Dark Knight Rises

I got to the theater this past weekend and caught the most anticipated summer movie of the season.  Dark Knight Rises is an epic movie and the final chapter of Christopher Nolan's Batman trilogy and Nolan had his hands full in following up the Dark Knight. 

 I will keep this short and spoiler free, this is a good movie but a bit of a let down.  Nolan and star Christian Bale confirmed that this is their last Batman and it shows with both of them as they seemed to be a little bored winding this thing up.  Bale just roles through this with little emotion and looks like he would rather be else where.  Luckily Gary Oldman, Michael Caine, Anne Hathaway, and Tom Hardy make up for Bale's dismal performance.

Nolan also co-wrote this with his brother and man are there alot of plot holes in Dark Knight Rises.  I am not giving anything a way here but how does a certain character know Bruce Wayne is Batman?  How does Bruce get back to Gotham near the end of the movie?  The movie clocks in near three hours and maybe that was the reason for some awkward scenes and missing information.  I think this flick could have had about 10 to 12 minutes cut and would have played better. I  liked the finale except I wish the screen would have cut to black one frame sooner.

I am huge Batman fan so these movies always get a little more latitude from me and on a scale of four this is a very solid 3.   It is recommended so give it a watch!

Movie Poster Wednesday

New Release Tuesday

Mel Gibson has taken quite a fall over the last few years.  Big time action hero, Oscar winner, and he made a TON of money producing and directing Passion of the Christ is now reduced to having his movies going direct to video.  Word is this movie is quite good but Mel is just too risky to go wide release.

Classic western gets a nice high def release.  Gary Cooper stars as the town marshal that is basically left alone to defend his town against a deadly enemy.  Also stars the eternal beauty that is Grace Kelly.

This looks like a homage to Escape from New York as a felon is offered his freedom if he can rescue the President's daughter from outer space prison taken over by the inmates.

This little comedy came and went quietly at the theaters.  Now the tricky thing here is that the movie is in Spanish so it has subtitles.  I don't think this joke went over to well and my biggest concern on this release is how many people are going to rent or buy this, sit down, start watching, and go "What the hell?"  as subtitles keep going and a word of English is never spoken.  Let's see how many people try to return this title thinking they bought the Spanish version by mistake.

Sons of Anarchy Season 5 Teaser Poster

Season 5 Starts September 11

R.I.P. Richard Zanuck

Hollywood lost a big movie maker last week in Richard Zanuck.  You may not recognize the name but he has had a hand in some if the biggest movies for the last forty years.  Below are just some if the highlights as he had many more and probably some you liked as well.

R.I.P Sage Stallone

Sage was the oldest of Sly Stallone's sons.  He starred with his Dad in Rocky 5 and Daylight.  Sage had been making a name for himself in Hollywood opening a company called Grindhouse Releasing that was dedicated to restoring and releasing old, forgotten grindhouse films from the 70s and 80s.  Condolences to Sly and his family during this time.

Movie Poster Wednesday

New Release Tuesday

A slow week but we do have a very good catalog release:

Blade was a good comic book movie but ran a little long in the tooth and had a weak, short bad guy but you could say it lead the way to the current comic book movie craze.  Director Guillermo Del Toro took on this sequel and kicked it up a notch installing a really good story of vampires vs vampires and of course had his trademark spectacular creature effects.  Also stars Hellboy's Ron Perlman and the great Kris Kristofferson.  Highly recommended, give it a spin,

RIP Ernest Borgnine

Hollywood lost a good one a few days ago and he was one of the best character actors around.  After serving in the U.S. Navy in the Second World War, Ernest Borgnine made the move into television and then film, forging out a six decade long career as a widely liked and respected character actor.

 In 1955 he starred in "Marty" in which he played a lovelorn butcher, a performance that won him the Best Actor Oscar over the likes of James Cagney, James Dean, Frank Sinatra and Spencer Tracy.
He worked with filmmaker Sam Peckinpah on both the infamous western "The Wild Bunch" and the trucker fugitive movie "Convoy". Other memorable turns include a bullying train conductor in "Emperor of the North Pole", Russian defector Boris Vaslov in the Alistair MacLean adaptation "Ice Station Zebra", and a loveable cab driver in a city of criminals and one of my favorites in John Carpenter's "Escape from New York".

He was also a passenger on "The Poseidon Adventure", an Army Major General in "The Dirty Dozen", and the feared Viking warrior Ragnar in "The Vikings".
Borgnine also forged out a highly successful small screen career, most notably playing Quinton McHale in legendary 60's sitcom "McHale's Navy" for four seasons. He also played helicopter pilot Dominic Santini in the mid-80's series "Airwolf", and as the Doorman in NBC's mishandled "The Single Guy".

Thanks for your service and your fine work sir.

That's a Hellva Boy!

Actor Ron Perlman (Sons of Anarchy,Hellboy) showed up in full make-up as Hellboy to visit a boy with leukemia to make his day.  The 62 year old Perlman was told of the boy's request of meeting Hellboy and gratefully accepted the chance to go visit the patient and spend the day with him.  Perlman had to undergo four hours in the make-up chair for his visit and then lead the boy off to get his own Hellboy make-up job to make it an unforgettable day.  Props to Perlman!  SAO starts in September.

Movie Poster Wednesday

New Release Tuesday

An odd, stylish sci fi movie with a young and extremely hot Jane Fonda and that made this a cult phenomenon.  It will be nice to watch this again.

A creepy horror movie starring Barbara Hershey about a "thing" that keeps bothering a single mother as she struggles with it and everyone around her and needs to find a way to get rid of it.

This classic 80s comedy makes its DVD debut.  The Gambler plays a stock car racer that gets saddled with a bunch of kids that becomes his pit crew.  I fell in love with Diane Lane when I saw this in the theater.

Sons of Anarchy Season 5 Teaser

I am really excited for the return of this show.  Show creator Kurt Sutter has made quite a show so far  so I look forward to see what SAMCRO gets into this season.

MegaForce on DVD-Finally!

One of the best cheese flicks of 1982 finally will make its DVD debut in September.  Director Hal Needham brought us heroes in tights with flying motorcycles which came out to theaters with very little ticket sales and got buried by the competition.  I saw this opening weekend in the theater and probably rented it on VHS but I have not screened this in a long time.  I have had this in my wish list queue for a few years so I was glad to read this news.

Happy Birthday Sly!

Sly on the set of the Tomb

66 and still going strong.  This August we have The Expendables 2 and next year we have Bullet to the Head and The Tomb.