It’s DVD day again… YAY

I Haven’t Seen it and Don’t Want to

Big Love (Season 3)

I’m a big HBO TV defender, but this show really went over my head at the time.  I haven’t watched it since the end of Season 1 but I have no real interest in going back to it any time soon.

The Final Destination

I remember when the first of these films came out and I found it enjoyable but with every iteration they’ve pushed this franchise deeper and deeper into the ground and I have no interest in seeing it go deeper.

I Haven’t Seen it but I Want to

Chuck (Season 2)

Douglas (my cohost in The Unnamed Movie Podcast) has been on me to watch this show and I guess I’ll eventually give it a whirl.  I know there’s a huge fan following to this show about a nerdy tech becoming basically a CIA spy every week, but for now it remains unwatched and a curiosity of mine.

50 Dead Men Walking

I guess I like Jim Sturgess, or maybe it’s my obsession with undercover cop films.  The movie could turn out to be completely generic and bland but it peeks my interest for a few key reasons.

Trucker

This is possibly one of the films from 2009 that I was sad I wasn’t able to see.  Michelle Monaghan and Nathan Fillion that looks like an indie dramatic hit.  I will definitely be watching this sometime in the very near future and I hope you guys will give it a chance too.

Check These Out (i.e. Rent)

Cloudy With A Chance of Meatballs

When I saw this movie in theatres I wasn’t that happy with it but it definitely is worth a rent if you have little children around that you want distracted for a whole 90 minutes while you rest yourself.  (review)

Burn Notice (Season 1 & 2)

Here is a TV show that took it’s time to win me over.  It definitely doesn’t get great until half way through the first season and after that it’s all good.  Bruce Campbell does well and the rest of the cast fill it out in a fun little smart completely episodic crime solving show with a fun lead character.  Sometimes some of Michael Weston’s accents can be hilariously bad but the rest of the show makes up for it.  Not good enough to enter into my collection, but worth a look see if you think you would like that kind of thing or are a TV junkie.

Here are some movies being rereleased on BluRay for HD fans

Here is the thing.  I’m not ‘recommending’ these movies.  I’m just letting the already fans of the new generation of home theatre and the movies about to be mentioned.  Personally all of these movies are either buys or rentals because they are all either movies that have a reputation to go along with them but I may not have seen all of them.  So this week on BluRay is:

10 Things I Hate About You

Jarhead

The Green Berets

Dogtown and Z Boys

Dawn of the Dead (2004)

This week our fearless hosts attempt to understand the socialist Germay while trying not t be heard by the Stasi.

Show Notes

What We Watched
[00:01:00] Andrew: Ponyo on the Cliff, Labyrinth, The Usual Suspects, The Informers, Say Anything…
[00:05:43] Douglas: Amadeus, All the Boys Love Mandy Lane, A Christmas Carol, 2012
[00:12:20] Damion: Black Dynamite, Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs, Super Troopers, M, Smallville

News
Editors hired to chop up Wolfman [00:19:31]
Universal sued for Fourth Kind Marketing [00:21:26]
Monopoly plot revealed [00:25:37]
Marc Webb/Bennet Mitchell may be directing Moneyball? [00:28:30]
Digital Downloads getting special? [00:31:28]

Trailers
North Face [00:50:12]
Leaves of Grass [00:53:11]
Crazy Heart [00:58:29]

Review: The Lives of Others [01:06:35]

Correction
North Face’s director (Phillip Stolzl) did not direct The Lives of Others (which was directed by Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck)

Additional Notes
10 Great Films That Prove Slow Isn’t Always Boring
Warner Bros. launch DVD2Blu campaign.

Once again I’d like to thank all you for listening and feel free to leave me any feedback in the comments or via email at unnamed[AT]gmanreviews[DOT]com.  You can subscribe to the podcast via the RSS, The Podcast Alley or iTunes.  We broadcast the podcast live on ustream every Wednesday night at 9PM EST, feel free to tune in and chat with us live there.

Flint Lockwood [Bill Hader] has always wanted to be a great inventor.  He has invented many things, but none of them work or turn out the way he wants them to.  One day when his town falls to economic problems and everyone is made to eat sardines he decides to invent a machine that converts water into any food he wants; and it works.  However – as expected by a story like this – eventually everything goes out of control and Flint must save the town from his own creation.

This is the latest animated film to thrown at me in digital 3D and I am unimpressed.  I am the kind of guy that loves silly childlike humour and also I love the new 3D but at the same time I felt like the film not only suffered from poor writing and direction but also from a lack of vision.  There are some awesome characters in the movie but the place the film decides to go really doesn’t allow for these characters to shine and at the same time it can’t help if your weakest character is the main one.

