The Scene at Home
Two words make me very happy when it comes to watching movies: Big Week. March 5 is traditionally a big release week for home video; it starts off the whole season of home entertainment releases for everything that was a big hit over the holidays. I managed to squeeze in no less than 6 movies this week and that made me a very happy camper. I started off with what was one of the most anticipated films to hit Blu-ray since the format began, Steven Spielberg’s Schindler’s List. I have always been a big fan of the film, but I...
I started my weekly viewings with a horror film, as one does. Girls Against Boys is the story of a duo of women who have been wronged one too many times and decide it is time for payback. This is a lower budget indie feature but I’ll be damned if it didn’t look like 10 times its budget. What a great looking film this was in terms of production value. Aside from that though, Girls Against Boys was also a really fun ride of a revenge flick. Danielle Panabaker is a likable lead and is easily identifiable as the good...
Here’s what’s out for DVD and Blu-ray releases this week What would a week be without at least one horror movie on my watch list? Sinister was one of the better reviewed horror films of 2012 and for good reason. Ethan Hawke is a true crime author who moves into a house where a mysterious family mass murder took place. Sounds like a great idea, right? What could possibly go wrong? Loaded with tons of dreadful atmosphere and one of the most unsettling scores I have ever heard, Sinister was a great nail biter that plays out as a sort...
What a surprising week of film this was. I began with one of the most acclaimed movies of the year, Daniel Craig’s return to the role of James Bond with Skyfall. Audiences and critics alike praised Skyfall, but I found myself to be in a very small minority. I loved Craig, as usual. He is a fantastic Bond. I loved the beefed up role of Judi Dench’s M, she was excellent in the film and it was nice to see her character get so much extra screen time and Javier Bardem was a delicious return to form for Bond villain,...
I love a week packed with films I was anticipating but somehow missed in the movie going frenzy of the holiday season. I managed to squeeze in three new films this week, plus a classic Disney for good measure. My triple this week was a sliding scale of seriousness. I started out with the heaviest contender which was Robert Zemeckis’ Flight with Denzel Washington. To say it is one of Denzel’s best performances is tough because he has so many best performances to choose from. But he is utterly mesmerizing and frustrating as the alcoholic and substance abusing pilot Whip...
Nothing makes a movie freak like me happier than a double-double feature week. I like to theme my movie watching and this week was very accommodating. I started off with an action double. Now, technically, it was a quintette, as my first sit down comprised of the new Die Hard 25th Anniversary Collection. I will take any opportunity given to me to watch the Die Hard films over again, so I was a happy camper. This new collection has all four films and although the sequels never measure up to the monumental awesomeness of the original Die Hard, they are...
Oh glorious film! In addition to the usual goodies coming out this week at home, I got to catch a big screen showing of Alfred Hitchcock’s Vertigo at my local Cineplex last week. What a treat that was, the digital print looked great, and the film gets better with each viewing. Once I got back home that night I was obviously in a film viewing state of mind (am I ever not?) so I popped in the first film on my “˜to watch’ pile, which happened to be End of Watch with Jake Gyllenhaal. From the trailers I was expecting...
Here’s what’s out for DVD and Blu-ray releases this week Strange time of year January, especially in the world of movies. The theatre is full of films that didn’t quite make it into the busy Christmas season, and the home video market is loaded up with stuff to spend our gift cards on. This week I got to check out some interesting stuff, that much is for sure. After hearing news that one of my fave found footage movies, The Last Exorcism, was getting a sequel in a couple months, I sat down with the most current possession movie I...
Here’s what’s out for DVD and Blu-ray releases this week Ah, a brand new year! As I breathe in the cool winter air and gaze at the frost covered branches on the maple trees, I oh who am I kidding, I am in the basement with the home theatre warming the room and a stack of movies within arm’s reach. I only managed to get to two movies this week in the man cave, but it was a spectacularly diverse double feature. Frankenweenie is another in a long line of definitive Tim Burton classics. Burton fans will all know the...
I unfortunately missed Rian Johnson’s Looper in the theatre, which is a shame especially now that I have seen it. A fantastic genre bending time travel action thriller, Looper was a great exercise in how to make a movie completely different than it looks in its trailer. Sure Gordon-Levitt is the young Bruce Willis (with bizarro smirky makeup that was weird, but I loved after a while) and sure he has to kill his future self (the real Bruce), but the entire subplot involving people with telekinesis and a young boy who figures greatly into the complex and fun-as-hell storyline...
Here’s what’s out for DVD and Blu-ray releases this week Well, Christmas has arrived and smack dab right on a new release Tuesday! It seems everyone is making up for it by releasing everything on Friday the 21st of December, so we will check those out for those of you who insist on going into Christmas Day well informed. Once you have those multiple turkey dinners in your system, you are going to want to invest some serious time in front of the television, so I have a triple feature of releases for you that will keep you going. I...
Troubled box office films, why have ye been brought unto Blu-ray with little heralding? I guess this week was designated for the DVD and Blu-ray releases that didn’t really perform at the box office. First up is a dreaded I know the word is taboo remake! Len Wiseman of Underworld fame fills the director’s chair remaking Paul Verhoeven’s sci fi classic Total Recall. Now I don’t know if you have watched Arnie’s Total Recall in the past decade or so, but despite being a fun sci-fi flick that might have been ahead of its time in 1990, now it is...
