Tag: monster’s inc.

Weekend Shopping Guide 2/22/13: Argo Game Your Thrones

The weekend’s here. You’ve just been paid, and it’s burning a hole in your pocket. What’s a pop culture geek to do? In hopes of steering you in the right direction to blow some of that hard-earned cash, it’s time for the FRED Weekend Shopping Guide – your spotlight on the things you didn’t even know you wanted…

(Please support FRED by using the links below to make any impulse purchases – it helps to keep us going…)

I admit that there was some worry that the second season of Game Of Thrones (HBO, Not Rated, Blu-Ray-$79.98 SRP) would drop the ball after a pretty stellar first season, as the movement into George RR Martin’s second novel greatly increases the number of subplots and locations and could have been a compromised mess. Thankfully, although there are plenty more changes from the books this go round, what has wound up on screen is still a tight, enjoyable journey into Martin’s world, and merely whets the appetite for the events to come in season 3. Bonus materials include audio commentaries, featurettes, and a lovely clutch of animated pieces illuminating the histories of the characters and events referenced.

There are plenty of ways so outrageous a true story as the CIA actually creating a cover story involving the production of a fake Hollywood film in order to smuggle diplomats out of Iran after the revolution could have gone wrong – from being too ham-fisted to too light – but Argo (Warner Bros., Rated R, Blu-Ray-$35.99 SRP) manages to sidestep all of those pitfalls and instead present a brilliant re-creation of a so-bizarre-it’s-true tale. Bonus materials include an audio commentary, a PiP feature integrating actual eyewitness stories, and a handful of featurettes detailing the history and its cinematic translation.

Timed to coincide with the release of the sequel Monsters University, Pixar’s recent 3D conversion of the original Monsters, Inc. (Disney, Rated G, 3D Blu-Ray-$49.99 SRP) arrives on home video, looking every bit as snazzy as their other recent 3D conversions, and loaded with not only all of the bonus features from the original Blu-Ray special edition, but adding the new Toy Story Toon “Partysaurus Rex”. Now hurry up and give us Wall-E and The Incredibles in 3D!

Based on Michael Dobbs’ best-selling political thrillers and brilliantly adapted by screenwriter Andrew Davies, the original UK House Of Cards (BBC, Not Rated, Blu-Ray-$49.99 SRP) gets a remastered special edition to coincide with the recent US remake. Bonus features on this new edition include audio commentaries, an interview with Davies, and a tour of Parliament.

In what I can only hope is a precedent that starts a trend, the missing episodes of the William Hartnell 1st Doctor story contained in the new release of Doctor Who: The Reign Of Terror (BBC, Not Rated, DVD-$24.98 SRP) have been brought to life via newly-animated episodes utilizing the still-surviving audio, which means that fans can finally experience both sound and vision for the numerous stories – many of which are during Patrick Troughton’s 2nd Doctor run – for which the original film was foolishly destroyed by the BBC. Bonus materials include audio commentaries, featurettes, galleries, and more.

Nicholas Meyer’s superbly written pairing of Sherlock Holmes and Sigmund Freud in The Seven-Per-Cent Solution (Shout Factory, Rated PG, Blu-Ray-$26.99 SRP) finally gets the beautiful high definition presentation is deserves, along with a new interview with Meyer. If you’ve never seen this flick, do so.

The easiest way to describe The Thieves (Well Go USA, Not Rated, Blu-Ray-$29.98 SRP) is to think of it as a Hong Kong Ocean’s 11, with 10 master criminals assembling to pull off the heist of their lives – a 318-carat diamond locked away in a casino. It’s a nifty little pic, natch. Bonus materials include a pair of featurettes and a trailer.

It’s a classic TV bonanza – which is rather fitting considering one of the shows getting another season released this week, namely Bonanza: The Fifth Season Volume 1 & Volume 2 (Paramount, Not Rated, DVD-$59.98 SRP each), featuring all 34 episodes of the Cartwright clans 5th year. Also arriving is the second volume of the 7th season of Gunsmoke (Paramount, Not Rated, DVD-$36.98, containing 17 episodes, plus preview trailers and sponsor materials. Finally, we get Matlock: Season 8 (Paramount, Not Rated, DVD-$49.99, starring the late Andy Griffith as the folksiest of folksy southern lawyers.

