It debuts on demand Feb. 12 from FilmBuff. As Beauty Day informs us, Zavadil was a man before his time as cable-TV personality Cap’n Video, a David Lee Roth-looking, Jackass-style camcorder prankster who was doing his thing in the mid-1990s, before Johnny Knoxville and the gang even dreamt of getting paid to puke. Director Jay […]
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Lake Placid: The Final Chapter
I’m so kidding. However, it appears to pick up from where LP3 left off — I haven’t seen it — with crocodile hunter Reba (Yancy Butler, Shark Week) surviving a tussle with a giant croc … only to have it not be as dead as she first thought. “You again? You really wanna do this?” […]
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Kill for Me
For Hailey, it’s her dad (Donal Logue, Silent Night). For Amanda, it’s a stalkery ex-boyfriend. But problems can solved and, you know, you scratch my back, I scratch yours. In other words, Kill for Me, I kill for you. Director Michael Greenspan’s follow-up to the disastrous Wrecked is a marked improvement. It’s like a gender-swapped […]
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The Perks of Being a Wallflower
That’s what makes The Perks of Being a Wallflower so impressive. New to Blu-ray and DVD, it understands the excess of feeling that characterizes being a teenager, and it doesn’t prettify or minimize the trials faced by the shy and socially awkward kid sitting alone in the school cafeteria. Written and directed by Stephen Chbosky, […]
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Mimesis
Look, at least it’s not the new Night of the Living Dead 3D: Re-Animation, but that’s another review. There’s not much to Mimesis beyond the one-line summary above. Various attendees at a horror convention are invited to an exclusive, super-secret party that turns out to be the “game” — one in which they are stuck […]
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Hara-Kiri: Death of a Samurai
In other words, if it’s all-out action you seek, stick to 13 Assassins. You won’t get that until about the last 20 minutes of Hara-Kiri, but I’d argue the wait makes the clash of swords sounding all the more sweet. I’d also encourage viewers to consider them companion pieces, and to consume both. Set in […]
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The Protector / Crime Story
Glickenhaus’ The Protector casts Chan in one of the Asian superstar’s three mid-’80s, ill-fated attempts at conquering American cinema, with the other two being The Big Brawl and The Cannonball Run. While this 1985 film is nowhere near the greatness of the product Chan churned out back home, it’s worth the while. It’s also now […]
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Black’s Game
1. Among its producers is Nicolas Winding Refn, the filmmaker who steered Drive straight to the top of my list of 2011’s best films. 2. It opens with a title card that translates to “BASED ON REAL HARDCORE SHIT.” 3. See No. 2; repeat as necessary. Based on a novel based on a true story, […]
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Paul Williams: Still Alive
Both documentaries deal with a musician wrongly presumed to be dead; the difference here is that the love comes straight from the director, Stephen Kessler (Vegas Vacation), whose impetus for the project is purely, deeply personal. With all the extra layers removed, I began to feel it, too; his adoration for his subject is infectious. […]
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Funny or Die Presents: The Complete Second Season
Played with flawless deadpan by Steve Tom as an ersatz Leslie Nielsen, Haligan is the host of Funny or Die Presents, but also the Head of West Coast Sales & Marketing for the fictional Funny or Die Network, programming from which this sketch series is built. For season two, Haligan may have traded his sterile-white […]