Category Archives: Movie Reviews

The Dungeonmaster / Eliminators: Double Feature [Blu-ray]

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Scream Factory continues to deliver for fans of the Empire Pictures and Charles Band era, with a double feature Blu-Ray set featuring two of their most entertaining titles from their heyday. While I’d be hard pressed to call these films masterpieces, they’re nonetheless entertaining and novel genre films that attempt to market on a particular trend. Charles Band was always savvy about aspiring to make films for his company that touched on current cinematic trends and the double feature here from Scream! Factory covers the gamut of pop culture trends quite well.

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The Breakfast Club (1985)

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John Hughes’ iconic eighties drama has always remained a timeless favorite for me. It’s not just because he manages to speak to the teenage condition, but the human condition. Surely, “The Breakfast Club” still manages to speak waves about how teenagers lived back in the eighties, and how they still live today, but “The Breakfast Club” had something to say about being an adult and how the lessons we learned as a teenager would carry us in to adulthood, for better and for worse. The characters we meet in “The Breakfast Club” essentially find common ground in the way they approach life, and think about themselves, but when we part from them we never quite know where they’re headed.

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Dutch (1991)

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Back in 1991, I was a big fan of “Married with Children,” and loved Ed O’Neill. He was raucously funny as the blue collared Al Bundy, whose life was an endless series of misfortunes, so a big screen career seemed only a natural next step. I never caught “Dutch,” however I do fondly remember it as the failed big screen feature of O’Neill’s that became a consistent running joke on his hit sitcom. You can even see a “Dutch” standee during an episode where Al and Peggy are in a video store, promising a free copy for all customers. Oddly enough, “Dutch” isn’t that bad.

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The Garbage Pail Kids Movie (1987) [Blu-Ray]

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If there is one big flaw that keeps “The Garbage Pail Kids Movie” from being either really bad or really good, is that it’s never quite sure what to make of itself. The tonal imbalance and wildly inconsistent mood keeps the movie bipolar and surreal. It’s too gross for kids, and too tame for adults, so it’s right in the middle of nowhere. “The Garbage Pail Kids Movie” is based on the wildly popular series of stickers that were direct spoofs of the popular eighties franchise The Cabbage Patch Kids. The series of stickers presented buyers with their own disgusting, offensive, and grotesque versions of Cabbage Patch characters, and for many years they were a staple for folks that appreciated humor with a bad taste.

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Northpole: Open for Christmas (2015)

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Yes, primarily Hallmark have used the “Northpole” movies to sell whatever kitschy Christmas ornament they’re touting for the year, but they’ve accidentally built a neat Christmas movie series I want to see more of. Years ago, I would have really loved the adventures of Clementine the Elf, and her quest to restore the Christmas spirit in one unhappy soul. Right now, she’s still a charming Christmas heroine played by the always adorable Bailee Madison. Madison doesn’t even have to do much to look like an Elf, as she’s given pointy ears, and achieves the rest with her wide smile, and large saucer eyes.

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Spotlight (2015)

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One of the most important cinematic accounts of journalism changing corruption since “All the President’s Men,” director Thomas McCarthy’s “Spotlight” garners an understated brilliance in where it explores a long legacy of corruption that’s not only been widely under reported but somewhat accepted. McCarthy manages to draw immense thrills and paranoia from a film that’s very much the antithesis of sensationalism. “Spotlight” is a gut wrenching and mind blowing account of a group of reporters tasked with uncovering one of the largest scandals in world history, a scandal that’s left thousands of victims in its wake.

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Trainwreck (2015)

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It’s nice to see Judd Apatow break free from his formula of a dopey slacker falling in love with the perfect woman. This time around, Apatow has the fresh mind of Amy Schumer who helps deliver one of the most human romance comedies of the year. “Trainwreck” is a film with an array of emotionally gray characters filled with flaws and scars from their youth, and still can’t quite grasp the idea of adulthood quite yet. Schumer is bold enough to take on the lead role of character Amy, a magazine writer who is comfortable in her rut, and doesn’t mind aiming for the bare minimum in both her career and her love life.

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