Tuesday, April 28, 2015

New Release Tuesday

A young Peruvian bear travels to London in search of a home. Finding himself lost and alone at Paddington Station, he meets the kindly Brown family, who offer him a temporary haven.  There is a couple of smaller people in the house that may want to see this family flick starring a killer bear.

Lit professor and gambler Jim Bennett's debt causes him to borrow money from his mother and a loan shark. Further complicating his situation is his relationship with one of his students. Will Bennett risk his life for a second chance?  I will give this Marky Mark flick a shot but I am gonna have a hard time not seeing Kenny Rogers in this role.

Truckers form a mile long "convoy" in support of a trucker's vendetta with an abusive sheriff...Based on the country song of same title by C.W. McCall.  This is a pretty cool 70s flick from Sam Peckinpah and stars Kris Kristofferson in the lead role.  This movie has been in desperate need of a DVD and blu ray upgrade as the current version on full frame DVD only looks slightly better than the VHS.

In this strange western version of JAWS, Wild Bill Hickok hunts a white buffalo he has seen in a dream. Hickok moves through a variety of uniquely authentic western locations - dim, filthy, makeshift taverns; freezing, slaughterhouse-like frontier towns and beautifully desolate high country - before improbably teaming up with a young Indian named Crazy Horse to pursue the creature.  This Bronson flick has been on the wish list for quite a while but it has only been available from Sony on DVD-R but now Kino Lorber has released this on blu ray.

At a river crossing, a stand-off between a gang of outlaws and local townsfolk ensues when the ferry barge operator refuses to ferry the gang across the river.  It’s a spaghetti western with Lee Van Cleef and Warren Oates, what’s not to like?





Monday, April 27, 2015

Thursday, April 23, 2015

One Riot, One Ranger Debut

Did you know the Walker, Texas Ranger Pilot episode One Riot, One Ranger debuted twenty two years ago this week?  Strangely enough I do remember the evening, hanging out with a buddy, and having my VCR remote in hand to edit out the commercials.  I had every episode on tape.  I am certainly glad the DVD sets came out because 50 something video tapes took up a lot of space.  I am still waiting for a region one release of Walker: Trial by Fire to come out on DVD, hint, hint!

New Release Tuesday

This is my second favorite movie of all time and I still absolutely love it.  Director John Carpenter crafted an awesome story that has Manhattan Island turning into a prison in the near future.  Terrorists take over and crash Air Force One onto the island but the President leaves the plane in an escape pod before the crash.  The Police Force attempts to rescue the President but are confronted by the island’s inmates and they warn the police not to come back or the President gets it.   Luckily while all this is going down a convicted bank robber and ex-military war hero named Snake Plissken and he just wants you to call him Snake, is being processed to be sent to the island for his sentence.  The police force commander offers Snake a deal to go in, rescue the President, and he gets a pardon.  But there is a catch; this all has to be done in twenty four hours because the President has vital information for an upcoming summit.  This movie features a great cast with Kurt Russell, Lee Van Cleef, Isaac Hayes, Donald Pleasence, Ernest Borgnine, Tom Atkins, Adrienne Barboob I mean Barbeau, and the great Harry Dean Stanton.  This has the highest of recommendations.  This is a new release from Scream Factory so you can throw away your old, crappy MGM copy away because this disc is loaded with tons of extras.  Thanks to Scream Factory for sending this two weeks ago!

An action thriller centered on a woman who faces down hit men sent by her ex, a mob boss, while holed up in her apartment.  This is from director Joe Lynch who is known to be more of a horror guy (Wrong Turn 2) but I am glad to see him branch out and try some action.  I have been anxiously waiting for this release as Lynch has been pumping this up on his podcast The Movie Crypt with pal director Adam Green.  I cannot wait to check this out this weekend as Salma with machine guns sounds pretty cool.

Chuck and Louis Gossett Jr. try to track down an ancient Aztec/Mayan/Egyptian/Apache hoard of gold.  This is an action comedy and is about the funniest thing Chuck ever did. Be sure to laugh a few times or Chuck will pay a visit to you and take you down. Take you down hard.

Ex-government operative Bryan Mills is accused of a ruthless murder he never committed or witnessed. As he is tracked and pursued, Mills brings out his particular set of skills to find the true killer and clear his name.  The first two were pretty good why not a third?  The sequels can never match that phone call from the original.