But for those who do like this type of thing, who are open to all its icky, sticky, gruesomely sadistic, blood-slathered charms, Diez has done a nice job of giving Aresty’s script life. [Stung] builds well, has some superb set pieces and offers up a relatively winning climax I was perfectly satisfied with.
Alien Outpost holds up surprisingly well the second time around. While not a great or terribly profound motion picture, it’s still far more entertaining than it maybe has any right to be, and as such I’m quite happy to add the Blu-ray to my personal library.
[Magic Mike XXL] is a blast, an animated shot of bare-chested adrenaline that’s easy to drink and even more satisfying to savor, the sequel stripping inhibitions to the point they vanish leaving only pleasure behind.
But in the pursuit of setting up a new world, as well as planting the seeds for future sequels, the filmmakers fail to construct a self-contained story worthy of an audience’s attentions let alone their emotional investment. It’s a robotic descent into Hollywood financed, corporate-driven stupidity, diluting a once powerful franchise to a place it had yet to travel to until now: irrelevance.
Hayao Miyazaki’s Spirited Away is one of the greatest animated films ever made. Period.
Stiller and especially Watts continue to amaze, the latter so much so I’m starting to think she’s worthy of award consideration come the end of the year (it won’t happen but I’m not going to let that stop me from dreaming that it potentially could all the same). I like [While We’re Young], flaws and all, and in many ways this might just be the most accessible motion picture Baumbach has ever directed.
The Cat Returns might not be Studio Ghibli at its absolute best but that still makes it one of the better animated efforts young, old and everyone in-between alike are likely ever to see. Disney’s presentation is stellar, and as such fans are urged to snatch this Blu-ray up the very second it goes on sale.
[Sleepaway Camp II: Unhappy Campers] has plenty of lo-fi charm, and while its central exploitive elements aren’t anywhere near as questionable as the first film’s it still has enough blatantly in-your-face material to satisfy even the most demanding of genre fans for the majority (but not all) of its brief 80 minute running time.
“With kids, what’s the first language they speak? Well, that’s emotion…Even if they don’t understand the specifics of what is being talked about, if they see a character is upset or fearful or happy, they respond to that.”