New Release Tuesday

One of my favorite shows of the past year debuts Season 3 on blu ray before Season 4 starts next week.  Most of the club all went to jail at the end of last season but cleaned up all their messes with the IRA and the Feds so it will be interesting to see where things start.  I see the internal conflicts of Jax and Clay to be a driving force between the club.

A nice collection from some of my favorite filmmakers.  This is the debut of Blood Simple, Millers Crossing, and the oh so great Raising Arizona.  Arizona has been needing an upgrade from its poor non-anamorphic DVD release for some time.  "Hey old man, do these balloons blow up into funny shapes?"  "No, not unless you think round is funny"

The Rangers series with the Angels this past weekend was great and had a playoff atmosphere to it.  I am glad we took the series to maintain a 3 game lead.  Today we find that Nelson Cruz will be gone for three weeks so time for David Murphy to step it up like he did last year when Hamilton went down.  The Rangers end the season with the Angels so that could be a pretty big series.  Look for the Rangers to check in with the Cardinals about Lance Berkman since he cleared waivers last week.

Bring on College Football!!!

With his #1 pick, The Gaunlet selects...

Escape From New York Remake Falls Flat

New Line recently let the rights to the cult classic Escape from New York expire and I hope that is a good thing.  They had been working on a remake for a few years now and have had directors and stars lined up for it.  Director Len Wiseman (Underworld, Live Free and Die Hard) was at the helm with Gerald Butler (300) ready to dawn the eye patch and portray Snake Plissken.  For some reason or another, scripts, directors, and stars have come and gone and now the property is open again.  Wouldn't it be great if a new studio got this and turned it over to original director John Carpenter and star Kurt Russell?  They could finish their trilogy with 'Escape from Earth' which they wrote while making Escape from LA..

"Kurt, just do your best Clint Eastwood impersonation."

  I know Carpenter has not done alot lately except cash checks from all the remakes being done on his old movies but he does have The Ward that just recently came out.  Russell has been laying low lately but the look he threw down in Grindhouse very well suggests he could pull off Plissken one more time.  Maybe everyone thinks he's dead?  Anyway, scrap the remake and bring back the originals.

RAMBO 5

Stallone teased us awhile back about one more Rambo but then the Expendables was picked up and he put Rambo to the pasture saying he was 99% sure Rambo was retired.    But according to this article at Dark Horizons there maybe something to that 1%: Dark Horizons

New "Conan the Barbarian" writer Sean Hood has reportedly submitted a screenplay for "Rambo: Last Stand" at Millennium Films reports Empire Online.
Hood says "I met with Mr Stallone twice last year. He gave me a book, an older screenplay, and about twenty pages he'd written himself to use as inspiration for the last chapter of the Rambo saga."
Reportedly this take isn't based on previously linked stories for another "Rambo" such as the sci-fi style "Savage Hunt", nor the Mexico-set cartel kidnap tale. Rather Hood says "It's more in line with the small-town thriller of First Blood."
However he stresses that a script does not a movie make - "I don't know whether Mr Stallone will actually do it. Right now, as I understand it, he has his hands full with Bullet to the Head and Expendables 2. But Millennium films did hire me to complete the screenplay and realise his story, and my hope is that he'll eventually be inspired to do one more Rambo film, with the tone of Clint Eastwood's 'Unforgiven'."

There are thousands of screenplays out there that never get made but if Hood actually met with Stallone and Sly himself gave the guy a story to go off of that would certainly indicate a level of interest on Sly's part.  I would like to see one more chapter of Rambo especially if it is more like the first one with a little Unforgivn  mixed in.  A fitting way for Sly to bow out of action movies and turn his attention to directing more.  At the end of First Blood Rambo says, "Nothing is over! Nothing!  You just don't turn it off!"  Hopefully for Rambo fans that is the case here.

"The screenplay needs more killing I said!"

Harry's Addiction: Physical Media

Call me old fashion but I still like to buy my Blu Rays, DVDs, and CD's.  I like to touch them and read the inserts (if there are any) and have the ability to put a disc in and push play whenever I want.  I like to shop around for them and be on the hunt for that rare buried treasure you come across every once in awhile.  I will give Wal Mart credit for having their five dollar DVD and CD bins out.  Yeah, they just dump them in there but digging thru them is part of the fun.  It is sometimes a social gathering too, I meet a buddy of mine for lunch and we hit Wally World after eating to see what lies beneath that massive pile.  For confidentiality purposes I will call said friend "Marty".  We dig thru the pile and find things and ask questions, "Remember this one?" or "How could you have not seen that?" or "Why are all the Eastwood movies in here?".  I discovered this jewel last week:

Four movies for five bucks?  I am in.  Three really good horror flicks and one mediocre, not bad.  I will let you decide the mediocre one.  Searching on screens or queues does not appeal to me.  Sure, going thru the Netflix streaming queue turns up some rare finds on occasion but it is not the same as putting it on the shelf.  By the way, I am running out of room for this stuff.  And when I do stream something there always seem to be some sort of interruption in service.  That does not happen with the real stuff.  I know it is the future but for now I will be resistant.  Bring on the sales!

