StuffWeLike Related – Page 26

The Land – DVD Review

theland

Every human being on the planet has some level of drive, desire, and ambition. To be the best at something and do what they can to achieve that goal. Even if they fall on their face in defeat, sometimes trying and failing is truly better than never attempting at all. When we meet our four heroes in The Land, they, too, have dreams and aspirations. True, theirs may not be groundbreaking feats of power or prestige, but in their world of skateboarding, what they desire to do makes them legends in their own time.

Cleveland, Ohio. A city of many stories, and four of those belong to friends Cisco, Junior, Patty Cake, and Boobie, four friends with a passion and desire to skateboard their way through summer. Well…they also enjoy carjacking people with the help of their skateboards, which is all well and good until the one day they steal the car of the wrong dude.

While plundering his trunk, the foursome come across bags of pills – MDMA to be exact – that their de factor leader, Cisco, decides is their ticket to skateboarding Nirvana. But when the drug tycoon who owns the pills finds out that the pills have been taken, what happens takes the four friends on a dangerous adventure they won’t soon forget.

With a solid soundtrack and gritty visuals, The Land is a gripping drama about four young men whose fates change forever over the course of a summer of mishaps, missteps, and misadventures.

The DVD includes a short featurette about the making of the film and the film’s trailer.

I highly recommend The Land!

The Land is available now on DVD.

What’s your favorite film or TV series based in Cleveland, Ohio? Leave a comment and let us know!

Blood Father – Blu-ray Review

bloodfather_bd_3dskew

Blood Father is a suspenseful, action-packed film that shows what lengths a father will go to to help his estranged daughter get out of a pretty complex situation. Mel Gibson delivers a powerful and intense performance as John Link, an ex-con and recovering alcoholic whose daughter, Lydia (Erin Moriarty), has been missing for years. When the two reunite, she’s got the weight of the world on her back and a price on her head. It’s a good thing her dad’s got a few tricks up his sleeve and few friends to enlist for help along the way.

From that point forward, John and Lydia are on the run, dodging bullets, hotwiring cars, and hitching rides to stay off the beaten path to keep Lydia out of harm’s way. Will the cartel catch up to her and make her pay for her transgressions? Will John keep her safe?

Blood Father is an exciting and tense ride that also includes the talents of William H. Macy (Shameless), Michael Parks (Django Unchained), Miguel Sandoval (Jurassic Park), and Dale Dickey (Hell or High Water). Director Jean-François Richet delivers an excellent balance between the father-daughter dynamic and the action sequences that gives both depth and nuance as the film progresses. No shot or scene is wasted in this well-crafted film.

The lone special feature is a very intriguing and insightful documentary, Lost Souls: On the Road With Blood Father, which gives us a closer look at the production and the process of adapting a novel into a feature film. Very enjoyable!

I highly recommend Blood Father. It’s a solid piece of filmmaking with excellent performances from Gibson and the entire cast.

Blood Father is available now on DVD, Blu-ray, and Digital Download.

What’s your favorite Mel Gibson movie? Leave a comment and let us know!

Mike & Molly: The Sixth and Final Season – DVD Review

“Warner Bros. Home Entertainment provided me with a free copy of the DVD I reviewed in this Blog Post. The opinions I share are my own.”

mikemolly_s6

I have loved Mike & Molly since the pilot, and thoroughly enjoyed every episode all the way through the series finale. There was a special magic that the series had. A genuine mix of hardcore laughs and real heart that made the show’s characters multi-dimensional and downright entertaining. They were characters you wanted to watch, wanted to see in their greatest moments and darkest defeats. Mike & Molly delivered so many memorable moments over its much too short six season run. It’s a series that I will definitely miss.

I have been to four tapings of Mike & Molly at Warner Bros. Studios (yes, it is a live audience), and you could tell that this cast loved what they were doing. Two of the four times I had the opportunity to meet the cast and get their autographs. Very nice people. A cast that truly was grateful for fans that enjoyed their work and their love of delivering laughs on a weekly basis.

When I heard the series was being cancelled and that the final season would be cut down to only 13 episodes, I was a bit surprised. It’s a solid Chuck Lorre series, the man who brought us Two and a Half Men, The Big Bang Theory, and Mom, had yet another feather in his cap with Mike & Molly. It had even earned star Melissa McCarthy an Emmy for Outstanding Lead Actress in a Comedy Series.

Then, of course the rumors as to why it was cancelled began to circulate, but all of them seemed like merely rumors and not the real reason why the show had ended so soon. Even so, I am glad that the series did get a legitimate finale and wasn’t just cancelled out of the blue with no closure for the storyline and its characters.

