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EARTH Review

This is the kind of the film meant to show off the HD TV and Blu-ray player. This gorgeous looking documentary is filled with bird’s eye wide shots that would be a muddy mess on a small standard TV on DVD. 1080p brings out the vibrant colors of the natural world captured on this film beautifully. The neon colors of the birds of paradise seem unnatural. The view capturing the deep greens of jungles as the camera floats down a river and over Angel Falls is awe-inspiring. Complimenting the gorgeous pictures, the 5.1 surround sound puts us into the environments with the wild animals. In a wonderful nighttime shoot where elephants and lions face off, the sound field makes us feel like you’re surrounded by hungry felines.

While the special features are spare, they are wonderful additions. The “Earth Diaries” is one of the best making of docs I’ve seen on a disc all year. As interesting as the film, the making of has directors Alastair Fothergill and Mark Linfield chronicling the many advances that the film made. Over 2,000 man hours were put into this production, which is an edited version of the PLANET EARTH series. Filmed in 62 countries on all seven continents, the filmmakers were given five years using new cameras to capture animals in their natural habitat like never before. Part of the joy of this making of is watching the perseverance of the filmmakers to get the shots they desired. Because this isn’t staged, crazy mishaps happen all the time and luck plays a big role as well.

The film commentary is also innovative. Small screens pop up during the film where the directors, producers and nature experts add their thoughts about what is going on on the screen or provide added information. At other times, additional facts pop up in boxes to give viewers even more information about our planet. Much like the making of doc, the commentary does capture the scope of the project. A cameraman had to wait patiently for 30 days to catch the momma polar bear and her cubs emerging from their den after the winter. These are the kind of special features you wished every Blu-ray had.

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This nature documentary is really just an hour and half repackaging of the TV series PLANET EARTH. Walt Disney Pictures commissioned the film to kick off its Disneynature brand, a contemporary take on its 1950s True Life Adventure series. The film is like getting a highlight reel of the impressive series.

Using the theme of families, the film follows various animals and their young. A mother polar bear coaxes her two cubs out of their den after a long winter. Their father struggles to find food on the ice, which is now melting quicker and quicker due to Global Warming. A mother elephant and her baby make the arduous trip across the dry plains of Africa with their herd to the summer watering hole their ancestors have traveled to for decades. A mother humpback whale and her calf travel from tropic waters to the Arctic, the longest journey of any ocean animal. Read the rest of this entry »

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Based on Frances Hodgson Burnett’s children’s classic, the film version was brought to the screen by Polish director Agnieszka Holland (EUROPA, EUROPA). Like some of the best family films, the story might have children at its center, but it’s not just a story for children. This magical story about inner healing can touch the oldest in the crowd as well.

Mary Lennox (Kate Maberly, FINDING NEVERLAND) had a privileged life living in India. She had servants waiting on her hand and foot. But she wasn’t happy. Her parents paid little attention to her. Then, when they are murdered, she’s forced to move to her uncle’s estate in England. He, Lord Archibald Craven (John Lynch, IN THE NAME OF THE FATHER), isn’t any more attentive to her than her parents. He’s been grief-stricken since the death of his wife and the following illness that has keep his son Colin (Heydon Prowse, only screen performance) bedridden.
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Ever wonder how superheroes still fit in their clothes when they grow larger? This film answers that question and a few more about the lives of superheroes. Hitoshi Matsumoto co-wrote, directed and starred in this deadpan spoof of Japanese monster movies. No hero or monster, not even Godzilla and Ultraman are safe.

Daisoto is the main subject of a documentary. He lives alone with his cats and people spray paint obscenities on his house and break the windows. It’s tough being a superhero nowadays. Daisoto is a descendent of other Japanese protectors who grow to enormous sizes by charging themselves up at power plants. The government calls on them when a monster is spotted. The battles between the Big Man Japan and the monsters are televised, but Daisoto’s fights are on at 2 am, instead of the primetime slots his grandfather saw. People are tired of Big Man Japan destroying cities and using up so much electricity.
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Shane Acker’s 9 is one of the must see movies of the fall.

So here is Rick’s Flicks Picks’ annual most anticipated films of the fall season list. It’s not a perfect list. Some of the films will turn out to be duds, and some other films (think SLUMDOG MILLIONAIRE) will pop up late in the game to become some of the best films of the year. And some might not open this fall season at all. We’ve already lost Martin Scorsese’s SHUTTER ISLAND to February. So without further ado here are the films to watch out for in the season for serious movie fans.
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It seems fitting that director Ang Lee had this film ready for the 40th anniversary of the original Woodstock. The film is a laid back look at how the epic musical event came to be. The film finds a tone that feels like the right vibe for a film on Woodstock. And most importantly, the film puts a coming-of-age story at its center. In a simple way, the film represents everything that Woodstock tried to be.

