Upcoming Reviews

Upcoming Movies

The Running Man [Blu-ray]
Before revisiting iThe Running Mani, it is highly recommended that you make sure that your nostalgia goggles are strapped firmly to your head. The one-liners, bad effects, and 80s hair strangling this movie are sure to jar them loose, causing you to forget everything you love about campy, mid-80s Arnold Schwarzenegger action. Supported by Richard Dawson and Maria Conchita Alonso, iThe Running Mani -- without the safety of your nostalgia goggles -- will run straight out of your fondest memories and right onto the list of films that just dont hold up.

The Princess and the Frog [Blu-ray]
It sounds like a lot of plot, but the core of the story, co-written by co-directors John Musker and Ron Clements ILittle MermaidI and IAladdinI, is well known. A pair starts a difficult journey as polar opposites the hard working Tiana and the playboy Naveen and slowly falls in love, with chases, misunderstandings, and comic set pieces along the way.

Nurse Jackie: Season One
Too funny to be a drama, too emotional to be a sitcom, and too smart to be called a dram-com, INurse JackieIs only label should be virtually spotless television.

Alice (SyFy Mini-series)
Wonderland has evolved since the first Alices trip back in Victorian times just as our world has and is now a desolate urban jungle stretching miles in the air, surrounded by nature where few go. The Queen of Hearts Kathy Bates in IMiseryI-lite crazy mode rules, and humans from our world, called Oysters, are kidnapped and sent to her casino to be drained of their emotions, which are then sold off to the highest bidder. The animals and fantastical characters are mostly gone, replaced by people who hint at the character that came before them.

The Box [Blu-ray]
Though it wasnt as bizarrely out there as reviews had me believing, IThe BoxI is not your average morality tale. Feel free to replace morality tale with something more ruthless and piercing.

The Wraith (Special Edition)
Despite all this mocking, this should be an easy movie to like. I mean, its not going to win an Oscar, or even a Nickelodeon Kids Choice Award, but it has all the ingredients for a fun night with your friends. Theres a bunch of very talented actors, a really bad-ass ber-car, and enough money in the budget for four or five sizeable explosions. An even passably talented director could carry it past the limitations of the weak story. Then again...having a weak director who also wrote the weak story could actually sink this film like a pair of concrete overshoes. Which is what happens here.

Cabin Fever (Unrated Director's Cut)
So, yeah. Your average below-average horror-movie yahoos. Im not saying I expect my horror flicks populated with MENSA members or anything, but itd be nice if these kids didnt continually demonstrate such a pervasive and fatal lack of common sense. Its one thing for a slasher film to give us nothing but annoying, paper-thin cut-outs -- they exist for no reason other than to be murdered and maimed in creative and amusing ways. Thats fine. And I realize the ICabin FeverI kids ultimately serve the same purpose, but Roth and Randy Pearlsteins script toys with IThingi-like explorations of paranoia and the struggle between self-preservation and empathy, only to undercut any such narrative aspirations with stupid, unlikable characters.

Everybody's Fine
What Frank doesnt know, and what the movie slowly reveals through his trips to see three of the adult children played by Drew Barrymore, Kate Beckinsale, and Sam Rockwell, is that they have some problems in their lives. They try almost anything to keep these problems and the problems of the fourth, unseen sibling from Frank. The lengths they go to are almost sitcomish. Beckinsales Amy is having marriage problems, but her estranged husband comes over to stay while Frank is in town. I think that was a plot point in IA Very Brady ChristmasI, right? Not that its some sort of screwball comedy; its actually pretty slow and downbeat.

Black Dynamite
IBlack DynamiteI is definitely going in my movie collection, and it should have a spot in yours as well. Just dont be surprised if you get home one day and find that IBlack DynamiteI put the kung-fu to your other movies and had some damned fine sex with your wife or girlfriend. This disc dont play around.

Adam
Dancy combines a stellar performance with his natural appeal to create a complex yet very likeable character. The condition makes social interaction extremely difficult for Adam and reduces his range of interests to a handful of obsessions. Additionally, he is incapable of reading and understanding others emotions. Rather than letting Aspergers syndrome consume the character, Dancy makes Adam such a strong individual that the disorder fades into the background. Its always there but never overwhelmingly so.

Dante's Inferno [Blu-ray]
The film is separated into segments that follow Dante through the different gates of Hell. These separations presumably mirror the different levels of the game not being a gaming guru, I dont deign to claim this as fact. The sections are labeled with terms like limbo, fraud, and treachery; in each of these sections Dante is subjected to trials and tribulations that are as trite as the section titles infer. The subject matter suggests dismalness and doom, and the tone of the film follows suit.

Cabin Fever 2: Spring Fever
Eli Roths original film exploited a game that kids know very well. Its Whats Grosser Than Gross? Sexually stimulating the rotting flesh of a girls thigh is gross. Shaving the flesh off your legs might be grosser than gross or maybe its the other way around?. Its mostly this one-upmanship of iewwwwi that links this sequel to the original.

Amelia
Amelia Earhart lived a fascinating and exciting life. At least, I think she must have. She did a lot of really cool things in early aviation, such as being the first woman to fly across the Atlantic and the first person to fly from Hawaii to California. She was an international celebrity and promoted both women and a lot of products. She tried to fly around the world and ended up probably crashing into the ocean, or somehow not quite making it back home. Thats all exciting stuff. Unfortunately, as played by Hilary Swank, she comes across as a dead-eyed, clich-spouting bore.

Planet Hulk (Special Edition)
IPlanet HulkI as an animated feature recalls superhero cartoons of the 70s and 80s in that the plot has an absolute lack of realism and post-modernism, relying on well-rendered action and melodrama.

Bonekickers
Mixing the teams investigations with flashback footage of the events theyre uncovering, IBonekickersI is heavy on forgotten artifacts, mysterious manuscripts, and malevolent conspiracies. It also finds the team getting held at gunpoint rather more often that most academics who dont own fedoras and arent named after the dog. This is the perilous balance a procedural must walk. Very little police work actually involves car chases or rooftop gun battles, but youre likely to tune out if Vic Mackey spends 20 minutes of every episode filling out paperwork.