Category: The Couch Potato Report

The Couch Potato Report – March 23rd, 2013

Inside this week’s Couch Potato Report are 1, 2, 3, 4…yup, all of them. All of this week’s films are about fighting and war.

Yes, it’s all about fighting and battles and war this first weekend of Spring. War, what is good for? Sometimes it’s good for informative and entertaining documentaries and films.

The CBC television series LOVE, HATE AND PROPAGANDA looks at how propaganda influenced significant moments in history, the wars that took place at the time, and the lives of the people who lived through them.

It is hosted by THE HOUR’s George Stroumboulopoulos and the latest installment is all about THE WAR ON TERROR.

LOVE, HATE & PROPAGANDA is engaging, interesting and informative. It stands above other documentaries on this subject matter – and there have been dozens of them since 2001 – when it shows us actual footage from news stories and the battles that have taken place. The footage is very graphic at times, so it isn’t always easy to watch, but that footage is very effective at helping to tell the story.

Unfortunately LOVE, HATE AND PROPAGANDA – THE WAR ON TERROR also drags at times as the “experts” who offer opinions and facts about the war aren’t always that compelling.

The good far outweighs the bad here though, and so I can easily recommend LOVE, HATE & PROPAGANDA – THE WAR ON TERROR.

From a documentary about the war on terror, we move now to a movie…based on real events, mind you…but it is a movie.

The Academy Award winning film ZERO DARK THIRTY looks at the decade-long hunt for al-Qaeda terrorist leader Osama bin Laden and his death at the hands of the Navy SEAL Team 6 in May of 2011.

ZERO DARK THIRTY is director Kathryn Bigelow’s follow up to THE HURT LOCKER and it is an incredible film.

Even though we all know how it ends, it is very tense, features some great action scenes and has some great performances from Oscar nominee Jessica Chastain and James Gandolfini from THE SOPRANOS.

ZERO DARK THIRTY has some very graphic torture scenes and so it isn’t always easy to watch, but I still think it is an amazing film.

If you didn’t see it in theatres, don’t miss it now.

Some lighter action and battles now, not based on real life, but the fantasy works of J.R.R. Tolkien. Director Peter Jackson heads back to this world he knows so well, and follows up his LORD OF THE RINGS TRILOGY with THE HOBBIT – AN UNEXPECTED JOURNEY.

AN UNEXPECTED JOURNEY is the first part of an all-new trilogy, with Part Two coming this December, and the finale in December of 2014 and it is an impressive piece of work. The film moves at a faster pace than the LORD OF THE RINGS movies and has more action and adventure…plus it has many of the timeless characters we all love, like Bilbo, Frodo, Gollum, and Gandalf.

A warning…as with the other films that have been released in this series, there will be an extended version of THE HOBBIT – AN UNEXPECTED JOURNEY released somewhere down the road, probably as early as this Christmas, just in time for the second film. So if you can hold off, you might not need to own it as the extras are good, but not impressive.

But the film is worthy of your time…all 169 minutes of it.

“Sitting on the fence” is a common idiom used to describe one’s neutrality, a hesitance to choose between one side or another.

I have three films for you now that you should be on the fence about, reluctant to make a decision about whether to watch them or not, and for all three, if you are on the fence… if you don’t think you’ll like them… don’t watch any of them because you won’t like them.

For instance, even though it has some incredible costumes and performances, if you don’t think you want to sit through a two-and-a-half-hour musical about the French revolution…do not watch LES MISERABLES.

But if that sounds great to you…get off the fence and don’t miss it!!

With a cast including Academy Award winner Anne Hathaway as Fantine, Hugh Jackman as Jean Valjean, Russell Crowe as Javert and Amanda Seyfried, Sacha Baron Cohen and Helena Bonham Carter this latest version of LES MISERABLES is based on the 1980s musical, which was based on the 1862 French novel by Victor Hugo.

Set in 19th-century France, this is the story of ex-prisoner Jean Valjean who has been hunted for decades by the ruthless policeman Javert, after he breaks parole.

A reformed Valjean agrees to care for factory worker Fantine’s young daughter, Cosette, and everyone’s lives change forever.

I was on the fence about LES MISERABLES when I first saw it in theatres, and yet I went anyway. Thinking I’d been too harsh on it, I watched it again on blu-ray and I had the same feeling both times.

I didn’t care. I like the cast, I enjoy musicals, I respect the fact that the actors all sang live under tough filming conditions, but I just didn’t care. It’s too long, and it never won me over or made me sing along.

So if you are on the fence, skip it. If you can’t wait to see it…then enjoy!!!

With his films THE 40-YEAR-OLD VIRGIN, KNOCKED UP, SUPERBAD and BRIDESMAIDS Judd Apatow is a filmmaker who has – deservedly – become a household name amongst fans of comedies and comedic dramas over the past decade.

His latest film THIS IS 40 looked funny when the trailers debuted last year, but unfortunately it continues the downward trend that he began with his last directorial effort. FUNNY PEOPLE with Adam Sandler. That movie was a mess, and like all Apatow films was far too long.

THIS IS 40 is not a mess, but it is a comedy…a comedy…most comedies are about 90 minutes…the unrated version of THIS IS 40 that is now available for home viewing is two hours and seventeen minutes!!

That is waaaaaaay too long!!

Paul Rudd and Leslie Mann are the two main stars of THI SIS 40 and they are playing the same characters who were friends of Seth Rogen and Katherine Heigl in KNOCKED UP…but those two aren’t in this movie…instead we get the life of Pete and Debbie and all they do is fight and fight and fight and fight and fight and fight. Everything with this two leads to a fight…and they are both at fault.

THIS IS 40 is supposed to be a comedy, it is supposed to be funny, but it’s actually so dramatic and angry that I only laughed a few times, and usually only at the secondary characters. Mostly it just made me uncomfortable as I didn’t care to watch a movie full of people fighting, with everyone…even doctor’s.

I like the actors, I like the characters they play, and I like their friends and employees…I just needed to see less of all of them. This movie could have been 45 minutes shorter without taking anything away from the main story and the character’s struggles.

Instead, THIS IS 40 is a drama, promoted as a comedy that isn’t funny. It is a very dramatic movie about life, love and relationships.

So if you are on the fence, skip it…you will not enjoy it. At all!!

The last of the “Sitting on the fence” flicks that I have is one that doesn’t give you all the answers to all of the questions it poses, so if you are someone who likes to know why things happen in movies and what motivates the main characters, stay away from RUST AND BONE.

Personally, I really enjoyed this one…but you might not.

RUST & BONE is a foreign film from France that stars Academy Award winner Marion Cotillard from INCEPTION and THE DARK KNIGHT RISES. She plays a killer whale trainer, who loses her legs in a tragic accident.

The film is also about a selfish and self-destructive man who takes his son from Belgium to France to start a new life. After arriving, and presumably before, he betrays everyone in his life, even his son, yet somehow he starts being nice to the woman, even after she falls in love with him.

But he’s not really in love with her…as I mentioned he is selfish and self-destructive…and you keep waiting for the other shoe to drop, and it does drop.

RUST & BONE primarily interested me as I am a huge fan of Marion Cotillard, but it kept my attention and I enjoyed the performances and the odd love story at its core.

If that description has you on the fence against it, skip it. It won’t win you over.

But if you are curious…search it out. You might not get all the answers, and the ending is a bit cliché, but I really enjoyed it.

Finally this week is a film that comes from the same vein as THE HOBBIT and the LORD OF THE RINGS films, Ron Howard’s 1988 fantasy film WILLOW, which was conceived and produced by George Lucas.

WILLOW is the story of a shy little person who must summon the courage within himself to leave his village and travel a great distance to deliver an infant princess to safety.

Along the way, he is joined by a warrior, the evil queen’s daughter and a rag tag army full of others who believe in the cause.

WILLOW is a little bit like LORD OF THE RINGS, and a little bit like STAR WARS, and the performance of Warwick Davis – who was recently seen in the television series LIFE’S TOO SHORT – is what is most impressive thing about it.

WILLOW has never been a great film, but he is great, and the film now looks amazing in HD on blu-ray.

Fans of the film should not miss it!! Plus, it comes with some great retrospective features, and deleted scenes introduced by Ron Howard.

Ron Howard’s 1988 fantasy adventure film WILLOW, the very entertaining drama RUST & BONE, the dramatic and angry “comedy” THIS IS 40, the Academy Award winning bore – that others will love – LES MISERABLES, the very good LORD OF THE RINGS prequel THE HOBBIT – AN UNEXPECTED JOURNEY, the exceptional ZERO DARK THIRTY about the hunt for Osama bin Laden and the very well done 2 part CBC special LOVE, HATE AND PROPAGANDA – THE WAR ON TERROR are all available now, either on disc or on demand.

Coming up inside the next Couch Potato Report

We’ll visit a futuristic Montreal in the science fiction drama MARS ET AVRIL and go back in time for Steven Spielberg’s LINCOLN. Plus, STAR TREK: ENTERPRISE – THE COMPLETE FIRST SEASON debuts on blu-ray, and Brad Pitt stars in KILLING THEM SOFTLY

I’ll have more on those, and some other releases, in seven days.

For now, that’s this week’s COUCH POTATO REPORT.

Enjoy the movies and I’ll see you back here again next time on The Couch!

The Couch Potato Report – March 16th, 2013

Inside this week’s Couch Potato Report a boy named after a swimming pool, a late quartet and a trip back to Sound City.

LIFE OF PI is a fantasy adventure novel by Saskatoon based author Yann Martel that was first published in 2001.

The book, and now the Academy Award winning film, tell the story of a 16-year old boy from India named Piscine Molitor Patel, also known as Pi, who in the lone human survivor of a shipwreck that was bringing his family to Canada in hopes of a better life.

Pi’s whole family died in the shipwreck, and he becomes stranded for 227 days on a lifeboat in the Pacific Ocean with his only companion a fully grown Bengal tiger.

LIFE OF PI had eleven nominations at the most recent Academy Awards, including one for Best Picture. It won four, including the Oscar for Best Director for Ang Lee, who is featured in the extensive special features available on the blu-ray…and so is author Yann Martel.

LIFE OF PI is stunning to look at, features an interesting and engaging spiritual story, some incredible special effects that make the tiger look very real, and I really enjoyed it. It does have its flaws as this is a story you have to buy into at times and be willing to believe, but I think you will believe in it and enjoy it as well and that is why I highly recommend it.

And I do, highly recommend it.

I also recommend and completely enjoyed the drama A LATE QUARTET, co-starring Philip Seymour Hoffman from MONEYBALL, Christopher Walken of PULP FICTION and Catherine Keener from WHERE THE WILD THINGS ARE.

