Author: Michael Durr
Red Corner (Blu-Ray) (Umbrella) Review
Late October, 1997. My Chinese roommate has handed me a movie ticket for a new film called Red Corner with Richard Gere. Himself along with his friends and classmates are attending an advance screening of the picture and wanted to invite me to share the experience with them. The film would last two hours but the moment would last in my memories forever as one of my best film experiences ever. I learned a lot about China (since most of the group were born there) and truly saw the film through eyes other than my own. While the DVD did get a pretty quick release, it has been twenty plus years to get a blu-ray copy, this one from Australian distributor, Umbrella Entertainment. Let’s take a look.
Blue Giant (Blu-Ray) Review
As many of you know, there isn’t a type of media that I don’t enjoy reviewing. Sure, my film reviews are most numerous but I have also dabbled in books, video games and music when it comes to critiquing. Music is really fun because I’m one of the few people I know that will literally dissect every song whether it is a hit or a throwaway. Needless to say, I almost never hold back. So imagine my excitement when I come upon a new anime that blends an interesting story with the amazing style of jazz music. I honestly don’t even listen to jazz, but the chance to expand my musical repertoire is something I crave to do. Let’s take a look at Blue Giant.
The original version of this review can be found at:
Justice League: Crisis on Infinite Earths Part Two (4k UHD) Review
As is sometimes the case when you write a review, one does not have the fortune of doing everything in it’s exact order. I was extremely excited when I found out I was reviewing the second part of Justice League: Crisis on Infinite Earth. 4k steelbooks are pretty hard to come by for review copies, and I was quite elated. One little problem, I had not been able to watch the first part of this planned trilogy. As I racked my brain and started to flip through some streaming channels, I was very fortunate to come upon HBO Max which had placed the first part on their service only a few days ago. Sometimes, it pays to be lucky more so than good. Let’s take a look at the second part and see if it can start to answer the questions left behind from the first.
The original review for this disc can be found at:
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Upcoming Reviews for May 2024
April was not the month writing wise I was hoping for. While I did put forth three reviews, two were music releases and I didn’t progress my “Kurt Russell” project any further despite my intentions. I can’t say that project will have any progress in May either because I have at least four reviews coming up. However, those four releases are pretty exciting and only one will be music related. Let’s talk about it.
St. Vincent – All Born Screaming CD Review
Rating – 3 3/4 stars out of 5
I have talked about St Vincent before when I reviewed her film, The Nowhere Inn. At that point, we were still relatively fresh from her sixth album, Daddy’s Home and I honestly did not expect a new album for several more years. As it turns out, it took about three years for a new album even though Annie Clark was writing from the moment her prior album was released. Her new album, All Born Screaming is entirely self-produced which can either be the harbinger of death as we saw with Jennifer Lopez‘s latest album or it can be a masterpiece, see Some Girls by The Rolling Stones or pretty much every Prince album in existence. So as excited as I was for new St Vincent music, I was also a little concerned that it might not have the same polish I have come to expect from some of her most celebrated releases. Let’s take a look.
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Monster (Blu-Ray) Review
My early life was spent growing up in Charlotte, North Carolina. Even though that childhood did have its own challenges, there were very few episodes of the bullying kind when it came to school. Those thirteen years were composed of silly antics and even sillier scuffles. Unfortunately, when it came to high school, my dad decided to move to Texas in search of a future. Later, as I lay down in the dirt with repeated violent kicks to my stomach and face with threats of gun violence if I tried to get up, I often wondered what kind of future my dad was actually trying to find. Today’s movie is Monster, a Japanese movie about bullying at a local school, but the true story lies in unraveling multiple viewpoints. Let’s take a look.
Shakira – Las Mujeres Ya No Lloran CD Review
Rating – 3 3/4 stars out of 5
I always want to stretch my limits when I am reviewing. I want to put myself in the chair so to speak and listen, watch or play all sorts of different pieces of media. Heck, if I thought I could appropriately write a vacuum cleaner review, I probably would (If I say it sucked, does that mean it’s a positive review?). Point is that nothing is off the table even if it is in a different language. I review foreign films all the time, I will be reviewing Monster, a Japanese movie in the near future. But what if I was to say that one of my favorite musical artists is the amazing Shakira? Well, I’m probably like a lot of red blooded guys then, but in this case I am doubling down on the situation and reviewing her latest album, Las Mujeres Ya No Lloran which is entirely in Spanish. No subs, no filters, just my ears and my half Mexican wife staring at me wide-eyed in the car. It’s a good time, let’s go.
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Polar Rescue (Blu-Ray) Review
We are all unfortunately mortal, despite most of us wishing to be otherwise. This is extremely true when it comes to action stars. While we might enjoy them performing death defying stunts, drag-out fights, and hair raising escapes, eventually time catches up with those performances. The great action stars have to develop, expand their craft and find a way to continue to produce entertaining films without alienating their original fan base. One such person who has been able to do this is Donnie Yen. Donnie is well known for his Ip Man films, and he was wonderful in John Wick 4 as well as other high intensity films. However, as of late, he’s dived into some comedy as well as some thrillers. By thrillers, I am referring to films where Donnie is not performing high flying martial arts, but rather ones where he is acting more as “the common man”. Today’s film is Polar Rescue (also known as Come Back Home) where he plays a dad trying to find his lost son in the frozen wilderness. Let’s see how it turns out.
Kurt Russell Review Page and Future Reviews
A quick one here. I have added a Kurt Russell (my favorite actor) review page which contains copies of every single one I’ve written whether it was here or on Upcomingdiscs.com. Obviously, a lot of these are old reviews and thoughts about his movies which probably need to be updated. Especially the part where there are two reviews for Escape from LA, one for the 4K and one for the blu-ray. In reality, I should only keep the one for the blu-ray because the 4k one only contains pieces of my previous review mixed in with comments that I didn’t write. However, I wanted to go ahead and just export it all, make a page and then clean it up a little later. There are gaps here I would certainly like to address and I want to add to this obviously over time. What I don’t want to do though is watch a bunch of Kurt Russell movies in a row and then don’t touch anything for a couple of years. That’s not really conducive. Any ideas, feel free to leave comments on this post. Enjoy.
3/6 Edit – After cleaning it up and playing with it, I think I have it like I want. I don’t like the thumbnails as small as they are but then I have to consider mobile. Of course, keep in mind there are two ways to access Kurt Russell reviews, one by the side bar on the right (that will give you the page format) and then the table format is the menu on top. Table format is sortable by title, film score and publish date (default). Any ideas to improve are most welcome.
Unlawful Entry (Blu-Ray) Review
Most of you that have read my reviews know that Kurt Russell is my favorite actor. However, I would like to think that most people when speaking about their favorite movie with Kurt Russell would probably say Escape from New York or The Thing. Maybe Tombstone or more recent films like The Hateful Eight. There is probably even that one person that absolutely loves Kurt Russell as Santa Claus or Coach Herb Books from Miracle. While my favorite film with Kurt Russell probably does bounce from Escape from New York to Breakdown to Big Trouble in Little China to The Thing again, I cannot deny that one of my favorite guilty pleasures is in the form of Unlawful Entry, a 1992 thriller with Ray Liotta and Madeleine Stowe that explores the themes of home invasion and misplaced trust. I sat down with my wife recently to take a look at the new Shout blu-ray release (my 4th or 5th time with the film, my wife’s first) and see how it fared.