Now I know it isn’t fair for me to use my ever so accurate Logic-O-Meter 5000 – yes I just made that up – to tell you about all the absurdities in the film, because this is a children’s book which tells the tale of how a bumbling inventor creates a machine to change water into food.  I mean the movie plays on a joke where the headline in a local newspaper says “SARDINES ARE SUPER GROSS”.   I would give this movie a pass if I saw it in a theatre filled with children – which I was – that were non stop laughing – which they weren’t.  I felt that the film wasn’t a complete snore-fest but it wasn’t far from it.  The film had huge pieces of food being thrown at me from the heavens and somehow the director was unable to wow me with some insane 3D effects.

The best parts of the movie went to the supporting line-up which included: Earl Devereaux [Mr. T] who plays the police officer who is always looking out for people who break the law and blaming everything on Flint, Mayor Shelbourne [Bruce Campbell] the mayor of the small town who wants to find something to make the town great and therefore make his career the better and Sam Sparks [Anna Faris] the stupid and perky intern who gets her first break as a weather girl to go to the small town where Flint makes craziness happen but turns out to be a huge nerd in disguise.  The film definitely throws out the usual underlying message of being true to one’s self for the children in the crowd who always never get it until the revisit it in their teen years and at the same time hate themselves for having pretended to like the movie at all.

My favourite part of the movie I think has to involve Flint and Sam bouncing around in a gelatine shaped castle and a ice-cream covered winter scenery.  But the fact that those are what stand out astounds me.  The movie couldn’t do better at wowing me with some great set pieces that I would only experience in real life if I was a cast member of Saved By The Bell during the 90s filming a food fight scene.

The film fails to entertain me and I think just barely passes for children.  It’s poorly written and lacks the visuals to be worth the extra you’re paying for the 3D.  Take my advice and stay home and watch some more Sponge Bob with your child if you’re thinking about taking them to this; or start renting more Pixar films.

IMDB says 7.1/10

Rotten Tomatoes says 86%

I say 5.0/10

So here is the new weekly post where I let you all know what’s hitting theatres this week here in Jamaica.  So you can put all your LOL  or sympathetic coments below when you see me talking about month – year old films being released in my neck of the woods.  So hitting theatres this week is:

Inglorious Basterds

Directed by: Quentin Tarantino

Written By: Quentin Tarantino

Starring: Brad Pitt, Eli Roth, Michael Fassbender, Christopher Waltz, Diane Kruger, B. J. Novak and Samm Levine

Synopsis: In Nazi-occupied France during World War II, a group of Jewish-American soldiers known as “The Basterds” are chosen specifically to spread fear throughout the Third Reich by scalping and brutally killing Nazis. The Basterds soon cross paths with a French-Jewish teenage girl who runs a movie theater in Paris which is targeted by the soldiers.

Trailer:

My Thoughts: This was my #1 most anticipated film of 2009 when the year began.  I’m a huge Tarantino fan and I love all of his films.  I can’t wait to see this.  I’ve read a few reviews and I’ve heard that it isn’t exactly what it’s advertised to be but that doesn’t bother me one bit.  PS. I’ve heard it’s 70% in subtitles, so be ready to read when you go see this.

Cloudy With A Chance of Meatballs [Digital 3D]

Directed by: Chris Lord & Phil Lord

Written by: Judi & Ron Barrett

Starring: Bill Hader, Anna Farris, James Caan, Andy Samberg, Bruce Campbell, Mr. T, Neil Patrick Harris and Benjamin Bratt

Synopsis: The town is suffering from a food crisis and Flint Lockwood, a failed inventor, finally makes an invention that works.  The invention converts water into food… so it starts raining food in the town.  Soon enough the plan goes out of control and all can be expected to go wrong goes wrong.

Trailer:

My Thoughts: This looks like hokey kid fun.  I’ve recently become a huge fan of the digital 3D and this will be a chance for me to have fun watching crap getting thrown at me and laugh at silly children jokes which I still find funny because I’m still a child as far as I’m concerned.

Ip Man

Directed by: Wilson Yip

Written by: Edmond Wong

Starring: Donnie Yen and Simon Yam

Synopsis: A semi-biographical account of Yip Man, the first martial arts master to teach the Chinese martial art of Wing Chun.

Trailer:

My Thoughts: This looks like a really awesome kung-fu action film with a great story behind it.  It was one of the top films in Hong Kong Cinema last year and will definitely deliver for the people who go see it. However, I wont be seeing it since it’s already out on DVD for you to purchase and I’ll be rewatching the film from home after seeing the other two movies that came out.

What should you see this week? For me I would say go see Inglorious Basterds and Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs.  But if you can only see one movie go see Inglorious Basterds, and if you’re taking the family to the cinema Meatballs will do you good.