In A LATE QUARTET they play members of a world-renowned string quartet who are struggling to stay together as they face their 25th anniversary together, and are dealing with death, passion, lust and competing egos.

A LATE QUARTET is a movie made by adults for adults and it is very confident, it never tries to appeal to everyone, just an older audience who can relate to the changes that come along later in life.

This is a great film that I really enjoyed. You won’t find it everywhere, so you might have to search it out, but it will be worth the extra effort.

Another film made by adults for adults doesn’t quite work as well.

The intention of the real life drama HITCHCOCK was to show both the dedicated yet occasionally strained love story between legendary director Alfred Hitchcock and his wife Alma AND give us a look at the making of Hitch’s classic 1960 film PSYCHO, but the dramatic stuff isn’t as interesting as what’s happening on the film sets.

HITCHCOCK has an incredible cast that includes Anthony Hopkins as Hitch, Helen Mirren as his wife and Scarlett Johansson, Toni Collette and Jessica Biel, and the majority of what takes place is interesting and even fascinating at times as the man risks everything to make a movie that only he – and his wife – believe in.

But when it creatures situations, scenes events and things that might have happened – like the imaginary conversations Hitchcock has with notorious serial killer Ed Gein, whose crimes inspired the book PSYCHO is based on – at those times the movie doesn’t work at all.

Most of the time, though, HITCHCOCK does work and so – while it isn’t great – I liked it. Consider this a good rental, especially for movie fans.

Instead of telling you about the three films I have for you right now from best to worst, I will start with the worst…a film that isn’t necessarily terrible, it just never grabbed me…I never got into it and as it wandered on…and wander it does.

Sean Penn stars in THIS MUST BE THE PLACE as a retired and soft spoken former Goth music superstar living in Ireland who goes on a search for the Nazi war criminal who humiliated his father during World War II.

Honestly, that is what it’s about.

As Sean Penn is searching for his father’s tormentor, I kept expecting him to change character, to allow the poor tortured soul hidden beneath the Goth make-up and clothes to come out…but that doesn’t happen…instead, as he searches for the man the only interesting thing that happens is a question anyone watching this film will pose: If he finds the guy, will he be able to pull the trigger?

THIS MUST BE THE PLACE is the textbook definition of an odd film. It is interesting at times, but the end result is nothing special.

I never disliked it, but I don’t recommend it either.

Here now is the Academy Award nominated documentary HOW TO SURVIVE A PLAGUE, which takes us back – through old interviews and news stories – to a time not that long ago when being diagnosed with AIDS was a death sentence.

Facing impending death, public fear, and rampant homophobia during the 1980s and 1990s a group of mostly HIV-positive men and women decide to fight back. They took on the pharmaceutical industry despite having no training in order to get medication to patients in need.

HOW TO SURVIVE A PLAGUE is the story of two coalitions who turned AIDS from a death sentence into a manageable condition.

HOW TO SURVIVE A PLAGUE is an exceptional film that is moving, informative, and hard to believe that it took so long for the necessary drugs to be released to those in need.

Search this one out, it is very worthy of your time!!

Yes, of these three releases, I have saved what I perceive to be the best one until the last…although I know others will not like it at all!!

THE INBETWEENERS is a British show about four friends trying to navigate life in and out of high school and I think it’s amazing!!

THE INBETWEENERS is a situation comedy that aired for three series from 2008 to 2010and now the six episode COMPLETE SECOND SEASON is available for us in Canada to watch or own.

Since the show is all about adolescent boys it is very profane at times and features storylines about things you can imagine high school boys would be interested in and all of it done honestly, and it is very, very funny.

I do and will always love shows about friends just hanging out and doing stuff, even doing nothing, and that combined with the quality and well written situations offered up in THE COMPLETE SECOND SEASON of THE INBETWEENERS is why I can say that I really enjoyed it, and can highly recommend it.

Because of how profane it is, the show is not for everyone, but I am really looking forward to seeing the third season, and re-watching the other two and the movie they’ve made again!! This is great stuff!!

Finally this week is the documentary that I referred to as the “greatest documentary ever” just over a month ago. At that time the film SOUND CITY was only available for digital download, and now that it’s available on disc, I get to talk about it again, and the artists who made classic records in the legendary California studio.

Yes even Bachman-Turner Overdrive recorded at Sound City Studios and Dave Grohl, of the bands Nirvana and Foo Fighters has put together this loving look at the place and the people who worked and made music there on the Neve recording console…including Neil Young.

The first hour of SOUND CITY gives us the history of the now closed studio complex that couldn’t survive in the digital age. Those stories courtesy of the superstars who recorded there and the people who worked there, and in the final thirty-plus minutes Grohl allows us to be a fly on the wall as he collaborates on a new album with Stevie Nicks, Rick Springfield, Trent Reznor, Lee Ving and Paul McCartney!!

The DVD and blu-ray of SOUND CITY feature almost 45 minutes of additional materials, and that stuff is great, but I wanted more…and will never get enough of the stories told in this film.

Dave Grohl’s SOUND CITY will easily make my list of the best films of the year. I enjoyed every second of it and wish it was twice as long!! This is one of the greatest documentaries ever and I will likely watch it again this weekend!!

The spectacular music documentary SOUND CITY; THE COMPLETE SECOND SEASON of the profanely funny British show THE INBETWEENERS; the Academy Award nominated documentary HOW TO SURVIVE A PLAGUE; the odd Sean Penn drama THIS MUST BE THE PLACE; the occasionally fascinating HITCHCOCK; the very enjoyable adult drama A LATE QUARTET; and the Academy Award winning LIFE OF PI, based on the novel by Canadian author Yann Martel, are all available now, either on disc or on demand.

Coming up inside the next Couch Potato Report

The latest installment of CBC’s LOVE, HATE AND PROPAGANDA series this one takes a look at THE WAR ON TERROR, also next week the Academy Award winning films ZERO DARK THIRTY and LES MISERABLES, and Peter Jackson returns to the Shire with THE HOBBIT – AN UNEXPECTED JOURNEY.

I’ll have more on those, and some other releases, in seven days.

For now, that’s this week’s COUCH POTATO REPORT.

Enjoy the movies and I’ll see you back here again next time on The Couch!

The Couch Potato Report – March 9th, 2013

Inside this week’s Couch Potato Report Oscar nominees and winners, plus some really good movies!!

It is a very busy week for new releases, so let me get right to them, starting the partially made in Sault Ste. Marie drama COLLABORATOR about a once successful playwright, whose marriage and career are falling apart when we first meet him, but are soon looking up as an old love re-enters his life.

But then, as the playwright is heading out one night to meet his old flame, he’s taken hostage by his former neighbour, a mentally unstable ex-con who, we find out, has always been envious of the playwright’s success, and now everything – professionally and personally – for both men – including their lives, is in jeopardy.

COLLABORATOR was written, directed and co-stars character actor Martin Donovan – from the television series WEEDS and BOSS – and it features great performances from him and David Morse of the movies CONTACT and THE GREEN MILE.

As the playwright collaborates on new ideas with the man holding him hostage, humouring him while trying to find a way to get free, the result is a very compelling film. It is a bit slow…but that made me view it almost like a play, watching two great actors squaring off against one another.

COLLABORATOR isn’t the greatest movie I’ve seen this year, but it is very good.

THE INTOUCHABLES…now that is one of the best films I’ve seen this year!! This foreign film from France is about a very wealthy quadriplegic who hires a young ex-con man on welfare to be his caretaker because when they first met he didn’t treat him with pity or compassion, but as an equal.

As they bond and become friends, introducing each other to a wide array of new experiences, we the audience are the benefactors as they seem like real people…never movie characters, but real people.

THE INTOUCHABLES is interesting and fun and funny and dramatic and informative and I loved it!! This is a fantastic film that I easily recommend!!

Here’s one now for the whole family, and I also recommend it to everyone…young, old, everyone! WRECK-IT RALPH is a movie the whole family can watch and enjoy!!

WRECK-IT RALPH was nominated as Best Animated film at the recent Academy Awards and it features the voice of John C. Reilly from TALLADEGA NIGHTS as a villain in a video game who wants to be a hero, so he heads out into the other games in the arcade to find the one thing that he thinks will make that happen, and along the way he causes problems for everyone he meets…until he realizes that maybe who he is isn’t so bad after all.

WRECK-IT RALPH features a great voice cast, superb animation, an engaging story, and some great inside jokes for people who are fans of video games and the characters in them. I really enjoyed it and can’t wait to watch it again!! I highly recommend it!!

This next release this busy week received three Academy Award nominations this year – Best Actor for Joaquin Phoenix, Best Supporting Actor for Philip Seymour Hoffman, and Best Supporting Actress for Amy Adams.

They all star in a sometimes intense drama called THE MASTER.

Phoenix from WALK THE LINE is an unstable war veteran who returns home not really sure of what to do. He tries several jobs, but none of them seem to work out. Then one night he passes out on a boat and is introduced to a charismatic leader of a group – known as The Master and played by Hoffman. They become friends and the veteran helps spread the group’s word…known as “The Cause”.

Writer/Director Paul Thomas Anderson has also given us the films BOOGIE NIGHTS, MAGNOLIA PUNCH-DRUNK LOVE and THERE WILL BE BLOOD. He is a filmmaker who I have always thought was overrated. His films are always interesting, but I wouldn’t say that I am a fan of any of them.

THE MASTER features some great performances, and it is a well-made movie that I am able to appreciate, but there is no real reason to care about what happens. And since I didn’t really care, I can’t recommend it. However, if you have enjoyed his movies in the past, don’t miss it!

Four, count ‘em four!! I have four movies for you right now that were all made in Canada!!

The first one is a crime thriller made in and around Montreal called DEADFALL.

DEADFALL stars Eric Bana from the STAR TREK reboot and Olivia Wilde of COWBOYS & ALIENS as two siblings who are trying to survive apart after a botched casino heist.

He is wandering through the woods looking for shelter, and she has met a man and fallen in love…something that doesn’t sit well with her brother when they all finally meet up and crash a family’s Thanksgiving celebration.

DEADFALL is one of those movies – and there are hundreds of them every year – that isn’t awful, but it could have been much better. The premise is okay, it is a well-made movie, and the cast – that also includes Charlie Hunnam from SONS OF ANARCHY and icons Kris Kristofferson and Sissy Spacek – is great, but there is just nothing special about the movie.

So, should the cast appeal to you, check it out. If not, skip it.

The made in British Columbia drama FOREVERLAND is a little film that doesn’t feature a cast that you would recognize, and that actually works in its favour as none of the actors bring any baggage with them. Unfortunately, they don’t bring much weight with them either.

FOREVERLAND is your typical “bad things happen to good people so they go on a road trip” movie, where everything happens as you’d expect it to…but I still liked it.

