More Articles By Buzz McClain
- Cycle of Madness: The Best DVD on Two Wheels, Vol. 1
GS PRODUCTIONS (cyclesofmadness.com) Available now > Choppy footage of choppers in action strictly for two-wheeled enthusiasts. You have to admire the efforts of young Pittsburgh motorcycle enthusiast Greg Sovek. He shot and edited this rough-hewn, travel-cum-motorcycle documentary at a home studio—there’s a photo of the humble Mac-driven editing console on his Web page—us... More - Shoot ’Em Up
NEW LINE/WARNER Street: Jan. 1 Prebook: Nov. 27 > Hyper-violent genre workout should shoot to the top of the charts. Writer/director Michael Davis (Monster Man, 100 Girls) had a vision and by gosh if he didn’t deliver, kicking off this film with a brazen title and a bullet-ridden New Line logo and never slowing down. More - Nature: Christmas in Yellowstone
QUESTAR Available now > This warm look at cold critters will need a push to generate heat. Most tourists take in Yellowstone National Park—our nation’s first national park—in the spring and summer, when the roads are packed with caravans of SUVs and recreational vehicles. But it’s in the winter, when the snow is plush and the air is so crisp it crackles, that the sin... More - Dead Lenny
MTI Street: Nov. 13 Prebook: Oct. 16 > A cast of familiar faces from the ’80s enlivens a limp comedy. Mob movies are easy; comedy is hard. Putting the two together is an offer most filmmakers should refuse, and here’s a case in point. Low-level Los Angeles mobster Lenny (Steven Bauer) is missing, presumed dead, and also gone is the $5 million he was sent to deliver for New York ... More - CIA: Exiled
SCREEN MEDIA/UNIVERSAL Street: Nov. 13 Prebook: Oct. 16 > Caribbean espionage thriller boasts CSI's William Petersen—and not much else. CSI 's William Petersen plays Stephen Guerin, an aloof, swinging security agent for the American consulate on the tiny island of Curacao. When Guerin runs afoul of South African spies who appear to have a score to settle with his best buddy (a bizarr... More - Study Hell
MTI Street: Oct. 30 Prebook: Oct. 2 > High school slasher struggles to get a passing grade. Talk about ugly post-combat stress. Army vet Don Keller (Steve McDougall) returns to civilian life as a high school teacher—with severe anger management problems, as the gaggle of students in his after-hours detention class soon find out. More - Mr. Brooks
MGM/FOX Street: Oct. 23 Prebook: now > A “small” but amusing Costner thriller gets a big studio push. The filmmakers and star would like you to think Mr. Brooks is a lofty examination of the nature of addiction—in this case, the affected party is addicted to hunting and killing unsuspecting human beings. More - Spike Jones: The Legend
INFINITY Street: Oct. 30 Prebook: now > Zany band leader’s legacy gets a classy box set treatment. Long before “Weird Al” Yankovic was making parodies of popular music, Spike Jones and his orchestra lived by the motto “They write ’em and I wreck ’em,” deconstructing everything from contemporary hits—the ballad “Cocktails for Two”&#... More - Busy Bee Dogs Present the Three Little Pigs
BUSY BEE DOG PRODUCTIONS (www.busybeedogs.com) Available now > Costumed dogs and a bee puppet keep toddlers amused and on the move. Four slightly embarrassed looking dogs are dressed as characters from “The Three Little Pigs” to tell the familiar fairy tale but with an inventive twist. More - Home of the Brave
MGM/FOX Street: Oct. 23 Prebook: Sept. 26 > Iraq war coming home story is filled with star power and melodrama. Four war veterans—wounded physically and emotionally—return to their hometown from the violence of the frontlines and find it difficult to resume their previous lives, much to the dismay of everyone they encounter. More - Elf Bowling: The Movie
SCREEN MEDIA/UNIVERSAL Street: Oct. 2 Prebook: now > The price is right for this CGI holiday offering, which has laughs to spare. Here's one you haven't heard: The rascally pirate Santa Claus finds himself in a land of elves, who need help distributing billions of gifts to worthy children. In return, they let Santa bowl them over like 10 pins. More - Library downloads building in popularity
AUG. 30 | Imagine a patron walking into a library, plugging a USB cable into a kiosk and downloading a feature film in a few minutes, rather than borrowing a DVD. Or a patron simply sitting at home in front of a computer and going to a library’s Web site to perform essentially the same function. It's becoming more of a reality. More - No glitches in OverDrive, Recorded Books
AUG. 30 | Cleveland Public Library collections manager Cynthia Orr says she’s not aware of common complaints by patrons who download video content via the OverDrive system. After using the service, as well as testing Recorded Books’ system, I can come up with only one quibble: There’s no signal that the download is complete. More - The American Puppet
MAZZARELLA MEDIA (www.mazz.com) Street: Sept. 18 Prebook: Aug. 21 > Engaging doc on puppets will need a substantial push to keep it from dangling. At their best, puppets are engaging, enlightening and entertaining—and so is this hour-long examination of the history of puppetry in the U.S. It’s a compact history lesson, illustrated with copious archival footage, from Edison’... More - Macbeth
UNION STATION/STARZ Street: Sept. 25 Prebook: Aug. 23 > A hip and violent take on Shakespeare’s tragedy of murderous ambition. Australian provocateur Geoffrey Wright has realized Shakespeare’s drama of political intrigue as an incredibly violent, drug-filled mobster saga in which the newly installed gang leader lives like a pampered rock star. More - Confess
MTI Street: Aug. 28 Prebook: now > A political potboiler takes a juicy whack at hackers. Computer hackers are all the rage—see the clattering keyboards in Live Free or Die Hard—and this one takes an intriguing and thoughtful, if smug, look at what would happen if a skilled hacker had a purpose other than robbing banks. More - I’m Reed Fish
SCREEN MEDIA/UNIVERSAL Street: Sept. 4 Prebook: Aug. 7 > A folksy rom-com with a post-modern twist about a different kind of love triangle. Just when you think the title is the worst thing about this wonderful small-town rom-com, you learn that the brightly polished, never predictable script was penned by … a guy named Reed Fish! It’s not the only surprise, but we won’t sp... More - The Number 23
NEW LINE/WARNER Street: July 24 Prebook: now > Intriguing Infinifilm bonuses shine welcome light on a dark thriller. A man obsessed with solving a may-or-may-not-be murder takes to writing clues on his body, and his family is ripped asunder by his manic fixation with numbers. Sound familiar? Call it “The Memento of a Beautiful Mind. More - Bickford Shmeckler’s Cool Ideas
SCREEN MEDIA/UNIVERSAL Street: Aug. 7 Prebook: July 10 > A clever and sexy college rom-com with a poignant featurette. Here’s a raunch-free romantic comedy—with American Pie producers in the credits, no less—that’s mounted with breezy charm, painted in lively colors and spiked with just enough tension to infuse it with an appropriate amount of coming-of-age angst. More - Afghan Knights
MTI Street: July 31 Prebook: now > Explosive eye-candy is sweetened by an intricate leading player. Here's an indie action film that develops its characters, puts the budget on the screen in costumes and armaments and provides mystical eeriness in between bullets. The gritty adventure, about renegade Navy SEALS sent on a recovery mission in remote Afghanistan, could have been just another b... More
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