I’m still not a terribly big fan of retrofitted 3D, but when it comes to a big, flashy 80’s popcorn flick like Top Gun (Paramount, Rated PG, 3D Blu-Ray-$39.99 SRP), I’ll relax my aversion enough to go along with the ride, as that’s entirely what the experience amounts to – in all the good ways. The film has also received a visual and audio upgrade to go with the 3D, meaning it’s never looked or sounded better. Bonus materials include an audio commentary, a making-of documentary, featurettes, storyboards with optional commentary, music videos, TV spots, Tom Cruise interviews, and more.

Jean and Laurent De Brunhoff’s king of the elephants makes his feature debut in Babar: The Movie (E1, Not Rated, DVD-$14.98 SRP), which finds the titular monarch on a quest to save the future Queen Celeste and outwit the machinations of Rataxes while freeing Elephantland.

The folks at the Smithsonian Channel have released a new pair of documentaries, covering both the natural world and the world of pop culture. On the pop side, you’ve got The Origins Of Oz (Smithsonian, Not Rated, DVD-$14.98 SRP), which examines the formation of L. Frank Baum’s Oz mythology, while Undersea Edens (Smithsonian, Not Rated, DVD-$24.98 SRP) features a clutch of programs focusing on the natural beauty beneath the waves.

Fox rolls out the next in their line of prestige “20th Century Fox Studio Classics” with the high definition release of Otto Preminger’s legendary noir Laura (Fox, Not Rated, Blu-Ray-$29.99 SRP), about the investigation behind the murder of the titular bombshell (Gene Tierney). Bonus materials include a pair of audio commentaries, A&E Biography episodes featuring Tierney and Vincent Price, a deleted scene, and more.

Every once in awhile, you have to cleanse your blockbuster-heavy cinema palette with a lovely little character piece like The Sessions (Fox, Rated R, Blu-Ray-$29.99 SRP), which focuses on a poet-journalist (John Hawkes), paralyzed and confined to an iron lung since childhood, who receives the help of his sympathetic therapist (Helen Hunt) and his priest (William H. Macy) to overcome yet another bit of adversity by losing his virginity at age 38. Bonus materials include deleted scenes and featurettes.

There may be eight million stories in the Naked City (Image, Not Rated, DVD-$24.98 SRP), but you’ll find at least 20 in the complete first season of this landmark police drama that features a who’s-who of up-and-coming talent, including Gene Hackman, William Shatner, Dustin Hoffman, Dennis Hopper, Christopher Walken, and many, many more.

While the catalogue releases aren’t coming as fast & furious as they were at the end of last year, we’re still getting high definition upgrades of modern classics like The Insider (Touchstone, Rated R, Blu-Ray-$20.00 SRP), starring Russell Crowe as former tobacco executive Dr. Jeffrey Wigand who blows the whistle on his industry’s unethical practices with the help of 60 Minutes producer Lowell Bergman (Al Pacino) and Mike Wallace (Christopher Plummer). Bonus materials include an audio commentary, featurette, and scene exploration.

The Cohen Media Group has launched into a broad restoration project of some true cinema classics, the latest of which is a beautiful high definition presentation of 1924’s The Thief Of Bagdad (Cohen, Not Rated, Blu-Ray-$24.98 SRP), which also includes an audio commentary and a featurette with rare photos. Add this to your must-buy list.

This week’s kid-friendly quota gets fulfilled by a pair of Nickelodeon titles perfect for the preschool set – Nickelodeon Favorites: Rootin’ Tootin’ Wild West! (Nickelodeon, Not Rated, DVD-$24.95 SRP) and Let’s Learn: 123s & Let’s Learn: ABCs (Nickelodeon, Not Rated, DVD-$14.98 SRP each).

Try as I might, I still find the US version of Top Gear (BBC, Not Rated, DVD-$29.98 SRP) a grating, lifeless affair lacking the eminently watchable charm of the UK’s triumvirate of Clarkson, May, & Hammond. Granted, I care not a tinker’s whit for cars, which makes my dependence on the affability of the hosts a key factor – and the US version just doesn’t have it. The 4-disc second season set contains deleted scenes and challenges, extended scenes, featurettes, and more.