A young man with cystic fibrosis is left the ashes of a friend and is tasked with taking them to Mexico, and the fallen friend’s sister goes along to ensure her brother’s last wish is granted…and wouldn’t you know, they fall in love along the way?!

FOREVERLAND is predictable, and cliché, and a dozen other things…but I still liked it. This is an okay little film that I will mildly recommend.

Also partially made in British Columbia…duh duh daaah…the final film with Edward, Jacob, Bella and the gang…duh duh daaaah…THE TWILIGHT SAGA: BREAKING DAWN – PART 2!!

This is the fifth and final TWILIGHT film, a film that was nominated for a total of eleven Golden Raspberry Awards, the awards presented each year to recognize the worst films of the year, and it ended up “winning” the award for Worst Picture…but I didn’t think it was the worst film of last year, because I never expect too much from these movies.

The acting is still, the CGI awful, but more importantly they’re not made for me. They’re made for fans of the books, and you, you fans of the book will love it!!

THE TWILIGHT SAGA: BREAKING DAWN – PART 2 picks up where PART 1 left off, and it is pretty good, but – to be honest – I expected nothing from this movie. My expectations were very, very, very low and it was better than I thought it would be.

It was still laugh out loud funny at how bad it was sometimes, but again, these TWILIGHT films aren’t made for me. They’re made for fans of the books, and you, you fans of the book will love it!!

The final of these four made-in-Canada flicks that are now available is the made-in-Toronto horror sequel SILENT HILL: REVELATION.

This mostly useless flick is the sequel to the 2006 film SILENT HILL and is based on the survival horror video game Silent Hill 3.

When her father disappears, teenager Heather Mason is drawn into a strange and terrifying alternate reality that holds answers to the horrific nightmares that have plagued her since childhood.

That alternate reality is the town of Silent Hill.

SILENT HILL: REVELATION has dozens of great horror film JUMPS, but it is ultimately nothing special and for horror fans only, and I mean people who like horror films and will watch anything.

Otherwise, skip it.

Another movie to skip is the remake of the 1984 film RED DAWN.

That original movie remains a great eighties period piece about a group of teenagers who fight together to defend their town, and their country, from invading Soviet forces.

This new one…is not so great.

The new version of RED DAWN does feature featuring Chris Hemsworth from THE AVENGERS and Josh Hutcherson of THE HUNGER GAMES, but – unfortunately – it also features bad CGI and voice dubbing and more plot holes than I care to get in to. This is an absolutely mindless action film, and the original is much, much better.

Now, all that said, should you find yourself in the mood to just watch a mindless action film featuring things that blow up real good, then this might make for an okay rental for you.

Otherwise, avoid RED DAWN…and the Wolverines!!

Finally this week, a film that is a modern day classic, Steven Spielberg’s 1993 Academy Award winning SCHINDLER’S LIST.

SCHINDLER’S LIST won seven Oscars, including Best Picture and Best Director, and is the story of Oskar Schindler, a German businessman who saved the lives of more than a thousand mostly Polish-Jewish refugees during the Holocaust by employing them in his factories.

It stars Liam Neeson, Ralph Fiennes and Ben Kingsley and it is now available in HD on blu-ray and it looks amazing!!!

Unfortunately, there are no new Bonus Features, but the blu-ray does come with the original DVD version, so you do get all of the old Features.

But primarily you get Spielberg’s masterpiece, SCHINDLER’S LIST. A movie that remains heartbreaking to watch, but an important movie for every generation to see.

Steven Spielberg’s Academy Award winning classic SCHINDLER’S LIST; the okay rental remake of RED DAWN, the not awful horror film SILENT HILL: REVELATION; the for fans only sequel THE TWILIGHT SAGA: BREAKING DAWN – PART 2; the okay little B.C. made FOREVERLAND, the not great filmed in Montreal crime drama DEADFALL; the respectable but not great Oscar nominee THE MASTER; the fun family flick WRECK-IT RALPH; the fantastic French film THE INTOUCHIBLES and the very good partially made in Sault Ste. Marie drama COLLABORATOR are all available now, either on disc or on demand.

Coming up inside the next Couch Potato Report

Philip Seymour Hoffman and Christopher Walken star in a great little movie called A LATE QUARTET, Dave Grohl, Neil Young, Tom Petty, Rick Springfield, Paul McCartney and many others appear in the spectacular documentary SOUND CITY, and Ang Lee’s Academy Award winning LIFE OF PI, based on the novel by Canadian author Yann Martel.

I’ll have more on those, and some other releases, in seven days.

For now, that’s this week’s COUCH POTATO REPORT.

Enjoy the movies and I’ll see you back here again next time on The Couch!

The Couch Potato Report – March 2nd, 2013

Inside this week’s Couch Potato Report is all that you possess and I’ll recommend you skip the new DIE HARD blu-ray collection.

Up first this week is a made-in-Quebec City drama about legacy and alienation that I felt could have been twice as long as it was. Even though ALL THAT YOU POSSESS is not a happy film, it had my attention from start to finish as we meet a disillusioned professor and Ph.D. candidate at a Quebec City university named Pierre who decides to walk away from his life’s work to translate the works of an obscure Polish poet into French.

He just wants to be alone, and be left alone as he lives his detached life, but two people are preventing that. Pierre’s Father, who announces that he has terminal cancer and his plan is to leave his estate – valued in the tens of millions – to his only son, even if the son doesn’t want it as he feels the money wasn’t earned honestly.

The other person who gets in the way of Pierre’s new life is the teenage daughter he didn’t know he had.

In the past, I have labelled more exciting than ALL THAT YOU POSSESS as boring…but somehow this film and its many, many layers really worked for me and I wish it had been longer so I could have get to know the characters in it even more.

Not everyone will appreciate it as it is a calm, mature film, but I think it is deserving of your time, so I recommend that you search out ALL THAT YOU POSSESS.

I truly hope you enjoy it as much as I did.

I also enjoyed this next release, the Academy Award nominated documentary 5 BROKEN CAMERAS…even though it is one of those films that seems to go on forever. Its running time is actually only 94 minutes, but it seems much longer.

That said, it is still very good.

5 BROKEN CAMERAS is a Palestinian farmer’s chronicle of his nonviolent resistance to the actions of the Israeli army.

Each of the cameras has a story, for instance the farmer bought his first camera in 2005 to record the birth of his youngest son. By 2009 and camera five, you see the evolution of his family after five years of turmoil and fighting to keep the farmland they have owned for centuries.

5 BROKEN CAMERAS features daily arrests, violent attacks, bulldozers knocking down olive trees, the loss of life and night raids in the village that scare the farmer’s kids and wife, his friends, and family and one camera after another used to document these events is either shot or smashed.

5 BROKEN CAMERAS is an honest and graphic movie that allows us to be the witness to what’s going on in this West Bank village, but because it is so honest, and shows some of the scenes of violence – using long, unedited footage – that causes it to seem longer than it really is.

I still enjoyed it though, and I do recommend it.

A guilty pleasure is something someone enjoys despite feeling guilty for enjoying it. The “guilt” involved typically comes from a fear of others discovering the secret. As I’ve said before on The Couch Potato Report, when it comes to movies and television shows, we all have guilty pleasures.

Some friends of mine love a CBC show called MR. D, for example. They just love it!!

Filmed in Halifax, MR. D. is a sitcom starring comedian Gerry Dee. He plays a strange slash misunderstood schoolteacher named Gerry Duncan, who invites everyone to call him Mr. D and isn’t always the most clued in guy in the room.

Gerry Dee based the comedy in MR. D on his ten years spent as a high-school teacher, before he left to become a stand-up comic in 2003. The stuff surrounding him mostly all works in the show’s first twelve episodes.

But when the show goes away from him during THE COMPLETE FIRST SEASON, to tell stories about the other people who work in the school, that is when it fails…and occasionally fails miserably. There are characters in MR. D. that just don’t offer anything at all…aren’t funny, aren’t interesting, and aren’t going to take up any more of my time in this review…except for this clip.

If THE COMPLETE FIRST SEASON of MR. D is one of your guilty pleasures, I hope that you continue to enjoy it.

As for me, I liked some of it…but not enough of it to recommend.

Now, one person’s guilty pleasure is another person’s unfunny sitcom…but we all have something we like that we’re a bit ashamed to admit…for instance, maybe you enjoy a television series called THE CLIENT LIST, about a woman who takes a job working in a day spa to keep her family afloat after her husband abandons her and their children, leaving her in financial debt.

Maybe you enjoy the series, because it is fun and funny at times, has an interesting dramatic arch, and stars the always beautiful Jennifer Love Hewitt as the wife who soon discovers that the spa gives much more than massages.

And if this one is yours, then good for you!! You have a guilty pleasure of your own!

The series THE CLIENT LIST is based on the 2010 film of the same name, but the lead character and premise are a bit different. What hasn’t changed during the ten episodes in THE COMPLETE FIRST SEASON is the fact that the show is full of beautiful people – women and men – and while it doesn’t feature the best dramatic acting you’ll see on television today, the actors and the creators of it seem to know that they aren’t re-inventing WAR & PEACE with this show.

THE CLIENT LIST is the textbook example of a guilty pleasure…and I – for one – really enjoyed it!!

Television shows of varying quality are not the only things that can be guilty pleasures…surfing movies are also eligible!!

So if that is yours, don’t miss the surfing flick CHASING MAVERICKS.

This sporting drama was directed by two exceptional filmmakers – Michael Apted and Curtis Hanson, who have given us films such Academy Award winning films as LA CONFIDENTIAL, 8 MILE and COAL MINER’S DAUGHTER.

CHASING MAVERICKS is based on the real life of a young man named Jay Moriarity and is about his quest to surf the big Mavericks waves in Northern California.

It is also about his surrogate father figure, a local surfing legend who takes Jay under his wing in order to train him to survive it.

I’d never heard of Jay Moriarity prior to watching CHASING MAVERICKS, but I love movies about surfing, so I dove right in.

The film works for me, because the surfing scenes are tremendous and exceptionally well done. But when the movie is on land, it is mediocre at best.

I never disliked CHASING MAVERICKS, and I do now want to read and see more about Jay Moriarity, but this is not a great movie, with the exception of the surfing stuff.

Its okay, but never great…even for a guilty pleasure.

Okay, let me quickly run through these three releases now, none of them awful, just none of them good enough to spend much time on…either reviewing or watching.

The first one is THE PLAYERS and if you’ve ever wondered what French actor Jean Dujardin has been up to since winning the Oscar for THE ARTIST last year, this is it.

THE PLAYERS is a very entertaining series of short films set around the theme of infidelity and I really, really enjoyed almost all of it…except for the ending.

This is a fun, adult look at life, men who can’t stay faithful, and men who would like to be unfaithful…but the movie, like most relationships that include infidelity, doesn’t end well.

