Category: DVD/BLU-RAY

We see this type of production pop up every now and again. Trying to
compete with Hollywood animation factories like Disney and Dreamworks,
independent studios typically have a devil of a time trying to get a
foothold into the global market, often faced with lackluster budgets and
wheezy scripts as they cook up colorful CG-animated antics for the
kiddies. A Spanish production presented and produced by Antonio
Banderas, "The Missing Lynx" is similar to releases such as "The Wild"
and the recent "Escape from Planet Earth," attempting to drum up some
excitement with little in the way of cinematic might, relying on frantic
action, crude comedy, and artificial sincerity to make an impression
with wee ones who'd gladly watch a test pattern if it included the
promise of candy, soda, and popcorn. Exhaustively underwhelming and
cheapy all around, "The Missing Lynx" isn't even passable babysitting
fodder, asking children to sit through a routine adventure with
anthropomorphized animals engaged in acts of panic and elastic
derring-do. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

It's easy to admire "Judas Kiss" for its ambition to be original. It's
another thing to actually sit through it. Attempting to avoid the
pitfalls and clichés of gay cinema, "Judas Kiss" heads into a borderline
sci-fi direction, often playing like the most sedate "Twilight Zone"
episode of all time. Credit goes to screenwriters J.T. Tepnapa (who also
directs) and Carlos Pedraza, who reveal a drive to juice up their work
with strange occurrences and unexplained behavior, while pushing forward
as a searing emotional experience concerning regret and sexual abuse.
However, that's a heavy workload for such a modest movie, and the
script's interest in magical realism is undone by half-baked characters
and inconsistencies, keeping focus off the key elements of heartache
Tepnapa and Pedraza hope will be strong enough to define the viewing
experience. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

Although this "Nature" program is titled "Cold Warriors: Wolves and
Buffalo," most of the program takes place during the spring and summer
seasons, while the production's preference for wolves upsets any
promised balance. It's a strange documentary that seeks to understand
how the animals work to survive harsh, remote conditions, yet ends up a
highlight reel of hunting, following a group of wolves, the Delta Pack,
as they figure out how to pick off buffalo calves and maintain
nourishment to keep their cubs fed. Those expecting a detailed
inspection of wildlife and instinct are bound to be disappointed with
the effort, and if you happen to adore the buffalo, I wouldn't recommend
a viewing. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

A prequel to the popular British television series "Inspector Morse,"
which enjoyed a healthy run between 1987 and 2000, "Endeavour" intends
to restart the franchise in a younger direction, hoping to entice a new
generation of viewers willing to be sucked into fussy behaviors, dire
crimes, and extended sequences of clue gathering. To be completely fair
to "Endeavour," I'm not familiar with the original "Inspector Morse"
program; however, to the production's credit, they've managed to create a
story that doesn't require complete fandom to figure out and embrace,
managing to reintroduce the beloved character without leaving outsiders
in the dark, while admirers will still be able to detect familiar pieces
of personality. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

All the good intentions in the world can't help make 1996's "The
Preacher's Wife" anything more than a mediocre movie. It's a shame,
since there's some incredible talent working to bring the picture to
life, to gift it wings of soaring gospel and cheery do-goodery, yet all
the production can muster are a few smiles and an admittedly euphoric
soundtrack. It's a remake, drawing inspiration from the darling 1947
picture, "The Bishop's Wife" (starring Cary Grant, Loretta Young, and
David Niven), which is a fairly strong launch pad for the feature.
However, the miracle doesn't carry for a second cinematic round, finding
director Penny Marshall struggling to locate the pixie dust that should
rightfully blanket every frame of the film, while stars Denzel
Washington, Whitney Houston, and Courtney B. Vance fight to maintain a
semblance of personality as the material gradually, and rather
peacefully, falls asleep. Kindly to a fault, "The Preacher's Wife" has a
big heart, but no sense of pace and conflict to sustain the viewing
experience for an unnerving two hours. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

