Dec 252015
 

What started off as an interesting story about the Milgram Experiment turned into a bit of a bore of film in the second half, though Peter Sarsgaard does give a fine performance and director Michael Almereyda certainly didn’t go the conventional route in the story and filmmaking style, so Experimenter does at least stand out in that regard.

 

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Dec 242015
 

Mysterious Island is a fun, light-hearted, fantasy flick highlighted by Ray Haryhausen’s incredible effects work combined with Bernard Herrmann’s score. The Blu-ray released under the Twilight Time line offers some decent features headlined by an extensive audio commentary, and good video/audio transfers.

 

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Dec 242015
 

Jenny’s Wedding had the ingredients to be a decent enough romantic drama but instead the talents are wasted with a sub-par script and little to no chemistry between Heigl and Bledel. With the likes of Tom Wilkinson co-starring and from the director of Beaches, this was a disappointing flick only worthy perhaps of a rental.

 

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Dec 222015
 

There’s really no reason for The Transporter Refueled to exist, let alone one without Jason Statham starring. The writing is bad, the action sequences weren’t well directed and came across more as a commercial for Audi, and the performance from Ed Skrein does not make for a fun or kick ass action hero.

 

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Dec 202015
 

12 Rounds 3: Lockdown is just another bad direct-to-video flick but worse yet, it’s not even a fun bad, just plain bad. The acting is wooden especially on the part of Dean Ambrose who shows no charisma to play the lead and the fight scenes were poorly choreographed. The Blu-ray is rather basic with two thin featurettes, so-so video and adequate audio transfers.

 

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Dec 202015
 

It’s not hard to see why Heist had a very limited theater run before being released to DTV obscurity in spite of a nice cast between Jeffrey Dean Morgan and Robert De Niro. But thanks to a bad script, with far too many contrivances to ignore, this is the type of movie easily forgotten within a day and thrown in with the rest of the subpar flicks.

 

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Dec 192015
 

Pawn Sacrifice isn’t one of Zwick’s best movies, which for me is still The Last Samurai, but it’s still an adequate drama with strong performances by Tobey Maguire and Michael Stuhlbarg, the latter of whom deserves some award recognition. The Blu-ray release offers good video and audio transfers but falls far short in the bonus material department.

 

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Dec 192015
 

“Game of Thrones”: The Complete Second Season is another solid set. The show is still strong with powerful performances and impressive production design and this Steelbook re-release has some great bonus material to go along with incredible video and audio transfers, the latter getting upgraded to the new Atmos track.

 

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Dec 182015
 

“Marco Polo” isn’t quite my cup of tea but there’s enough entertainment value, not to mention nice work done with the costumes and sets that it’s probably worth a watch especially since it’s only 10 episodes thus one could get through them all in a weekend.

 

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Dec 162015
 

Mississippi Grind is a well meaning and generally finely acted drama but the screenplay probably could’ve used a little more work in fleshing out the friendship between its two main characters, though to be fair, the acting by both Mendelsohn and Reynolds does at least make this watchable.

 

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Dec 162015
 

“Game of Thrones”: The Complete First Season starts off strong and continues to its brutal season finale with brilliant performances from its vast cast from beginning to end along with award-winning production and costume designs. This new Limited Edition Steelbook release is more or less the same as the previous releases but comes with an upgraded Dolby Atmos soundtrack.

 

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Dec 152015
 

The Garbage Pail Kids Movie is, putting it simply, a crap of a movie. Sure, the film might have its fans in a cultish kind of way and plenty of camp but not in the good kind of way. Beyond that, the costumes and prosthetics are creepier than anything else.

 

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