April 2013

Hidden Gem – Playing by Heart

/ / Home Video
  • Title: Playing by Heart
  • IMDb: link

“Talking about love is like dancing about architecture.”

Playing by Heart

Released in 1998, Playing by Heart follows the formula of several romantic dramedies (Love Actually being the best) which feature interlocking stories of couples in various states of their respective relationships. Written and directed by Willard Carroll, the film is notable for it’s impressive ensemble cast as well as a pair of the six stories which slowly come together during the film’s final act.

My favorite of the group features Angelina Jolie, as the beautiful but high-maintenance Joan, and Ryan Phillippe as the aloof young man with a dark secret who seems immune to her obvious charms. Also worthy of note are Sean Connery and Gena Rowlands as an elderly couple dealing with both the looming specter a life-threatening medical condition and a long-simmering old argument as the pair prepare to renew their vows on their 40th wedding anniversary.

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House of Lies – Hostile Takeover

/ / Television Reviews
  • Title: House of Lies – Hostile Takeover
  • tv.com: link

House of Lies - Hostile Takeover

With his eyes set firmly on getting the financing to leave Galweather Stern and open his own shop, Tamara (Nia Long) convinces Marty (Don Cheadle) to stick things out and finalize the Carlson (Mather Zickel) deal before he jumps ship. However, when Carlson’s attempt to settle their differences means driving out into the middle of the desert to watch the crazy man blow up watermelons with Ernest Hemingway’s rifle, he begins to have second thoughts.

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WWE Superstar is one of Canada’s fiercest Bounty Hunters

/ / Home Video
  • Title: Bounty Hunters
  • IMDB: link

bounty-hunters-dvdOriginally entitled Bail Enforcers, the low budget Canadian action film stars former WWE wrestler Trish Stratus as Jules, a bounty hunter who works part-time at a strip club (I swear I’m not making this up). We meet Jules dressed in a school girl costume in the middle of a Mexican stand-off as the movie opens.

Things go downhill from there as we flashback to the events that led Jules, her partner (Boomer Phillips), and her boss (Frank J. Zupancic) to let one bounty (Rodrigo Fernandez-Stoll) go free in order to stare down a gangster (Joe Rafla) who offers the team $1,000,000 to buy the group’s latest prisoner, a mob informant (Enrico DiFede) with a $100,000 bounty on his head.

The film’s story hinges on a dilemma that isn’t really even made as the group has a falling out during the hand-off and spends most of the movie trying to figure out what to do after pissing off a mobster with psychotic killers (Andrea James Lui, Christian Bako, Richard Ha) in his employ.

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Doctor Who – The Bells of Saint John

/ / Television Reviews
  • Title: Doctor Who – The Bells of Saint John
  • tv.com: link

Doctor Who - The Bells of Saint John

After two episodes teasing us with other versions of the character, Doctor Who returns for the second-half of Series Seven to unite The Doctor (Matt Smith) with the current version of Clara Oswald (Jenna-Louise Coleman). I like the casting of Coleman as the new companion, but I have to say I’m a little disappointed that the previous versions of Clara, at least at first glance, seem vastly more interesting than the one that that’s going to be hopping around time and space with The Doctor for the foreseeable future.

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Green Hornet #1

/ / Comics

Green Hornet #1Writer Mark Waid launches a new Green Hornet series for Dynamite Entertainment and the first issue is a must-read. Set in November of 1941, Green Hornet #1 reintroduces the characters of the Green Hornet and Kato while providing narration from a far older version of Britt Reid looking back at the heyday of his career as he fought crime both as the owner of the Daily Sentinel and as a masked crime fighter masquerading as a crime lord.

The first issue deals with Britt Reid taking on both a corrupt State Senator and the Governor while the Green Hornet works at night to clean up the streets. Waid works in language of the time while allowing an older Britt to explain the basis of the Hornet and his world. Artist Daniel Indro adds some nice touches of his own by working several Daily Sentinel headlines into the comic to help tell the story.

Waid is a great storyteller and, together with Indro, has found a new character to revitalize. Fans of the character should enjoy this fresh, yet certainly old-school, retelling of the Green Hornet’s adventures. Best of the week.

[Dynamite Entertainment, $3.99]

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