That said, I still enjoyed THE PLAYERS enough to recommend it

I will also recommend the crime comedy SEVEN PSYCHOPATHS, about – wait for it – seven…psychopaths… but you absolutely must know going in that actor Sam Rockwell is 100% annoying here.

The film itself is mostly clever, but he is just so over-the-top that it gets hard to take after a while.

SEVEN PSYCHOPATHS stars Colin Farrell as a struggling screenwriter who has a great idea for a film – wait for it – about seven…psychopaths – and as he works on that with his friend, played by Sam Rockwell, he becomes part of a dog kidnapping scam involving a gangster’s beloved Shih Tzu.

SEVEN PSYCHOPATHS has some great action scenes, is also very funny, features some great dialogue, and is clever at times, but it suffers from the presence of Sam Rockwell.

He is too annoying and since he’s in most of the film, that works against it. I never disliked the movie, but I can’t recommend it either.

Better than average. SINISTER is a better than average horror thriller.

SINISTER stars Ethan Hawke from REALITY BITES as a true-crime writer who finds a box of home movies in the attic of his new house, a house where a horrific series of murders took place.

The films seem to be the work of a serial killer whose career dates back to the 1960s.

SINISTER has some huge jumps, which is good for a horror film, and is better than average, but it is ten minutes too long. Had it ended ten minutes earlier, then I would easily recommend it.

As it is, ten minutes too long, I can only mildly recommend it.

Finally this week is the DIE HARD: 25th ANNIVERSARY BLU-RAY COLLECTION, a five-disc set that features one of the greatest action films ever made, it’s very good first sequel and two pretty good second and third follow-ups. It also comes with a Bonus Disc that takes us behind the scenes on all four films, through interviews with almost everyone who appeared in or helped create the four films…such as director John McTiernan and producer Joel Silver.

The original 1988 DIE HARD film that introduced us to Bruce Willis playing John McClane of the NYPD is a classic! As McClane struggled to save his wife, and others, who have been taken hostage by German terrorist Hans Gruber during a Christmas party at the Nakatomi Plaza in Los Angeles, a new type of action hero was born!!

1990’s DIE HARD 2 remains a very good sequel as McClane attempts to avert disaster as rogue military officials seize control of Dulles International Airport in Washington, D.C.

1993’s DIE HARD WITH A VENGEANCE, co-starring Samuel L. Jackson, played too much like a LETHAL WEAPON film for many people, but as McClane works to defeat Hans Gruber’s brother,’s plot to raid the biggest gold storage in the world, there are a few scenes worthy of the DIE HARD name.

Then we get to 2007’s LIVE FREE OR DIE HARD, and the reason to skip this new blu-ray set. It’s not necessarily a bad movie, as I said it is a pretty-good follow-up, but the first three were all R rated action films for adults, full of violence and plenty of well-placed profanity, like at the end of the words Yippe-Kay-Yay.

The fourth movie was a PG-13 film, done as an attempt to allow more teenagers to see it…and thus make more money at the box office. That was fine, for theatrical reasons…but in the home video world, especially on blu-ray, the norm these days is to include both the theatrical version and an unrated version.

However, in the DIE HARD: 25th ANNIVERSARY BLU-RAY COLLECTION, the studio hasn’t done that. This is the second time these films have been released in a blu-ray collection and they still haven’t done that. The only way to see the unrated LIVE FREE OR DIE HARD is on DVD…not in High Definition, but on DVD.

To that I say BOOO!!!!

For those who love these movies…let me suggest patience. With the recent release of the fifth and probably final film in the series – the really awful A GOOD DAY TO DIE HARD – there will be at least one more DIE HARD collection available to own one day that has all of the movies…and maybe that one will even the unrated version of LIVE FREE OR DIE HARD.

And that, my friends, that will be a collection of movies I highly recommend!! This DIE HARD: 25th ANNIVERSARY BLU-RAY COLLECTION…not so much.

The disappointing DIE HARD: 25th ANNIVERSARY BLU-RAY COLLECTION, the better-than-average horror film SINISTER, the should have been better crime comedy SEVEN PSYCHOPATHS, the entertaining French comedy THE PLAYERS, the okay surfing biopic CHASING MAVERICKS, THE COMPLETE FIRST SEASON of the guilty pleasure THE CLIENT LIST, THE COMPLETE FIRST SEASON of the CBC show MR. D, the very good Oscar nominated documentary 5 BROKEN CAMERAS, and the interesting Quebec City drama ALL THAT YOU POSSESS are all available now, either on disc or on demand.

Coming up inside the next Couch Potato Report

The made-in-Montreal crime thriller DEADFALL, the partially filmed in Vancouver sequel THE TWILIGHT SAGA: BREAKING DAWN – PART 2, the Academy Award nominated films THE MASTER, HOW TO SURVIVE A PLAGUE and WRECK-IT RALPH and Steven Spielberg’s Oscar winning masterpiece SCHINDLER’S LIST debuts on blu-ray.

I’ll have more on those, and some other releases, in seven days.

For now, that’s this week’s COUCH POTATO REPORT.

Enjoy the movies and I’ll see you back here again next time on The Couch!

The Couch Potato Report – February 23rd, 2013

Inside this week’s Couch Potato Report is the movie that will win Best Picture at the Oscars Sunday night and a game of thrones.

On Sunday night, the 85th Annual Academy Awards will be given out in Los Angeles and after all the other Awards have been handed out, one Hollywood icon or another will be introduced and they will give out the final Oscar…the most important one…the one for Best Picture of 2012.

AMOUR, BEASTS OF THE SOUTHERN WILD, DJANGO UNCHAINED, LES MISERABLES, LIFE OF PI, LINCOLN, SILVER LININGS PLAYBOOK and ZERO DARK THIRTY are the other films that will be mentioned, but the winner will be Ben Affleck’s ARGO…not necessarily because it is better than the others, although it is very good, but because Affleck wasn’t nominated as Best Director.

That fact alone has seemingly carried his film to victory at the Golden Globes, the Screen Actors Guild and almost every other ceremony this Awards season.

Now, had Ben been nominated as Best Director, his movie would have lost to Steven Spielberg’s LINCOLN, but since he wasn’t, Spielberg gets the Director’s Oscar, and Affleck’s ARGO wins Best Picture, which is fine with me because it is a great film.

Based on the true story, ARGO tells the story of the joint CIA-Canadian secret operation to extract six fugitive American diplomatic personnel out of revolutionary Iran in 1980.

Ben Affleck – who also gave us THE TOWN and GONE BABY GONE – directs and stars as the CIA exfiltration specialist tasked with getting the Americans home. Bryan Cranston from BREAKING BAD plays his supervisor, a man who – along with his boss – knows that the rescue attempt may fail, and fail badly.

AGRO is a fantastic film that is full of tension and real drama as the race against time to get these people free goes down to the wire.

I really enjoyed it, and highly recommend the movie AND the wealth of Bonus Materials, which include interviews with the real people who planned and carried out the rescue, including the real CIA agent and former U.S. President Jimmy Carter.

Don’t miss ARGO, and also…don’t be surprised when it wins the Oscar for Best Picture on Sunday night.

Another film you absolutely should not miss is the documentary BULLY that shows us the results of peer-to-peer bullying in schools. Specifically, it introduces us to five students who face bullying on a daily basis.

BULLY is tragic, for many reasons, especially when we meet the parents of kids who could no longer live with being bullied anymore.

BULLY is heartbreakingly sad at times, but it is also uplifting and inspiring as some kids refuse to back down.

BULLY is one of those movies that everyone should see, parents, kids, teachers, students, educators…everyone should see this movie.

Anna Karenina is a classic piece of literature from the Russian writer Leo Tolstoy that was published in serial installments from 1873 to 1877.

It has been adapted for film over a dozen times throughout the years, starting in 1914 and continuing last year with a British version directed by Joe Wright – who also gave us the latest version of PRIDE & PREJUDICE in 2005 – and this latest comes from a screenplay by Tony and Oscar winner Tom Stoppard.

Costume drama queen and Academy Award nominee Keira Knightley – from THE PIRATES OF THE CARIBBEAN films – stars here as the aristocrat Anna Karenina who has an affair with a younger man, leaving behind her older Russian statesman husband.

Academy Award nominee Jude Law from the SHERLOCK HOLMES films plays the husband, and in this latest retelling of ANNA KARENINA, he is actually a decent, sympathetic guy.

ANNA KARENINA is a classic piece of literature, and there have been some great film versions of it over the years, but this latest one is not one of them.

I never really understood why she wanted to have an affair, her husband seemed like a good enough guy, AND the guy she takes up with is nothing special at all. Aaron Taylor-Johnson – of the film SAVAGES – plays the young count and his performance is stiff and uninteresting. He isn’t appealing in any way and I kept thinking, this guy? She is willing to throw it all away for this guy?!?

This newest version of ANNA KARENINA has received four Academy Award nominations – for Best Cinematography, Costume Design, Best Original Score and Production Design – and so it is a well-made and beautiful looking film, but I didn’t care for it at all. The changes to the text don’t suit the story well, it was boring far too often, and at almost two hours and ten minutes long I just couldn’t wait for it to end.

Now, if you want to see a film version of ANNA KARENINA that is worth your time, look for the 1935 version starring Greta Garbo and Fredric March. Now that one is a classic.

This newest one is not…and I recommend that you just skip it.

Here now is something worthy of your time, although it too is a bit boring in the middle…but it finishes strong.

ROBOT & FRANK is a comedic crime drama set in the not-too-distant future about an aging and forgetful former thief who is given a robot by his son, to help take care of him and clean the house.

But Frank discovers the robot has other uses as well, and soon the two are working together planning heists.

Stage and screen character actor Frank Langella – who received an Academy Award nomination in 2008 for playing Richard Nixon in FROST/NIXON stars as the human here and his work in ROBOT & FRANK hits all the right notes. What he remembers, what he has forgotten, we are never quite sure until the end.

It is a bit slow…but ROBOT & FRANK was always interesting and I liked it. It’s not a classic, and I probably won’t ever watch it again, but I liked it and recommend that you see it once too.

I also probably won’t watch BATTLESTAR GALACTICA: BLOOD & CHROME again, but I completely enjoyed watching this made-in-Vancouver release as it allowed me to immerse myself in the BATTLESTAR GALACTICA universe once again!!

Battlestar Galactica was an American military science fiction television series that aired from 2004 to 2009 and was a re-imagining of the 1978 series of the same name. Since it went off the air there have been several attempts to launch a prequel series – most notably with a show called CAPRICA – with not much luck.

BLOOD & CHROME was also intended to kick start a new series, but it too won’t succeed at that mission and it is now being released as a stand-alone film.

