The DVD Dump

Behind the Wall

Sometimes you just shouldn’t try to renovate a lighthouse with a history of murder and ghosts. Just saying.

Boot Camp

A boot camp turns into a prison camp in a movie that is probably better than this crappy trailer.

Frayed

Looks like a decent horror, but can we stop with the whole ‘based on true events’ tagline? Lionsgate has been playing the crap out for the past five years.

DVD Dump Pick of the Week

Ghost Image

What if that dark-haired chick in the Ring video actually tried talking to you instead of just coming out of the set and murdering you? Having a loved one being the one in the video helps too.

Life is Hot in Cracktown

A neighborhood of people try to survive in as much a way as you can survive in a neighborhood where you get gang-raped and shot at.

Love & Debate

You can choose between love or the ability to make your opinion heard. But you can only choose ONE!

Bridge to Nowhere

It’s good to know that if you’re low on money there is always prostitution.

The City is Mine

Whatever happen to sharing a city?

DVD Dump Pick of the Week

The Golden Boys

Doing a period piece must’ve been part of Rip Torn’s rehab.

Love Hollywood Style

May very well be the craziest Valentine’s Day movie ever made. And it’s not even a chick flick.

Stuntmen

Stuntmen everywhere need to stage a scene for this film to explode for sullying their name. And they’ll do it for the right price.

Surveillance

Bill Pulman and Julia Ormond play it up X-Files style without the science fiction. In other words, BORING!

The Wedding Bros

Wedding Crashers without the sex.

DVD Dump Pick of the Week

Alien Trespass

X-Files director R.W. Goodwin proves it’s never too late to make a movie about aliens in a post-war, nuclear-fearing 1950’s.

Almost Heaven

The only thing worse than working on a fishing show is doing it sober with your ex-wife.

The Art of War III: Retribution

Who better than Naughty By Nature’s Treach to stop the North Koreans from obtaining a nuclear bomb.

The Crypt

AKA The Cave 2

Dark Rising

Like that show Reaper, but with lesbians.

Dead by Dawn 2: The Return

Furthing the stereotype that twin sisters can only get acting careers in horror movies…and porn.

I Do…I Did

AKA Three’s Company the Movie.

The Last Resort

Horrifying murders mysteriously occur on the 

Mysterious Horrifying Murder Resort.

Road Trip: Beer Pong

Hey, you got your Road Trip in my Beerfest!

Safehouse

A former FBI agent just gets pulled back into a plot of murder and thumbdrives.

Steppin’

The black version of Step Up 2.

The Tiger’s Tail

Brendan Gleeson had it all until a Saw-plot came into his movie.

Beach Kings

Forget football! There is nothing more manly and hardcore than volleyball.

DVD Dump Pick of the Week:

The Butcher

Proving you can be a deadbeat who never pays anyone back as long as you can fire a gun.

Dakota Skye

Sure, a snarky teenager can BELIEVE she sees through lies. Still, if that truly is her power, then she is the lamest X-Men character ever.

Grey Gardens

Drew Barrymore looks crazy in this one. Not cute crazy, just crazy crazy.

Horsemen

From the director who watched all the Saw movies and played all the Silent Hill games.

Van Wilder: Freshman Year

Have we officially declared National Lampoon unfunny yet?

WONDER WOMAN

Featuring the voices of Keri Russell (Waitress) and Nathan Fillion (Serenity)

Of all the characters in the DC universe, I was never a big fan of Wonder Woman. Let’s face it; her character is an uber-feminist female Superman. And according to Justice League writer Dwayne McDuffie, she’s also the most expensive character to use. So I wasn’t too thrilled about a Wonder Woman animated movie, but I was cleverly surprised by this one. Not surprised enough that Wonder Woman is now my favorite superhero or my opinion of her has changed, but enough to be as entertaining as the previous DC animated movies if not more so.