Elliot Teichberg (Demetri Martin, TV’s IMPORTANT THINGS WITH DEMETRI MARTIN) was a young man who finds himself sucked back into the family business — a rundown Castskills motel called the El Monaco. His Russian parents Sonia and Jake (Imelda Staunton, VERA DRAKE, & Henry Goodman, GREEN STREET HOOLIGANS) are running the business into the ground and Elliot has to put the money he earned from some interior design work to keep the bank from foreclosing. He becomes the town’s youngest head of the Chamber of Commerce and comes up with various schemes to drive business to his motel, even allowing a troupe of hippie actors to stay in the barn. But when he hears that the Woodstock Music Festival has lost its permit, he gets a big idea.
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When I first heard that Rob Zombie was remaking John Carpenter’s classic horror film HALLOWEEN, I thought he was either one of three things — terribly gutsy, completely arrogant or monumentally stupid. Now having seen the film, I can say he was the first. When approaching a remake of this classic, he did everything that could be asked of him in being true to the original, while expanding on it in new and interesting ways. His reverence for the material shows his love for Michael Myers. However, his love for Michael Myers is also the film’s undoing to some degree.

Unlike the original, Zombie’s film takes us deeper inside the mind of Michael Myers, played as a child by Daeg Faerch and as an adult by Tyler Mane. As a child, Michael was tormented by kids at school, but his taste for comeuppance is bloody and cruel. His home life is not stable at all with his white trash mother Deborah (Sheri Moon Zombie, THE DEVIL’S REJECTS) constantly fighting with her deadbeat boyfriend Ronnie White (Robert Forsythe, THE DEVIL’S REJECTS). His older sister Judith (Hanna Hall, FORREST GUMP) is a crude teen who is only interested in sex and boys… in that order. On Halloween night, he snaps and goes on a murder spree that lands him in an asylum. While under the care of the kind doctor Samuel Loomis (Malcolm McDowell, A CLOCKWORK ORANGE), he sinks further and further into a world of his own and becomes more disturbed as his time in confinement grows.
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Summer means different things to different people. Summer jobs. The beach. Resorts. Vacations. With ADVENTURELAND arriving on DVD and Blu-ray this week, This Weekend’s Film Festival ends the summer months with a celebration of summer. We have all the above summertime activities and of course a few doses of summer romance as well.

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In the spirit of his BRIEF ENCOUNTER, David Lean directs this bittersweet romance, starring Katharine Hepburn, with maturity and sophistication. Based on Arthur Laurents’ play, the premise is simple, but Lean, along with co-screenwriter H.E. Bates, finds ways to surprise us. Just like the way the characters have of surprising each other.

Jane Hudson (Hepburn, THE AFRICAN QUEEN) is a girl (every woman in America under 50 refers to herself as a girl) from Akron, Ohio, who has saved her whole life to take a trip to Venice, Italy. She’s looking for that something that has been missing from her life. But like so often is the case, the fantasy we pursue is easy to want, it’s the first leap that’s tough. Jane views herself as the independent type, but she is deeply lonely. She’s looking for romance, but is scared when shop owner Renato de Rossi (Rossano Brazzi, THE BAREFOOT CONTESSA) takes an interest in her. She’s scared of everything actually. Scared that the romance isn’t what she imagined. Scared that it might just be better than she ever thought.

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ADVENTURELAND Review

I’m a big fan of retaining the film grain look of a movie when transferring it to Blu-ray. ADVENTURELAND surely does that, but how much is too much? At times the film seems too grainy especially during nighttime scenes. I have to concur with what Kenneth Brown said over at Bluray.com, whether the heavy grain and desaturation of colors at times is part of director Greg Mottola’s ‘80s film aesthetic or a problem with the transfer is up for debate. As for the audio track, like many comedies or even dramas, the 5.1 surround sound is wasted on a front speaker heavy soundtrack.

When it comes to the special features, the disc is a little hit or miss. The commentary track from director Mottola and star Jesse Eisenberg is one of the minor hits. As Mottola states out front, their commentary doesn’t delve into the filmmaking process like a Martin Scorsese commentary would, but it does give film fans an interesting look into the compromises that go into filmmaking. It also provides fans of the film some behind-the-scenes gossip presented with a great deal of dry humor. The “Just My Life” featurette is the typical making of doc, but it does delve into Mottola’s real-life experiences that inspired him to write the screenplay. But the highlight of the features is the four “Welcome to Adventureland” segments. These ’80s vintage videos feature two Adventureland commercials and two humorous employment orientation vids, one hosted by Martin Starr as his character Joel.

The deleted scenes are nothing too special, chronicling a few more park mishaps. The Song Selection feature allows users to jump right to their favorite songs in the film. The low points, however, are the Blu-ray exclusives “Frigo’s Ball Taps,” where Matt Bush goes on for three minutes punching people in the balls, is about as entertaining as the running gag was in the film. Annoying. While not as bad as “Frigo’s” featurette, “Lisa P’s Guide to Style” has Margarita Levieva as Lisa P., explaining her style inspiration. Like the character in the film, she’s good for a few laughs, but she’s so shallow you hit the bottom pretty quickly. All in all, the good featurettes make the bonuses well worth it.