Month: February 2018

Articles, The Scream Factory Crypt

The Scream Factory Crypt Part 2: The Autopsy of Jane Doe

Welcome to the Scream Factory Crypt! In this binge series I will be watching all my Scream Factory titles I own alphabetically! Scream Factory is my favorite imprint of Blu-Ray’s because they take movies that studios and the public might not adore but have fans and deserve to be given respect. This will take a long time as I have over 120(!) titles and counting, I know I will have more before I finish, so stay tuned!  Not only will I talk about them on the podcast but I will review them here as well so you can see how I feel about aspects of each release. Part 2 is The Autopsy of Jane Doe.

The Autopsy of Jane Doe came seemingly out of nowhere and captured the attention of horror fans. The film starts Emile Hirsch and Brian Cox as a son and father coroners who one night are brought the body of a beautiful young woman who was found at a horrific crime scene. The sheriff asks the men to find out who she is and how she died.

The Autopsy of Jane Doe is expertly shot and staged. The film plays as both a great horror film and psychological thriller. It slowly builds tension as it peels back the layers of the mystery. Hirsch and Cox are fantastic, having wonderful chemistry together. As the mystery unfolds the film does fall into some familiar horror tropes which keep it from being an all-time great. It is however one solid horror film.

The picture is solid throughout the film with little in the way of blemishes or compression issues. The scenes are appropriately lit with some nice lighting that sneaks in at the right time.

The sound is solid but nothing special. The sound effects are great and come through with precise clarity. The dialogue sometimes is drowned out however and that keeps the disc for being truly special audibly.

The most disappointing aspect of this release is the special features are not special. All we get are trailers for the film with about a total of 6 minutes of Jane Doe trailers. I would have loved to hear what the film makers said about this film.

I do recommend The Autopsy of Jane Doe on the strength of film and the standout picture quality. The audio is good not great, but the special features leave a lot to be desired.

Film: B+

Video: A-

Sound: B

Extras: D

Overall: B

 

 

Articles, The Scream Factory Crypt

The Scream Factory Crypt Part 1: Army of Darkness

Welcome to the Scream Factory Crypt! In this binge series I will be watching all my Scream Factory titles I own alphabetically! Scream Factory is my favorite imprint of Blu-Ray’s because they take movies that studios and the public might not adore but have fans and deserve to be given respect. This will take a long time as I have over 120(!) titles and counting, I know I will have more before I finish, so stay tuned!  Not only will I talk about them on the podcast but I will review them here as well so you can see how I feel about aspects of each release. First up, my favorite movie, Army of Darkness!

Army of Darkness has had many releases on home video, and finally Scream Factory puts all of the meaningful cuts of the film on a stupendous 3-Disc Collector’s Edition. I am biased as I stated above this is my favorite movie and I have bought every version of this on VHS, DVD and Blu-Ray. I am happy to say that this is about as definitive as you can get.

Army of Darkness follows Ash Williams as he is sucked into a worm hole at the end of Evil Dead 2 and winds up in 13th century England. After literally falling from the sky, the King of the land, Arthur believes he is part of Henry the Red’s army, his sworn enemy. Soon Arthur learns that Ash is not part of Henry’s army but indeed from the future. Ash soon sets out to retrieve the Necronomicon, an unholy book that can send him back to his time and save Arthur and his people.  

 Army of Darkness is probably the zaniest movie ever. From horror, to comedy, to adventure, to romance this movie is all over the place. It’s held together by Bruce Campbell, who plays Ash. He spews one-liners, is a coward and a hero sometimes in the matter of seconds. If this wasn’t directed by Sam Raimi it might not work, but it does and it is one hell of a ride.

The set has four cuts of the film, the Theatrical, Director’s, International, and in standard definition the television cut. Each has its strengths. The theatrical cut is the leanest and probably the one I would show to new comers. The Director’s Cut, is 15 minutes longer and the ending is edited very differently. It is cool to see the full windmill scene, and the ending is more fitting, but the extra 15 minutes are not totally necessary. Sam Raimi points this out in the commentary track. The International cut is 88 minutes so about 7 minutes longer then the theatrical. It’s solid as well. The television cut is a rough watch due to the source but awesome that it’s included.

The video looks great. Each version looks really organic with only minimal grain. The international cut sports a new 4k scan from the inter-positive which in turn makes it look the strongest, but only slightly.

The sound is a standout as well, all cuts (except TV) feature DTS-HD Master audio 5.1. The sound design really flourishes and you can hear all the wacky sound effects and voices that Sam Raimi (usually he is the one making the voices as well) put in.

