The Texas Chainsaw Masscre: The Beginning
September 27, 2006 | Leave a Comment
I guess you can call this the prequel to the remake of the original if you want to get overly picky but in my opinion it’s just as good if not better than the remake, so the franchise is definitely back on track. And on that note lets get to the meat of it: This movie is gory and at times obscenely violent but it does have the words chainsaw massacre in the title so we got exactly what we expected, which is to say one helluva start to the Halloween season.
This edition of the storied franchise (we do not speak of next generation… EVER) takes us the viewer to the grass roots beginning of one Thomas Hewitt A.K.A. Leatherface. Born (sort of) in a slaughterhouse in 1939, Tommy starts out very early in the murdering business by killing his bio mom during child birth (sort of). Being a bit freaky looking the slaughterhouse manager tosses the little monster in the dumpster, where the Hewitt family finds him and raises him as their own. Fast forward 30 years and you find a much older Tommy working in the very same slaughterhouse that spawned him and this is when the real story starts.
The town is drying up, there’s no money, water or food and everyone is abandoning the area, including the owner of Tommy’s slaughterhouse. The floor supervisor tells him he has to leave the place is closing… well actually it was more like ‘get out of here you big dumb retard’, and Leatherface (at this point he really does wear a mask made of leather) who apparently may actually be dumb is in fact not deaf, and in his own special way disagrees with his managers decision to downsize. Tommy being the dedicated employee that he is decides to eliminate head count for his boss so he doesn’t have to worry about anything EVER again. So, Mr Hewitt finishes his managers exit interview and just as he’s finishing up for the day he catches something out of the corner of his good eye, a blood drenched chainsaw; and thus a life long love affair begins.
From this point the local Sheriff, who’s also planning to leave like everyone else, goes out to the Hewitt place to arrest Tommy. Tommy’s uncle joins the sheriff and they drive around looking for him, and they find him… let’s just say by the time this part of the movie is over there’s a new Sheriff in town and we’ll leave it at that. The family led by the *new* Sheriff Hoyt, decides from this day forward that they will never go hungry again, and it’s on that day that the monster Leatherface is born.
The rest of the movie is predictable in the sense that you know Leatherface (Bryniarski) kills a lot of people (see remake), and that Sheriff Hoyt (Ermey) is the only law there is, but the origin is only half the adventure and the gore is the definitely the other. I have said on more than one occasion that I do not like torture movies, and for the most part there are scenes in Texas Chainsaw Massacre: The Beginning that are nothing but torture for the sake of torture and it disturbs me, so gore is no where near in short supply. All I can say is thank goodness for R. Lee Ermey, as he is able to throw in a few moments of levity amongst the otherwise uncomfortable ones.
If you want gore, this movies got it, if you want dark humor that’s there too, but the real reason for seeing this movie is the story. For the first time ever in my opinion a film got it right when it comes to the origin of a beloved movie maniac, and that made this movie rank right up there with some of the best ones I’ve seen.
Prince - Diamonds and Pearls
September 26, 2006 | Leave a Comment
Diamonds and Pearls was released in 1992 by Prince. This DVD captures all of the videos plus some live shots and compiles it into a quasi storyline that might actually make sense if you were drinking heavily.
Ok, so it’s easy to make fun of Prince, but there’s no denying his talent whether you actually like his stuff or not. I do actually like most of his stuff when he’s not trying to preach. And Diamonds and Pearls was one of those CD’s that I used to test the bass of new stereos when shopping. Cuts like Cream, Get Off and the title track will really “thump”.
And there-in lies one of the reasons I really like having this in my collection now in DVD format. The cheapo dolby setups you can buy at the warehouse stores do pretty well with movies, but if you wanna see how good your system really is, drop this DVD in. On a good system with a smart subwoofer, it sounds great. On a cheap system you’ll either hear nothing but muddy bass or you’ll find your woofer laying in the floor in agony.
If you’re a fan of Prince, you absolutely should have this DVD in your collection. If you’re not, but enjoy showing off the musical capabilities of your home theater setup, I can still recommend it. Just listen to Cream over and over again.
The Batman - The Complete Second Season (DC Comics Kids Collection)
September 17, 2006 | Leave a Comment
The Batman – Season 2 DVD has only has a few special features, trailers
and few scenes from season one, so don’t buy the DVD for the features or even the art for that matter; Buy it for the story lines.
This 13 episode set has all your favorite Batman villains so there’s something for everyone. Joker is just as maniacal as he is in the other (better) cartoon; Riddler still makes you think about his riddles (come on, admit it
you feel smart when you answer his riddles before the Dark Night). Catwoman although nowhere near as HOT as Michelle Pheifer (cartoon duh!) , Mr. Freeze he’s colder than ever and way better than Ahnuld, Killer Croc & Man Bat the animal villains are freaks, Penguin is funny (Spongebob?) and Bane (baddest of all Batman villains) is not a bumbling idiot like he was in B&R. The Batman Season 2 also introduces some new villains; such as Ragdoll, a HUGE scarecrow rip off! And one called the Mystic which I actually thought was Ra’s Al Ghul for a minute. So, if your a ‘TRUE’ Batman fan some of these story lines might actually excite you.
