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June 12, 2007: Hellboy, Ghost Rider and killer crocs highlight this week’s DVD releases
By Wade Gum |
Posted June 12, 2007 8:45 AM |
Blood and Chocolate
Blood and chocolate is what you get after you eat all the good chocolates out of the Whitman’s Sampler box you gave to your girlfriend for Valentine’s Day. It’s also a movie about a clan of werewolves in Europe. They work together to keep their existence a secret, but all that is thrown into jeopardy once a female member of the pack falls in love with a human man.
If the epic werewolf/vampire love story from “Underworld” didn’t satisfy you, perhaps this one will be touching enough for your lycanthropy-loving needs.
Deadwood—The Complete Third Season
The majority of the words spoken in “Deadwood” can’t be printed in an article for this website, but if you want a rough approximation, just go down to your local dockside bar and listen to how the salty sailors talk. The “Deadwood” characters’ use of profanity is more like an art form than it is vulgarity. The myriad ways the characters find to combine profanity with the word “-sucker” is something beautiful to behold.
If you find traditional westerns starring John Wayne or Clint Eastwood boring, this HBO original series can make the West fun again for you with its surly characters and “true” stories.
Ghost Rider
The year’s premier romantic comedy is here! It’s the touching story of a young man who has feelings for a very special woman. By day, he tries to win her affections. By night, his head turns into a flaming skull and he whips the forces of evil with a big chain. Can his gruff but lovable friend help him steal the girl’s heart? Can he run over the son of Satan with his big flaming bike? You’ll laugh, you’ll cry, your heart will grow three sizes bigger.
Actually, you probably won’t be changed forever after seeing “Ghost Rider.” If you want something like that, go see something from the French New Wave. If you want to see one of the coolest-looking superheroes on the block tear up the city streets with his flaming motorcycle and pull off death-defying stunts, you’ve come to the right place. On second thought, that’s pretty cool. You may be so moved by the movie that you decide to ride a flaming bicycle yourself. You’ll have plenty of time to read Ghost Rider comics while recovering from your skin graft procedure!
Hellboy: Blood and Iron
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 From television to your DVD player, it’s the second Hellboy animated feature! After the B.P.R.D. is called in to investigate a creepy haunted manor full of vampire relics, Hellboy has to go toe to toe with werewolves, ghosts, witches, harpies and the goddess Hecate. There aren’t any monkeys with guns or fun talking corpses, but there’s plenty of Hellboy running into vampiric bloodsuckers and then beating them with his big fist. Isn’t that just as good?
The Hustler
Eddie Felson is a pool hustler who makes his living by beating people in small-town bars for quick cash. He’s good, but he doesn’t seem to want to apply his talents toward getting better and making a legitimate living as a player. His pride causes him to foolishly challenge Minnesota Fats, the best pool player around. After losing to Fats, Felson finds himself on a downward spiral and soon hits rock bottom. Can he muster the confidence to play with his pool cue once again?
You kids today with your fancy Spider-Man and pirates movies. You don’t appreciate the real classics! Practically everyone involved with this movie was nominated for an Oscar because of it! You kids probably only think of Paul Newman as “that guy from the salad dressing.” You kids don’t know how good you got it. Back in my day, we had to work in the coalmines for 40 hours just to get a nickel, and then hike through snow banks to get to the theater and buy our ticket. And the theater seats were full of rusty nails!
Primeval
Orlando Jones versus a 25-foot-long crocodile. Whoever loses, we win. It’s no wonder no one saw this film in the theaters, given how deceptive the advertising was. The tagline was “Inspired by the true story of the most prolific serial killer in history.” You go in expecting to see some crazy nutcase killer and instead you get a crocodile. That’s a pretty lame bait-and-switch. More people probably would have bought tickets if you had been upfront about the giant crocodile! People love their crocs!
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 The film would have been even better if they combined the elements of a serial killer movie with the crocodile. Just try and say you wouldn’t see a movie where Will Graham has to visit Hannibal Lecter and try to get inside the mind of the villainous crocodile. The FBI’s top men and women would labor for hours trying to construct a psychological profile of the crocodile and its methods. Somehow, it all ends in a dark alley as the crocodile pulls a gun on Will and gets shot from behind by the FBI rookie. Justice always prevails, even in the animal kingdom.
Stone Cold
Brian Bosworth 3:16 says he flopped after a mediocre career in the NFL where he was more well known for his Mohawk hairstyle than his playing ability, then tried to break into the world of action films. Yes, it’s true. This film doesn’t star everyone’s favorite rattlesnake, Stone Cold Steve Austin, but Brian “The Bos” Bosworth. How are we supposed to take this guy seriously as a stone cold killer when we all saw Bo Jackson flatten him like a pancake?
The ’80s truly were a marvelous time. Anyone with a modicum of athletic ability got their own action movie. Even Olympic gymnast Kurt Thomas got a chance to thrill audiences in “Gymkata.” This trend died off in the ’90s thanks to Howie Long’s “Firestorm” and Shaq’s disastrous one-two combo of “Steel” and “Kazaam.” He’s still in movie jail after those two.
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