Taking place before the birth of Diana (who becomes Wonder Woman), the film opens with a large scale battle of Amazons versus Ares. Ares loses after one of his family members is murdered and Zeus sentences him to jail time on the Amazon’s hidden island of
Themyscira, where you are eternally young (insert Peter Pan joke here). Fast forward to the present time when a US Air Force pilot, Steve Trevor, crash lands on Themyscira. At first he is ecstatic to be on an island full of eternally young women, except the women of Themyscira don’t really like men…at all. After all, the last one they saw was Ares, the god of war. During Steve’s presence on the island, Ares escapes thanks to a jailer-prisoner romance. So now the Amazons must deal with returning Steve to his home and bringing Ares back to jail. These tasks are appointed to Diana who, after disobeying her mother and competing in a contest of strength, becomes Wonder Woman. She dawns the ridiculous red, gold, and blue attire which, in comparison to other armor of the Amazons, looks silly. Don’t get me wrong, it certainly allows for maximum maneuverability, but it’s still hard to take someone seriously in a one-piece with boots and a tiara.

Most of the movie is a fish-out-of-water romance story between Steve Trevor and Wonder Woman which works surprisingly well. Of course, Wonder Woman beats us over the head several times how women can be better than men. The moment she gets to America she teaches a little girl how to fight boys. Thank goodness there is a character like Steve in this movie that doesn’t just act as a counter-point to Wonder Woman, but thinks more logically than she does. He’s saying what were all thinking be it his reaction to the Amazons or his major feminist problems Wonder Woman.

Of course, the movie is more than just a tale of Amazon meets American. Ares’ plot to take over the world serves its purpose of providing some nicely animated action scenes. Even though the logistics behind his plot (that rage and violence in the world makes him stronger) seem a bit heavy-handed in it’s message about war and peace. Not to mention his master plan for destroying Themyscira is not all that impressive for a god of war. But the film does have a strong climactic battle with an army of Amazons fighting a zombie army in Washington DC while Wonder Woman and Ares duke it out. The battles are very impressive, well-animated, and, as I stated previously, isn’t afraid to show some blood or sever some limbs. After all, if you have an army of sword-wielding Amazons, somebody is losing a head.

A-MOVIE RATING SYSTEM:

-Full Retail Price

-Bargain Bin

-Rental

-Skip This Bitch 

While I still think Wonder Woman is an overly feminist superhero with dorky accessories that make Aquaman look cool, this movie was very fun to watch with its great battles, good character chemistry, and lots of the elements of mythology. In other words, it’s an animated action movie that’s a bit ridiculous, but not ridiculously bad. I was just surprised a Wonder Woman movie could even be made this well. If WB can do this well with Wonder Woman, I’d love them to take a whack at making a whack at Aquaman.

<!–[if !mso]&gt;

st1\:*{behavior:url(#ieooui) } &lt;![endif]–>

Applause for Miss E

A heart-warming comedy about mom trying to break into comedy. But apparently it’s a controversial stage play?

Border Town

A modern western of a dude who just wants his daughter who was taken by a pimp. Now he’ll take everything. And that’s the movie’s actual tagline.

A Day in the Life

What kind of name is Sticky Fingaz? Is that what passes as a gangster name in this day and age?

Dead Wood

If you’ve never seen Wrong Turn or Blair Witch Project or Deliverence, you’ll probably think this is a real original and awesome movie.

Evil Bong 2: King Bong

Dammit, Charles Band! I knew you were no Sam Raimi when it came to horror, but why did you make a movie that was nothing but half-asked weed jokes? Do you even look at your movies after completing them? That puppet bong makes your special effects in the Puppet Master series look like ILM.

Five Fingers

Am I the only one who can’t buy Fishbourne’s accent in this movie?

Flying By

Billy Ray Cyrus, fresh off his role in the Hannah Montana movie, plays a middle aged dad who must decide between his family and his dreams of being a rock star. Although being married to Heather Locklear would seem like a deal breaker, she’s such a bitch in the trailer I’d leave her to pursue a dream of working at a video store.

Garrison

Inspired by the Fort Bragg murders of 2002, Garrison actually looks like a capable thriller.

