Feeds:
Posts
Comments

DVD review: Cleanup on aisle five

July 3, 2011 by butlerscinemascene

Rutger Hauer goes postal in "Hobo with a Shotgun"

“HOBO WITH A SHOTGUN” (Available July 5)

Is it a good bad movie? A bad good movie?

“Hobo with a Shotgun” muddies the distinctions.

It’s based on a fan-created faux trailer that won Quentin Tarantino’s Grindhouse Trailer Contest, which means that from the outset this tale of a hobo (Rutger Hauer) who single-handedly cleans up a corrupt, crime-riddled city is packed with over-the-top violence and bad (deliberately so, one hopes) acting.

After all, the Grindhouse concept embraces the lurid tackiness Continue Reading »

Posted in New on DVD, Popcorn movies | Tagged , , | Leave a Comment »

DVD review: Strut your smut with “ELEKTRA LUXX”

July 2, 2011 by butlerscinemascene

Carla Gugino and Timothy Olyphant in "Elektra Luxx"

“ELEKTRA LUXX” (Now available)

I’ll watch Carla Gugino in anything (“Spy Kids” movies excepted); apparently I’m not alone in this.

Which may account for the straight-to-video success of 2009’s “Women in Trouble” and now this sequel, “Elektra Luxx.”

Both comedies feature Gugina — ravishing in blond wig and cleavage-challenging fashions — as Elektra Luxx, a legendary porn star. This new entry finds Elektra retired from the skin game and pregnant with the baby of a recently deceased rock star.

The films — both directed by Sebastian Gutierrez — are story thin and smarm rich. Basically they’re a series of loosely-related comic episodes Continue Reading »

Posted in New on DVD, Popcorn movies | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , | 1 Comment »

“BUCK”: Tall in the Saddle

July 1, 2011 by butlerscinemascene

Buck Brannaman

“BUCK” My rating: B+ (Opens wide on July 1)

88 minutes | MPAA rating: PG

Heroes are hard to come by in this day and age. But I think we’ve got a new one.

Buck Brannaman trains horses. He is, in fact, one of the men on whom the title character of “The Horse Whisperer” was based.

His ability to read these animals, to commune with them telepathically (one good old boy rancher calls it “voodoo”), to meld minds so that no sooner does Brannaman think it than the horse responds, would be enough to make him a world-class curiosity.

But as the new documentary “Buck” illustrates, what makes Brannaman truly heroic is not his skill with horses Continue Reading »

Posted in Documentaries | Tagged , , , , | Leave a Comment »

“LARRY CROWE”: Lower education

July 1, 2011 by butlerscinemascene

Julia Roberts and Tom Hanks in "Larry Crowne"

“LARRY CROWNE”  My rating: C (Opens wide on July 1)

99 minutes | MPAA rating: PG-13

“Larry Crowne” is so slight a romantic comedy that it’s hardly even there.

It’s not unpleasant. It has moments of lightweight charm.

But given the powerhouse potential of stars Julia Roberts and Tom Hanks Continue Reading »

Posted in Popcorn movies | Tagged , , , , , , , , | 2 Comments »

“CONAN O’BRIEN CAN’T STOP” : Anger and exhilaration

July 1, 2011 by butlerscinemascene

“CONAN O’BRIEN CAN’T STOP”  My rating: B- (Opening July 1 at the Screenland Crossroads)

89 minutes | MPAA rating: R

It’s said that comedy is born of anger. And you’ll no find a better illustration of that than Conan’s O’Brien’s Legally Prohibited from Being Funny on Television Tour.

In the wake of his 2010 breakup/betrayal with NBC, the former “Tonight Show” host — who in return for a huge cash settlement agreed not to appear on TV, radio or the Internet for six months — opted to launch a nationwide comedy tour.

It was no small affair: a full band, backup singers/dancers, elaborate props (like a masturbating stuffed panda) and an ever-changing slate of special guests.

And it was all fueled by rage.

In “Conan O’Brien Can’t Stop” the normally affable funnyman Continue Reading »

Posted in Art house fare, Documentaries | Tagged , , , , | Leave a Comment »

DVD Review: A man’s home is his castle

June 30, 2011 by butlerscinemascene

“DELIVER US FROM EVIL”   (Available June 28)

This gritty Scandinavian thriller clearly was inspired by Sam Peckinpah’s seminal “Straw Dogs” (which, perhaps not coincidentally, is the subject of an American  remake set for September release).

