Piranha 3DD (2012) June 1st 2012

After the terror unleashed on Lake Victoria in 'Piranha 3D', the pre-historic school of blood thirsty piranhas are back. This time, no one is safe from the flesh eating fish as they sink their razor sharp teeth into the visitors of summer's best attraction, The Big Wet Water Park. Christopher Lloyd ('Back To The Future') reprises his role as the eccentric piranha expert with survivor Paul Scheer (The League) and a partially devoured Ving Rhames ('Pulp Fiction') back for more fish frenzy. David Hasselhoff trades in the sandy beaches of "Baywatch" to be a celebrity lifeguard at the racy water park. Prepare for double the terror, double the action and double the D's in this sequel

"Snow White And The Huntsman" June 1st 2012

In the epic action-adventure 'Snow White and the Huntsman,' Kristen Stewart ('Twilight') plays the only person in the land fairer than the evil queen (Oscar winner Charlize Theron) who is out to destroy her. But what the wicked ruler never imagined is that the one girl threatening her reign has been training in the art of war with a huntsman (Chris Hemsworth, 'Thor') who was dispatched to kill her. Sam Claflin ('Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides') joins the cast as the prince long enchanted by Snow White's beauty and power.

NIGHTMARE ON ELM STREET ON Syfy's Memorial Day Weekend Movie Festival, 5/25-28

syfy will kick off Summer 2012 with a four-day, Memorial Day weekend movie extravaganza highlighted by the dyn-o-mite premiere of Super Shark, starring classic TV stars Jimmy Walker ("J.J." on Good Times) and John Schneider (Smallville, Dukes of Hazzard) on Saturday, May 26 at 9PM (ET/PT). Syfy launches the holiday festival on Friday, May 25 with a Nightmare on Elm Street marathon. Creature features devour the Saturday, May 26 schedule, including Sharktopus and Lake Placid 2, the highest rated Saturday Original Movie ever.
On Sunday, May 27, Syfy unleashes a theatrical movie bonanza ranging from Serenity and Stealth to Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade.
Closing out the long holiday weekend on Memorial Day, Monday, May 28, Syfy will present films such as Casino Royale and Quantum of Solace, starring Daniel Craig as 007.
Syfy is a media destination for imagination-based entertainment. With year round acclaimed original series, events, blockbuster movies, classic science fiction and fantasy programming, a dynamic Web site (www.Syfy.com), and a portfolio of adjacent business (Syfy Ventures), Syfy is a passport to limitless possibilities. Originally launched in 1992 as SCI FI Channel, and currently in more than 98 million homes, Syfy is a network of NBCUniversal, one of the world's leading media and entertainment companies.

Box Office Battleship Sunk By Avengers

Battleship has pretty much locked down the award for biggest special effects orgy of the summer, but American audiences weren't lining up to watch the fireworks. Thanks to a much more interested international audience it won't be a summer bust, but the board-game-turned-movie had nothing on the comic-domination phenomenon.

For a third weekend in a row The Avengers held an easy first place lead, this week adding an additional $55 million to its $457 million total US sales. Now the number six all-time money maker in the US, it's set to possibly climb all the way to third place on that list, behind only Titanic and Avatar.

Meanwhile Battleship settled for a distant second place with just $25 million. That's a lame amount when stacked against its CGI-burdened $209 budget and no doubt massively expensive marketing effort. But thanks to $215 million in international sales it's well on its way to breaking even.

Sacha Baron Cohen's latest offering The Dictator dropped in at third place with $17 million. That's the lowest debut for one of Cohen's semi-comedic improv character pieces, but likely not low enough to get him to drop the act and move on to something that we'd probably all rather see: actual comedy.

