10 Cloverfield Lane (2016)

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If you’re like me, you enjoyed “Cloverfield” a great deal and were shocked to see its spiritual sequel sneak up on America one day in February of 2016. It’s definitely a spiritual sequel in every way in the same idea that “Halloween III” was a spiritual sequel to “Halloween.” Director Dan Trachtenberg supplies a steady stream of surprises without ever really making audiences feel cheated. “10 Cloverfield Lane” is a masterful dramatic thriller that asks the big questions about survival. Its biggest themes about the setting feels like something out of a random survival website to arouse conversations. If something was going down in the real world, would you go outside and brave whatever was waiting for you, or would you live in a bunker with all the supplies and luxuries, but have to be under the watchful eye of a very unhinged individual who may or may not be lying to you? What hell is more managable?

CONTINUE ON FOR SPOILERS

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The Corpse of Anna Fritz (El Cadaver de Anna Fritz) (2016)

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(Mild Spoilers)

Ivan and Javi stop by Pau’s work at the hospital morgue on their way to a party.  Pau lets them in on a secret: actress Anna Fritz is lying in his morgue, dead.  The trio decides to go see her; to see how she looks as Pay says she doesn’t even look dead.  Once in the morgue, Ivan decides to touch her and from there gets it in his mind that a bit of necrophilia won’t hurt anyone.  However, he soon finds out that is not the case.

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Love’s Innocence Lost (2016)

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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]

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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”

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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]

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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)

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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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