Mike & Molly mixed edgy, broad comedy with heartwarming moments from flawed, outspoken characters. It was unapologetic in its approach to getting laughs, much like Two and a Half Men. But while Two and a Half Men was joke-joke-joke, Mike & Molly had the ability to balance the joke-joke-joke formula with many touching and even tear-inducing moments over the course of its run. I think it’s what made it easier to connect with them: they weren’t just joke machines; they came across as real people in a lot of ways.

Watching such a talented cast bring 110% to each episode was always a treat. Melissa McCarthy and Billy Gardell brought us Molly Flynn and Mike Biggs, two strangers who met at an Overeaters’ Anonymous Meeting. Their story grew from first date, to moving in together, to engagement, to marriage, to trying to have a baby, to changing careers, to deciding to adopt all in six short seasons.

Along for the ride were Mike’s best friend Carl (Reno Wilson); Molly’s mom and sister, Joyce and Victoria, (Swoosie Kurtz and Katy Mixon); Carl’s eventual roommate, Samuel (Nyambi Nyambi); Joyce’s husband, Vince (Louis Mustillo); Mike’s mom, Peggy (Rondi Reed); and Carl’s Grandma (Cleo King). And, of course, we can’t forget Peggy’s dog, Jim (Suzie Q).

When you have a supporting cast like these performers, it’s no wonder the series had as many laughs as it did. All of them were spot-on with their characters, never missing a beat, always on their game and ready to play comedy hardball. I feel the sign of a great cast is when you can mix random characters together and the comedy still plays. The Mike & Molly cast is one of these ensembles. You can have any character paired with any other character and there will be guaranteed laughs.

I would like to add a note about Melissa McCarthy. She is amazing as a sitcom actor. It’s definitely a medium she is comfortable in and I would love to see her back doing it again. Her ability to not only deliver great comedic lines but also her penchant for physical comedy and her no-fear attitude put her in the same category of Lucille Ball (I Love Lucy, The Lucy Show, Here’s Lucy) and Julia Louis-Dreyfus (Seinfeld, The New Adventures of Old Christine, Veep) in my book of great sitcom comediennes.

So, what did I think of the final season? I loved it. It was WAY too short, but I loved every minute of it. I guess it’s better for the series to end on a high note than to end and people ask “Was that still on?” I have to admit I did shed a tear during the final moments of the finale.

Yeah, it’s silly, but I did meet the cast and could tell how much they loved working together. Just like any job, it can be hard to find a group that you have a real chemistry with. I feel like this cast had that. No drama. No tabloid lunacy. Just a true passion and love for their work.

The only special feature is the Gag Reel, which is hilarious as always.

I highly, highly, highly recommend Mike & Molly: The Sixth & Final Season on DVD. Oh, and if you really love the show and don’t have any seasons, Mike & Molly: The Complete Series comes out the same day.

I love it, I’ll miss it, but it’s on DVD forever so at least it’s not gone forever!

Thank you, Mike & Molly cast and crew for six great seasons of laughs!

Mike & Molly: The Sixth & Final Season and Mike & Molly: The Complete Series are available Tuesday, October 11, 2016 on DVD!

What was your favorite season, scene, moment, character of the series? Leave a comment and let us know!

6 Plots – DVD Review

6-plots_3ddvd

Horror is an interesting genre. Done correctly, it has the power to terrify and linger with an audience long after the film has ended. Done poorly, it can frustrate an audience and leave the bored with either the predictability of the story or the complete lack of suspense. It’s a fine line between doing horror right and doing it wrong with horror films coming out of the woodwork every week either in theaters or on video.

Enter 6 Plots, a 2012 teen horror film from Australia, that has an intriguing concept that unfortunately fails to pay off in any way. It’s a clever twist on the Saw genre of torture porn films, but there are a lot of elements missing throughout the film’s narrative that cause it to become less entertaining as the movie plods along.

Horror films tend to deliver a strong female protagonist whom the audience can empathize with at the start of the film. Whether it’s Laurie Strode in Halloween of Sydney Prescott in Scream, it’s important that we as an audience have a lead character that we are ready to take a journey with through the horror that is about to commence. In 6 Plots we are given Brie (Alice Darling) who is part of the “It” crowd at her school and is also into partying, drinking, and drugs. She has no tragic backstory that causes us to empathize with her, she’s just one of the popular kids like the other six of her friends whom she joins for a weekend party at a beach house.

