Friday, November 11, 2011

And Soon the Darkness

Hell Ride

  • The story deals with the characters Pistolero, the Gent and Comanche and the deadly, unfinished business among them. Format: DVD MOVIE Genre: ACTION/ADVENTURE Rating: R Age: 796019810876 UPC: 796019810876 Manufacturer No: 81087
Actor Larry Bishop, who made his name in the '60s as the star of biker pictures like The Savage Seven, revives the genre with Hell Ride, a rough and raunchy action-drama produced by indie director and cult film aficionado Quentin Tarantino. Bishop, who wrote, produced and directed the film, is also top-billed as Pistolero, chief of the outlaw Victors, who cruise the sunbaked Southwest to avenge a fallen mama. Their target is Billy Wings (Vinnie Jones), head man for the Six-Six-Sixes, and Michael Madsen, David Carradine and Dennis Hopper (himself no stranger to biker flicks) are along to make sure that the job is completed. As pure exploitation,! Hell Ride delivers the goods: the cast overacts with relish, and the on-screen excitement is divided equally between chopper action, fistfights and shootouts and plentiful female nudity, all set to a soundtrack of new and vintage fuzztone rock. However, those expecting the complexity and sheer cheek of Tarantino's own features may find the picture a little too retro-minded for their own tastes, and Bishop's pulpy dialogue is more overcooked than Tarantino at his most self-indulgent. Still, those craving old-school cycle movie satisfaction are likely to find that action with Hell Ride. Bishop is front and center for the DVD commentary, in which he explains in the most passionate of terms how he conceived and executed the project with Tarantino's help; featurettes on the cast (split between male and female) are brief and flashy, with "The Guys of Hell Ride" providing the most juice by focusing on the veteran actors. There's also a look at the film! 's custom made bikes, but the most "special" of the Special Fe! atures i s Michael Madsen's video diary, which gives amusing insight into his distinctly offbeat perspective. -- Paul Gaita

Stills from Hell Ride (Click for larger image)

 

Actor Larry Bishop, who made his name in the '60s as the star of biker pictures like The Savage Seven, revives the genre with Hell Ride, a rough and raunchy action-drama produced by indie director and cult film aficionado Quentin Tarantino. Bishop, who wrote, produced and directed the film, is also top-billed as Pistolero, chief of the outlaw Victors, who cruise the sunbaked Southwest to avenge a fallen mama. Their target is Billy Wings (Vinnie Jones), head man for the Six-Six-Sixes, and Michael Madsen, David Carradine and Dennis Hopper (himself no stranger to biker flicks) are along to make sure that ! the job is completed. As pure exploitation, Hell Ride! deliver s the goods: the cast overacts with relish, and the on-screen excitement is divided equally between chopper action, fistfights and shootouts and plentiful female nudity, all set to a soundtrack of new and vintage fuzztone rock. However, those expecting the complexity and sheer cheek of Tarantino's own features may find the picture a little too retro-minded for their own tastes, and Bishop's pulpy dialogue is more overcooked than Tarantino at his most self-indulgent. Still, those craving old-school cycle movie satisfaction are likely to find that action with Hell Ride. Bishop is front and center for the DVD commentary, in which he explains in the most passionate of terms how he conceived and executed the project with Tarantino's help; featurettes on the cast (split between male and female) are brief and flashy, with "The Guys of Hell Ride" providing the most juice by focusing on the veteran actors. There's also a look at the film's custom made bikes, but the! most "special" of the Special Features is Michael Madsen's video diary, which gives amusing insight into his distinctly offbeat perspective. -- Paul Gaita

Stills from Hell Ride (Click for larger image)

 

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Famous Stars and Straps Men's Fallen Soldier Tee, Charcoal Heather, Medium

Dark City (Director's Cut) [Blu-ray]

  • The critically-acclaimed triumph from visionary director Alex Proyas (I, Robot, The Crow) is back with a brand new directors cut featuring enhanced picture and sound, never-before-seen footage and three commentary tracks that take you deeper than ever before into the world of one of sci-fis most exciting and revered tales. When John Murdoch (Rufus Sewell) wakes with no memory at the scene of a gri
The critically-acclaimed triumph from visionary director Alex Proyas (I, Robot, The Crow) is back with a brand new directors cut featuring enhanced picture and sound, never-before-seen footage and three commentary tracks that take you deeper than ever before into the world of one of sci-fis most exciting and revered tales. When John Murdoch (Rufus Sewell) wakes with no memory at the scene of a grisly murder, he soon finds himself hunted by the police, a woman claiming to be his wife and a mysterious! group of pale men who seem to control everything and everyone in the city. Starring Rufus Sewell (The Illusionist), Jennifer Connelly (A Beautiful Mind), William Hurt (A History of Violence) and Kiefer Sutherland (TVs 24).If you're a fan of brooding comic-book antiheroes, got a nihilistic jolt from The Crow (1994), and share director Alex Proyas's highly developed preoccupation for style over substance, you might be tempted to call Dark City an instant classic of visual imagination. It's one of those films that exists in a world purely of its own making, setting its own rules and playing by them fairly, so that even its derivative elements (and there are quite a few) acquire their own specific uniqueness. Before long, however, the film becomes interesting only as a triumph of production design. And while that's certainly enough to grab your attention (Blade Runner is considered a classic, after all), it's painfully clear that Dark City ha! s precious little heart and soul. One-dimensional characters a! re no ma tch for the film's abundance of retro-futuristic style, so it's best to admire the latter on its own splendidly cinematic terms. Trivia buffs will be interested to know that the film's 50-plus sets (partially inspired by German expressionism) were built at the Fox Film Studios in Sydney, Australia, home base of director Alex Proyas and producer Andrew Mason. The underground world depicted in the film required the largest indoor set ever built in Australia. --Jeff Shannon