Army of Darkness really earns its Collector’s Edition title. It is absolutely stuffed with extras. A highlight is the new feature length documentary, Medieval Times: The Making of Army of Darkness. It has some great new interviews, however Sam Raimi is missing as seems to be the case with all his movies now which is a bummer. He is funny and smart, but at least you can listen to him on the previously released commentary on the Director’s Cut. Scream Factory also brought over several vintage featurettes. My favorite is Behind the Scenes with KNB Effects. INC.

Army of Darkness earns my highest recommendation, Hail To The King, Baby!

Movie Ratings:

Film: A+

Video: A

Sound: A

Extras: A+

Overall: A+

Episodes, Volume Seven (313-364)

Ep. 336: Ain’t No T’Challaback Girl

The revolution will not be televised when the Reel Nerds review Black Panther.

Episodes, Volume Seven (313-364)

Ep. 335: Paradoxxing

The Reel Nerds hack the god particle when they review The Cloverfield Paradox.

Interview

Reel Interview: Dave Callaham & Peter Atencio of Jean-Claude Van Johnson

Brad ventures all the way to Los Angeles for a special interview with creator Dave Callaham and Director Peter Atencio of Amazon’s Jean Claude Van Johnson. You can watch and laugh with Jean Claude Van Johnson on Amazon Prime.

Episodes, Volume Seven (313-364)

Ep. 334: Molly’s Follies

The Reel Nerds run their own game when they review Molly’s Game.

Episodes, Volume Seven (313-364)

Ep. 333: Hostile Attitudes

We find out this isn’t a Hostel sequel when the Reel Nerds review Hostiles.

Art House Asshole, Articles, Review

Art House Asshole : Have a Nice Day

Do you ever want to feel artistically superior to all of your friends? Maybe you are tired of your friends talking about how great the latest action film is and want to sound better. Maybe you want to impress your date with obscure film trivia. Maybe you think that knowing a lot about film history and art will somehow validate your meaningless existence and will replace that ever-growing pit in your heart that tells you that you don’t matter and no one cares about you. Well, don’t worry! Because I watch a bunch of art house films and can give you recommendations on what to watch and what to feel superior about! So without any delay, let’s get pretentious!

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I think that this is the first Animated film that I have reviewed for Art House Asshole. It goes to show how few independent and art house animated films there are out there. And I have to say that we aren’t starting particularly strong with this one either. But there really wasn’t anything else out so I guess this is filling the slot for a review this week. So yeah. Here is my review of Have a Nice Day.

Have a Nice Day is a Chinese Animated film from director Jian Liu. Liu previously directed Piercing I back in 2010 with some success. Piercing I won the Asia Pacific Screen Award for Best Animated Feature Film, and Have a Nice Day was Liu’s return. Now I haven’t seen Piercing I so I can’t say if it’s good or bad, but that also means that I didn’t really have any expectation going into this film. What really intrigued me about this film is the fact that Have a Nice Day was done almost entirely by Liu by himself. The idea of a feature film being done almost entirely by one person is pretty mind-boggling and impressive to me. Unfortunately, as soon as the film started, I thought “Yeah this looks like it was done by one person”.

Have a Nice Day follows a few different people intertwined in a gang. Things get chaotic and there is violence and fun to be had. Except there really isn’t but we will get to that in a moment. The film feels very cheaply animated. The whole thing cost less than 1.5 Million USD, so I give it credit for that. But the animation looks like its done in Flash. It’s extremely minimalistic, which isn’t a good thing. The shots barely move in each scene. You get a close up of one character and the only movement is an extremely small lip movement to show that he is actually talking. The face doesn’t move besides that. And that doesn’t work because there is a disconnect between what the face of the character is saying and what the lines and voice performances are saying. It just doesn’t work and is a huge turn off in the film.

The film is labeled as a dark Comedy. And this is actually the second Chinese Comedy I’ve seen this year. I’ve watched a couple other Chinese Comedies and I’ve come to the conclusion that the sense of humor in China is very different from almost every other country I’ve seen. What I’m getting at here is that this film is as funny as watching paint dry. The film is far more boring and painstakingly dull that either funny or interesting. The film is only 75 minutes long, which is nice. Because if this film went any longer I don’t think I would have been able to stand it.

I don’t have much else to say about this film. In short, the film is boring, lazily animated, and overall pointless. It’s just… ugh. But unfortunately, this was really the only option this week. So here you go. A review that no one will read and even I will forget I wrote in a few months. Maybe that says something about me. Maybe it says something about the film. Either way, everything sucks.

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