News and Reviews From Canada's Favorite DVD Kiosks

At long last: The TV series we have been waiting for are now released at the following Movie Spots;
Macs Queen Street, Rabba Queens Quay and Isabella in Toronto , Lakeshore in Etobicoke, Sobeys Woodchester and Maple Grove and Urban Fresh on the Danforth. Coming soon to Wellesley and Oshawa . If there is a Movie Spot near you that you would like to see the TV series stocked; please let me know at thespotter@moviespot.ca

This Weeks New Movies Now Playing

The Watchmen

Cast: Malin Akerman, Billy Crudup, Matthew Goode, Carla Gugino, Jackie Earle Haley, Jeffrey Dean Morgan, Patrick Wilson

As a book, or novelette or just plain comic book, this is not your average Marvel comic saga. I own a set of the 12 issue series and well remember all the guys who hang out in comic books bragging about how this is really deep man! Deep? Personally I couldn’t figure it out, but it felt good to own a copy and be one of the “chosen ones” who knew what was cool.Recently quizzed on his expectations for the movie adaptation of his hallowed graphic novel Watchmen, Alan Moore — shaman, philosopher, and visionary comic-book auteur was heard to sigh. “Do we need any more shitty films in this world?” Let them do what they will, just don’t involve me. He concluded his diatribe with the simple conclusion that Watchmen, his masterwork, was “inherently unfilmable”.This is not exactly encouraging for a director attempting their dream project. But Zack Snyder, hot from his stylised-if-juvenile adaptation of Frank Miller’s 300, is a determined man. Snyder was one of the faithful, Watchmen his Bible, and would treat it with a care unprecedented in the annals of Hollywood screw-ups. Every sinew of directorial effort has been bent on proving the author wrong. Talk about a task! The novel is dizzy with storytelling devices: not just comic-strips, but biographical chapters, diaries, newspaper reports, poetry quotations, medical files and a warped, ultra-violent story-within-a-story called Tales Of The Black Freighter (an earlier animated DVD release). It was full of astonishing ideas that could take you years to fully compute. Stick that into two hours of family entertainment then, Zack…The story begins in 1985 when an outcast superhero has been tossed out of his apartment window. Still, The Comedian, former member of the disbanded Watchmen, has some ugly secrets. Rorschach, a paranoid sleuth whose ink-blot mask eerily ebbs and flows with his moods, can smell conspiracy, but his fellow ex-Watchmen are hard to convince. It’s a whodunit, although what exactly has been done is hard to say. It’s an action movie heavy on dialogue, although the movie styles up the punch-ups into slow-mo montages. It’s a bleak, rangy tale of a planet beset with disorder, and a superhero soap that shuttles between multiple stories.
That Snyder has gotten a version to the screen at all is a triumph. This is 160 minutes of a dense, geek-orientated blockbuster for grown-ups. (I warned you! No Spiderman here) But if you like action comic book heroes type movies, you’ll love it; arms are snapped, heads smashed in and Viet-Cong splattered like flies. Oh what a blast, not for the squeamish but then if you rent this you know what you’re in for don’t you? Oh, by the way nearly 3 hours long, did I mention that?




Coraline

Cast: Dakota Fanning, Teri Hatcher, Dawn French, Jennifer Saunders, Keith David, John Hodgman, Robert Bailey Jr., Ian McShane

First off, 3D DVD’s don’t work! True you can see some form of three dimension but the cardboard glasses never fit, they slide down your nose and the colours disappear because of some scientific problem. In a nutshell, watch the 2D version. Now on to this review; the story; Coraline (Fanning) moves to a new home, where she feels neglected by her stressed-out parents. When she finds a door leading to a happier mirror on her own world, with a loving ‘Other Mother’ (Hatcher), everything seems perfect ; but there’s danger lurking..
Adults have been overheard fretting about how scary it is ; and they’re right: it’s terrifying. Children though, have no such qualms. Strange, perhaps, but then, this is a strange film. As creepy as it is charming, as bizarre as it is beautiful, this is a true horror movie, but also a warm, brightly colored children’s fairy tale about the magic behind everyday life.
Directed by Henry Selick and based on a short book by Neil Gaiman as its inspiration. Employing stop-motion animation that renders human beings with the distinctive characteristics evident in both Tim Burton’s The Nightmare Before Christmas and James and the Giant Peach, Selick finds the perfect look to bring Gaiman's vision to life. The resulting tale may owe a little to "Hansel and Gretel" and "Alice in Wonderland," but ultimately stands on its own
Terrifying and beautiful, believable and fantastical, this is one of the best children’s films in years and Selick’s finest — better even than The Nightmare Before Christmas.