New Release Tuesday

The Big Lebowski

The Coens best movie and a cult classic that has gained a huge following over the years.  Jeff Bridges or the Dude if you prefer, has never been better.  This movie is about the Dude and all the adventures that come to him and pure fun follows.  Great supporting cast with Julianne Moore, John Goodman, John Turturro, Steve Buscemi, Tara Reid (Go ahead laugh now), and Phillip Seymour Hoffman.  Abide by the Dude.

 Demolition Man

One of Sly's best pics and is built around a great setting in the future of being surrounded by consumerism.  Sound familiar? You have 2 great action guys in Sly and Wesley Snipes leading this flick and who steals the show?  A then barely known Sandra Bullock blows these action guys away.

 

One of Stallone's underrated 80s action flicks.  A great action flick that plays like a Dirty Harry movie with one cop pitted against an army.  It also has one of the best car chases you will see on film.  Did you know Sly did this flick after dropping out of the lead for Beverly Hills Cop after the producers wanted more comedy and less action.

The Batwing rises!

New Release Tuesday

 Fast Times at Ridgemont High- Let's go to the mall, how fun!  This flick goes thru all the things that can happen in high school, good and bad.  This was Cameron Crowe's (Say Anything, Almost Famous) first screen play and it has his stamp all over it.  It even comes complete with Led Zepplin music and they do not let their music out that much; great soundtrack to go with the rest of movie.  Did you ever dream Spicolli would win two Oscar's?  Want to party?


The Fox and the Hound- I have not seen this since it was in the theater.  I know Kurt Russell voices one of the characters.  Cute and cuddly little critters and I believe someone loses a mom due to a hunting incident.

Dazed and Confused- Another enjoyable teenager flick from the likes of director Richard Linklater. Filmed in Austin and it started quite a few careers
for many involved.  Matthew McCounghy's  debut and you can see why he went on to bigger things, he owns the screen.  "That is why I like high school girls.  They older I get, they stay the same age."


The Rangers continue to hang in there with a 1.5 game lead.  Hopefully they can pull away from the California LA Anaheim Angels soon.

Finally finished Dexter season 2, fantastic ending.

Sons of Anarchy starts September 6 on FX.

Here's Catwoman. Where the heck is Eartha Kitt?

New Release Tuesday

 The Gauntlet has been running behind with his new job, vacations, and running his own temporary bachelor pad for a couple of weeks.  So there has been plenty of movie watching so here is the last couple of week's worthy releases. 

The Blues Brothers- You could not not keep these guys contained on SNL or albums so they needed to be released to the movie going public.  It is so over the top and in a good way and is done perfectly by director John Landis.  The music, the cameos, and oh the car chases are outstanding.  We lost a great performer in John Belushi and he is missed but a he left a great mark in just a short time.  Watch out!  Muppets!!!

 Animal House- Born from a few ideas from some writers and it grew out of control.  Universal was cool on this idea and it did not gain much steam because no director wanted any part of it.  So they got John Landis to come on board because he had just wrapped the cult classic The Kentucky Fried movie. He along with the writers crafted out what they wanted and then brought John Belushi on board and then any scene involving him went down the tube because he improvised anything he was involved with.  This movie features many newcomers that went on to good careers and lead many college frats to continue all the traditions you see here.  It's been said that nobody ever heard of a toga party before this.  The studio was very nervous of the scene at the black bar and were considering dropping it.  Director Landis got a hold of Richard Pryor and played him the scene and he conveyed to the studio it needs to stay.  The studio nervously left it in and I am sure glad they did; it's gold.

 Conan the Barbarian- The movie that made Arnold.  Conan was an imposing figure from the comics and what a better person to pick up the sword than Arnold.  He actually had to lose some weight to decrease his arm size to be able to use a sword.  A perfect movie for director John Milius because he was a straight action movie guy and and a good writer to build the material.  Arnold was pretty raw here as an actor and it shows since his dialogue is kept to a minimum but that is okay because he lets his muscles and sword do the work.  James earl Jones plays the baddie and is great in his few scenes.  This has perhaps the greatest film score ever.  It is sad Milius was not allowed to finish the trilogy off with King Conan.  Arnold was all for it but needed all involved to wait until his term as governor was over but the rights reverted to another studio and they went the reboot route.  Will see how that goes in 2 weeks.  "What is good in life?"

 Soldier- Not the greatest film but a guilty pleasure of mine.  This is about the closest we may ever get see Russell playing anything resembling Snake Plissken again.  Good action set in space and we got about 40 whole sentences spoken by Russell's Todd character.  Gary Busey is a hoot in this.

Here is our new Man of Steel

Stallone on the set of Headshot

Clint on the set of J. Edgar

Dark Knight Rises: In Action!