Love’s Innocence Lost (2016)

Posted on March 11, 2016 by Felix Vasquez

If I have one complaint about “Love’s Innocence Lost” is that I could have used at least five more minutes to catch up with the dilemma ocurring in Mike Clarke’s drama. There isn’t so much explanation as to what happened between characters Aaron and Dina, only that there were children involved, and the crime involved something where trust was severely destroyed. I wouldn’t have minded a lot more extrapolation with Paul McGowan’s script in to what was happening and even more hinting as to what went down that could prompt such a conflict of emotions between Aaron and Dina, in the end.

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Disturbing Behavior (1998) [Blu-Ray]

Posted on March 10, 2016 by Felix Vasquez

I’d be hard pressed to call “Disturbing Behavior” a stellar horror film, but as an artifact of the late nineties teen horror boom, it’s a worthwhile effort by an “X-Files” creative mind. “Disturbing Behavior” fosters a fascinatingly looney tone that works in favor of the premise, even when it strives for inadvertent camp. James Marsden plays Steve, a newcomer to Cradle Bay who has just move in with his family and little sister. Steve is instantly accepted in to the reject crowd of the school, as led unofficially by Nick Stahl’s character Gavin. Despite the strange rift between cliques in the local high school, Steve writes off the separation as simple pack mentality, but is told by Gavin that the popular crowd also known as “Blue Ribbons” are actually more sinister than they seem.

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Five Reasons Why You Should Buy “Freaks and Geeks”

Posted on March 9, 2016 by Felix Vasquez

We “Freaks and Geeks” fans are a small but loyal community that have known who Judd Apatow and Paul Feig were before they became directors and producers of various hit theatrical comedies. Before storming the box office, Feig, with executive producer Judd Apatow, created the short lived “Freaks and Geeks” which sadly only lasted one season. Thankfully the show lived on thanks to the internet and gained a new fanbase by playing the series on cable. That’s how I discovered the series and fell in love with it.

After a campaign from fans online, “Freaks and Geeks” finally garnered a very acclaimed deluxe release on DVD, and now after many, many years, Shout! Factory is offering fans a brand new deluxe Blu-Ray release of “Freaks And Geeks.” As a fan of the series, I highly suggest it to folks that love coming of age period drama comedies as it’s right up there with “Wonder Years” and “Happy Days.” Here are five reasons why you should buy the new release if you’ve never seen the series before.

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Creed (2015) [Blu-Ray/DVD/Digital]

Posted on March 3, 2016 by Felix Vasquez

The Rocky saga has always been about parental issues and how parenting and lack thereof define our characters. Rocky had no real parents thus he was always thought of as a loser who gained a dad through Mickey. Adrian and Pauley were each others’ parents, while Rocky’s own son is somewhat a distant memory by the time “Creed” rolls around thanks to Rocky’s own destructive quest for glory. Despite their bonding in “Rocky Balboa” Rocky is still a lonely hermit of a man who runs a restaurant and lives in Philadelphia, still mourning the loss of wife Adrian and best friend Pauley. His effect has had more of a profound effect than he ever realized, as director Ryan Coogler reaches in to the Balboa mythology to touch on another family within the fold of the series that we rarely visited.

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Refuge (2016)

Posted on February 25, 2016 by Felix Vasquez

Andrew Robertson’s post apocalyptic drama is quite the accomplishment. it’s almost like a zombie film without the zombies, focusing primarily on the threat of mankind and how ugly we can be when the resources run low. Robertson’s film presents a villain in every person that the family we center on meets, and how vile people can be when they’re hungry and dehydrated. “Refuge” is set directly after a pandemic involving a plague that is untreatable with any known antibiotics. After most of the population is wiped out, the rest of mankind is left foraging for food and trying to maintain some sense of humanity.

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Beat Street (1984)

Posted on February 16, 2016 by Felix Vasquez

I liken “Beat Street” to “Saturday Night Fever” in where both films, set in the Bronx, feature very talented youths with troubled home lives trying to fulfill their promise and chase the American dream. While “Beat Street” is nowhere near as timeless as the former film, director Stan Lathan’s drama is an entertaining, if exaggerated look at life in the Bronx, and the culture that would eventually die with the decade. The film produced by Harry Belafonte doesn’t have the same committee constructed, consumer pandering aesthetic that the “Step Up” movies do. But for all intents and purposes it tend to shine the light on actual minorities living in the Bronx, some of whom can barely make rent, but still drive themselves on their love for their work.

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Extinction (2015)

Posted on February 14, 2016 by Felix Vasquez

Miguel Ángel Vivas’s is essentially “I Am Legend” with two men and a little lady, fighting off the elements with TV quality special effects and so so direction. And in the end we’re left with a mediocre apocalypse film that at least tries for something unique and different. The opening is kind of a riff on “28 Days Later,” and there are some take aways from “The Walking Dead,” but I have to give it to writers Alberto Marini and Miguel Ángel Vivas side stepping the same old zombie apocalypse doldrums. Even if the prologue does involve that same zombie carnage we’ve seen a thousand times over.

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