12 Rounds

Cast: John Cena, Ashley Scott, Brian J. White, Taylor Cole, Aidan Gillen, Steve Harris, Lara Grice, Billy Slaughter, Gonzalo Menendez, Louis Herthum

Officer Danny Fisher (Cena) gets the break of his career when he nabs terrorist Miles Jackson (Gillen). Unluckily for both, the perp’s girlfriend is killed during the arrest. A year later, he escapes from jail, kidnaps Fisher’s partner, Molly (Scott), and kickstarts a diabolical 12-step game of Simon Says.

When it comes to wrestlers, only The Rock — aka Dwayne Johnson — has successfully translated his considerable charm and charisma into bona fide big-screen stardom, scoring in action fare such as The Mummy Returns and Walking Tall and kid-friendly crowd-pleasers like The Game Plan and Race To Witch Mountain.Now into the ring — or rather, out of it — steps WWE superstar John Cena, and if the hope is for him to follow in The Rock’s oversized footsteps, this is definitely how to go about it. First, give him a script worthy of Denzel, which snaps, crackles and pops, and never slows down long enough to show that Cena is new to this acting malarkey; and hire a veteran action director (Cliffhanger’s Renny Harlin) who’s hungry for a comeback — and then turn the action dial up to 11. Or, indeed, 12.

Derivative it may be, but with its echoes of Speed, Lethal Weapon and Die Hard With A Vengeance, this is a welcome throwback for audiences raised on ’90s action flicks — what they used to call “a pulse-pounding roller-coaster thrill-ride of a movie”. Much better than watching boring tv re-runs!

This Weeks Movie You Didnt Rent & Why You Should

Street Kings

Cast: Keanu Reeves, Forest Whitaker, Hugh Laurie, Chris Evans, Naomie Harris, Jay Mohr, John Corbett, Cedric the Entertainer, Amaury Nolasco, Terry Crews

How did we miss this one? Like great cop movies that you have to watch again to decide who's a bad guy?
This is the one for you! From the brilliantly profane and testy mind of crime novelist James Ellroy and director David Ayer, who wrote the script for Training Day, comes a tale of police corruption amid the drug strewn gang-banging culture of LA’s sleazy underbelly. Well, what were you expecting, High School Musical 3? It’s that bad news from LA again, where everybody’s on the take and by the messy close, there are bodies falling from everywhere and you’ll feel in need of a hot, cleansing shower.
Implicated in the shooting of a fellow cop, dissolute LA detective Tom Ludlow (Reeves) finds himself caught between the protection of his tight-knit department and a growing sense he may not be working for the good guys at all.
As Ludlow, Reeves is the hards ass veteran detective. pummelling witnesses with telephone directories, swigging mini-bar vodkas at the wheel, and tossing out casual racial slurs. This is a totally new Reeves, or a totally old one. He’s never looked so worn out, all his boyish attraction is sunk beneath sallow, potholed skin and piss-hole eyes. The film opens to the nag of an alarm and we witness Neo pour himself out of bed, clutch his wrung-out face, and fetch up gobs of bile into a toilet bowl. Like woah dude. Like it so far? Well add some fine Hollywood actors including Accademy award winner Forest Whitaker, and Dr. House himself Hugh Laurie, at the fringes of the plot as an internal affairs slimeball. Go rent it now!!




Next Time, Fast & the Furious!