DVD Releases

Sex. Mila Kunis. Sex. Body double nudity. We can pretend. Mila Kunis. Thankfully, Friends and Benefits is that and more. A self-aware romantic comedy that also stars Justin Timberlake, Friends and Benefits is a surprisingly entertaining movie that works more often than not, even though it falls victim to the one rule it doesn’t break: predictability.

Read FilmJabber’s full Friends With Benefits movie review.

There’s another world out there. Just like ours. You’re on it. Doing the exact same thing you’re doing now. Reading this review that the other me just wrote. Reading about Another Earth, the intriguing new sci-fi drama now out on Blu-ray and DVD.

Read FilmJabber’s full Another Earth movie review.

Just when you thought Neil Patrick Harris was the coolest straight gay guy around, he goes and stars in The Smurfs, a live-action adaptation of the popular 80′s cartoon series. Like so many other attempts to find new magic in old children’s material, The Smurfs comes up short. Kids may be marginally satisfied by the adventure at hand, however.

Read FilmJabber’s full The Smurfs movie review.

Renny Harlin is at it again. You know, trying to trick audiences into thinking he’s still relevant. Over a decade since Deep Blue Sea and nearly 20 years since his last major hit – Cliffhanger – Harlin is back once again with the war thriller 5 Days of War. It’s a valiant effort – it really is – but lacks the necessary budget and, more importantly, the tension required to make a movie like this work.

Read FilmJabber’s full 5 Days of War movie review. We’re also giving away a copy of the DVD!

A pothead hippie idealist who was stupid enough to sell drugs to a uniformed police officer is released from jail and integrates not-so-seamlessly into the lives of his three sisters in Our Idiot Brother, a surprisingly thoughtful comedy that doesn’t stir up a lot of laughs but is genuinely enjoyable nonetheless.

Read FilmJabber’s full Our Idiot Brother movie review.

If you survived Black Friday – meaning you avoided the pepper spraying, fighting, shootings and stabbings (what the hell is wrong with people these days?) – then you’re probably in full-on holiday buying mode. A lot of great movies were released this year – and a lot of bad ones, too – so for the average buyer, it’s tough to cut through the crap. Here is a list of ten movies to buy this holiday season that will make any movie lover happy:

Read the full article »

I live, I love, I slay, and I am content. So says star Jason Mamoa in 2011’s remake Conan the Barbarian. At least that makes one of us.

Read FilmJabber’s full Conan the Barbarian movie review.

Playing double often doesn’t work out well. Ask Adam Sandler. Then again, on rare occasion, it works splendidly. In The Devil’s Double, Dominic Cooper turns in an incredible performance as Uday Hussein, the sadistic son of Saddam Hussein, and his reluctant body double Latif Yahia.

Read FilmJabber’s full The Devil’s Double movie review.

With the apocalypse not at all approaching, two friends spend their days preparing for it, building flame-throwers and Mad Max-esque vehicles. Amongst their otherwise normal lives, one of the friends, Woodrow, meets a girl and falls in love. But all good things come to an end: what began as an innocent relationship quickly spirals out of control. Welcome to Bellflower, the intoxicating and unique drama from first-time writer/director/star Evan Glodell.

Read FilmJabber’s full Bellflower movie review.

When aliens attack, they better not land in inner city South London. That’s the message in Attack the Block, the entertaining but inconsequential action-comedy about a bunch of pitch-black aliens with glowing razor-sharp teeth who meet their match in a group of ragtag hoodlums.

Read FilmJabber’s full Attack the Block movie review.

Six. That’s how many times I watched Jurassic Park in theaters. Nearly 20 years later, the Steven Spielberg movie continues to be an entertaining and exciting classic that can be re-watched over and over again. Its sequels… not so much.

Jurassic Park, The Lost World and Jurassic Park III were released last week on Blu-ray for the first time in an “Ultimate Trilogy” package, which naturally features a new documentary that looks back on the franchise, offers even more behind-the-scenes footage and includes all of the archival featurettes released in previous editions. More importantly, the Ultimate Trilogy set gives fans the ability to watch the three movies in “high definition” for the first time.

It also gives me the opportunity to recount on the decline of quality from one movie to the next.

Read the full article »

Like so many people, I grew up with the original Star Wars trilogy. I was only one-year old when Star Wars: Episode VI: Return of the Jedi was released to theaters, which means I grew up watching all three on VHS. In fact, I’m pretty sure I saw Return of the Jedi before the other two movies. Since I was a kid at the time, I also grew up liking Ewoks. I’ll just get that out of the way right now.

When Star Wars: Episode I: The Phantom Menace came to theaters, I enjoyed it. Sure, Jar-Jar Binks was stupid, Jake Lloyd not very good, the writing clunky, but I enjoyed it. In my original [poorly written] review, authored a day after the film’s May 1999 release, I said the “dialogue might not be the greatest, and the characters might not be as enthralling as those in the latter trilogy, but it still is an exciting and awesome science-fiction blockbuster”.

Even as I was praising the movie, deluded by my excitement that a new Star Wars trilogy was upon us, it’s clear how my long-term opinions would pan out.

The Star Wars prequels are not terrible movies [EDITOR'S NOTE: Since writing this, I started watching The Phantom Menace again. Boy, is it painful to watch]. They have some good action sequences, great visual effects and some entertainment value. Each movie has its memorable sequences, and there have been far worse productions put to film. This perspective often gets lost in the Star Wars discussion.

That being said, the prequels aren’t good movies. They suffer from poor writing, lame characters, questionable plotting and a complete and utter failure to come close to the original films. Don’t even get me started on the continuous tweaking creator George Lucas continues to inflict upon his creations, and his legions of confused and frustrated fans.

The new documentary The People vs. George Lucas looks at the dilemma, the paradox, that is George Lucas. The biggest haters of Star Wars are the biggest Star Wars fans. They hate George Lucas for making piss-poor prequels and for tinkering with the originals, and yet he defined a generation and is responsible for making the original trilogy, three of the most cherished films of all time.

Having just watched William Shatner’s The Captains, which was a rudimentary documentary that looked at the lives of the six actors who’ve played Starship Captains over the years, The People vs. George Lucas is a reprieve. Whereas The Captains was dull and unimaginative, The People vs. George Lucas has flair, passion, intrigue and a story to tell.

The documentary puts to film what so many Star Wars fans feel, their utter frustration with George Lucas and their conflicting feelings for the man who is responsible for influencing so many of their lives and yet failing to deliver on the high expectations he established.

Yes, Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull is also discussed.

Filmmaker Alexandre O. Philippe has assembled a visually creative and engaging production full of fan interviews, fan-made Star Wars footage and a surprisingly balanced view of the issue at hand. “Balanced” isn’t quite accurate. The documentary definitely comes from the perspective of frustrated fans, but manages to avoid being completely one-sided. It does raise the question of whether an artist should be allowed to refine his art after it’s “finished”, and whether fans have the right to claim such ownership over said art. After all, the movie is George Lucas’ creation; does he not have the right to do with it as he pleases?

The People vs. George Lucas is a documentary made for Star Wars fans. It’s entertaining, insightful and engaging, and well worth owning.

The People vs. George Lucas is now available on DVD.