New Release Tuesday 8-2-2016

As Batman hunts for the escaped Joker, the Clown Prince of Crime attacks the Gordon family to prove a diabolical point mirroring his own fall into madness. I still need to read this comic but again this was a great movie by DC.  These guys should be in charge of their live action movies.  It is nice to have the original voice talents of Kevin Conroy and Mark Hamill return as the Dark Knight and the Joker.  I scored the steelbook at Target and did not see any guys in the women's room.

In San Francisco, a group of people discover the human race is being replaced one by one, with clones devoid of emotion.  This movie has been made a bunch of times and I think this is the best one.  This is from Scream Factory so it is gonna look and sound great and it will be packed with all sorts of great extras.

A stagecoach stop employee and a stranded woman traveler find themselves at the mercy of four desperate outlaws’ intent on robbing the next day's gold shipment.  This is a really good, classic Western and the standout in this was henchman Jack Elam.  Those crazy eyes and unintentional comedic deliveries really shine here and you can see why the guy was so good at comedy later on in his career.

Life for the residents of a tower block begins to run out of control.  This ran on AMC earlier this year and seems to be a Tom Hiddleston James Bond start up movie much like Layer Cake was for Daniel Craig.

 

Hells on Wheels Series Finale

AMC’s great little Western Hell on Wheels became a pretty good performer for the network and even had a ratings increase when being moved to Saturday nights which at the time I had thought was a way to bury the series but their all day Western programming paid off for the show.  The show got to complete five seasons compared to the three HBO cut Deadwood off at but Hell on Wheels got better with every season.  

I have always thought the show winks at Clint Eastwood’s The Outlaw Josey Wales a bit and I am cool with that as that is my favorite movie any way.  Anson Mount’s Cullen Bohannan shares a lot with Wales as they are both former Rebel soldiers who survived the war but unfortunately their families did not and that led to revenge. Revenge is the oldest motivation known to mankind and that overcomes them until it is fulfilled.   Both Bohannan and Wales are born to be soldiers and dare I say get a knack for killing but only to survive in a post-Civil War era where they are known as the losers.  That sounds like First Blood’s John Rambo too. 

Anyway Bohannan finds a new war in building the railroad out West to expand the nation and he runs into plenty of battles along the rail.  This was a great show and I think it ran just the right length of time to tell its historical story and it did not over stay its welcome.  As always I never spoil shows or movies but I did want to explain the series had a rather ambiguous ending which most audiences hate these days but I love it because I get to decide in my own mind what ultimately happens to these characters and that is quite refreshing.  This series is highly recommended so go get the blu rays or DVDs or I guess stream it legally please if you want to watch.  Now on to a new series, Stranger Things perhaps?

New Release Tuesday 7-26

Hey, give me a break!  I was on vacation last week and there were some mention-able releases last week, please see below and have a good rest of the summer.

In a last-ditch effort to stop a diabolical plot, a dead CIA operative's memories, secrets, and skills are implanted into a death-row inmate in hopes that he will complete the operative's mission.  This sounds a little like Face-Off and it has a really great cast to boot.  I am liking this Kevin Costner action man ala Liam Neeson.

Henry is resurrected from death with no memory, and he must save his wife from a telekinetic warlord with a plan to bio-engineer soldiers. This is an interesting looking, first person point of view action movie.

There is really no need for a description here.  It’s Chuck Bronson shooting punks in all of its glory.  I love the story about this action sequel from the documentary Electric Boogaloo: The Wild, Untold Stories of Cannon Films where Cannon producers were claiming they had this sequel from one of the 70s greatest movies.  One movie goer thought it was a Godfather sequel and it turned out to be this classic.  The original Death Wish was quite a hit but not so sure about being one of the 70s greatest.  This is from Shout Factory and this is the first time this unrated cut has ever been delivered on home video.  Jimmy Page did the soundtrack for this action classic.  Highly recommended.

I have always thought this title looked more like ‘The Boy Who Cried Chewbecca!”  but this did come out in 1973 so it beat the original Chewie by four years.  Make sure that dude has some Wookie cookies.

Movie Poster Wednesday- Battle Truck