BATTLESTAR GALACTICA: BLOOD & CHROME is about the first mission of young William Adama in the First Cylon War and it does have a few surprises & a couple of unique scenes, just not enough of them for me to recommend it.

However, even though I didn’t love BLOOD & CHROME I did enjoy watching BATTLESTAR GALACTICA again…so here’s hoping they find a way to do a new series that works, and lives up to the original, one day. I’d love to see it!!

Finally this week, adventure…drama…fantasy…beautiful women and men…action…dragons!! All of that and much, much more can be found in THE COMPLETE SECOND SEASON of the series GAME OF THRONES.

This is a show has great twists, offers up plenty of surprises, and features tremendous acting from a great cast of strong men and women. SEASON ONE of this show was great…SEASON TWO is even better!!

GAME OF THRONES is primarily about what happens surrounding a civil war in a sprawling fantasy kingdom, but it’s also about family, honour, loyalty and friends.

Plus, there is plenty of good – old fashioned – battles, sword fights and love making to entertain you.

GAME OF THRONES is a great show!! I really enjoyed watching it, and can recommend THE COMPLETE SECOND SEASON, and the first season as well, to all!!

THE COMPLETE SECOND SEASON of the spectacular series GAME OF THRONES, the not great but not awful BATTLESTAR GALACTICA prequel BLOOD & CHROME, the likeable ROBOT & FRANK, the very boring latest cinematic version of Tolstoy’s ANNA KARENINA, the must see documentary BULLY and director Ben Affleck’s movie that will win Best Picture at the Oscars Sunday night – ARGO – are all available now, either on disc or on demand.

Coming up inside the next Couch Potato Report

The made-in-Quebec City drama ALL THAT YOU POSSESS, THE COMPLETE FIRST SEASON of the made-in-Halifax CBC show MR. D, SEVEN PSYCHOPATHS, and we’ll celebrate the 25th ANNIVERSARY of one of the greatest action films ever made – DIE HARD.

I’ll have more on those, and some other releases, in seven days.

For now, that’s this week’s COUCH POTATO REPORT.

Enjoy the movies and the Academy Awards!! I’ll see you back here again next time on The Couch!

The Couch Potato Report – February 16th, 2013

Inside this week’s Couch Potato Report a liar’s autobiography, the perks of being a wallflower, and Bond is back!!

Prior to the release of the twenty-third James Bond film SKYFALL last November, it had been four years since the world had a Bond film…four long years!

The delay was caused by the financial troubles of MGM, but now that they have survived, Bond is back and Daniel Craig has never been better as 007.

Academy Award winning director Sam Mendes – who also gave us AMERICAN BEAUTY – is in charge this time around and he has managed to create an action adventure film that is firmly rooted in the present, Bond no longer seems like an older version of Jason Bourne, plus SKYFALL also features some spectacular references from the franchise’s past, and it also sets things up for a very entertaining future.

The story here surrounds the fact that Bond’s loyalty to M is tested when the past comes back to haunt her and everyone at MI6. As always though, it is up to Bond to save the world, no matter what it takes.

As he did when he won the Oscar for NO COUNTRY FOR OLD MEN, Javier Bardem gives an amazing performance in SKYFALL as the villain Silva, in fact all of the actors here give great performances, and the credit for that goes to Mendes…he is a great director and he made these actor and the film great.

Daniel Craig, Judi Dench, Ralph Fiennes, Albert Finney, they are all at the top of their game here!!

Now, let’s be clear, this is a James Bond movie…so things explode for no real reason during implausible action sequences, and there are some plot holes you can drive a truck through…but this is a James Bond movie, and they’ve been making them this way for over fifty years now, so we all know what to expect.

Don’t overanalyze it, just enjoy it…and you will enjoy it!! SKYFALL was my favourite film of 2012 and I – obviously – highly recommend it.

THE PERKS OF BEING A WALLFLOWER was produced on a much smaller level than a Bond film, and it is for that reason alone that I am quite sure many people will gravitate toward it – as they have toward the book of the same name by Stephen Chbosky.

However, as much as I liked it – and I did like it – I just didn’t care for some of it…in fact one of the characters – who many will describe as a “scene stealer” – was just way too over the top for me with his perfectly scripted dialogue.

THE PERKS OF BEING A WALLFLOWER is about a shy, lonely high school freshman who becomes friends with a girl and her step brother. They are seniors and they decide to help him make friends…and in the process the freshman fall in love with the girl, who is played by Emma Watson of the HARRY POTTER films.

Emma is very good in the film, and the young actor – Logan Lerman – playing the freshman is good too. The two of them and the step brother are great friends, and they have each other’s back during the trying times that High School can bring. I really enjoyed that aspect of it.

But whenever the step brother has one of his far too often too over the top moments, it took away from the story for me.

But, flaws aside, I do still recommend THE PERKS OF BEING A WALLFLOWER. It is a very likeable movie with a great young cast.

Prior to the announcement of this year’s Academy Award nominations, just about every Oscar prognosticator – including me – thought that John Hawkes would be nominated for his performance as a man in an iron lung who wishes to lose his virginity in the film THE SESSIONS.

However, once the nominations came out Hawkes – from the TV series DEADWOOD and the film WINTER’S BONE – was not nominated, instead, his co-star Helen Hunt was nominated as Best Supporting actress.

And while she does a very good job playing the professional who helps him fulfill his wish, his performance is the more impressive one.

THE SESSIONS is a touching film that is also interesting, informative and even funny at times.

Unfortunately, there is also some stuff about it that doesn’t work. Both John Hawkes and Helen Hunt’s Boston accents come and go at times, there is one HUGE cinematic cliché that takes place simply to move the story along – when everything else seems almost real – and I didn’t care for the ending at all.

Not at all!!! But – that said – I will still mildly recommend THE SESSIONS as I enjoyed it far more often than I didn’t.

And finally this week, a film whose title says it all. This is A LIAR’S AUTOBIOGRAPHY: THE UNTRUE STORY OF MONTY PYTHON’S GRAHAM CHAPMAN

This is a very odd film, not unlike Graham Chapman himself. In the Monty Python troupe, he always seemed like he was brilliantly out of step from the other five…and all but one of those surviving five lend their voices to this interesting animated film that is narrated by Chapman himself, with the audio coming from a reading of his autobiography done shortly before he died of cancer.

Plus, Python’s Michael Palin voices Chapman’s father and Terry Jones voices his mother.

A LIAR’S AUTOBIOGRAPHY: THE UNTRUE STORY OF MONTY PYTHON’S GRAHAM CHAPMAN is very funny and always engaging and even fascinating as it allows us to get to know this comedic genius who died far too young.

Not everyone will appreciate it’s very dry humour and the different styles of animation used, but I do recommend it…especially the bonus materials, which allow us to get to know Mr. Chapman better – at times – than even his autobiography does.

The interesting and odd A LIAR’S AUTOBIOGRAPHY: THE UNTRUE STORY OF MONTY PYTHON’S GRAHAM CHAPMAN, the Academy Award nominated informative drama THE SESSIONS, the likeable but sometimes too over the top drama THE PERKS OF BEING A WALLFLOWER, and the spectacular James Bond film SKYFALL are all available now, either on disc or on demand.

Coming up inside the next Couch Potato Report

ANNA KARENINA, SEVEN PSYCHOPATHS, THE BULLY PROJECT, BATTLESTAR GALACTICA: BLOOD & CHROME, and Ben Affleck’s soon to be Academy Award winning Drama ARGO – about the American hostages who got out of Iran in 1979 with some help from the Canadian government.

I’ll have more on those, and some other releases, in seven days.

For now, that’s this week’s COUCH POTATO REPORT.

Enjoy the movies and I’ll see you back here again next time on The Couch!

The Couch Potato Report – February 9th, 2013

Inside this week’s Couch Potato Report one of the greatest documentaries ever – ever!! – and we take a flight.

Music fans, do I have something special for you this week!!

Fleetwood Mac, Rick Springfield, Tom Petty, Johnny Cash, Metallica, REO Speedwagon, Neil Young, Red Hot Chili Peppers, Nine Inch Nails, Foreigner, Slayer, Ratt, Carl Perkins, BTO, Dio and Stevie Nicks are just a few of the music icons who appear in the documentary SOUND CITY!!

SOUND CITY was directed by Dave Grohl, of the bands Nirvana and Foo Fighters and is all about Sound City Studios, a legendary recording studio located in Los Angeles. Nirvana’s NEVERMIND was recorded there and Grohl wanted to document the place that helped him get where he is today, and pay tribute to all of the classic music made there and the people who made it, some who haven’t survived.

The most fantastic thing about SOUND CITY, among many fantastic things, is that Dave Grohl was able to get most of the actual musicians and producers who recorded in the studio to appear in his film and tell their story themselves…and verify other stories that you might not believe otherwise.

The first hour of SOUND CITY gives us the history of the now closed studio complex courtesy of the superstars who recorded there and the people who worked there, and in the final thirty-plus minutes Grohl collaborates on a new album. Paul McCartney, Stevie Nicks, Rick Springfield, Trent Reznor, Lee Ving and several others join Grohl and the Foo Fighters and the surviving members of Nirvana to make music, using Sound City’s legendary Neve recording console, which was saved and put into Grohl’s own studio when Sound City closed.

Now, that last bit of the movie is very good…and I look forward to hearing the final album when it comes out in Matrch…but the main reason to see the film is for the stories about the music made at Sound City Studios…including NEVERMIND.

In addition to being a tremendous look back at how music used to be made, by the people who made it, SOUND CITY is also tremendous because we don’t have to wait for it. It is only playing theatrically in a few select cities, and the DVD and blu-ray won’t be available until March 12th, but if you want to see the movie right now, you can!!

Just go to soundcitymovie.com or iTunes and buy it.

Dave Grohl’s SOUND CITY will easily make my list of the best films of the year. I enjoyed every second of it and wish it was twice as long!! This is one of the greatest documentaries ever!!

Up next is a film with a tremendous start and finish, but some boring parts in the middle…which is not unlike an actual trip on a plane.

Denzel Washington received an Academy Award nomination for his role in FLIGHT.

Washington plays a pilot who manages to land a plane after mechanical difficulties threaten to send it crashing nose first into the ground.

The problem is, he was on drugs and drinking alcohol while flying the plane.

FLIGHT is a very interesting movie with some very emotional scenes and a great supporting cast – that includes John Goodman, Don Cheadle, and Canadian Bruce Greenwood. I also really enjoyed the music in it. But perhaps the main reason I liked it was the question contained at its core: Can a flawed man still be a hero?

You’ll make up your own mind about that, just as I have. I’ve also made up my mind – quite easily – to recommend this movie.

FLIGHT is not perfect, due to the slow and boring parts in the middle as the story plays out, but it is very, very good.

