whatsnew Archives - Page 9 of 57

All American High Revisited

Rated: R | Running Time: 82 Minutes
From: Virgil Films
On DVD & VOD September 15, 2015

I graduated in 1985. Yes, in the eyes of the youngins I am now the old guy. We also just had our 30 year reunion, another reunion that I missed. I missed my 10 year because of covering a Bon Jovi concert. I missed my 20 year because of supposed to be covering a Bon Jovi concert but that falling through. I missed my 30 year because I just couldn’t swing the time off, but ended up at a Chicago Cubs game. I’m thinking we should have a 33 year reunion in Chicago so maybe I can attend.

What does my reminiscing have to do with a movie review? Well the review is of the documentary “All American High Revisited.” The original “All American High” was shot it 1984 from the perspective of a foreign exchange student, Rikki, who hailed from Finland, giving a look at the high school students of that year, as well as Riccki’s comparison with her life in Finland. Fast forward 30 years and Keva Rosenfeld comes across his documentary in a storage vault, along with some reviews of the movie, and wonders what has happened to some of the kids in the film. Luckily for us he finds a few.

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The Seven Five

Rated: R | Running Time: 104 Minutes
From: IFC Entertainment
On DVD September 15, 2015

I think three quotes best sum up “The Seven Five,” a documentary about the largest police corruption scandal in New York City. The first relates to how it started: “Money always feels good.” The second, to how it continued: “The cops around me would never give me up.” And the third to how it ended: “Welcome to east New York. Welcome to the land of fuck.”

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Brownie Farts Equal Awesome

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Only I could somehow tie together a visit by the spirit of my Mom with farts that smell like brownies. It’s what I do, and here’s how I do it.

It was an evening like any other evening in our house. Milo was protecting us by barking at any little stirring outside, while my wife and I were preparing for a fun-filled evening on the couch. Suddenly the smell of brownies filled the air near our living room, drifted around the kitchen, down the hall, and I even smelled them a bit in my office. It seemed weird because we weren’t making brownies, we didn’t have any brownies, and the closest thing we had to the wonderful chocolatey goodness was this stuff called brownie brittle in the pantry. The problem? When my wife opened the pantry door there was no smell of brownies in the pantry.

Bummer, I was hoping for a surprise of homemade brownies.

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Just Buy Wrinkle-Free Clothes

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I can’t believe I screwed this up.

After seven years of having the love of my life offer to iron my clothing, and my letting her, on a recent morning, on the oddness of my having to wear a suit, and with said suit a dress shirt, I started one of our morning conversations with “I think I’m going to…” She knew I had a meeting, she knew I needed a dress shirt, she cut me off and said, “Iron your shirt?” “The shirt’s fine,” I said, “and besides, I’ll be wearing a suit coat over it.” She insisted on inspecting my shirt, she decided it needed to be ironed (I still insist it was fine), and she ever so calmly nudged me to give ironing a try.

And here’s where I screwed up.

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Redeemer

Rated: Unrated | Running Time: 90 Minutes
From: Dark Sky Films
On Blu-ray, DVD and VOD September 1, 2015

Ahh, “Redeemer,” a vigilante movie where the martial arts fight scenes, or I guess I should say usually one-sided martial arts fight scenes are fun, the slow-motion sequences of blood-splattering are well done, and the end action sequence with the final kick to the head is rather fantastic. Sounds all well and good, but then there is the rest of the movie. Ugh.

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Glen Campbell… I’ll Be Me

Rated: PG | Running Time: 116 Minutes
On Digital Download August 18, 2015 |On DVD and VOD September 1, 2015

The challenge: Make a documentary about a man facing Alzheimer’s disease in such a way that it ins’t “Oh, woe is me!”, “Feel sorry for me.”, or doesn’t paint things in a total, “You can have Alzheimer’s and all will be well!” kind of light. “Glen Campbell… I’ll Be Me” simply shows many of the challenges Alzheimer’s patients, and their families, face, every day, seen in the world of Glen Campbell and his “Goodbye Tour.” Yes, the subject is sad because we know the eventual outcome, but even combined with the Alzheimer’s challenges, it is an awesome documentary on the musical brilliance that is Glen Campbell.

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Pay to Watch a Presidential Debate? I Wanted To.

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There was a story in Variety the other day about the pay-TV sector losing customer to cord-cutters, like me. It was an interesting read, and between that article and the Republican Debate, to me it’s like the TV people don’t get it, kind of like the record companies were late to the party in the shifting of how people would get their music. They like their business model, like the pay-TV money rolling in, but seem to be going too slow to adopt the change in content delivery, and soon they’ll be playing catch-up and blaming people who steal their content for their losing money.

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Match

Rated: R | Running Time: 92 Minutes
On Digital Download and DVD August 11, 2015

I will always admit that as a fan of Star Trek, and more importantly for this review, Star Trek: The Next Generation, the challenge for me in seeing Patrick Stewart in any other movie is to separate him from his role as Jean-Luc, Piccard that is, from The Next Generation franchise. It was not very difficult when the movie “Match” started, mostly because he was spouting advice to a bunch of ballet dancers, but oh, that Jean-Luc, I mean Patrick Stewart accent! It is so awesome, as is he, in being able to transform you instantly into the role he is in, and for this movie it’s a very good thing because two of the roles in the movie were perfect, while one character, okay, Matthew Lillard, maybe sidelined by the actual role he was playing, lagged a bit. Continue reading Match

The Salvation

Rated: R | Running Time: 92 Minutes
On Blu-Ray and DVD August 4th

Ahh, an homage to the classic western and revenge movie genres, which generally means there aren’t many surprises, and yet I found myself not multi-tasking while watching “The Salvation.” How did that happen? Well, I’m not really sure, especially since, at the beginning of the film, I was worried that somehow I missed in the press release that the movie was going to be in Danish with English subtitles because our lead character, Jon (Mads Mikkelsen), is greeting his wife and child at the train station, speaking in foreign tongue, and the subtitles started rolling. Luckily she and the boy get murdered by the bad guys, everyone is back to speaking English in the wild west, and the movie could get to the good stuff like sweeping, gorgeous landscape shots, townsfolk scared of the brutal thugs, and Jon doing what he does best, kill the bad people.

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Maybe My Dad Hid the Puzzle Piece

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A little while ago a friend of mine’s mother passed away, and much like many things in the lives of people we know these days, I found out about it on Facebook. I felt for him as you could feel his grief in his postings, but you could also see the love around him to help him through.

His grief reminded me a little of when my mom passed away back in 2008 and the love of the people around me who helped me through, especially my then girlfriend and now wife, but as this passing occurred near June 6th, what would be my father’s birthday were he still alive, I had also been thinking of my dad a lot. With those thoughts floating around my head, an incident happened that really solidified my dad continuing to influence things around me, maybe even from beyond the grave. Continue reading Maybe My Dad Hid the Puzzle Piece