On to the good stuff - The very first episode has both Penguin and Catwoman as a great villain team trying to kill “The Bat” in ‘The Bat, The Cat and the Very Ugly’ (Batman Returns, Returns?). The Batman is looked at no differently than his Psychopathic Villains in this Gotham City so the story’s have more depth sometimes. The GPD in this universe are only looking for the villains to get to the true menace, The Batman himself. Thank God for James Gordon, the man that is this Batman’s Superman!
I gave this DVD three stars instead of five for this simple fact…the
costumes suck! They gave Riddler a jersey and plastic Question Marks,
Catwoman has a huge collar and equally big Goggles… At least they didn’t screw up the Joker, he still looks OK.
If You’re Expecting the 90’s cartoon Batman TAS, look elsewhere but if you are willing to look at Batman with different eyes give this one a peek.
United 93
September 13, 2006 | Leave a Comment
First let me start by saying that this review was written on the 5th anniversary of what can be considered the darkest day in the history of this country and therefore may be driven more by emotion than critical evaluation, but I’ll let you be the judge.
United 93 is a documentary style film that depicts the events of 9/11 through the eyes of the hero’s aboard United flight 93. I say it’s a documentary because Paul Greengrass uses information from that day to formulate the minute by minute account of what actually took place from the time the flight left New Jersey bound for San Francisco right up to point where it was brought down in Shanksville PA on it’s way to Washington DC.
This film is not a typical rah-rah go America action movie (Pearl Harbor) that uses a mixture of fact and fantasy to paint a picture of man vs unimaginable odds (SOAP) and ultimately the good guys win and all is right in the world; Nope in fact it is quite the opposite, this film does nothing more than show what a group of normal citizens in a no win situation decide to do when they realize their lives are forfeit, and their actions from this point forward will be to stop the plan of the evil monsters now in charge of the plane, regardless of the end result. All of the dialog is pulled directly from 9/11 Commission testimony, tapes of passengers’ phone calls, and the flight data recorders recovered from the crash, so you won’t see a guy stand up at the very last second and deliver some patriotic speech of self sacrifice before they go forward with their big plan to save the day, because that isn’t what happened.
33 passengers and 7 crew members made a decision together to bring this plane down no matter what it took, to make sure the 4 terrorists aboard did not reach their destination and complete their mission… And that is the only story Paul Greengrass tells, but he tells it well. I felt like I was sitting on the wing and watching every little detail unfold right up to the very end. So in closing this movie is neither fact nor fantasy since no one is alive to tell us what really happened but we know enough to know how it ended and that was enough for me.
This movie will be 90% emotion 10% visual and I cant really say I was entertained but I felt better for watching it so I guess it did what it was supposed to do. If you are the kind of person that would like to forget what happened on 9/11 then don’t watch this movie, but if you feel the need to honor those brave individuals then by all means pick up this DVD and share it with anyone who’ll watch. I apologize for not including any jokes or adding anything in our signature sidebars but I felt it was appropriate to just tell you how I feel and recommend this great movie and leave it at that.
Thanks for reading… JC 
Crank
September 4, 2006 | Leave a Comment
Crank is another Jason Statham adrenaline flick. This time quite literally.
Jason plays Chev Chelios, a hitman for the mob. Chev’s rivals poison him with a synthetic drug that makes your heart slow down and eventually stop. He quickly finds out that the only way to keep himself alive long enough to get his revenge is to keep the adrenaline pumping. So Chev is about to have a very interesting day as he drives fast, rocks out to country music, picks fights and drinks Red Bull by the gallon. Oh, and now imagine if your girlfriend is Amy Smart, can you think of some other ways to get your heart pumping? Well, our man here takes it to a whole other level.
This folks is the prototypical guy movie. We have sex, nudity, car chases, shoot outs, humor, fights and blood. This is a Lionsgate release, so it’s shot on the cheap, but it definitely gets a lot of style points. It’s a bit on the campy side, but that’s ok, we loved it. And thanks to the studios for letting this one go with an R-Rating instead of trying to get a few extra bucks from the teens. Though we suspect this one will hit DVD within 3 months.
We are really starting to dig Jason Statham and look forward to his films. He can deliver a very dry action hero type of humor in all his own style, and the guy can really deliver with his own fight scenes. It doesn’t hurt that he also almost always ends up in a chase scene. And Amy Smart, well she’s just smoking hot, and we now want to go to Chinatown with her really really bad. You’ll understand after you see it. If we have one complaint it’s that we only received glimpses of her, hopefully there’s an unrated cut coming on DVD that shows more.
Crank gets 4 stars from us. We actually toyed with the idea of a 5th star, but we dont think this will pass the test of being a movie we watch over and over. Go see it, it’s a great mindless way to spend 90 minutes.
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