Celebrate the anniversary of the James Bond film franchise with an exploration of its more iconic elements via Top Gear: 50 Years Of Bond Cars (BBC, Not Rated, DVD-$9.95 SRP). Presented by Richard Hammond, it looks at everything from the legendary Aston Martin DB5 to the AMC Hornet, with insight from the actors, filmmakers, and stuntmen.

It’s not a great show, but Cougar Town (Lionsgate, Not Rated, DVD-$19.98 SRP) remains consistently enjoyable as just a nice little comedy that’s good for a laugh. The third season keeps that same dependability, and is otherwise a bit of a blur. And a marriage. Bonus materials include deleted scenes and a blooper reel.

As a story, Fun Size (Nickelodeon, Rated PG-13, Blu-Ray-$39.99 SRP) certainly doesn’t match the teen-romp-with-a-heart heyday of Ferris Bueller’s Day Off or even Adventures In Babysitting, but Victoria Justice largely saves the day as a put upon daughter of an arrested development widowed mother and a dangerously precocious younger brother (Jackson Nicoll) whose hijinks after he disappears from his sister’s care on Halloween night drive the plot. Bonus materials include deleted scenes, featurettes, a gag reel, and a music video.

Ron Moore’s remake has its last hurrah with Battlestar Galactica: Blood & Chrome (Universal, Not Rated, Blu-Ray-$34.98 SRP) – a failed pilot set during the fist Cylon war, where we follow a young Adama as he’s assigned to the centerpiece of the Colonial fleet, the Galactica. Bonus materials include deleted scenes and a visual effects featurette.

I’m not entirely sure why The Factory (Warner Bros., Rated R, DVD-$28.98 SRP) is only getting a standard DVD release, as it’s tight little crime thriller starring John Cusack as a police detective who faces a ticking clock to find his abducted daughter.

If you’re keen on watching a clutch of back-bayou folks bang around hunting gators, then look no further than Swamp People: Season 3 (History Channel, Not Rated, DVD-$ SRP), which collects all 22 episodes, plus 30 minutes of bonus footage featuring more drawling, swampy hijinks.

Mill Creek and their kid-friendly Cookie Jar imprint have released another batch of family titles from their immense catalogue – Beverly Hills Teens: Volume One (Mill Creek, Not Rated, DVD-$12.98 SRP), Jayce And The Wheeled Warriors: Volume 2 (Mill Creek, Not Rated, DVD-$12.98 SRP), the 12-film Family Movie Favorites collection (Mill Creek, Not Rated, DVD-$9.98 SRP), and the 3-disc Collingwood O’Hare Collection (Mill Creek, Not Rated, DVD-$9.98 SRP), featuring Eddy & The Bear, Rarg, and Animal Stories.

Audiences shrugged when the first part was released, but that massive failure surprisingly didn’t derail Atlas Shrugged: Part II (Fox, Rated PG-13, Blu-Ray-$29.99 SRP), which arrives via the direct-to-video route, jam-packed with all of Ayn Rand’s blinkered thinking intact. Bonus materials include deleted scenes, a featurette, and an extended Sean Hannity segment.

So there you have it… my humble suggestions for what to watch, listen to, play with, or waste money on this coming weekend. See ya next week…

-Ken Plume

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February 22, 2013
Opinion In A Haystack: UP Makes Children Cry

Hollywood hates children. Well, nowadays, for the most part. The past decade has seen a decline in the realm of family films so drastic it’s almost embarrassing to behold. A constant barrage of sub-par, placating, dreck that insults the intelligence of the child and the adult they will one day grow to be. Substance and craft are no longer the main concerns for children and families, simply be garish, be happy, and NEVER be realistic in tone (DEATH DOESN’T EXIST, ONLY iPods DO!!!) The youth of today have virtually nothing to grow up with and rediscover as surprisingly well-made entertainment, all they have is films equivalent to my generation’s Masters Of The Universe (great for nostalgia, not so great for adult criticism.) They need, and deserve, more fare like Beetlejuice, Return to Oz, Gremlins, or The Neverending Story (yes, I’m bias)… films where they grow up, re-watch and think “Holy hell! This was for kids?” They are feeding them messy piles of sugary air such as Alvin and the Chipmunks, Beverly Hills Chihuahua, or Night At The Museum (1 or 2, take your pick), which are so hackneyed and sloppy that the slightest hint of adolescent logic or understanding of story structure forces them to collapse under their own faulty welds and lashings. However, in a world of film that treats kids like permanently-imbecilic-spider-monkeys, there is still Pixar.