Volcanoes are mysterious, terrifying, and quite beautiful from a safe
distance. Their secrets are nearly impossible to discover, buried deep
in the Earth under layers of lava and furious gases, requiring a fine
touch of science to extract samples for study, and even those efforts
aren't nearly enough to understand the fury that powers these
fire-belching titans. Endeavoring to paint a larger portrait of volcanic
activity, director Bertrand Loyer has assembled "Life on Fire: Wildlife
on the Volcano's Edge," a six-part series that inspects the balance of
nature that sprouts up around these danger zones, heading around the
world on a mission to understand instinct, survival, and risk with an
epic cinematic sweep that provides atypical access to creatures
conducting daily business in the shadow of certain doom. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

"Natural Selection" has all the hallmarks of an average independent
production, with its HD cinematography, mild razzing of religious
conviction, and unshowered performers embodying the middle-class and the
borderline insane. Writer/director Robbie Pickering isn't shy about
following trends, but he's also smart about storytelling, endeavoring to
disrupt the norm with a strange tale of devotion and love buttered on a
road trip saga where things often go horribly wrong for the lead
characters. "Natural Selection" is a comedy, with excitable
personalities and broad confrontations, but Pickering clearly loves
these screwed-up souls, bending the material away from mockery,
gradually revealing his sincerity in a manner that's contagious.
Supported by marvelous performances and a prominent soundtrack, the
feature satisfies and even surprises on occasion, introducing Pickering
as a filmmaker with an interest in emotional content instead of serving
up pedestrian acts of humiliation. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

"Hoffa" is a presentation of shameless mythmaking, though one that's
supported by such barnstorming direction, it's impossible to dismiss it
outright. It's a boldly designed, volcanically acted endeavor that
doesn't seek to understand its subject on anything more than a surface
level of engagement. This is not "Jimmy Hoffa: The Movie," but a
valentine to a shifty guy who didn't let anything stand in the way of
his vision for a unionized America, shielding his unsavory interests
behind an ideal of blue collar protection, where the common man could be
comfortable in the knowledge that loyal brothers and sisters were there
to defend his right to work in a safe, financially rewarding
environment. There's little dimension to Danny DeVito's picture,
replaced with shockwaves of cinematic orchestration that help to
preserve interest in the titular titan, even if viewers walk away from
the film with only a slightly more refined appreciation for Hoffa's
dedication to the cause. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

The easiest way to describe "Life Happens" (which is technically titled
"L!fe Happens," but let's pretend it doesn't) is to compare it to Judd
Apatow's hit, "Knocked Up." While the general comedic ambiance isn't
nearly as sharp, the same message of extended adolescence smashing up
against the demands of responsibility is shared by both pictures, with
"Life Happens" electing to portray the female version of slackerdom,
which, to be fair, is rarely explored in film. Credit co-writer/director
Kat Corio (a longtime actress making her feature-length debut) with the
inspiration to shake up the routine, forging a dramedy about best
friends and the arrival of adulthood. However, this isn't a terribly
compelling effort, often wasting energy on dreary ideas for comedy while
being too permissive with its actors. In fact, for a movie that hopes
to tickle, it actually finds surer footing expressing deep emotions,
pinpointing the terror and grief that comes when pleasurably distracting
routines are abandoned. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

I recognize that the 2001 Victor Salva horror film, "Jeepers Creepers,"
is revered in some corners of genre fandom, but I don't share the
enthusiasm. Plodding and poorly acted, "Creepers" (and its 2003 sequel)
nevertheless managed to make the notorious director into a brand name,
with threats of a third installment possibly surfacing in the next few
years. At this point, Salva needs the second sequel more than the public
does, forced to taste the bitter pill of the cruel DTV market with
"Rosewood Lane," a wretched, idiotic chiller that makes "Jeepers
Creepers" look like "The Exorcist" by comparison. Absurdly scripted with
no attention to detail, "Rosewood" is Salva's attempt to generate a
fright feature built entirely out of mood, dismissing storytelling to
maintain a tight focus on unexplained supernatural events, unexplained
characters, and unexplained explanations. The picture is a mess without a
resolution, perhaps only of value to students of genre cinematography
and Rose McGowan fans who enjoy seeing their favorite actress look as
confused as they are. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