Upon waking in the aforementioned – but now darkened – beach house, Brie quickly discovers that all of her friends have been taken and buried in wooden boxes by a mysterious person who contacts her with a demented talking smiley on her phone with two rules: no parents, no authorities. If either of those get introduced into the mix, her friends will start to die. The killer uses technology to live-stream the fates of each of Brie’s friends to her as she struggles to find them before it’s too late. Oh, and they all have their phones so they can communicate with each other. And the killer is live-streaming their fates to the world as well.

The issue here is that it’s a clever concept that lacks any real suspense. I think it’s mainly because we have no vested interest in any of the characters. We know them as a group of popular kids who party, but we have no other real information about them. I know, I know, it’s a horror movie and they’re just bodies to be counted as the death toll increases. I get it. The problem here is that they aren’t really presented as good people so their deaths are not as shocking or traumatic for the audience as they probably should be.

Now, as a fan of the Saw franchise, I enjoy seeing the contraptions made by Jigsaw actually brought to life as time runs out for his victims. It’s what makes those films work. Here, each victim is trapped in a box and meets a similar fate through confinement. While the method of death may change, there’s no real change in how they die. They just do since they can’t really do much else. As Brie rushes to save the day and gather clues as to where they are and who remains, I found myself losing interest since the deaths became more repetitive than clever.

So, let’s talk about the finale, which also lacked any cathartic moment, no true revelation as to who the killer was and what their motive in doing all of this truly was, either. Granted, we do get a general idea as to who and possibly why, but it would have been nice to be given an idea how the killer pulled off such an amazing feat as drugging seven people, dragging six out of the beach house, sealing all six in wooden boxes, burying them throughout the city in a specific pattern, then making sure each box had a unique death attached to it via remote. Whew! Hope the killer had some help!

There’s also no vindication for those that remain alive. Even the final moments of the film where we do get a hint as to who the real killer was lack any real heft that would make us think a huge twist had just been revealed. I wanted more, and got much less.

To their credit, the filmmakers did create a visually dynamic world in which their film takes place, and the concept is solid. Also the use of the most advances tech by the killer was pretty impressive. It is in the overall execution of the film’s story that things falter and derail.

I wanted to like 6 Plots. I was excited when I saw the DVD cover that touted it as “Buried Meets Saw.” However, the end result was more anti-climactic TV movie, or mundane episode of The Secret Life of the American Teenager or even BBC’s Skins than gritty and gory horror.

Special Features include The Making of 6 Plots.

6 Plots is available now on DVD and Digital Download.

What’s your favorite scary movie? Leave a comment and let us know!

The Caretaker – Movie Review

There are events in the lives of many people that they wish to forget. For them, the psychological function of repression is a powerful tool that can help eliminate painful and tragic memories from the mind to the point that they can almost feel non-existent. But when these traumatic events are triggered by an object, a person, or a fleeting memory, what follows can be as equally pain-inducing as the initial event.

What happens when such an event returns to one’s consciousness with such force that emotions and actions cause unintended harm? In The Caretaker, we get a glimpse at the dangers of repression, the aftermath of tragedy gone ignored, and the repercussions of past traumatic events that swallow anyone involved in present day activities in their wake of violence.

Birdie (Sondra Kerr Blake) is an elderly woman whom many believe to be a witch. When her initial caretaker has had enough of her shenanigans and the strange events that surround her, Birdie’s granddaughter, Mallorie (Meegan Walker), finds herself tasked with keeping watch over her grandmother. Along with Mallorie’s boyfriend, August (Sean Martini), the duo do their best to care for the aged woman; but mysterious things begin to happen around the house.

Mallorie soon starts having visions and sleepwalking. It’s all a bit much for August who wants nothing more than to get away from the creepy house and its ancient inhabitant (and she doesn’t care much for him, either). When Mallorie uncovers a truth about her grandmother’s past that she had long since repressed, the young woman finds herself trapped in the powerful grip of a world she had once thought gone forever.

Filled with plenty of twists and many creepy moments, The Caretaker draws you into its mysterious narrative and unfolds piece-by-piece until the final revelation leaves you both shocked and a tad off-kilter. It’s a solid work of supernatural storytelling that will have you on the edge of your seat until the screen goes black.

Look for character actor Barry Jenner in one of his final performances. TV fans will know him best as Lieutenant Murtaugh on Family Matters and as Admiral Ross on Star Trek: Deep Space Nine. Jenner and the rest of the cast deliver stellar performances that are both entertaining and intriguing to watch.

I recommend The Caretaker!

The Caretaker is available now on iTunes, Amazon, and other digital platforms.

What’s your favorite supernatural-based movie? Leave a comment and let us know!