Rent It Please Note: The stills used here are taken from promotional materials and other sources, not the Blu-ray edition under review. The TV Series: Time for more cha-cha music, manly men, swanky dames, and Rat Pack-era swellegance. In an unfortunate coincidence, we happened to watch the second and final season of the Starz “mobsters and mayhem in 1959 Miami” drama Magic City at the same time …
Skip It THE FILM: Click an image to view Blu-ray screenshot with 1080p resolution.
Recommended In 10 Words or Less The little blue girl gets center stage Reviewer’s Bias* Loves: Good animation, Neil Patrick Harris, Jayma Mays Likes: The Smurfs cartoons, Hank Azaria Dislikes: Most TV-show movie adaptations Hates: Grouchy, wasted talent The Story So Far… The Smurfs, little, magical, blue forest creatures, were a phenomenon in the 80s thanks to their popular TV cartoon, but …
Rent It The majority of American film fans will only maybe know Jay Chou from The Green Hornet , the underrated Michel Gondry-directed, Seth Rogen / Evan Goldberg-scripted adaptation that cast the actor as actual hero Kato to Rogen’s dim Hornet. In his home country of China, however, Chou rose to fame as a songwriter for numerous pop acts after an appearance on a televised competition show, then …
Highly Recommended In 10 Words or Less Celebrating George Pal’s mostly-forgotten animated legacy Reviewer’s Bias* Loves: Animation Likes: Davey & Goliath , Gumby , Historical collections that don’t ignore controversy Dislikes: Most puppets Hates: How artists oft go unappreciated The Movie Though I consider myself film literate, before watching this set, the extent of my knowledge of George Pal …
Recommended The Movie: Michael Cera is a jerk in his new movie. And not the playing-against-type cartoon jerk he was in This Is The End or even the endearingly oblivious and cowardly semi-jerk at the center of Scott Pilgrim vs
Rent It THE SHOW: Please Note: The stills used here are taken from promotional materials, not the Blu-ray edition under review. HBO’s latest “miniseries event” certainly has an impressive CV
Rent It Planes may be set “above the world of Cars !”, but it struggles to reach even the modest heights of Pixar’s most lackluster franchise. Get it? Heights?
Skip It The Movie: I am not entirely sure where one could place a Shroud of Turin on the movie formula where a young actor that has been labeled (either by the populous or in increasing cases recently by a movie studio) the next big thing or an up and comer is cast opposite a veteran actor or actors. Perhaps a director is included in the mix. But growing up, I can recall Tom Cruise almost …
Recommended Even among fans of the happily rediscovered Italian filmmaker Mario Bava, Baron Blood ( Gli orrori del castello di Norimberga , “The Horrors of Nuremberg Castle,” 1972) is considered pretty minor. A throwback to a more classical Gothic age of horror movie practically extinct by 1972, it’s actually not all that bad, with several nice set pieces courtesy Bava’s distinctive lighting and …