"The Night of the Devils" arrives with a little extra pedigree than the
average Italian shocker. The 1972 release was based on Aleksey Tolstoy's
1839 story, "The Wurdalak," providing inspiration that's more
interested in mood than overt scares, aided by leadership from director
Giorgio Ferroni (the mind behind "Mill of the Stone Woman," in his
penultimate film), who embraces the hauntingly straightforward interests
of the material. Startlingly fulfilling while remaining minimal in its
terror output, "The Night of the Devils" is an engaging viewing
experience, perhaps best suited for those open to its simplistic
narrative design, odd sensuality, and period-rich macabre details,
shaped into an entertaining examination of trauma and vampirism, sold
with all the sustained stares and zooms a viewer could ever want. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

Before he was Mark Wahlberg, king of Hollywood, he was once Marky Mark. A
flexing rapper with his group The Funky Bunch, Wahlberg enjoyed some
degree of MTV-assisted success, but clearly there was no future in
shirtless video dancing and the occasional modeling campaign. Acting was
his big ticket out, and the industry welcomed him with open arms,
feeding him supporting work in "The Basketball Diaries" and "Renaissance
Man," but the real test of Wahlberg's skill as a potential leading man
arrived with 1996's "Fear." Handed a role that required a certain level
of insular emoting and broad display of serpentine brawn, Wahlberg was a
perfect candidate for the part, guided by director James Foley, who was
coming down from a career high working on 1992's "Glengarry Glen Ross."
Cruelly, instead of creating a feature of sinister ooze, the production
serves up a laughable thriller that's one of the all-time goofiest
movies, avoiding a tough inspection of troubling emotional speeds and
stunted communication to sneeze out a confused, half-realized story of
obsession and domination, with the layers of ultimate evil handed to a
guy who can't act. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

Part of the mystery of Hollywood is the general inability of anyone to
predict a hit movie. Sure, there's a handful of blockbuster formulas
that are often used to great success, but the general rush of box office
triumph usually emerges from surprising titles. In 1982, the sleeper
hit of the year was "Porky's," a little raunchy comedy that home studio
20th Century Fox didn't even want to release, yet the picture ended up
as the fifth highest grosser of the year, just above such classics as
"Star Trek II" and "Poltergeist." It was lambasted by critics and
beloved by audiences, but why? Could it be that writer/director Bob
Clark tapped into a vein of nostalgia much like George Lucas did with
"American Graffiti," returning viewers to the eroding innocence of
youth? Was it the evocative Floridian atmosphere of backwoods clowning?
Maybe the compulsively silly performances were just that irresistible?
Or was it the boobs? I'm guessing the latter, as "Porky's" isn't a very
accomplished storytelling effort, wandering blindly around pranks and
melodrama as it fights to find a higher purpose beyond being just
another horndog teen feature. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

The quest to unlock the mystery of Mars has bewitched scientists for
over 50 years, dating back to early probe discoveries of the 1960s. It's
a planet of untold resources and possible life, yet exploring efforts
with rovers have only managed to scrape the dust off the surface. Enter
Curiosity, a behemoth of a rover that was launched in 2011 in an effort
to send a machine skyward capable of doing a little more than to simply
collect soil samples. Here was a work of engineering mastery, with
drills, wheels, and cameras able to observe and tour Mars in ways
previous thought unimaginable. And while the rover made its miraculous
touchdown on the red planet in 2012, the story of Curiosity begins with
its construction — a concerted effort to build a machine durable enough
to withstand the harsh elements of an alien landscape. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

In 1999, the pairing of Martin Lawrence and Eddie Murphy was considered a
major event. While the two already worked together in
1992's"Boomerang," "Life" caught the pair during a celebratory career
run, with Murphy riding high on the success of "The Nutty Professor" and
"Doctor Doolittle," while Lawrence was burning off his "Bad Boys"
goodwill, developing his transition from sidekick tomfoolery to leading
man responsibility. This collision of comedic spirits creates an
interesting atmosphere of improvisational skill in "Life," though the
movie itself feels short-sheeted, without a full sense of the titular
experience, despite a premise that could reasonably carry a pleasing
episodic narrative. Laughs are found in the film, supplied by its varied
cast and director Ted Demme's patience, but "Life" is far from
satisfying, only masterminding a few compelling scenes of character
interaction and conflict before it's buried back in the screenplay,
which never figures out exactly what it wants to be, often content to
permit star power to carry the story along. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