It begins as a sort of dysfunctional family drama. Johannes (Lasse Rimmer) is a well-to-do lawyer who has returned to his small hometown in Jutland’s lowlands. He’s got a sexy wife, a couple of kids and lots of big-city ideas that the brutish locals find amusing and somewhat irritating.

Among these primitives is Johannes’ ne’er-do-well brother Lars (Jens Andersen), an over-the-road trucker who, while fumbling with a cell phone, drives over a local woman. Hiding her body near the highway, Continue Reading »

Posted in New on DVD | Tagged , | Leave a Comment »

DVD review: Eluding Big Brother

June 30, 2011 by butlerscinemascene

“ERASING DAVID” (Available June 28)

In this hugely thought-provoking doc from Britain, filmmaker David Bond kisses his child and pregnant wife goodbye and attempts to disappear.

His goal: to elude for one full month a pair of  professional investigators  he’s hired to track him down.

For anyone who has ever though it might be cool to simply pack it all in and live off the information grid, “Erasing David” will be a sobering reality check. Continue Reading »

Posted in Documentaries, New on DVD | Tagged , , , | Leave a Comment »

“TRANSFORMERS: DARK OF THE MOON”: Soulless smackdown

June 27, 2011 by butlerscinemascene

“TRANSFORMERS: DARK OF THE MOON” My rating: C (Opens wide June 29)

153 minutes | Audience rating: PG-13

I’m not going to tell you that Michael Bay has no soul. Only that I’ve never seen evidence of one in any of his films.

The irony, of course, is that by commercial standards Bay is the filmmaker of his generation, able to hits the mass audience’s sweet spot with a fusion of flash, noise, endless f/x and eye-blurring action.

Characterization? Content? Subtext?

Who needs ‘em?

Continue Reading »

Posted in Popcorn movies | Tagged , , , , , , | 2 Comments »

Buck Brannaman: Quiet dignity

June 27, 2011 by butlerscinemascene

Cowboy culture is tough, rough and taciturn, right?

Slow-talking guys in jeans and Stetsons.

Yep.

Nope.

Thank you, Ma’am.

Not a whole lot of touchy-feely.

But here’s Buck Brannaman, quite possibly the most important cowboy in America, talking to the documentary camera about his abuse-filled childhood.

About how his widowed father would go on drunken tears and beat Buck and older brother Smokey.

About the winter night when young Buck, terrified of another session of torment, fled into sub-zero weather in his pajamas and survived by sharing a ranch dog’s straw-filled barrel.

Ironically, that tortured childhood may have been instrumental in creating the man Buck Brannaman is today, a real-life horse whisperer whose clinics for horses and their owners are legendary, whose methodology rejects “breaking” an animal and instead relies on his ability to get on the equine wavelength.

After a session with the gentle Brannaman, a horse seems to know telepathically what he wants it do do.

“I dream about horses,” Brannaman said Continue Reading »

Posted in Art house fare, Documentaries | Tagged , , , | 3 Comments »

DVDs: Brainiacs

June 24, 2011 by butlerscinemascene

A balloon the size of a football stadium will lift the BLAST telescope array above Earth's atmosphere to photograph deep space.

The science is hands on and way out there in two recent documentaries just out on DVD:

“BLAST!”:  The title stands for “balloon-bourne large aperture submillimeter telescope” which, I’ll grant you, doesn’t sound all that sexy.

Wrong. Wrong. Wrong.

Paul Devlin’s documentary is about a group of astrophysicists who hope to photograph deep space by using a massive balloon — it’s the size of a football stadium — to lift a sophisticated telescope above our atmosphere. There it can drift for several days, taking pictures of parts of our universe never before seen.

Most of the team members — professionals and grad students — hail from the University of Pennsylvania and the University of Toronto.

Devlin’s film follows months of preparation as the telescope is hand crafted. Then his cameras tag along Continue Reading »

Posted in Deep thoughts...maybe, Documentaries, New on DVD | Tagged , , , | 1 Comment »

« Newer Posts - Older Posts »