Blow Out
When looking back at the up and down career of John Travolta, one of the unconditional high points in my opinion was his amazing performance in Blow Out, another gem from director Brian De Palma. Travolta plays Jack, a sound guy working on a movie who becomes witness to a car "accident" that kills a Presidential hopeful. Released in 1981, this classic is available now as it should be, courtesy of the fine folks at Criterion. A must buy.
Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas
Criterion is on a roll this week, now cranking out Terry Gilliam's "classic" adaptation of Hunter S. Thompson's trippy novel about the writer's psychodelic journey through Las Vegas. Johnny Depp gives one of his true break out performances, although for me the film was always something of an interesting failure. Cool to watch on occasion, but not nearly as deep as many want to claim it to be.
Sniper: Reloaded
Whether anyone wants to admit it or not, the Sniper franchise(!!) has been around since 1993 and is one of the finest direct-to-DVD successes around. This marks the fourth film in the series, seeing Billy Zane return to reprise the character he established opposite Tom Berenger in the first film.
3 Idiots
The highest grossing Bollywood film of all-time has grown to become one of the most revered Hindi films ever, but it's presence here in America has been non-existent. The story circles around three super intelligent friends struggling to pursue their dreams while attending a prestigious but stifling engineering school. As a means of expressing their freedom, the three take to wildly inventive pranks against the school and the Dean.
Revenge of the Bridesmaids
Not to be confused with the awesome film Bridesmaids coming out in a couple of weeks, this ABC Family flick stars a chunky Raven-Symone and Joanna Garcia(Reba
) as a pair of friends intent on sabotaging an enemy's wedding from the inside. I'd poke out my eyes before ever watching a minute of this junk, but somebody out there must like it. Sacrifice
Somewhere along the way Cuba Gooding Jr. went from being a respected, Oscar winning actor to being a direct-to-DVD icon. He's like the Don "The Dragon" Wilson of African-American action heroes. In Sacrifice he teams up with another failed former star, Christian Slater(as a priest!!!), as an undercover cop trying to forgive himself for the death of his wife and daughter.
Blood Out
While 50 Cent is the name that producers have been using to push this low budget cop thriller, he actually plays second fiddle to Luke Goss, an actor I've been keeping an eye on for years. He was charismatic and intense as Prince Nauda in Hellboy 2, and just a few months ago helped turn Death Race 2 into one of the best movies of the year for me. Here's hoping he again is able to outshine fading stars like Val Kilmer and Vinnie Jones here, where he plays a small town sheriff who goes rogue in seeking vengeance over the death of his brother.
Sin City
Six years and counting. That's how long we've been waiting for a sequel to Robert Rodriguez's gritty, brutal adaptation of Frank Miller's noir classic graphic novel. This release features pretty much every single cut of the film you could possibly want, now on crisp clear Blu-Ray. Yum.