Dropping in at fifth place was the other loosely-based-on-a-seemingly-unadaptable-concept to hit theaters this weekend, What to Expect When You're Expecting. Americans seemed uninterested in this latest version of a pregnancy comedy, only handing over $10 million.by scott gwin

For the full top ten break down, check out the chart below:

1. Marvel's The Avengers $55,057,000 Total: $457,078,000 LW: 1 WR: 3 THTRS: 4,249

2. Battleship * $25,300,000 Total: $25,300,000 LW: N WR: 1 THTRS: 3,690

3. The Dictator * $17,415,000 Total: $24,456,000 LW: N WR: 1 THTRS: 3,008

4. Dark Shadows $12,770,000 Total: $50,908,000 LW: 2 WR: 2 THTRS: 3,755

5. What to Expect When You're Expecting * $10,500,000 Total: $10,500,000 LW: N WR: 1 THTRS: 3,021

6. The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel $3,250,000 Total: $8,257,000 LW: 8 WR: 3 THTRS: 178

7. The Hunger Games $3,000,000 Total: $391,631,000 LW: 4 WR: 9 THTRS: 2,064

8. Think Like a Man $2,700,000 Total: $85,888,000 LW: 3 WR: 5 THTRS: 1,722

9. The Lucky One $1,765,000 Total: $56,921,000 LW: 5 WR: 5 THTRS: 2,005

10. The Pirates! Band of Misfits $1,450,000 Total: $25,362,000 LW: 7 WR: 4

Men In Black May 25th 2012

The Men in Black are back, and this time Agent J (Will Smith) must take a trip into the past in order to save both the future and his taciturn partner Agent K (Tommy Lee Jones) in the third installment of the hit sci-fi comedy series. After 15 years of working with aliens from all across the cosmos, Agent J is sure he's seen it all. But just when he's getting the hang of the game, he learns that history has inexplicably been rewritten. In this new timeline of events, Agent K has been dead for 40 years, and Earth will soon come under attack from an extraterrestrial force with the power to claim the entire planet. Now, in order to set the past straight and head off an invasion of epic proportions, Agent J must travel back to the year 1969, when Young Agent K (Josh Brolin) was just a fresh new face on the force. But Agent J only has 24 hours to find the source of the coming catastrophe and discern how his longtime partner ties into the situation -- should he fail he'll be stuck in the past forever. Jemaine Clement, Alice Eve, and Emma Thompson co-star. ~ Jason Buchanan, Rovi

CHRONICLE

Three high school friends gain superpowers after making an incredible discovery. Soon, though, they find their lives spinning out of control and their bond tested as they embrace their darker sides.


Starring: Michael B. Jordan, Michael Kelly, Alex Russell
Director: Josh Trank

Chronicle Blu-ray Review

It's a bird...it's a plane...no, it's three teenagers hovering in the sky over Seattle.

Reviewed by Casey Broadwater, May 16, 2012

Intentionally or unintentionally, "found footage" films are a clear reflection of the Millennial generation's compulsive, narcissistic desire to document itself. This might be interesting from a sociological perspective--and I'm sure someone's already written a thesis on it--but the problem for audiences is that there are way too many of these films right now, and most of them are terrible. For every Cloverfield there's at least one The Devil Inside, and there's the rapidly dawning sense that the sub-genre has exhausted its possibilities. But then comes Chronicle, from 28- year-old editor-turned-director Josh Trank and writer Max Landis. I'll admit, when I first saw the trailer for the film, I was about 95% certain I wouldn't like it. Not only is it yet another fake found footage movie, it's also a kind of superhero origin story, and we've had a glut of those lately too. Here's the thing; Chronicle might not bring many new ideas to the screen--and indeed, it borrows a lot from Carrie and the Heroes TV series, and even Star Wars--but it's surprisingly entertaining and likable, teasing lots of movie magic out of a fairly small budget.

Apex Predator

With a mom who's dying of cancer and an out-of-work, abusively alcoholic dad, Seattle high school loner Andrew Detmer (Dane DeHaan) begins documenting his life with a cheapo camcorder, effectively putting a filter between himself and the real world. His only real friend--and a cautious one at that--is his cousin, Matt (Alex Russell), a pothead philosopher who peppers their conversations with references to Jung and Schopenhauer. (References that spell out the film's most prevalent themes.) Luckily for us, Andrew brings his camera everywhere, so we get a first-person view when he descends into a mysterious hole in the ground with Matt and class president candidate Steve (Michael B. Jordan), the most popular kid in school. At the end of the subterranean tunnel they discover a glowing crystal covered in root-like tendrils, and Andrew's footage promptly glitches and blinks out. When the film picks back up, three weeks later, Andrew has bought a spiffy new high definition camera--once again, lucky for us, and for Blu-ray sales-- but more importantly, he's discovered that he now has the power of telekinesis. The other guys do too, and since they can't tell anyone else about it, they spend all their time together, honing their newfound abilities. They start small, hovering Lego bricks and bopping each other with baseballs using only the power of their minds, but they quickly discover the gift is like a muscle--the more you exercise it, the stronger it gets. And with great power, of course, comes great...well, you get the idea.