Casshern Sins: Part 1

  • Salvation is the ruin of man and machine.Casshern a cybernetic assassin with no memory of his past awakens in a corrosive wasteland where nothing survives for long. A plague known as the Ruin sweeps across this once-vibrant world, reducing everything in its path to rubble and scattering any chance for salvation. Robots and humans alike or what little remains of them seek vengeance against Casshern
After 50 years of bitter warfare in the late 21st century, a new crisis looms. A threat to the future and the overall existence of mankind. But, there is hope a savior will emerge… Casshern. Casshern is an action-packed, sci-fi thriller that blends Japanamation and manga-inspired live action to create a new hybrid form of filmmaking that is both visually stunning and thought provoking.Kiriya Kazuaki’s spectacular Casshern is an impressive marriage of live action drama and animated effe! cts that, taken together, look like something both very old and very new in cinema. A wild, science fiction tale with an echo or two of Bladerunner, Casshern is set in a dystopian future following a 50-year-long war between Europe and Asia. The latter wins, calling the resulting Eurasia the "Eastern Federation," but the high-tech weapons used in the battle have affected the whole of mankind through widespread devastation and illness. A geneticist whose son, Tetsuya (Yusuke Iseya), has gone off to fight terrorists, promises the military his work on "neo cells" will result in the cultivation of spare human parts for the wounded and afflicted. But two unexpected results occur: a small band of superhuman mutants rise up out of the scientist’s chemical muck, and Tetsuya--killed in battle--is brought back to life with his own superpowers. While the mutants rise up against the human race, Tetsuya, now known as "Casshern," takes them on against a fascinating psychol! ogical backdrop with Oedipal overtones. The film’s look of h! yperreal , pop culture pastiche (in which action often evokes the look of 1930s movie serials blended with a whirl of dreamy, free-associating images) is reaching for the same thing as Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow. But it is much grander in its effort. --Tom KeoghCasshern â€" a cybernetic assassin with no memory of his past â€" awakens in a corrosive wasteland where nothing survives for long. A plague known as the Ruin sweeps across this once-vibrant world, reducing everything in its path to rubble and scattering any chance for salvation. Robots and humans alike â€" or what little remains of them â€" seek vengeance against Casshern for the life he took and the role he played in their Ruin. A machine built to kill, Casshern murdered the last hope for this world, but now, lost in a future he does not recognize, he will fight to save the dying.Based on the classic Manga. Casshern is Anime meets the matrix in style.Casshern â€" a cybernetic assassin with no memory ! of his past â€" awakens in a corrosive wasteland where nothing survives for long. A plague known as the Ruin sweeps across this once-vibrant world, reducing everything in its path to rubble and scattering any chance for salvation. Robots and humans alike â€" or what little remains of them â€" seek vengeance against Casshern for the life he took and the role he played in their Ruin. A machine built to kill, Casshern murdered the last hope for this world, but now, lost in a future he does not recognize, he will fight to save the dying.

2-Year SquareTrade Warranty plus Accident Protection for Kindle Fire, US customers only

City of Ghosts (Downside Ghosts, Book 3)

Heat

  • An L.A. cop (Al Pacino) becomes fixated on a deadly thief (Robert Dinero) and his crew ( Val Kilmer & Jon Voight) who are taking Los Angeles to the cleaners. This movie includes one of the most spectacular shoot outs in film history as Dinero and Kilmer rip through downtown Los Angeles with both guns blazing. Format: DVD MOVIE Genre: DRAMA Rating: R Age: 085391163169
An L.A. cop (Al Pacino) becomes fixated on a deadly thief (Robert Dinero) and his crew ( Val Kilmer & Jon Voight) who are taking Los Angeles to the cleaners. This movie includes one of the most spectacular shoot outs in film history as Dinero and Kilmer rip through downtown Los Angeles with both guns blazing.Having developed his skill as a master of contemporary crime drama, writer-director Michael Mann displayed every aspect of that mastery in this intelligent, character-driven thriller from 1995, which also marked the first ! onscreen pairing of Robert De Niro and Al Pacino. The two great actors had played father and son in the separate time periods of The Godfather, Part II, but this was the first film in which the pair appeared together, and although their only scene together is brief, it's the riveting fulcrum of this high-tech cops-and-robbers scenario. De Niro plays a master thief with highly skilled partners (Val Kilmer and Tom Sizemore) whose latest heist draws the attention of Pacino, playing a seasoned Los Angeles detective whose investigation reveals that cop and criminal lead similar lives. Both are so devoted to their professions that their personal lives are a disaster. Pacino's with a wife (Diane Venora) who cheats to avoid the reality of their desolate marriage; De Niro pays the price for a life with no outside connections; and Kilmer's wife (Ashley Judd) has all but given up hope that her husband will quit his criminal career. These are men obsessed, and as De Niro an! d Pacino know, they'll both do whatever's necessary to bring t! he other down. Mann's brilliant screenplay explores these personal obsessions and sacrifices with absorbing insight, and the tension mounts with some of the most riveting action sequences ever filmed--most notably a daylight siege that turns downtown Los Angeles into a virtual war zone of automatic gunfire. At nearly three hours, the film qualifies as a kind of intimate epic, certain to leave some viewers impatiently waiting for more action, but it's all part of Mann's compelling strategy. Heat is a true rarity: a crime thriller with equal measures of intense excitement and dramatic depth, giving De Niro and Pacino a prime showcase for their finely matched talents. --Jeff Shannon