Tekken Tops the 3rd Annual Straight-to-DVD Movie Awards

Video game adaptation Tekken has won Best Picture in the 3rd Annual Straight-to-DVD Movie Awards, also grabbing the best Sci-Fi/Fantasy award. Other winners include Tamer Hassan who won best actor for his performance in Bonded by Blood, which also took Best Director for helmer Sacha Bennett. Romola Garai won Best Actress for her work in Glorious 39. Ballistica took both Worst Picture and Title-S0-Bad-It’s Good kudos.

Here’s the full list:

Best Picture: Tekken

Best Actor: Tamer Hassan, Bonded by Blood

Best Actress: Romola Garai, Glorious 39

Best Director: Sacha Bennett, Bonded by Blood

Worst Picture: Ballistica

Best Comedy: A Matter of Size

Best Horror: Hostel: Part III

Best Action/Thriller: The Man From Nowhere

Best Family Film: Barbie: Princess Charm School

Best Documentary: Resurrect Dead: The Mystery of the Toynbee Tiles

Best Sci Fi/Fantasy: Tekken

Title-So-Bad-It’s-Good: Ballistica

The Hunters Reviews: “Unorthodox but Enjoyable”

The Hunters is the debut feature from director Chris Briant, who also stars as Le Saint, a detective who uncovers a human game reserve near an abandoned fort. The reviews are strong, citing the slow build from crime drama into all out horror at the end, bolstered by solid characterizations.  Michael Allen at 28 Days Later Analysis calls it “very compelling,” noting the “strong visual style” and “great intercutting and use of impressionism.”   Horror Asylum’s Ian Martin says Briant “successfully moulds some very believable characters, without needing to feed us too much information on them.” Alice Nelson of DVD Verdict calls the film “unorthodox but quite enjoyable,” adding, “If this film is any indication, Chris Briant has talent as both a director and an actor.” She warns however, that “the synopsis is wrong everywhere you look, even on [the film's] own packaging,” and that Glee star Dianna Agron’s role in the film is grossly overstated in the advertising, “…if you’re expecting to get your Glee fix while watching The Hunters, you’re going to be sorely disappointed…”

In a stark contrast, IMDb users give the film 4.3/10 stars with 751 votes counted.

The Hunters is available now on DVD and Amazon instant video.

Warning: This is a red-band trailer.

Check Out a Gunfight from Sinners and Saints

In the upcoming action-thriller Sinners and Saints, Johnny Strong (The Fast and the Furious) plays a cop-on-the-edge investigating a homicide in New Orleans that involves a childhood friend (The Boondock Saints‘ Sean Patrick Flanery). In this clip, Flanery comes up with a pretty extreme solution for a hopeless gunfight.

The film, which drops tomorrow, also stars Kevin Phillips, Costas Mandylor, Bas Rutten, Clifford “Method Man” Smith, Kim Coates, Jolene Blalock, and Tom Berenger.

Carjacked: The Straight2DVD Review

Carjacked stars Maria Bello as Lorraine, an unemployed single mother who is going through a rough patch in her life; not only is she divorced but her custody of son Chad (Connor Hill) is being challenged by her ex-husband due to a bout of accidental negligence that almost got Chad killed. While stopping for gas, she is carjacked (natch) by Roy (Stephen Dorff) who has escaped capture after robbing a bank. His request is simple: drive him to where he needs to be to pick up the money and no one will get hurt. Naturally things get tense and hectic as Lorraine struggles to save her son from a man slowly revealing himself to be a psychopath.

Let’s just get this right out of the way: had there been two other actors besides Bello and Dorff in the lead roles, Carjacked would not have worked nearly as well as it did. The two use their enormous talents to elevate both their characters and the movie as a whole. Bello makes Lorraine into a sympathetic and even complex character, whose bad luck has turned her into an almost beaten down shell of a human being. And when it’s time to step it up, Bello even turns into a decent action heroine with proper motivation to gun Roy down.

As good as Bello is in the lead, Dorff is even better and if there’s one reason to watch Carjacked it’s definitely him. I like it when villains in movies are given things to do other than snarl and with Roy, you get to see almost two sides of him. In the beginning he even seems like a nice guy, bonding with Chad and handing out life advice to Lorraine. Hell, for a second it looks like the two are even going to fall in love. The way the character is handled, going from nice to evil in a split second, is nice as well allowing the audience to never forget that yes, he’s a sociopath and yes, he will kill anyone who crosses him. Like many, I remember Dorff mostly from his villainous turn in 1998′s Blade so it’s really no surprise that he fits perfectly as the antagonist here.

As good as Bello and Dorff are, Carjacked has its fair share of problems that derail it from being a success. The most glaring, at least to me, is Chad. I get that children tend to be annoying (coming from a man without kids, naturally), but Chad would make the others seem like saints in comparison. He’s constantly complaining and whining, rolling his eyes, and being an all around ass which makes Lorraine’s desire to save him feel somewhat dumb (again I don’t have children so I don’t truly understand the bond). When he’s finally ushered out of the movie thanks to a far-fetched but passable coincidence, Carjacked instantly improves. I can’t stress enough how god-awfully annoying he is. Same goes for the rest of the cast; there isn’t much in the way of impressive acting once you get past Bello and Dorff.

Carjacked, weirdly enough, also creates a situation that doesn’t exactly feel that dire. Yes they have been carjacked, but it’s not like Roy is beating them up or murdering people left and right along the way or anything. Frankly, it seems that as long as Lorraine just brings him to where he needs to go, everything is going to be fine. But then there wouldn’t be a movie, I guess. The trip itself also lacks any true tension until Lorraine rebels; they get through a police roadblock relatively easily thanks to the stupidest policeman alive and, once again, it’s not like Roy is actively harming them. And then there’s the fact that what seems to be a major plot point and foreshadowing goes absolutely nowhere. Seriously. It’s never mentioned again. You’ll know what I mean once you see the movie.