DVD Dump Pick of the Week:

Night Train

What happens when you combine three strangers, a dead body, and a box full of diamonds? A crazy ditch-the-body-take-the-money movie with a chance to see some real acting from Danny Glover and Steve Zahn.

The Prodigy

Okay, I can be pretty lenient sometimes with animation being on a budget (I know what it’s like to animate in 3D), but this is unforgivable. Just watch the scene posted below and watch as NOTHING in the clip works well.

See Dick Run

Kel Mitchell must track down the women he slept with last night. Why? Apparently one of them is a succubus who stole his genitals. Yep, it’s Dude, Where Is My Dick.

A few months ago, two DVD distributors have shut down. These distributors were BCI Eclipse (He-Man, She-Ra, Bravestar, Isis, Jason of Star Command) and Central Park Media (Slayers, Utena, Grave of the Fireflies). I really admired both these companies for many reasons.

BCI Eclipse held the rights to a lot of Filmation properties including He-Man. They’d distribute many titles in relatively large sets that came with some incredible extras that would include audio commentary, retrospective interviews, specials, and behind the scenes extras. Navarre Corp, the parent company of BCI, shut them down late last year due to lack of profit for the last two years. I actually live not too far from the original BCI factory and I’ve been noticing a lot of their titles popping up at Half-Price Books in mint condition for super cheap. I picked up Jason of Star Command, Space Academy and Ark 2 for only $10 which had an SRP of $40. At this moment, He-Man (2002 remake) has been picked up by Mill Creek, the cheapest budget DVD distributor out there, who will release the series in more affordable sets.

Interestingly enough, CPM had similar problems except CPM hasn’t released a DVD in two years. Despite their lack producing a new product, the company has been around for over a decade and distributed many anime titles that have actually sold well over the years. They’ve also expanded over the years under such names Software Sculptors and US Manga Corp. The company filed for bankruptcy and shut down in late March. The rights to many of their titles have been bought up by other American anime distributors (ADV Films and FUNimation), however, they’re not making them cheaper nor making smart choices in titles. ADV Films has been very quick to grab these titles and make press releases ASAP. Worst of all, it seems that some of these titles are even MORE expensive than the previous company with no extras if any. Usually when you re-release a title, you change the packaging, add more extras, remaster it, make it cheaper, or ANYTHING. Considering the state of the anime market right now, it’ll be interesting to see how this plays out for the other companies.

We’re smart enough not to be swayed by the text and the back of a DVD case to persuade us to watch a movie. We can read between the lines. Let’s pick apart this weeks releases by analyzing the synopsis and interpreting what it really means.

Body Armour

Synopsis: Disgraced bodyguard John Ridley is torn between vengeance and duty when he’s forced to protect Lee Maxwell, the cold-blooded assassin who murdered Ridley’s client. But Ridley wants payback — and he’s determined to get it sooner or later, any way he can.

Analysis: Wacky revenge movie.

Born

Synopsis: Mary Elizabeth goes to bed alone one night, still a twenty-one-year-old virgin, and wakes up the next morning…pregnant. Possessed by the demon fetus growing within her womb, Mary Elizabeth obeys her homicidal cravings to kill…for the sake of her unborn spawn. Mary Elizabeth’s dark transformation is controlled by her unborn demon child’s deadly evil cravings. Once the child is born, there will be hell on earth. From this apparent immaculate conception comes edge-of-your-seat terror.

Analysis: Rosemary’s Baby with a Nightmare on Elm Street 2 twist.
The Cell 2

Synopsis: The Cusp is a serial killer who kills his victims and then brings them back to life; over and over again; until they beg to die; Maya is a psychic investigator who gained her powers after a one-year coma after she was the Cusp’s first victim. Now the Cusp Killer is back and Maya has little time to do what she has never done before, go into the mind of a killer unprotected, and save his latest victim.

Analysis: The Cell Redux.