David Siegel took the real estate world by storm when he founded
Westgate Resorts, a timeshare company based out of Orlando, Florida that
quickly grew in stature and profit with its slick sales techniques and
luxurious accommodations. Soon spawning multiple properties around
America, Westgate blossomed into a billion-dollar business, peaking five
years ago when the average vacationer could easily borrow money to
purchase their dream getaway. The corporation permitted David a lavish
lifestyle, a trophy wife in Jackie, and a family of eight children. The
man could buy anything his heart desired, and he did, culminating in the
construction of Versailles, a 90,000-square-foot home in Orlando
inspired by a vacation to France. In 2007, this cavernous dwelling
sounded like a great idea. In 2010, the unfinished domicile came to
represent everything that soured in David's life after the financial
collapse of 2008. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

The direction of Rob Reiner's career has been quite curious as of late.
After scoring a major hit with 2007's "The Bucket List," the helmer has
retreated into smaller films of a more wholesome nature, including
2010's unexpectedly tedious family offering, "Flipped." "The Magic of
Belle Isle" furthers Reiner's newfound interests in unexceptional
entertainment on a slightly more victorious note, though the picture
isn't something that demands attention. Better with intimacy than
artifice, the movie shines intermittently, holding out hope that Reiner
will wake up before the feature concludes and deliver a string of
amazing scenes. Instead, "Belle Isle" contains very little magic, at
least the sustained kind. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

"White Men Can't Jump" is a lively movie, almost to a fault. Blessed
with a provocative title, perfect theatrical release timing, and a
commitment to the mischief of men conducting business on street
basketball courts, the feature made a sizable impression when it was
released in 1992, pulling in unexpectedly hearty box office returns
while hinting at a bright screen future for the pairing of Woody
Harrelson and Wesley Snipes. Audiences responded to the material's slack
broheim attitude and attention to sporting detail, while its
improvisational loquaciousness caught many off-guard, generating a rowdy
atmosphere of put-downs and double-crosses, soaked in a distinctly
urban Los Angeles atmosphere of desperation. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

I'm sorry to report that my education in all things Gamera is sorely
lacking. My only exposure to the longstanding film series (which kicked
off in 1965) was though UHF viewings as a child, a time where the thrill
of giant monster battle finds its greatest appreciation. And there's
the exquisite tomfoolery of "Mystery Science Theater 3000," the
brilliant cinema-roasting show that poked fun at five of the "Gamera"
movies, exposing the inherent weirdness and shrillness of the franchise
with a sublime sense of humor. "Gamera the Brave" is a 2006 revival of
the character, which alternates between a celebration of the magic
turtle's heroic exploits and a reboot of his cash machine potential,
aiming the production squarely at younger audiences to secure future
interest. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com

Returning American network shows have the benefit of a summer hiatus,
typically three quick months set aside for producers to get their act
together and map out a creative battle plan that will carry over 20+
hours of television. "Downton Abbey" elects the opposite route, securing
nine-month-long absences between seasons, creating a voracious appetite
among superfans for all things Crawley. The extended period allowed for
anticipation is incredibly brave, especially now with the program a
permanent fixture of message boards, award shows, magazine articles, and
personal diaries, creating an intimate universe of admiration and
expectation that's turned the series into a smash where most efforts
fail miserably. Emerging from the erratic but undeniably attractive
second season, "Downton Abbey" picks up the baton for another round of
heartache, frustration, humiliation, and doubt, sprinting ahead with a
robust third series that corrects many of the minor, heartburn-inducing
mistakes that ate away at the previous season, while establishing a bold
new realm of mortality that's sure to keep the faithful at the edge of
their seats, possibly hurling pillows at the screen in disgust. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com