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Batman vs. Robin

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  • Title: Batman vs. Robin
  • IMDb: link

Batman vs. RobinThe sequel to 2014’s Son of Batman inserts Batman‘s (Jason O’Mara) contentious relationship with Damian (Stuart Allan) into a streamlined version of the Court of Owls arc from DC’s new 52 featuring a secret society of zombie ninja assassins and their 1% overloads all clad in an owl motif. Oh, and they’ve been around ruling Gotham from the shadows unnoticed for decades and have a giant maze in their basement. Yeah, it’s as ridiculous as it sound.

Truncating the unwieldy long arc and motivation of the Court of Owls helps sell the story but the real meat comes not from the new villains but from the struggle of Bruce and Damian to properly connect both as father and son and as Caped Crusaders. Building on events from Son of Batman, Batman vs. Robin may not be as strong as the former but it does continue to develop the relationships set-up in the first film, offers some visually interesting fight sequences, and is a far shade better than DC’s other attempts to turn problematic New 52 stories into features.

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4 Film Favorites: Movies that Rock

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  • Title: Rock of Ages, School of Rock, Detroit Rock City, Empire Records
  • IMDb: link
  • IMDb: link
  • IMDb: link
  • IMDb: link

4 Film Favorites: Movies that RockCollecting four movies with plots revolving around music 4 Film Favorites: Movies that Rock includes Rock of Ages, School of Rock, Detroit Rock City, and Empire Records.

Although none of the four are standouts, the highlight of the collection (in terms of both star power and musical performances) is likely the theatrical adaptation of the jukebox stage musical Rock of Ages starring Tom Cruise, Julianne Hough, Diego Boneta, Alec Baldwin, Russell Brand, Catherine Zeta-Jones, and Malin Akerman. Read the full review.

Empire Records is a B-movie version of High Fidelity starring Anthony LaPaglia, Rory Cochrane, Robin Tunney, Renée Zellweger, Ethan Embry, Liv Tyler, and Johnny Whitworth as employees of a struggling record store. School of Rock stars Jack Black as a struggling musician who takes over the job as a substitute music teacher. Detroit Rock City stars Giuseppe Andrews, James DeBello, Edward Furlong, and Sam Huntington as four teens struggling to make it into a KISS concert in 1978.

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Sharky’s Machine

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  • Title: Sharky’s Machine
  • IMDb: link

Sharky's MachineA product of its times Sharky’s Machine feels every bit the early 80s cop drama it is. Adapted from William Diehl‘s novel of the same name Burt Reynolds stars as Police Sergeant Tom Sharky. In the movie’s opening scene the reckless hero cop is demoted from Homicide to Vice after a drug bust goes bad. Stuck in the lowest rungs of the department, Sharky begins investigating a string of high-priced call girls one of whom (Rachel Ward) he falls for while surveilling for weeks.

Slow-moving with much of the plot centered around surveillance of a prostitute’s apartment where not much actually happens, Sharky’s Machine is an R-rated film that could probably be shown today on prime-time network television today except for language and a dark final act involving the torture of our hero. It’s also filled with bizarre WTF? moments (such as when a police informant is killed by ninjas). And it features some old school Bond-style romancing of damsels in distress by slapping them around a bit when necessary.

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Eddie and the Cruisers Double Feature

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  • Title: Eddie and the Cruisers / Eddie and the Cruisers II: Eddie Lives!
  • IMDb: link
  • IMDb: link

“I want to be remembered for the music or not at all.”

Eddie and the Cruisers Double FeatureReleased in 1983 Eddie and the Cruisers was a box office bomb despite a hit soundtrack that got the film a second theatrical release the following year. A rock and roll mystery, the film told the story of frontman Eddie Wilson (Michael Paré) through flashbacks and interviews with the other members of the band (primarily the keyboard player played by Tom Berenger) by a reporter (Ellen Barkin) hot on the story of the band’s missing second album and questions as to what really happened to Eddie Wilson. Despite it’s lack of response from both theatrical audiences and critics the movie has become a cult hit that even spawned a sequel in 1989.

Where the first film focused on the fallout of Eddie’s disapperance to those he left behind, Eddie and the Cruisers II: Eddie Lives! picks up the threads of the first film finding Eddie Wilson alive in Canada pushed to give music a second chance thanks to the release of the Cruisers lost “A Season in Hell” and an Eddie Lives! campaign by the studio that ruined his life.

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Guilty Pleasure – How to Beat the High Cost of Living

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  • Title: How to Beat the High Cost of Living
  • IMDb: link

how-to-beat-the-high-cost-of-living-blu-rayReleased in 1980, How to Beat the High Cost of Living starred Susan Saint James, Jane Curtin, and Jessica Lange as an unlikely trio of friends who turn to crime to pay for the high cost of inflation slowly strangling each of their lives when Jane’s (Curtin) husband drains their bank account to run off with his secretary, Louise (Lange) is being sued by her husband (Richard Benjamin) fighting off an IRS audit, and the divorced Jane (Saint James) with a homeless father (Eddie Albert) and three kids is struggling to make ends meet with another baby on the way.

The goofy screenplay by Robert Kaufman involving the three women working to rob a giant glass ball full of money in the local mall during its anniversary sale isn’t exactly high concept, but the three leads, and a supporting cast that includes Benjamin, Albert, Dabney Coleman, and Fred Willard, somehow makes (most of) it work as a guilty pleasure heist flick most memorable for Jane Curtain’s striptease during the middle of the mall robbery.

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