30062 Mon, 27 Aug 2007 03:28:07 UTC Recommended

The Movie

Cinematically speaking, it's good to occasionally loosen your belt and have a little fun with sex. American films struggle to depict adult sexuality in a carefree manner, often resorting to brain-dead comedies like American Pie. There is the odd Stateside carnal romp -- The Road to Wellville, for example -- but typically, the European cinema is where you can find filmmakers letting it all hang out. Such is the case with writer/director Joaquin Oristrell's fizzy 2004 dramedy Unconscious.

The scene is turn-of-the-century Barcelona, as the works of not-yet-famous psychiatrist Sigmund Freud are taking hold among the elite thinkers of Europe. The very pregnant Alma Pardo (Leonor Watling) has enlisted her brother-in-law Salvador (Luis Tosar, last glimpsed Stateside in Michael Mann's Miami Vice re-boot) to track down her missing husband Leon (Al...Read the entire review

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