Now to the art of low expectations…as in, not expecting much from something…as in to set one’s expectation so low that even something mediocre can impress.

If you go into any of these four utterly mediocre releases with low expectations you might enjoy them. None of them are likely to ever be one of your favourite films of all time, but with low expectations, you might enjoy them.

I personally had high expectations for CELESTE AND JESSE FOREVER as everything I had read about this romantic comedy starring Rashida Jones from the television series PARKS & RECREATION and Andy Samberg, of SATURDAY NIGHT LIVE, made it sound amazing!

For instance, in his very positive review for Entertainment Weekly, Owen Gleiberman concluded that “…it’s been a while since a romantic comedy mustered this much charm by looking this much like life.”

Man, I wish I had been able to go into this movie with low expectations instead of thinking I was about to see something amazing!!

CELESTE AND JESSE FOREVER is the story of high school sweethearts who married young, are getting a divorce and are trying to stay friends.

And even though they’ve been separated for six months, they still hang out every day, laugh a lot, and Jesse holds out hope that Celeste will take him back.

But when she finally does, he has moved on.

CELESTE AND JESSE FOREVER is cast with actors who are likeable, so their characters are likeable and you root for them…even Andy Samberg, who by the time he left SATURDAY NIGHT LIVE had become quite annoying…and if you don’t go in expecting it to be the best romantic comedy that you have ever seen, you might enjoy it.

I wanted to enjoy CELESTE AND JESSE FOREVER, but the weight of high expectations crushed it for me and as it became cliché – as all romantic comedies eventually do – I started to lose interest.

So remember…lower your expectations.

I admit my expectations weren’t really that high at all for the action thriller ALEX CROSS and so I was mildly entertained by it.

It is never anywhere near great, but it does have a few twists that I didn’t see coming.

The character of Alex Cross is a police psychologist that first appeared in a series of novels written by James Patterson. He was then played on screen in the films KISS THE GIRLS and ALONG CAME A SPIDER by Morgan Freeman.

In this re-boot, he is played by Tyler Perry, who is best known for both creating and performing in drag the Madea character in a series of films.

Perry is neither a help nor hindrance to the film, he is just the lead actor is a very, very predictable movie.

Set in Detroit, ALEX CROSS is about a homicide detective who becomes willing to do anything it takes to catch a serial killer, and like I said, it has a few twists that you won’t see coming but not enough to redeem it. Even with low expectations you might not get much out of this one.

I had to watch ALEX CROSS, so I could review it, but unless you have to review it as well, need to see every action thriller released, or love Tyler Perry, you probably have better things to do.

Low, low, low, low expectations…that is what I had when I watched what I expected would be an unfunny comedy called HERE COMES THE BOOM starring Kevin James from KING OF QUEENS and the always lovely Salma Hayek.

It looked unfunny, and it was. I didn’t even come close to laughing.

Kevin James plays a big hearted high school biology teacher who wants to raise some money fast to try and save extra-curricular activities from being cut at his cash-strapped school.

So he becomes a mixed-martial arts fighter…ha ha ha!! Isn’t that funny?! Chubby Kevin James as an MMA fighter…no it is not!!

HERE COMES THE BOOM isn’t awful, I actually liked the message it offers about getting an education, taking part in extra-curricular activities, and respecting our elders.

Plus, the fight scenes in HERE COMES THE BOOM are very well done, so with low expectations fans of MMA might get something out of this would-be-comedy…just don’t expect to laugh…because laugh you will not.

And there goes the boom!

We find ourselves now at THE COLD LIGHT OF DAY, a movie that was filmed at some gorgeous locations in Spain and features a cast including Bruce Willis, Sigourney Weaver and the new cinematic Superman Henry Cavill.

He plays a young Wall Street trader who is forced to find the people – or agency – responsible when his family is kidnapped on a sailing trip in Spain.

Bruce Willis is his Father, a long time covert operative.

THE COLD LIGHT OF DAY is one of those movies that you can tell they spent some money to make because it looks great!!

They just didn’t spend enough on the script because you won’t care about what happens…unless you go in with low expectations and are a HUGE fan of Bruce Willis. In that case, you might think of it as an okay way to spend 93 minutes with an action thriller.

Otherwise, skip it. Sometimes expectations can only go so low.

Finally this week, 1953 meets 2013 as the Walt Disney classic PETER PAN is new on blu-ray in high definition!!

Based on the play “Peter Pan” by J. M. Barrie, this animated version of the story of the boy who wouldn’t grow up has always been my favourite.

PETER PAN looks amazing on blu-ray, at times it was hard to tell that it was now sixty years old, plus this new Diamond Edition comes with a wealth of Special Features old and new.

But the main reason to pick it up is because of the film itself as Wendy Darling and her brothers are whisked away to the magical world of Neverland, where they meet the Lost Boys, Captain Hook, his sidekick, Mr. Smee, and so many other one-of-a-kind characters!

PETER PAN remains a classic and I hope that Peter – and the movie itself – never grows up!

The Disney classic PETER PAN, the okay action film THE COLD LIGHT OF DAY, the predictable and uninspired wannabe comedy HERE COMES THE BOOM, the predictable action thriller ALEX CROSS, and the not great but potentially enjoyable – if you go in with low expectations – romantic comedy CELESTE AND JESSE FOREVER, and the great Academy Award nominated FLIGHT are all available now, either on disc or on demand.

The tremendous documentary SOUND CITY is available to download right now, and will appear on disc March 12th.

Coming up inside the next Couch Potato Report

THE PERKS OF BEING A WALLFLOWER, THE MAN WITH THE IRON FISTS, A LIAR’S AUTOBIOGRAPHY: THE UNTRUE STORY OF MONTY PYTHON’S GRAHAM CHAPMAN and James Bond is back in the great action film SKYFALL!!

I’ll have more on those, and some other releases, in seven days.

For now, that’s this week’s COUCH POTATO REPORT.

Enjoy the movies and I’ll see you back here again next time on The Couch!

The Couch Potato Report – February 2nd, 2013

Inside this week’s Couch Potato Report are some great pieces of British entertainment and we’ll go under the sea!!

We are taking a cinematic trip across the ocean, and even back in time this morning, in fact lets head to 1920 and 1921, specifically our destination is the fictional Yorkshire country estate known as Downton Abbey.

In the past I have highly recommended both SEASON ONE and SEASON TWO of DOWNTON ABBEY, the British dramatic series about the Crawley family and their servants, and now SEASON THREE is out and while I did also enjoy this third one, I didn’t love it as much as the first two.

In this season of the show – and I’ll speak to those now who have watched the first two – in SEASON THREE Mary and Matthew are married; Tom and Sybil, who are expecting their first child, arrived at Downton and Downton itself is suffering some financial hardships.

The plotlines as they are remain entertaining enough, but the problem that I’ve begun to have with the show is that there doesn’t seem to be a big picture plan for it. Storylines are introduced and then never advanced, characters are now entering and exiting for plot reasons and not to serve the legacy of the story, or the Abbey, and in episode five something happens that we – the viewer – can see coming a mile away, but no one on the show seems even remotely aware of it.

The characters on the show can be extremely selfish, but they usually don’t miss anything…especially two time Emmy Award winner Maggie Smith’s character, Violet Crawley, Dowager Countess of Grantham.

Big picture problems aside, and even though I don’t love it as much these days, SEASON THREE of the show remains very entertaining and it still provides us with class battles, period settings & costumes, and many great conversations about life and love in the world, as it exists at Downton Abbey.

As I did with the first two, I highly recommend SEASON THREE.

Fans of Shakespeare and British television and movies should also check out this next release. I didn’t personally love Ralph Fiennes modern day retelling of the Bard’s CORIOLANUS, but I was impressed enough by it to think others might enjoy it more.

Ralph Fiennes from SCHINDLER’S LIST and THE ENGLISH PATIENT makes his directorial debut here in this story of banished hero of Rome who sides with a sworn enemy to take his revenge on the city.

CORIOLANUS is a well-made movie, that tells an age old tale, and features a top-notch cast – including Academy Award nominee Jessica Chastain from ZERO DARK THIRTY.

As I said, I didn’t love it…but it is impressive enough for me to recommend that anyone who is interested in seeing it, should see it.

I also highly, very highly recommend THE INBETWEENERS MOVIE as well…although it is the polar opposite of CORIOLANUS and DOWNTON ABBEY!

This is a light piece of entertainment that is never as serious as Shakespeare of London in the 1920s.

THE INBETWEENERS was a profane and honest British series that ran for three seasons about four friends trying to navigate life in and out of high school. I loved the series, it is laugh out loud funny, and now we have THE INBETWEENERS MOVIE where the guys – now graduated from High School, head off to Greece for a fun in the sun holiday…and hilarity ensues!!

I do and will always love shows and movies about friends just hanging out and doing stuff, even doing nothing, and that combined with the quality and well written situations continually offered up in THE INBETWEENERS and the MOVIE is why I love it and continue to highly recommend it.

This is great stuff…it’s not for everyone due to how profane and raunchy it is…but I love it!!

Because it takes around three to four months for films released to theatres to debut for home viewing, we continue to get a wealth of movies released around Halloween debuting on disc these days…in fact, I have three of them right now that are all aimed at those who like movies about things that go bump in the night.

The first of these three is the fourth installment in the found footage PARANORMAL ACTIVITY series…a series that I absolutely love…although I will be the first to admit that this latest one is nowhere near as good as the first three, and that third one wasn’t as good as the first two…and I am sure you see where I am going…the quality of the PARANORMAL ACTIVITY films continues to slide

That said, I will keep watching them…and hope they get better.

The PARANORMAL ACTIVITY films are based around a family and the haunting of them by a demon who has been troubling them for years.

They are presented in the style of hand-held found footage, and even though they are no longer new or as scary as the original one was, the sequels still offer some creepy moments…some very creepy moments.

PARANORMAL ACTIVITY 4 introduces us to a whole new family, who live across the street from a woman and mysterious child…that turn out to be Katie and Hunter, from the previous films.

But you won’t care too much about the new people…it is only what is going on with Katie and Hunter that is interesting.

Yes I will watch these films for as long as they make them, even if they’re not as good…and PARANORMAL ACTIVITY 4 is certainly not as good.

If you’ve seen the other three, then it is a must see as it continues Katie’s story…and that stuff is awesome!!…but if you haven’t seen the other ones, don’t bother with it.

However, the other three are out there for you to see, and they are much, much better and soooo creepy good!!

I do love a good creepy movie, but a bad creepy movie can just be a waste of time and when I was watching THE AWAKENING this week, I couldn’t help feel that I was wasting my time…although I liked the ending.

THE AWAKENING takes place in 1921 in an England that is overwhelmed by the loss and grief of World War I.