What Trank and Landis capture so convincingly here--and part of what makes the film work so well--is the giddy way teenaged boys would actually react if they discovered they could mentally move objects. I mean, really, what would you do? The three friends basically become Loki-level tricksters, scaring kids in toy stores by bringing teddy bears to life and using a leaf-blower to make a group of miniskirt-wearing girls imitate Marilyn Monroe. It's harmless fun, at least until Andrew gets pissed at a redneck tailgater and sends the guy's truck careening through a guardrail and into a pond. Clearly, use of the power should be subjected to some Fight Club-style rules: 1.) No using it on living things, 2.) no using it when you're angry, and 3.) no using it in public. Obviously, though, these are easier listed than done, especially for Andrew, a high school nobody who's finally getting a chance to assert himself. Not unlike Star Wars, Chronicle is essentially a coming-of-age story masked as a sci-fi film, with Andrew's inferiority complex and daddy issues pushing him toward the dark side, so to speak. I have a hard time believing it's merely a coincidence that Dane DeHaan looks uncannily like a young Mark Hamill; there are scenes where he has the exact same expression as Luke Skywalker when Vader reveals "I am your father." I'd hate to spoil exactly what happens, but I will say that friendships are tested and that the film builds to a satisfyingly epic confrontation in the skies over downtown Seattle.

As with all "found footage" movies, Chronicle is forced to find clever ways to justify the camera's presence in each scene and also give us ways to see the guy holding it--in this case, Andrew. We occasionally switch to surveillance tapes and crowd-sourced cellphone video, but the main visual gimmick here is that Andrew learns how to float his camera in the air with Steadicam smoothness while he's doing other things, allowing him to appear in the shots. This strikes me as a bit too convenient, but it makes sense, I guess, and it does solve that particular problem. Less successful is the way the film relies on Matt's girlfriend, Casey (Ashley Hinshaw)--who just so happens to be a video blogger--for additional camerawork. Her character isn't developed in any meaningful ways, and it's clear that she really only exists to supply footage and give the story its requisite imperiled female. Fortunately, though, this is one of very few narrative shortcomings. Chronicle's fun, prank-filled first half gives way to some serious badassery later in the film, with downed helicopters, bullets stopped in mid-air, massive explosions, and level of wreaked havoc that calls to mind cheat code- enabled play sessions of open-world video games like Grand Theft Auto and Infamous. The video game analogy fits well; Chronicle is teenaged wish-fulfillment in cinematic form, putting its audience in the shoes of cipher characters who can shoot pulses of energy out of their hands and leap tall buildings in a single bound. Who wouldn't want to be these guys for a week or two?

Note: This disc includes both the theatrical version (1:23:53) and an unrated extended cut (1:29:31) that features a few more character-building beats. No drastic changes, though.

Chronicle Blu-ray, Video Quality

Andrew starts with a crummy "2004-era" standard definition camcorder, but fortunately for us he upgrades quickly to a more capable high definition rig. Very capable, in fact. Though Andrew totes--or floats--around a consumer-grade cam, the film was actually shot with indisputably professional $60,000 Arri Alexa digital video cameras. So, yeah, you'll probably have to suspend some disbelief; the film's 1080p/AVC-encoded presentation on Blu- ray is sharper and cleaner and less compression prone by far than anything Andrew could've shot on his $500 camera. While not the most mind-blowingly detailed picture I've seen this year, the level of clarity is generally very strong, with easily visible fine skin and clothing textures in closeups and crisp lines even in most longer shots. Color-wise, it's also pretty obvious that we're not looking at straight-out-of-the-camera footage, as the image has been clearly graded to have a look that's punchier and more vibrant than "reality." But you'll hear no complaints out of me. Black levels are deep, contrast is strong, and skin tones are balanced according to the color cast of each scene. I didn't spot any real compression issues, but you will notice some source noise in darker scenes and a few instances of slight brightness strobing. A great-looking disc.source blu-ray.com

