Friday Night Lights was a well done series even with a so-so sophomore season, but the acting was mostly top-notch from a then relatively unknown cast and seems to do a good job portraying just how big football is in Texas.
Batman: Mask of the Phantasm is one of the better feature films with the Dark Knight and just a well written and amazingly animated film all around with a great voice cast.
The Vietnam War is yet another amazingly detailed and fleshed out documentary from Ken Burns and Lynn Novick outlining the history of Vietnam from French colonial rule to what precipitated the United States’ participation and continued military involvement over the course of a decade.
Wish Upon could’ve been better but instead was another teen horror movie with some really stupid moments. The only saving grace is probably a respectable and wide-ranging performance from Joey King who does shine.
Queen of the Desert is a finely acted, especially on the part of Nicole Kidman, film about an important time in the Middle East, however it is slow plodding and can be trying to sit through, so I can’t really recommend this sadly.
Dreamgirls is a nice enough release and all as I did enjoy the film, albeit I’ll stick with the theatrical version from now on, it’s just a shame the studio didn’t port over all the features from the previous releases making this incomplete.
As I’ve said many times, I don’t care for found footage movies but The Poughkeepsie Tapes, while hardly great, has some genuinely creepy and disturbing scenes… in between some laughable ones.
Open Water 3: Cage Dive is pretty awful not for being poorly shot but just downright of a bore of a film with characters who are hard to care for with a half-baked script.
Although I didn’t really care for the format of this season on American Horror Story, or the style of the final few episodes, there is some tense atmosphere and the performances at least weren’t bad, with Sarah Paulson being the highlight.
Arrow: The Complete Fifth Season was at least a passable year for a show I never really cared for but the writing still isn’t great and the performances were, at best, so-so. One big drawback is that the other two episodes in the 3-part “Invasion” crossover were not included in this set, lame.
The Flash: The Complete Third Season is another solid year and still one of the better shows within the DC TV brand, though that’s not exactly a high bar, but I’ve generally enjoyed them all except for maybe Arrow.
Admittedly neither All the Sins of Sodom nor Vibrations were my particular cup of tea but the visuals in both films are striking including the opening shot in Sins (as shown on the front cover). This is the second edition in the “Joseph W. Sarno Retrospective Series” and seems like a fine release.
Children of the Corn is by no means a good movie or anything, but the cheesiness – or should I say corny (?) – does make it entertaining even if there isn’t anything particularly scary.
The Law and Jake Wade is a very well made western-crime-thriller with strong performances from its leads, Robert Taylor and Richard Widmark, as directed by veteran John Sturges (Gunfight at the O.K. Corral).
47 Meters isn’t that good of a movie but there were a few tense moments so even with a thin plot and mostly one-dimensional characters, this might be worth a rental especially considering its short running time.