DVD Dump Pick of the Week

Hydra

Synopsis: Former marine Tim Nolan has been kidnapped — along with three ex-convicts — and forced to participate in a deadly game. Wealthy men have paid a fortune for the opportunity to hunt down men like him in the perfect place: a deserted island. However, this is no ordinary island — it is home to Hydra the Beast. As the hunters track down their prey, the Hydra quickly turns hunter into hunted. With the island crumbling beneath him, Nolan finds himself in a race against time to stop the beast and get off the island alive.

Analysis: Monster Island 2009

Killing Ariel

Synopsis: One night, a female demon attacks Rick, a contentedly married man. Under the spell of the demon, he takes a beautiful young woman, Ariel, off to an isolated house for a weekend fling. There, bizarre and frightening things happen, and accidentally Rick kills Ariel. But she won’t stay dead. He soon realizes that she is the demon that first attacked him. He defends himself by killing her again… And again… But no matter how many times he kills her, she keeps coming back. When he finally escapes and returns home, he discovers that his life has disappeared into a nightmare of madness, lust, adultery, and cold-blooded murder.

Analysis: My Girlfriend is a Demon, Next Maury.

The Perfect Sleep

Synopsis: Against the backdrop of a noirish dreamscape, a tortured man returns to the city he swore he would never return to, in order to save the woman he has always loved yet can never have.

Analysis: Sin City sans style

Skid Marks: The Movie

Synopsis: “SKID MARKS” is the hilarious tale of two rival ambulance companies and their misfit medics; the Bayside Ambulatory Life Services ( B.A.L.S) team and the Downtown Intensive Care (D.I.C.) Unit. When budget cuts strike their quiet town of Bayside, it’s clear one ambulance unit must go. Now with their jobs on the line, these below-average EMT’s (emergency medical technicians) are about to prove they’ll stop at nothing to save their patients, their alter egos and their beer money. Hold on to you seat cushions and take your meds, as the heroes of “SKID MARKS” penetrate a theater near you.

Analysis: Police Academy, Emergency Squad

Tommy and the Cool Mule

Synopsis: Tommy Braxton’s father goes to war and never returns, forcing Tommy to become the man of the house and help support his mom and sister. Tommy makes a friend and finds a way to save his family’s farm when he meets Jackie-A—a talking mule. Against all odds, Tommy and Jackie-A triumph in a race over the older bullies and their horses at the county stock show, in a spectacular display of resolve and determination that caps off a winning family adventure!

Analysis: Ice-T’s latest venture for more money

What Goes Up

Synopsis: When a group of teenage social misfits befriends jaded journalist, who’s on assignment in their small New Hampshire town, they each find themselves searching for meaning and truth in their crazy, mixed-up lives. But as Babbitt gets to know these eccentric kids better—Lucy in particular—their hidden secrets begin to rise to the surface, changing each other’s lives forever.

Analysis: The Hillary Duff Hipster Movie

Just when I thought Blu-Ray was going to be the standard in ridiculous new DVD features, the DVD format surprises me with TellX Active-Video. This new (d)evolutionary technology in needless interactivity works almost as a mini Blu-Ray submenu. Except for the fact that with Blu-Ray you can still watch the movie with the submenu up. In other words, you stop the movie so a dinky menu can appear and offer up extras. According to TellX’s website, here are the ‘key’ benefits.

1. TellX embellishes and extends traditional movie storytelling for directors and audiences alike with on-demand compelling interactive information relevant to the scene being watched.
2. A TellX enabled DVD answers viewer’s questions about anything they see or hear whenever they see or hear it!
3. TellX is available “On-Demand” at the point-of-interest and never gets in the way or distracts from the viewers enjoyment of the movie.
4. TellX is embedded along with the movie on a standard DVD and requires no new player and no new format discs just a standard DVD player and remote control and the excitement of being able to “Touch The Movie” with TellX!

Did you get all that? Unless you’re a SUPER creepy movie geek of the highest/lowest geekdom who really wants to know the EXACT location where a movie was filmed, there is NOTHING of interest here. If they really wanted to show off this new technology, it would’ve helped to have it on a movie you’d actually care about rather than a DTV movie like The Code. Not to mention there is NOTHING new about this point-of-interest technology. It floors me how this technology that’s been floating around for almost a decade is seen as new and revolutionary. What’s even more pathetic is that back in the early 2000’s point-of-interest interactivity was just a gimmicky toy on DVDs like Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within and AKIRA. Yet I see it touted like incredible technology on new DVDs like The Dark Knight.