Chronicle Blu-ray, Audio Quality

Whoever "found" Andrew's footage must've hired an excellent sound engineer to spruce it up, because I'm pretty sure the kid was recording--at best--in 2.0 stereo. Here, we get a lossless DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 surround track that makes full use of its multi-channel capabilities. The showdown finale is especially bombastic, with helicopter blades pulsing in the rears, giant explosions, fired bullets, and much aerial zipping to and fro, but even earlier sections of the film feature environmental ambience--party chatter, the rush of air at 10,000 feet, etc.--and occasional effects that get panned into the rears. Everything sounds clear and dynamically solid, with some surprising subwoofer output in key sequences. As you'd expect, there's not much music in the film beyond a few incidental tunes, so it's up to the sound design to set the emotional tone. For the most part, it works well. Dialogue throughout is clean, balanced in the mix, and easily understood, and the disc includes optional English SDH and Spanish subtitles, along with Spanish and French Dolby Digital 5.1 dubs.

The Grey Blu-Ray

A group of oil-rig roughnecks are left stranded on the sub-arctic tundra after their plane experiences a complete mechanical failure and crashes into the remote Alaskan wilderness. The survivors, battling mortal injuries, biting cold and ravenous hunger, are relentlessly hunted and pursued by a vicious pack of rogue wolves.

For more about The Grey and The Grey Blu-ray release

Starring: Liam Neeson, Dermot Mulroney, Frank Grillo, Dallas Roberts, Nonso Anozie
Director: Joe Carnahan

The Grey Blu-ray Review

No, it's not about the weather in the Pacific Northwest.

Reviewed by Jeffrey Kauffman, May 3, 2012

Liam Neeson is one of the few actors who has the physical presence to portray reckless brute force, but who can also be counted on to give performances lit with a deep interior life and an active intelligence. Even in frankly substandard genre fare like Taken, Neeson is that rare commodity who seems to effortlessly combine athletic prowess with keen insight into his characters. Those two abilities are on display again in The Grey, an often riveting Man vs. Nature film that manages to defy its genre leanings and provide thrills along with a fair amount of philosophizing, a tendency which will either enthrall viewers or drive them crazy. The Grey is a film that desperately wants to be taken seriously, despite its setup of a bunch of stranded air disaster survivors attempting to outwit, outlast and outplay a pack of marauding wolves, a premise that reeks of low budget B-movies. What plays out, though, is an often fascinating dialectic not just between the survivors and the wolves, but between the survivors as well, as they individually and collectively face their own mortality. The Grey doesn't waste a lot of time getting to its central section. We're quickly introduced to Neeson's character of Ottway, a far north oil field worker whose job it is to patrol the area's outer perimeter and kill marauding wolves who pose a threat to the other workers there. Ottway seems finely attuned to the "circle of life" (in one of this film's frankly most hackneyed conceits), the sort of guy who comforts a wolf he's just shot as it's in its death throes (something Ottway does later with a human, obviously no mere coincidence). We're also introduced to a recurring memory-hallucination (depending on the context), where Ottway recalls a langorous moment in bed with his wife, from whom he seems to be estranged. Or is he? The supposed "twist" of that element of The Grey will come as no major surprise to anyone with a handle on Screenwriting 101, but it's really a relatively minor gaffe in what is otherwise a remarkably facile screenplay by director Joe Carnahan (The A-Team) and Ian MacKenzie Jeffers. A couple of other secondary characters are introduced as Ottway and part of a crew boards a chartered flight which will take them back home to Anchorage. And then the plane goes down in the frozen tundra.



