Tag Archives: Adventure

Captain America: The Winter Soldier (2014)

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“They who would give up essential Liberty, to purchase a little temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety.”

Ed Brubaker’s acclaimed source material is the basis for “The Winter Soldier,” a remarkable and incredible follow-up to 2011’s “Captain America.” I’m very secure in declaring that “The Winter Soldier” is the “Empire Strikes Back” of the Captain America trilogy thus far, as the sequel manages to not only give Captain America the much needed conflict with his American ideals, and age old views on the concept of freedom and liberty, but turns him in to a hero who is no longer fighting for America, but for the idea of America. “The Winter Soldier” picks up right after “The Avengers” where Captain America has essentially taken to SHIELD headquarters as a home base, and doesn’t really keep in touch with his old teammates.

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No Holds Barred (1989) [Blu-Ray]

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In the eighties, Hulk Hogan was a titan who stood tall in influence and adoration alongside Arnold Schwarzenegger. In the age of the cold car, Hogan is the hero America wanted. He was blond, large, charismatic, heroic, and garnered a handlebar mustache that made him look like a buff trucker fighting for the country. “No Holds Barred” perfectly demonstrates why Hogan was such a force in the sports world, with a charismatic performance in an otherwise goofy movie.

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The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug (2013) (Blu-ray/DVD/Digital HD UltraViolet)

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It dawned upon me watching the opening of “The Desolation of Smaug”: Did we really need the first movie? The entirety of the first film is so based on propping up storylines that “The Desolation of Smaug” wastes no time and drops in to the action. We could have just featured thirty minutes establishing the journey and cut to the opening scene. In “The Desolation of Smaug,” the writers provide a prologue where Gandalf meets Thorin in a pub and asks him to lead the journey. They proclaim they need a “burglar,” and cut to Bilbo Baggins in action. So, what was the point of the first movie? The opening shot of Bilbo hiding in the rocks with his allies speaks sounds more than the entire director’s cut of “An Unexpected Journey” could.

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Our Top Five Fantasy Films of the 80’s

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Let’s face it, the eighties were a grand time for the fantasy genre. Surely, comedy and horror had their days, but fantasy is what I mostly remember. As a kid my parents kept me from watching the more hardcore horror films until I was old enough to handle them, so most of the time I retreated to fantasy. They had distant lands, monsters, demons, and ghosts just the same. And often they were as violent as horror films were. My time spent watching movies were mainly spent with films from the 1980’s, and it’s no surprise that most of my fantasy favorites are from that fun decade. Here are five of my favorite fantasy films of the 80’s. And no, they haven’t aged a bit.

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Beanstalk (1994)

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Director Michael Davis’ “Beanstalk” has a lot of balls in the air. It wants to squeeze in so many ideas and sub-plots and can never find a proper way to bring them all in to one coherent kids film. There’s a boy named Jack who lives with his mother and discovers large beans that form a humongous beanstalk. Meanwhile, Jack’s mom is going to lose her house, prompting Jack and his mom to go homeless. Meanwhile, there’s a nutty doctor (Margot Kidder is barely recognizable) who believes the mother goose tales to be real, and is preparing to climb the beanstalk, while an evil land developer is planning to knock down the beanstalk, steal Jack’s house, and develop land over the his neighborhood. That’s a lot story, for a movie barely eighty minutes in length!

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Captain America (1979)

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Oh Reb Brown, where would cinema be without you? Without Brown, we wouldn’t have had the 1979 Television movie “Captain America,” a movie so inept, it can’t even mimic Evel Knievel well. Brown is Steve Rogers for some reason, who came back from the war, and now drives around in a very kick ass van that also sports his favorite motorcycle. He’s a an ex-Marine/surfer/artist/motorcycle racer who also happens to be involved with a scientist developing a new formula for super strength (with the acronym F.L.A.G.), so while he’s helping develop a potentially groundbreaking formula for humanity, he is constantly moping around about the war and his lack of money. The sad fact is that the serum can only work for the Rogers blood line. Why? Because it’s a Captain America movie.

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Magic Island (1995)

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1995’s “Magic Island” from Moonbeam Entertainment is one of the few Charles Band backed kids films I’ve never actually seen. Which is odd, considering I loved Full Moon as a kid, and Zachary Ty Bryan was on one of my favorite TV show of the nineties “Home Improvement.” Like many of the Moonbeam films, “Magic Island” is not a perfect film by any stretch, but you have to appreciate its ambition, flaws and all. A good mixture of “The Neverending Story” and “The Princess Bride,” Sam Irvin’s adventure film is a goofy kids film with enough innocence to warrant good B grade family fare.

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