“Arrow”: The Complete First Season is off to a good start and I can’t wait to see what the second season brings between the drama and new characters to help expand the universe even further.
Tad: The Lost Explorer is a harmless animated adventure the entire family can enjoy and the animation itself is fairly impressive especially for a studio outside of the big three or four (i.e. Disney, Fox, DreamWorks).
this Friday the 13th: The Complete Collection box set is not terribly bad in spite of the lack of any new material, it pretty much matches the DVD set released by Paramount a few years back, and unrated cuts of Jason Lives.
“The Vampire Diaries”: The Complete Fourth Season is, for a lack of a better term, a compelling soap opera guised as a vampire fantasy-drama. The core cast share great chemistry and this year fans of “Delena” (Damon & Elena) will rejoice. All in all, season four moves at a brisk pace even when the plots, and subplots, get kind of convoluted.
Jennifer 8 isn’t a terrible thriller but it’s half-baked in spite of OK performances from Andy Garcia (mind you, this is 90s Garcia, so he is a bit cheesy in his delivery), Uma Thurman and Lance Henriksen in a bit seeing playing somewhat against type.
The Talented Mr. Ripley isn’t the perfect suspense-drama and could have been so much better with a cast consisting of Matt Damon, Gwyneth Paltrow, Jude Law and Cate Blanchett and with Anthony Minghella at the helm, but it still has some superb moments.
Prince of Darkness might not be John Carpenter’s well known film like Halloween and to some extent The Fog, it is probably one of his finer more complete films. The concept is fascinating and scary while the cast headlined by Donald Pleasance are great.
Empire State had a lot to offer beginning with a semi-respectable cast beginning with Dwayne Johnson and Liam Hemsworth, both of whom were wasted and Emma Roberts was even worse with a bit role with very few lines and not a whole lot to do.
this Day of the Dead “Collector’s Edition” has it all between impressive audio/video transfers to a good selection of features that is satisfying to any fan of the series. The movie itself is great full of fun scares and gore though I still have a preference for Dawn of the Dead myself.
Star Trek Into Darkness is a fun summer blockbuster featuring a great cast, decent story (even with some of the lazier plot points) and amazing visual effects. It’s a good addition to the Star Trek franchise and hopefully leads to a third film.
The Great Gatsby has a lot going for it: a charismatic lead actor, a solid supporting cast, some good adaptation work by screenwriters Luhrmann and Craig Pearce, lavish award-worthy set and costume designs and wonderful cinematography, but otherwise it’s empty on any emotional level mainly because Luhrmann smashes over the head what the movie’s message is rather than let it unfold in a more natural way.
“Person of Interest”: The Complete Second Season continues its upward trajectory from its inaugural season. The storylines are richer and more connected; the new supporting characters are great additions with two getting recurring main roles next year.
The Fugitive remains one of the best action-thrillers I’ve seen in many years and easily a standout of TV to screen adaptations. Despite being 130-minutes long, the film flies by and utilizes each minute with little filler. The performances from Ford and Jones are phenomenal even though neither of them shared more than a few minutes of screen time together.
Stranded is a half-assed sci-fi/horror flick culled together from numerous other, often better, films. The cast for the most part are phoning in their performances knowing exactly what kind of movie this is but giving credit where it’s due, make the most of it during some scenes.
Evidence disguises itself as just another crime-thriller but instead yet the latest in the unfortunately long line of films employing the cheap found footage treatment around half-baked stories. For their parts, the two big names with Radha Mitchell and Stephen Moyer don’t get a whole heck of a lot to do except for staring at monitors so this was probably either a quick payday or a favor for one of the filmmakers