Mindwarp is an apt title but still a fun little movie with a solid performance from Mr. B-Movie Bruce Campbell and a nice introduction to Marta Alicia, although her career has since been comprised on guest appearances on a variety of television shows.
“American Horror Story: Asylum”: The Complete Second Season is another triumph for FX and although on the whole I liked the first season better, this one has a lot to offer including some excellent performances headlined by Zachary Quinto and Jessica Lange amongst others.
The Purge had an interesting concept but the closer you look, the dumber it was. But if you set the logical aside, and can handle an unlikeable and utterly stupid family, the suspense and thrills are effective and at 85-minutes it’s not a big time investment.
Much Ado About Nothing shows the multiple sides to Joss Whedon able to tell a good story no matter what the budgets or genres are. The merging of Shakespeare and modern film is nearly seamless and the cast is superb.
“90210” was never a great show, or even a good one for that matter, but it still was a guilty pleasure if only for the eye candy and flashy sets. This final season DVD set comes with a decent amount of features including a 30-minute+ retrospective featurette while the audio/video transfers are adequate enough.
Airplane II: The Sequel is the perfect reminder of why not every surprise hit should get a sequel. While a few of the jokes work here, most do not and it’s pretty forgettable even if it’s not a bad time-waster.
Curse of Chucky isn’t a great horror film but it’s satisfying and a big step up from Bride and Seed and takes the character back to his roots and away from the stand-up comedy routine from the later outings. Fiona Dourif is a delight in the lead role and Maitland McConnell is hopefully on her way to bigger things after this. While I wasn’t overly thrilled with the film, I’m certain fans of the franchise will love it.
“Robot Chicken”: Season 6 continues to be a successful and very funny series for Adult Swim. The comedy is often gold and Seth Green and company often cross the line offending multiple people and cultures with off-color humor.
Volcano isn’t exactly a memorable disaster movie as it utilizes every cliché in the book but Tommy Lee Jones, Anne Heche and, to a lesser extent, Don Cheadle, each give admirable performances slugging through stilted dialogue and utterly laughable situations. Still, it’s passable entertainment but don’t go in, or leave, with anything more than what it is.
While Fright Night 2: New Blood actually wasn’t that bad given a limited budget and cast of unknowns, but there’s really nothing special about it and it was more or less another remake to a classic. This is the kind of movie you no doubt will see on FX or FXX in a couple of years.
The Amityville Horror Trilogy set released by Shout Factory has one semi-classic movie, a serviceable sequel and a third movie that is downright silly. The set also has a good amount of features to keep you occupied and the first two movies have good audio/video transfers while the third, at least the video, was awful.
“Beauty and the Beast”: The First Season might not be the smoothest freshman season or anything, but there’s enough there to keep watching starting with Kristin Kreuk who finally gets to headline a series after many years on “Smallville” playing second fiddle. Yeah, some of the storylines are a bit soapy and although I liked Kreuk, it does take some time taking her seriously as an NYPD detective.
The Hangover Part III by definition as unnecessary but despite two cruel scenes as well as some scenes that just didn’t hit the mark, I still enjoyed this sequel although I’m not sure if it’s because it’s actually funny or if it’s relative to the fact Part II was a complete rehash of the first sans laughs. In any case, I’m not giving this a glowing review for the obvious reasons however it is at least worth a rental.
To be honest I’ve never been the biggest fan of “Glee” but there are some good moments here and there and the musical covers tend to be reasonably good all things considered.
The Little Mermaid makes a triumphant debut with this “Diamond Edition” Blu-ray containing a fair amount of features and fantastic audio/video transfers making it the best this film has ever looked and sounded.