To all DVD manufacturers, STOP MAKING FOCAL POINT-OF-INTEREST EXTRAS! If I want to see the featurettes on the disc, I’ll watch the damn featurettes. I’m not going to sit through the movie and watch the featurettes when YOU tells me to. What kind of messed up logic is that?

Besides, why would I want to TOUCH a movie? Do they even read what they write on their website?

Drudging through the glut of direct-to-video/low-budget horror movies that come out every week, it’s easy to lose faith in the horror genre. Even recent theatrical horror movies are proving that the genre is being pushed in the wrong direction. That is really sad because I want horror to be good considering the best theater experiences I’ve had in the last decade have been at horror movies. Snakes on a Plane in 2006 was such a giddy blast and Grindhouse in 2007 was an unforgettable experience that sadly isn’t replicated on DVD. However, while those were essentially horror movies, they were satires of the genre. Finally, Sam Raimi has returned to the horror stage to remind us of what makes a truly great horror movie. Drag Me To Hell is everything that horror should be (and needs to be). Now I’m a 23-year-old guy whose seen a lot of horror movies and none of them scare me. Drag Me To Hell scared me.

Drag Me To Hell follows Christine Brown (Alison Lohman), a loan officer on the verge of becoming an assistant manager, who ends up being cursed by a gypsy for not giving her an extension on her mortgage (which she’s already had two of). Not to give too much away, but the curse involves the Lamia, a demon that tortures you for three days before dragging you to you-know-where. And with that simple setup, Ms. Brown is tortured for the rest of the movie in a variety of ways as she struggles to find a way out. Some hardcore horror movie fans may be put off by the films PG-13 rating, but I assure you this is a HARD PG-13. It’s just one severed finger away from being R-rated. However, all of Raimi’s classic slapstick elements and gross-out humor present in the Evil Dead movies is in full force here. Now, for the easily-scared, there are a lot of jump-scares in this movie. I’ve never been a fan of jump-scares; I think they’re an amateur attempt at trying to scare the audience. However, Raimi finds a way to make them interesting. Never once does Raimi have an oh-it’s-just-you jump-scare. And usually the jump-scare is followed with a laugh of slapstick or disgust. Again, not to give to much away, but if you’re familiar with Raimi’s early work, you can see the ending coming a mile away. However, I cannot stress just how awesome and fun Drag Me To Hell really is. DO NOT WAIT FOR THIS ON DVD! SEE IT IN THE THEATER!

My hope is that after Raimi’s triumphant return, we’ll start seeing a new trend in horror. Hopefully, a return to the golden classics of horror. What kind of horror am I talking about? Well…

EVIL DEAD 2: Chainsaws, shotguns, dismemberment, heaps of blood, crazy camera tricks, need I go on?

DEAD ALIVE: Gallons of blood with incredible practical effects and some of the best gorey humor you’ll ever see.

NIGHTMARE ON ELM STREET: Freddy Kruger is the jackal of the horror genre and also the most dangerous considering he can attack you in your dreams. A serial killer of the surreal world.

FRIDAY THE 13th: Before the ‘cool’ Jason with the hockey mask, Camp Crystal Lake was terrorized by Jason’s mommy. Jason’s crazy obsessed mommy. But, hey, I’d be pissed too if my child died while camp instructors were making out.

NIGHT OF THE LIVING DEAD: Classic zombie movie with a not-so-conventional ending.

PHANTASM: An old, tall caretaker trying to kill you because he is actually an interdimensional alien is enough to freak me out. And if you’re only 12-years-old, even more frightening.

HALLOWEEN: Proof that you don’t need blood to make an effective horror movie.

CREEPSHOW: You haven’t seen disgusting until you’ve seen Creepshow. Also, one of the rare Lessle Neelson serious roles.