The problems of Carjacked keep it from being a complete success, but it’s still a decent rental. Bello and Dorff are good in their roles and their chemistry with one another as well as their own understanding of their characters keep this movie afloat amidst a thin plot with forced tension and one of the more annoying child characters to be in a movie in the past few years. The third act is all action too, and competently done, so it does build up to a satisfying climax. Carjacked doesn’t break the bank creatively, but it won’t result in watcher’s remorse.

Watch a Clip from Carjacked

Carjacked stars Maria Bello as a single mom who must fight to free herself and her son from a bank robber on the run (Stephen Dorff) who has kidnapped them both.  John Bonito (The Marine) directs from a screenplay by Michael and Sherry Compton.  In this clip, Bello attempts to seek help in the few moments of privacy she has during a bathroom break.

Carjacked arrives on DVD and Blu-ray on November 22nd.

The Entitled Videos: Trailer, Clips, Interviews

Kidnap thriller The Entitled arrives September 6th on DVD and Blu-ray.  In the film, down-on-their-luck twentysomethings (Kevin Zegers, Devon Bostick, Tatiana Maslany) abduct rich-and-priveleged twentysomethings (Laura Vandervoort, Dustin Milligan, John Bregar) in the hopes of extracting a hefty ransom from the abductees’ wealthy dads (Ray Liotta, Victor Garber, Stephen McHattie).

Anchor Bay has released a trailer, some clips, and a brief interview with Garber and writer/executive producer William Morrissey.  Enjoy!

Trailer

Clip #1

Clip #2

Interviews

Upcoming Release Calendar Added!

For years now (has it been that long?) you’ve been clamoring (okay, asking politely) for an upcoming release calendar.  We’ve finally got one.  From here on out, you’ll be able to find it in our top nav bar, right next to “Reviews”.  It’s only got a few months so far, but we’ll add more as we go.  Check it out!  (And thanks for your patience.)

Glorious 39: The Straight2DVD Review

Remember that Friends episode where Rachel tried to bake something, but the two pages of the cookbook stuck together so she made something that was half a meat dish and half a dessert? And while Joey liked it (“I mean, what’s not to like? Custard, good. Jam, good. Meat, good!”), Ross summed it up best with, “It tastes like feet!”

Glorious 39 tastes like feet. The ingredients are wonderful. Actors, locations, costumes, makeup. All good. But the two recipes, one for a murder thriller and the other for a period drama, got merged together and made a big mess.

I can’t find any issue with the film’s raw materials. The BAFTA-winning writer/director Stephen Poliakoff is not well-known here in the States, but has a long career of writing and directing stage plays, television dramas and films, and feature films in Great Britain. There is amazing power both in the acting and production talent. For actors, you’ve got Romola Garai, Bill Nighy, Julie Christie, Eddie Redmayne, David Tennant, Charlie Cox, Jeremy Northam, Christopher Lee, and Jenny Agutter. The locations in Norfolk and London draw you in with their beauty, and the cinematography, makeup, and costumes are superb thanks to DP Danny Cohen, Jenny Shircore, and Annie Symons, respectively.

But it’s those stuck pages, first in the screenwriting process, and then in the editing, that lead to a marred final product. Subplots meant either to 1) illustrate what had to be done in Britain before the war by the populace to survive or 2) show Garai’s lead character of Anne to be an outsider in her own family both only slow down the overall pace of the murder mystery. Tension, which should increase as a thriller plays out, is deflated by these subplots. Now, don’t get me wrong. I appreciate a good, slow burn in a film, if it’s interesting. But here, the end is not all that interesting enough to be shocking.

In the end, you’re asking why Anne was put through it all. Her tormentors don’t have a really good reason, other than they’re evil, I guess, which most of the time can be enough, but given the level of planning and thought involved in what they do to her, it is hard to see them simply as evil people playing with her like a toy, especially when they have something larger at stake that they’re trying to accomplish. Why not just kill her at the start? They don’t even try to recruit her to their cause, so why screw with her? And in the final 10-15 minutes of the film, logic continues to break down, and it all ends in an overly-dramatic way for no real reason.

If you’re a big fan of Garai or Nighy, then you’ll want to see the film for their performances. If you love British period pieces of the 30s, then you’ll want to see the film for the locations and the costumes. Just don’t expect a tight, well-paced thriller.

Two Big I Am Interviews with Producer/Actor Robert Fucilla

The Big I Am tells the story of a crime world underling who suddenly gets put in charge of the family.  It’s the producing debut of Robert Fucilla (Bonded by Blood, Shank) who also acts in the film.  In this interview with Screen Jabber, Fucilla discusses the notoriously disaster-laden shoot, the pressures of being a producer, and his entree into the world of acting.  If you’d like to hear his voice, he discusses a lot of the same stuff (in more detail) in this interview from the Chris and Phil Present podcast.  Interview starts at about the halfway mark.

The Big I Am also stars Leo Gregory, Vincent Regan, Michael Madsen, Steven Berkoff, and Paul Kaye.  It’s available now.

Trailer is NSFW.

New Wolfman Installment Likely to Go Straight-to-DVD

Bloody Disgusting reporting that a second installment in the Wolfman reboot franchise is, according to their source, likely to be (a) a sequel—not a prequel or re-re-boot, (b) straight-to-DVD, and (c) written by Michael Tabb.  Tabb has some direct-to-video experience as one of the four writers on the 2006 Tom Sizemore horror flick Ring Around the Rosie.  Given that the original’s worldwide theatrical plus home video grosses only barely covered production costs (much less marketing), a straight-to-DVD sequel—if any—seems a likely next step.

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