And Pixar has balls. SEXY. PLUMP. BALLS.

Not even going to bother jumping on the Pixar worship-wagon here. You know, as well as I do, about their reputation and their increasingly growing catalogue of well-crafted films that are arguably genre masterpieces (Wall-E, The Incredibles) or great against all odds (Cars: completely entertaining in spite of stilted-premise and Larry The Cable Guy.) Up continues this trend, possibly in the animation house’s greatest triumph of supremely original ideas and adult-story-telling-for-kids.

The film opens by following the life, from pre-adolescence to golden years, of Carl Fredricksen (voiced by the great Ed Asner.) He is an old man with an unfulfilled dream of adventuring in the South American wilderness and a home that is being strangled by industrial development. In short, he ties thousands upon thousands of balloons to his house and floats away, toward South America, on what is to be the last adventure of his life, one that he is forced to share with a young boy who inadvertently is on his porch during take off. Simple right? Odd right? Confusing right? Right, but it’s the approach that matters.

Amongst the fantastical elements in the film, the ones that can be seen in the trailer, like a house being floated by mere balloons, talking dogs, or elderly men being WAY too physically active for their own good, Up has a grounded heart and realism in place that metaphorically punches the adult-mind in the gut, and righteously, yet not viciously, sprays pepper-sauce in children’s faces (the kid next to me in the theater cried A LOT.) The movie deals with death, abandonment, and the loss of heroes at the fore front of its surface.

******************SPOILERS START HERE**************************

This blunt realism kicks right off, as the beginning of the film introduces us to the epitomes of pure cuteness and naivete that are young Carl and Ellie (his future wife.) They both seek adventure and have the same hero, Charles Muntz (voiced by the legendary Christopher Plummer), and we are treated to a montage of their life together. We witness their marriage, their home life, their romance, their laughter, and eventually, their inability to conceive children (yup,) and ultimately their parting. THAT’S RIGHT. Ellie dies. Not just dies, but dies in a montage around 20 minutes or so into the film… Pixar sets you up, and knocks you down… all to the loving tunes of a soothing and sad score. All that went through my mind was “Holy hell! This is for kids?” Which, trust me, is a huge compliment.

Pixar’s balls, by this point in the movie are already huge and pulsating, but they still get even bigger. The reason Carl even floats his home in the first place is because the government is taking it away and forcing him into a retirement-home due to him attacking a construction worker with his cane (drawing blood!) Through the course of the film we also see Carl discover that his (and Ellie’s) childhood hero is a deranged, psychopathic, MULTI-murderer and that the kid, Russell, has a deadbeat dad who basically wouldn’t care if he lives or dies… we even see dogs getting hurt and possibly killed (due to their own actions, its not Pixar’s Hostel.) Topping off the dark tones found here is a joke played on the audience that is so genius, cruel and hilarious that scriptwriter Bob Peterson must have been laughing since the day he put it on paper. I won’t spoil it for you. Heh.

******************END SPOILERS*******************

Up‘s realism, risks, and complimentary attitude toward the audience is not the only positive however. In no way am I trying to sell it on the merits of making children cry alone… ok, maybe a little. It is also quite successful on all other standard fronts, and it’s got plenty of well-executed laughs and a grand vibrant color scheme. The script is extremely original, not to mention the cast of characters which includes a huge bird, Dug the Dog, and his fellow army of talking K-9 brethren. Dug is the comedic stand out of the movie, as his dialogue perfectly plays out the awkward nature of how dogs would actually sound if they could miraculously speak English. All the main players in the movie get their own small, but useful, character-arcs… even the bird (oddly the only character not able to speak.)

