Up first is the pretty solid zombie flick Day Zero. It doesn’t try to reinvent the wheel or anything, but it’s highly watchable and entertaining. A former soldier is in jail when the zombie apocalypse hits and his only thought is to get to his wife and daughter he’s never met. They live in a big apartment complex in the Philippines and the majority of the film takes place there giving it a closed in feeling. Like good zombie flicks it has a guy die you don’t want to see die. It has someone get bit that causes chaos in the group. Add in the fact that the lead character is an elite soldier and you get good action/kills. I’m not sure how it did at the box office in its home country, but if it did well it held the door open for a sequel which I would watch. Brandon Vera won’t be confused for The Rock or John Cena, but he handles the fighting and action well. It’s not the foreign game changer Train to Busan was, but if you are a zombie diehard you’ll like it. I can see myself watching it again.
Second we have Employee of the Month. This is a French film, not the Dane Cook comedy. This is allegedly a dark comedy, but I didn’t get much out of it in terms of laughter. A woman who’s been an employee for 15+ years finally stands up for herself and wants a raise. They tell her no and a bunch of accidental deaths follow. It’s not unwatchable or anything, but it’s not funny to me. She’s the typical meek type who lets people walk all over her. There’s an intern who gets involved and all the men are one-dimensional pigs. Maybe something is lost in translation because I certainly didn’t laugh until my sides hurt like the box claims I would. It’s not a whodunit. It’s not slapstick-y enough to be comedic. I don’t know anyone in it either, but if you do maybe you’ll like it more than me.
Third we have Spoonful of Sugar. A young girl is hired to take care of a boy who has issues. He doesn’t talk, can’t do most things for himself and his mother is overbearing because of it. The girl has issues of her own and uses LSD to get through her daily life. As the boy bonds with her and she opens him up a bit as well, the mother and father both take to her in much different ways. We’ve seen similar movies before, but the ending was a nice surprise. I genuinely wasn’t expecting that ending. It’s good for a watch for sure and the acting is solid as well especially the lead actress. The ending definitely saves it and gives it some originality.
Next we have Corsage which I’ll be honest, I really didn’t get much out of. Like Employee of the Month I’m thinking I missed the point. The cover on the left shows the empress giving the finger and I must have had the movie go over my head or something. She’s the empress of Austria, her husband doesn’t pay too much attention to her. She diets constantly because the public talks about her size. She travels and doesn’t act lady like so I guess that’s supposed to be the point. Are we supposed to embrace her and take down the patriarchy? The big word on the Blu-ray case says STUNNING so I clearly missed something.
McBain gets a new Blu-ray release this week. No it’s not about character from The Simpsons, it’s an early 90s movie starring Christopher Walken, Maria Conchita Alonso, Michael Ironside and more. I probably hadn’t seen it since the 1990s. It’s clearly a Rambo knockoff with it opening in Vietnam and POWs being rescued as the war was ending. It jumps to its current day and Walken is asked to go to Colombia to help a woman who knew a friend from Vietnam. The government is corrupt and Walken gets his old ‘Nam buddies to join him and fight with the rebels. Is it good? Not really, but it is Christopher Walken. Even back then he looked too old to be playing these types of characters. The action is very late 80s/early 90s with endless amounts of bullets and explosions. There’s very little hand to hand fighting and the gun work is laughable by today’s standards. But again, it’s Christopher Walken. I’m sure it has a cult following and this release looks good in HD and comes with commentary from its director. If you are a fan, you’ll enjoy this release.
The next two releases come from Mill Creek Entertainment and are double feature Blu-rays. First is White Noise and White Noise 2. White Noise stars Michael Keaton as a man who loses his wife in an accident or maybe not. A man who can speak to the dead through EVP contacts him and says his wife has been trying to reach out to him. Keaton gets involved in EVP, but soon that man is dead and Keaton must do a deep dive into this world. Deaths and names are connected along with a kidnapped woman. I probably hadn’t seen it since it came out in the early 2000s and Keaton is good in the role. White Noise 2 stars Nathan Fillion as a man who loses his famous writer wife and son when a man shoots them dead in a diner and then takes his own life. Fillion tries to kill himself, but is saved and starts seeing glowing auras around people in trouble. As he saves lives, he soon realizes he shouldn’t have gotten involved. Katee Sackhoff co-stars in a movie I had never seen before. It’s not a direct sequel to the first film so you can watch them out of order if you want to. The Keaton film is much better and was a surprise hit with a great ending I had forgotten about. The sequel, despite Fillion, isn’t very good.
Last we have a Richard Pryor double header with Which Way is Up? and The Bingo Long Traveling All-Stars & Motor Kings. In the first film Pryor stars as an orange picker who gets involved in unionization and is forced out of town. He gets a job painting, falls for a woman and ends up back in his small town when he becomes head of his former job. It’s full of slapstick and Pryor plays multiple roles. He is the third star in Bingo Long with Billy Dee Williams and James Earl Jones. It takes place during the Negro Leagues era with Williams starting a traveling team of Negro players wanting more money and the right to be their own bosses. Jones is the catcher with Williams the starting pitcher. I had never seen this before and I’m always down for a James Earl Jones baseball flick. It’s not as slapstick-y as the first film and I liked it a lot more as well. If you are a Richard Pryor fan, pick up this collection.
The Nerds Templar 