Rebecca Hall from THE TOWN is a woman who exposes hoaxes and people trying to capilatlize on that grief.

When she is visits a boarding school to try and explain sightings of a child ghost everything she believes in starts to unravel as people who have been missing for years begin to appear to her.

Yes, I liked the ending of THE AWAKENING, but had I not been so bored as it worked its way there, I might have figured it out…and I was bored, very bored.

It isn’t an awful movie, it’s just boring…until the end…but you don’t need to waste ninety minutes so you can enjoy the final seventeen so I suggest that you just skip THE AWAKENING.

You should also skip the animated family film HOTEL TRANSYLVANIA, the latest mis-fire from Adam Sandler.

I didn’t laugh once, not once…I didn’t even come close to laughing…I honestly just didn’t care.

Sandler gives voice here to Dracula, who operates a high-end resort away from the human world in order to protect his daughter.

And when a human stumbles in to the resort, and falls for the count’s teen-aged daughter, you still won’t care.

There is nothing new or original about HOTEL TRANSYLVANIA, nothing at all. It is just another opportunity for Sandler to give work to his friends Andy Samberg, Kevin James, Steve Buscemi, David Spade and Jon Lovitz.

I know it wasn’t actually meant for me, that it is a kids film, but spare your kids this mess.

Skip HOTEL TRANSYLVANIA, at all costs!!

Now, if you’ve been with The Couch Potato Report since it first debuted in 1991, you’ve probably heard me say this many times…I love nature and wildlife documentaries! Just love them!!

Now, if this is the first time you’ve tuned in to this weekly look at what’s new on DVD, Blu-ray and available online for Digital Download…you’ve now heard me say it once…but it won’t be the last time!!

Because I love nature and wildlife documentaries!!

There are three great new ones out this week, in 3D and 2D, and they are AMAZING OCEAN, FASCINATION CORAL REEF and FASCINATION CORAL REEF: MYSTERIOUS WORLDS UNDERWATER.

AMAZING OCEAN is the best one, but all three – and I am speaking of them as one as I recommend all three – in them we see whale sharks, rays, elephant seals, coral reefs & forests and we get to observe turtles searching for food as they swim by…and if you have the technology, it is all in 3D!!

If not, even in 2D it all looks amazing and you will learn plenty of things too!!

I love nature and wildlife documentaries and so I enjoyed AMAZING OCEAN, FASCINATION CORAL REEF and FASCINATION CORAL REEF: MYSTERIOUS WORLDS UNDERWATER, but I will admit they aren’t the greatest I have ever seen.

To talk about and show a blowfish and puffer fish and explain how they blow up to protect themselves, but then to not show them blow up is unforgiveable.

Still, there is enough here to enjoy, to learn from and for me to recommend.

The visually amazing documentaries FASCINATION CORAL REEF 3D, FASCINATION CORAL REEF 3D: MYSTERIOUS WORLDS UNDERWATER and AMAZING OCEAN 3D, the latest waste of time Adam Sandler project – the animated HOTEL TRANSYLVANIA, the boring wannabe supernatural thriller THE AWAKENING, the not-as-good-as-the-first-three sequel PARANORMAL ACTIVITY 4, the exceptionally dirty fun time offered in THE INBETWEENERS MOVIE, Ralph Fiennes’ impressive but not spectacular retelling of Shakespeare’s CORIOLANUS, and the very entertaining, but lacking SEASON THREE of DOWNTON ABBEY are all available now, either on disc or on demand.

Coming up inside the next Couch Potato Report

The made-in-Montreal crime drama DEADFALL starring Eric Bana and Olivia Wilde; the comedic drama CELESTE AND JESSE FOREVER with Rashida Jones and Andy Samberg; PETER PAN debuts on blu-ray and Denzel Washington received an Academy Award nomination for his work as a flawed hero in Robert Zemeckis’ FLIGHT.

I’ll have more on those, and some other releases, in seven days.

For now, that’s this week’s COUCH POTATO REPORT.

Enjoy the movies and I’ll see you back here again next time on The Couch!

The Couch Potato Report – January 26th, 2013

Inside this week’s Couch Potato Report are two fantastic documentaries and horror thriller made in our Nation’s Capital.

Two of the most entertaining documentaries that I have ever seen are coming up, but first, let me quickly get through my review of a made in Ottawa flick that you may think you want to see – as it stars two-time Academy Award nominee – Jennifer Lawrence.

But HOUSE AT THE END OF THE STREET is so bad that it isn’t even called “The” HOUSE AT THE END OF THE STREET…it is just HOUSE AT THE END OF THE STREET.

In this mess Lawrence – for THE HUNGER GAMES and SILVER LININGS PLAYBOOK – is a teenager who moves with her newly divorced Mother to the house of their dreams in a small town.

But all is not what it seems in this amazing house in the idyllic little town as – years ago – a gruesome murder took place in the house next door…and the killer has never been found!!

Yes…that could have made for a pretty good horror thriller…and the cast of Lawrence and former Oscar nominee Elisabeth Shue from LEAVING LAS VEGAS bring great casting to the mix…but this movie is so bland and boring and uninteresting that you should skip it at all costs.

HOUSE AT THE END OF THE STREET isn’t worthy of any of your time, and that is “the” truth!!

Okay…let’s get to the good stuff!!

When the Academy Award nominated documentary SEARCHING FOR SUGAR MAN begins, we are quickly told that an American musician named Rodriguez – whose music never caught on at home – was a superstar in South Africa due to a few albums he released in the 1970s.

We are also told that he is dead…having committed suicide on stage in a variety of widely rumoured ways.

We are told those things by two huge fans from Cape Town who have decided to find out if the rumours of Rodriguez’ death are true, because – even though he is a huge star – no one really knows anything about him.

Eventually they find some clues as they are SEARCHING FOR SUGAR MAN, through song lyrics and some of the people they meet in the musician’s hometown, people who knew and worked with Rodriguez. And as the film goes on, maybe they find him, maybe they don’t…I’m certainly not going to give the answer away as I don’t want to rob you of the opportunity to find it out for yourself.

I will say this – by the time this exceptional documentary is over you will want more. More answers, more music, more mystery…more of everything!!

SEARCHING FOR SUGAR MAN has drama, intrigue, an interesting mystery and some great music. It is a fantastic film and I highly recommend it!!

I also highly recommend the documentary METHOD TO THE MADNESS OF JERRY LEWIS, which shows us the life and career of the living comedy legend through interviews with the man himself and an all-star group of comedians and movie stars, many icons themselves, including Jerry Seinfeld.

There are also tributes from Alec Baldwin, Chevy Chase, Eddie Murphy, Carl Reiner, Quentin Tarantino, Billy Crystal, Carol Burnett and more!

METHOD TO THE MADNESS OF JERRY LEWIS also features clips from his films, an explanation of how he changed the movie industry through his technical innovations…betcha didn’t know about those…and if you have never seen the footage from the Labour Day Telethon where Frank Sinatra reunites Jerry with Dean Martin for the first time in twenty years, it has that too.

METHOD TO THE MADNESS OF JERRY LEWIS is fantastic, it is an absolute love letter to a comedic and cinematic icon, and a true humanitarian.

I laughed, I cried, I reminisced, I even found out a few things I didn’t know…I absolutely loved it!!

Here are five, count ‘em five titles now…ranked in order from best to worst…and let me get to them!

The best of the five, is Liam Neeson’s second turn as a man who must protect another member of his family when she is taken too.

In the original 2008 film Neeson played a retired CIA agent who is forced to travel across Europe and use his training and old skills to save his estranged daughter, who was been kidnapped while on a trip to Paris.

That movie had a happy ending and as TAKEN 2 begins, he and his daughter continue to work on their relationship, and we now meet his ex-wife, played by Famke Janssen, from the X-MEN films.

And this time, instead of the daughter getting kidnapped, Neeson and his ex-wife are taken as the father of one of the people Neeson killed in the first film wants revenge.

TAKEN 2 is a very good, if predictable action film with another strong action film performance by Liam Neeson.

It isn’t the greatest action movie you’ll ever see…but it is well made and has mostly top notch acting and so I have no problems recommending it as a good rental for a winter’s night.

As I said, the quality of these five new releases I have for you goes down as I move through them…and this second film is also an action thriller sequel, but it isn’t for everyone…just those who have seen the other five UNIVERSAL SOLDIER films, dating back to 1992.

This sixth one – yes, they have made six of them now of various quality, and this one is called UNIVERSAL SOLIDER: DAY OF RECKONING.

The UNIVERSAL SOLIDER films center around dead soldiers who are brought back to life through a secret army project that makes them near-perfect fighting weapons.

Jean-Claude Van Damme and Dolph Lundgren starred in the original, and they have returned for the past two as well.

There are some great action and fight scenes in UNIVERSAL SOLIDER: DAY OF RECKONING, but not all of it works. Too often the characters don’t look like they are in real locations, just movie locations set up to be destroyed by their fights.

That said, there is enough here that does work for me to suggest that those who enjoy this series should see this one too.

And that is what I call a mild recommendation.

From a sixth entry in a film series, we have arrived now at the third in the modern day re-imagining of DEATH RACE.

The original film DEATH RACE 2000, was released in 1975 and has become a cult classic over the years.

The newer series started in 2008 with Jason Statham from THE TRANSPORTER films in the lead role. When DEATH RACE 2 debuted direct to DVD in 2010 Statham was long gone…and he remains nowhere to be seen in DEATH RACE 3: INFERNO either.

As the saga of the brutal prison yard demolition derby known as Death Race continues, superstar driver Frankenstein is only one win away from gaining freedom for himself and his pit crew.

But it isn’t the plot that will make you want to see this flick, it is the action, the explosions, the cars, and the men and women driving them…and all of those things are pretty good. Plus, things blow up real good!!

Just go into DEATH RACE 3: INFERNO with low expectations and you’ll enjoy it. It is never great, but it is pretty good.

Here is the second last of the five films I have for you now. This is a crime drama called OFFICER DOWN that stars character actor Stephen Dorff as a bad cop who is trying to go straight…but his past keeps getting in the way.

OFFICER DOWN is occasionally interesting, and it has a pretty good cast, but for the most part it is just boring. It is never awful, and it does have a couple of good twists, but I didn’t like it enough to recommend it.

It wasn’t a waste of my time, because I did want to see it, but you shouldn’t waste your time on it.

Last now, and certainly least, is an unfunny, uninteresting would be/wannabe comedy with the title FOR A GOOD TIME CALL.

I won’t waste your time telling you what the movie is about, or who stars in it, because you have no need to care.

Yes, if you see the trailer or the packaging, it looks like it might be a fun romp starring beautiful people, but it isn’t. It is just a boring, complete waste of your time.