For fans of Lost who may have only recently returned to the skies of mass market commercial aviation after that series' devastatingly real airplane crash, be prepared to once again assume your collective fetal positions, as The Grey presents one of the most horrifying recreations of an airline in distress in recent memory, one which more than capably sets up a major subtext of the film, a feeling of powerlessness in the face of overwhelming events beyond anyone's control. It's a terrifying and unsettling sequence which is only capped by the follow up, as Ottway regains conciousness in a snowfield, initially discombobulated and not quite realizing where he is, until he stumbles forward and a crane shot reveals the disturbing after effects of a major airline disaster, including such gorey sights as a body cut in half at the seat belt level. Ottway quickly goes into command mode, rounding up all the survivors he can quickly find (and as noted above, helping one barely alive man make his "transition"). The group of survivors forage for combustible items to help them survive the intense cold of the approaching night, a night which introduces Ottway to an unexpected new threat, attacking wolves.

That sets the film on the bulk of its second act, where Ottway leads a haggard group of a half dozen or so men on a quest to find help, since it's obvious to Ottway that no rescue team will ever be able to locate the group in such an immense expanse, especially since time is running out anyway with regard to the elements and the wolves. It can't be argued that the group is made up of Types instead of full blooded characters, but under Carnahan's fleet footed direction, it's really not as much of a detriment as one might initially suppose. The focus here is squarely on Ottway and how he shepherds the men through the nightmare they're experiencing. Some are combative, others are resigned to their fate. Ottway lives by the mantra "don't be afraid", a phrase that crops up in his recurring vision of his wife in bed (yet another clue as to what's really going on with regard to that character). Ottway, who flirts with suicide in the film's opening gambit, is now faced with an ironic dilemma as at least a couple of the men in his charge basically want to commit suicide themselves, giving in to the encroaching dual threats of freezing to death or being torn asunder by wolves. How can Ottway help these men when he's beset by such thoughts himself, even if he doesn't openly express them?

The central conflict of The Grey turns out to not really be between the men and the wolves or even between the men themselves, but instead the competing ideologies of giving in to the supposed inevitable or fighting as long as one is able. Though it's a poem about the ravages of old age, one is reminded of Dylan Thomas' iconic Do not go gentle into that good night, with its repeated phrase "Rage, rage against the dying of the light", for that is the ultimate decision that Ottway eventually realizes he has come to, after a serious of calamitous events that leaves him isolated and surrounded by the wolves. It's here that the film ultimately "reveals" the supposed secret about Ottway's recurring memories of his wife, and leads to what many have complained is an ambiguous and weirdly attenuated ending. This is one film that requires sitting through the credits to arrive at the final "sting", a brief coda that actually provides the answer some have claimed the film lacks. It may not be an entirely comforting resolution, but it is in its own way an affirmation of the force of will in the face of unrelenting terror, and as such it does provide a potent response to all of the questioning that has gone before.

The Grey Blu-ray, Video Quality

The Grey is presented on Blu-ray courtesy of Universal with an AVC encoded 1080p transfer in 2.40:1. All of you Universal bashers out there (and you know who you are) who insist Universal is seemingly genetically incapable of providing transfers with natural grain intact (at least with regard to their catalog releases), rejoice! The Grey is one of the outright grainiest looking films in recent memory, obviously by design, something that gives the film a certain cinema verité ambience. The grain does tend to occasionally overwhelm the image, especially in snow strewn scenes where there's an expanse of white, littered with nothing other than the specks of grain. Contrast is intentionally kept on the low side quite a bit of the time, leading the murky shadow detail, again no doubt by design. While this transfer doesn't exactly scream high definition, it very accurately reproduces what Carnahan and cinematographer Masanobu Takayanagi were obviously going for. While the film has obviously been tweaked in post to desaturate and filter the image, this is a great looking presentation for the most part which remains incredibly cinematic and faithful to the look of the original theatrical exhibition.

The Grey Blu-ray, Audio Quality

The Grey's lossless DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 mix is, in a word, impeccable. Surround activity is completely consistent throughout the film, creating a wide open sound field through which everything from whistling wind to howling wolves floats, sometimes incredibly ominously. Discrete channelization is the norm rather than the exception, with a huge variety of well placed ambient environmental effects immersing the listener in a very real seeming sonic environment. The plane crash presents especially fine work, with the terrifying sound of jet engines in distress and some really riveting LFE when the plane starts to break apart. Dialogue is well handled and well prioritized, but it's the nonstop recreation of the elements that is the most striking thing about this reference quality lossless soundtrack.by blu-ray.com