The fantastical elements are handled in a way that doesn’t grate the logic. Unlike sloppy piles of confusion like the continuity, rules, or consistency of the magic tablet in Night At The Museum 2, the material here is given mystery and logic where it needs it, and glazes over where it doesn’t… which is why you wont be questioning how Muntz (Christopher Plummer) invented a collar that translates dog speak to English, or how those balloons wouldn’t remotely lift that house, let alone tear it from it’s foundation (I believe Mythbusters tested a similar idea, and it was only picking up the weight of a single child)

The triumph of the animation here is that Pixar does make art, but they don’t try to re-invent the wheel when the wheel is working just fine. The movie is absolutely beautiful, not as visually breath taking as Wall-E, but still it looks fantastic. The blocking of some of the scenes is incredible, the little house mushroom-topped with a cloud of balloons floating across a vast blue sky in an ultra-wide shot is iconic and slightly haunting, especially considering the “rainbow” visual of the balloons. Up, much like most of Pixar’s flicks, excels in its craft (from all angles, writing, direction, choreography) and not merely in the technology of the craft. The digital 3D print is especially gorgeous, and is highly recommended.

It’s not often that a bitter old grump like me sees a film and can’t find too much negative to say about it. If I had to really rack my brain, I guess I could say the only problem was that maybe the movie makes Carl too much of a physical action hero at times, considering his age, but it’s handled with such care in the narrative of the movie, so its not a big deal, and certainly not out-weighing the good. This is probably Pixar’s least marketable film yet, being so morbid an odd. The less broad they get, the better they get…which is kind of a mind boggler when concerning Pixar… how do they continue to get better? How? In this case most of the praise should be directed toward director Pete Doctor, who some how improved on his wonderful Monsters Inc. with this new offering.

Also, just to put things into perspective, this review was written by someone who doesn’t even honestly like computer-generated animation at all, and who has really never publicly “sucked off” Pixar. Up was just class-A entertainment, and perhaps an arguable masterpiece in the family film genre. It’s good to know that this generation has at least a few movies, like Up, to grow older with and re-watch and see the adult themes, the quality craftsmanship and exclaim “This was for kids?”

QUICK THOUGHTS AND RANDOM BITS

Star Trek: a few weeks later…

J.J. Abrams’s Star Trek was great fun. As a die hard Original-Cast-film fan, still have no debilitating complaints… except, upon further reflection… it was great, but it really just isn’t Star Trek. Long Live Shatner.

Annoyed at “revisiting” reviews

Something that grates on the nerves is when an old franchise is resurrected (Terminator) or announced to be resurrected (Ghostbusters) and we have to sit through a plethora of reviews, rants, and ravings by young-ins saying how the originals (T1, T2, Ghostbusters) are overrated in the first place. Just want to say: SHUT UP JUNIOR! Your ill-informed meandering is not making your CGI-raped re-imagining any less horrendous.

What’s in a name?

If you hate McG, director of Terminator Salvation, simply because of his name then your opinion is invalid. First, his real name is McGinty, “McG” is the nickname given to him by his family… it’s not a self-chosen moniker due to douchebaggery. Second, hate him because his movies are sub-par… even though to hear the guy talk it really seems like he is actually trying, just failing miserably.

Exterminators exterminate… so Terminators should… ?

If you are going to make Terminator 4, if you just can’t help but do it, and you have to make it a heaping pile of poorly constructed blandness… could you at least follow the one rule that even the hokey Terminator 3 didn’t break? If a Terminator, no matter what make or model, gets its hands on a human, don’t let the machine give a dramatic pause, don’t let the machine just “play around” with them, let them INSTANTLY kill. Terminator 1-3 never let the villains even touch the targets… why? Because they are terminators, they would terminate at all costs. Why couldn’t you at least follow this logic? Why sir?

It works in Reno, but not at the multiplex.

Robert Ben Garant and Thomas Lennon, You were great writers on The State, and are hilarious writers on Reno 911!, so how come every time you make the leap to film its completely dreadful? Taxi (the Queen Latifah movie), Balls of Fury, The Pacifier, Let’s Go To Prison, Herbie Fully Loaded, Night at the Museum, Night at the Museum 2: Battle for the Smithsonian… Your film work reads like the listings for a multiplex in the deepest circles of hell… what is going on there guys?

There is always room for Jell-O… and more Bitterness!

Got into an argument with a young “film buff” who was saying that The Dark Knight and Iron Man are better films then The Outlaw Josey Wales, Akira Kurosawa’s Seven Samurai, and Apocalypse Now. Is there any hope for the future?

May 27, 2009