Skip FOR A GOOD TIME CALL, at all costs. It is one of the worst things I have ever had to sit through…ever!!

Finally this week, I have a third very good documentary for you.

This hard to fathom film is about a man from France who is 23-yearsold and convinces a grieving Texas family that he is their 16-year-old son who has been missing for 3 years.

It is called THE IMPOSTER.

If you are wondering how a twenty-three year old dark haired French man with a thick accent convince anyone that he is a sixteen year old blonde haired Texan…you’ll have to see this movie to understand.

Sometimes, people just want to believe.

THE IMPOSTER is very interesting as it introduces us to the real people involved, and uses dramatic recreations of scenes to fill in the blanks. It is dramatic and fascinating and heartbreaking.

This is one of those movies that – if it wasn’t true – you wouldn’t believe it.

But it is true, and believe me when I say that I highly recommend it.

The interesting and heartbreaking documentary THE IMPOSTER; the boring and useless FOR A GOOD TIME CALL; the okay drama OFFICER DOWN; the pretty good low budget action flick DEATH RACE 3: INFERNO; the also pretty good fight flick UNIVERSAL SOLIDER: DAY OF RECKONING; the very good – but never great sequel TAKEN 2; the fantastic love letter METHOD TO THE MADNESS OF JERRY LEWIS; the exceptional Academy Award nominated documentary SEARCHING FOR SUGAR MAN; and the complete waste of time Ottawa made HOUSE AT THE END OF THE STREET are all available now, either on disc or on demand.

Coming up inside the next Couch Potato Report

SEASON THREE of the global smash DOWNTON ABBEY, the comedic crime flick SEVEN PSYCHOPATHS, a look inside the AMAZING OCEAN and the latest in the ongoing found footage series PARANORMAL ACTIVITY 4.

I’ll have more on those, and some other releases, in seven days.

For now, that’s this week’s COUCH POTATO REPORT.

Enjoy the movies and I’ll see you back here again next time on The Couch!

The Couch Potato Report – January 19th, 2013

Inside this week’s Couch Potato Report are some great music related new releases, including one from 1927!!

The quintessential Canadian Band The Tragically Hip formed in 1983 at Queen’s University in Kingston, Ontario, and since then they have won 13 Juno Awards and been nominated 41 times.

Their sixth album “Phantom Power” was released in July of 1998 and it features a Juno Award winning “Song Of The Year” called ‘Bobcaygeon’, which was named after a small town about 160 kilometres northeast of Toronto.

In June of 2011 The Hip played a show in the small town of 2500 that inspired the tune and 25,000 fans travelled from around the world to be there.

They travelled to hear ‘Bobcaygeon’ in Bobcaygeon and the documentary THE TRAGICALLY HIP IN BOBCAYGEON takes us there as well and introduces us to some of the fans.

Now, many of us will never get to hear Stompin’ Tom Connors sing “Sudbury Saturday Night” in Sudbury, the Guess Who perform “Runnin’ Back to Saskatoon” in Saskatoon or Rush do “YYZ” in Toronto…but on the night of June 25th, 2011, 25,000 people heard The Tragically Hip sing “Bobcaygeon” in Bobcaygeon!!

The fans are excited, the locals are excited, and while watching the documentary THE TRAGICALLY HIP IN BOBCAYGEON this week, I was excited!! The only ones who don’t seem that excited about hearing “Bobcaygeon” in Bobcaygeon are the members of the band. To them, it seems like just another gig.

But for the fans…this is the show of a lifetime!

With The Hip starting another cross Canada Tour this weekend, THE TRAGICALLY HIP IN BOBCAYGEON is a great souvenir from a special summer night in a small Canadian town on their last tour, and it is very cool to go behind the scenes and hang out on their tour bus with them.

It isn’t perfect, but I really enjoyed this documentary, especially when the audience starts singing along. This is great stuff!!

Even if you think you don’t know who entertainment industry mogul David Geffen is, over the course of the past four plus decades you have heard music that he has released and seen films and plays he’s produced.

No, you might not know the man’s name, but David Geffen has given the world many hours of entertainment as he helped foster the early careers of such talents as Joni Mitchell, Jackson Browne, Tom Cruise, Guns N’ Roses, Crosby, Stills & Nash and The Eagles.

David Geffen has been an agent, manager, record industry mogul, Hollywood and Broadway producer, and philanthropist and in the insightful, informative and spectacular documentary INVENTING DAVID GEFFEN we hear his whole life story – warts and all – told by Geffen himself, along with Steven Spielberg, Cher, Yoko Ono, Elton John, Tom Hanks, Calvin Klein and Neil Young.

INVENTING DAVID GEFFEN features dozens of great stories about the entertainment industry of the seventies and eighties and I loved every second of it and highly recommend it!

I also recommend the beautiful documentary SAMSARA. If one picture is worth a thousand words, this mostly silent film has billions of words in it!!

SAMSARA was filmed over the course of nearly five years in twenty-five countries on five continents and it features some beautiful and interesting scenes, shown in regular speeds, slow speed and through time lapse.

We get to see things such as a full play shown in 60 seconds, irons being made on an assembly line, boats, motorcycles and computers being crushed and much more, with no dialogue, just music and natural sound.

SAMSARA is not really a travelogue and not really a documentary, but it is all visually stunning. It is colourful and beautiful to look at and I can easily recommend it as well!!

I have a quartet of new releases for you right now, and not all parts are equal, in fact…by the time I get to the last of the four I will have very little positive to say, if any.

Our lead title is a pretty good martial arts called FLYING SWORDS OF DRAGON’S GATE.

This is a sequel to the 1992 flick DRAGON INN. It takes place three years after that one as a new Inn has been built as bad people masquerading as law-abiding citizens look for the fabled lost city buried in the desert.

But the story isn’t the most important thing here…it is a martial arts flick, what matters here is the fighting.

And the fighting is mostly good!!

FLYING SWORDS OF DRAGON’S GATE isn’t the greatest martial arts movie I’ve ever seen as it relies on computer generated characters and images far too often – far, far, far too often!! – but the sets are impressive, the fight scenes inventive at times, and it was all pretty good.

So call that a mild recommendation…but only to people who love martial arts flicks.

If this next film were any longer, I would probably have very few positive things to say about it, and I’d likely simply call it boring.

But at only one hour and forty minutes the made-in-France historical drama FAREWELL MY QUEEN isn’t long enough to be boring…although there are too many characters are far too much going on.

At its core, FAREWELL MY QUEEN is a story about the relationship between Queen Marie-Antoinette and one of her readers during the first days of the French Revolution.

And had the story just been about that relationship, it might have been okay.

But we see and hear about all the turmoil from the people staying and working at the Château de Versailles, and we meet King Louis XVI and as news of the storming of the Bastille reaches them, panic sets in and then the story shifts to the people who are all trying to get away from the sinking ship, leaving the Royal Family practically alone.

There is just too much going on!!

FAREWELL MY QUEEN is interesting at times, I just wasn’t totally invested in all of the stories it tells and so that is why I can’t fully recommend it. It was okay…and that’s all.

Also okay, and that is all, is SEASON ONE of the television series ANGER MANAGEMENT, starring Charlie Sheen as an anger management therapist.

Sheen plays a former baseball player in the show who gave himself a career-ending injury when he tried to snap a bat over his leg in anger.

He has a successful private practice now and is on very cordial terms with his ex-wife and their teenage daughter, and both he and everyone in this show, are the type of people you meet on television shows. They’re not real people, they are stock television characters.

I don’t dislike Charlie Sheen, in fact he has entertained me many times in the past on television and in movies like MAJOR LEAGUE and FERRIS BUELLER’S DAY OFF, but there isn’t much in SEASON ONE of ANGER MANAGEMENT to like, or recommend.

It’s a comedy that just isn’t funny, I didn’t laugh once at anything in any of the ten episodes in SEASON ONE…not once…so I suggest you skip it. I have nothing against it, it just isn’t good entertainment.

The last of this quartet has arrived, and I am out of positive things to say, which is good as HIT & RUN doesn’t deserve any.

What a complete waste of time this thing is!!

HIT & RUN stars Dax Shepard from the television series PARENTHOOD and Kristen Bell of FORGETTING SARAH MARSHALL.

They star as a couple…one of those movie couples, who are together…but there is no reason why as all they seem to do is fight and fight and fight and fight.

When he decides to risk his Witness Protection Plan identity in order to help her get to Los Angeles, her ex-boyfriend, police officers and the guys he ratted out all begin to chase him…and you won’t care.

Yes, there are some cool cars and chase sequences, but the movie isn’t funny at all, you won’t want to spend time with any of the characters in it, and I couldn’t wait for it to end.

But end it did, and I was very happy!!

HIT & RUN is awful and you should just skip it. It isn’t worth any of your time.

The end of The Report this week, takes us back to the beginning…to 1927 and the beginning of talking in movies, all started by Al Jolson.

There are many positive things to say about the great things about THE JAZZ SINGER.

As a movie, this story of a son who must decide to follow in his Father’s footsteps or follow his own dreams is timeless, and as a production…at a time when most movies were silent and accompanied by a piano player in a theatre…this one had dialogue and songs and so much more.

This was the first feature-length motion picture with synchronized dialogue sequences…the first “talkie”!

And there is also a lot of positive things to be said about the impressive new three disc set for THE JAZZ SINGER, which features the movie looking better than ever, an 88 page book full of pictures and stories, and there is also a spectacular documentary that shows us how the ability to make people talk in movies was invented, and the first short films to do it.

This release of THE JAZZ SINGER features both a great movie and a fantastic history lesson on film itself.

I enjoyed every second of it all, and highly recommend it to everyone who loves movies!!

The 1927 classic THE JAZZ SINGER, the awful wannabe action comedy HIT & RUN, the unfunny SEASON ONE of Charlie Sheen’s ANGER MANAGEMENT, the okay French film FAREWELL MY QUEEN, the pretty good martial arts flick FLYING SWORDS OF DRAGON’S GATE, the amazing visual treat SAMSARA, the spectacular and insightful documentary INVENTING DAVID GEFFEN, and the music souvenir THE TRAGICALLY HIP IN BOBCAYGEON are all available now, either on disc or on demand.

Coming up inside the next Couch Potato Report

Academy Award nominee Jennifer Lawrence stars in the Ottawa made horror thriller HOUSE AT THE END OF THE STREET, Jean-Claude Van Damme and Dolph Lundgren are back fighting again in UNIVERSAL SOLIDER: DAY OF RECKONING; and I’ll tell you about the amazing Academy Award nominated documentary SEARCHING FOR SUGAR MAN.

I’ll have more on those, and some other releases, in seven days.

For now, that’s this week’s COUCH POTATO REPORT.

Enjoy the movies and I’ll see you back here again next time on The Couch!