CliqueClack » DVD https://cliqueclack.com/p Big voices. Little censors. Thu, 02 Apr 2015 13:00:20 +0000 en-US hourly 1 https://wordpress.org/?v=4.1.1 2013 Amazon holiday deals in TV and movies on DVD & Blu-ray (Days 5-9) https://cliqueclack.com/p/2013-amazon-holiday-deals-tv-movies-dvd-bluray-days-59/ https://cliqueclack.com/p/2013-amazon-holiday-deals-tv-movies-dvd-bluray-days-59/#comments Tue, 03 Dec 2013 14:00:10 +0000 https://cliqueclack.com/p/?p=13656 Sherlock Holmes movieIt's that time of year again for getting in on some great DVD and Blu-ray deals over at Amazon (and elsewhere). This should be the last of them for a while. ...]]> Sherlock Holmes movie
It’s that time of year again for getting in on some great DVD and Blu-ray deals over at Amazon (and elsewhere). This should be the last of them for a while. …

Here are the TV and Movie DVD deals at Amazon.com for the rest of the week. Make sure you head over when the deal starts, or you could miss out. The below list is clickable. Come back and let us know what you get yourself your loved ones:

Tuesday, December 3

Wednesday, December 4

Thursday, December 5

Friday, December 6

Saturday, December 7

Photo Credit: Warner Home Video
]]> https://cliqueclack.com/p/2013-amazon-holiday-deals-tv-movies-dvd-bluray-days-59/feed/ 0 2013 Cyber Monday Amazon deals in TV and movies on DVD (Day 4) https://cliqueclack.com/p/2013-cyber-monday-amazon-deals-tv-movies-dvd-day-4/ https://cliqueclack.com/p/2013-cyber-monday-amazon-deals-tv-movies-dvd-day-4/#comments Mon, 02 Dec 2013 13:17:52 +0000 https://cliqueclack.com/p/?p=13631 Twin PeaksIt's that time of year again for getting in on some great DVD deals over at Amazon (and elsewhere). We'll highlight a bunch throughout the next week, so check back later!]]> Twin Peaks
It’s that time of year again for getting in on some great DVD deals over at Amazon (and elsewhere). We’ll highlight a bunch throughout the next week, so check back later!

Here are the TV and Movie DVD deals at Amazon.com for Monday, December 2, 2013. Make sure you head over when the deal starts, or you could miss out. The below list is clickable. Come back and let us know what you get yourself your loved ones:

Photo Credit: Paramount
]]> https://cliqueclack.com/p/2013-cyber-monday-amazon-deals-tv-movies-dvd-day-4/feed/ 0 The Hobbit Extended Edition provides some insights, yet even more to sit through https://cliqueclack.com/p/hobbit-extended-dvd-review/ https://cliqueclack.com/p/hobbit-extended-dvd-review/#comments Mon, 02 Dec 2013 02:05:03 +0000 https://cliqueclack.com/p/?p=13447 the-hobbit-dvd'The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey' wasn't long enough for you? Well, there are two more films on the way. If you can't wait for those, there's a bit more this set can offer.]]> the-hobbit-dvd
‘The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey’ wasn’t long enough for you? Well, there are two more films on the way. If you can’t wait for those, there’s a bit more this set can offer.

I’m not quite sure why I keep doing this to myself. Maybe it’s because I really, really want to love The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey. Maybe I just want to further understand why — oh, why — the beloved source material needs to extend to three movies instead of one. Whatever the reason, I’ve once again put myself through a viewing of the film, though this time it’s extended to, well, the extended version.

First let me note that I loved the Lord of the Rings trilogy, both the books and the movies. Admittedly, I know the movies took some liberties and strayed some from the books, but it’s safe to say the majority of Tolkien fans were pretty OK with that. For me, I was really OK with it, and in fact I was all over watching extended footage when it came out. Three books, covering three enormous books — of course there’s going to be extra stuff that may not have made it into the films. Totally understandable.

When the news came out that writer/director Peter Jackson was splitting The Hobbit into three films, I know I wasn’t alone in wondering “W in T ever-loving F is he doing?!” How can ONE book need three films to cover (and let’s not get into the appendices and The Silmarillion material — this movie series is called “The Hobbit,” so why is it anything more?). Yet Jackson is doing this in three movies, and on top of that he wasn’t given enough time to add all he wanted in the first film. I wouldn’t call myself a purist to the source material at all, but there’s a point where the liberties taken are just too freakin’ much.

I wouldn’t call myself a purist to the source material at all, but there’s a point where the liberties taken are just too freakin’ much.

All of that complaining aside, the extended footage here is worthwhile material to watch, though there is not much of it. Within the disc menus it’s clear which scenes are completely new ones and which were modified or appended to with new material. Three of the new scenes in particular stood out from anything else:

  • More details into the Fall of Erabor, which isn’t part of the original book at all really but was fun to watch.
  • A scene in Rivendell that is actually rather important to framing Thorin’s fall into an almost madness for gold, and a deep discussion with  Saruman regarding the one ring and the Necromancer.
  • A heck of a lot more Goblin King, including a lengthy song.
The extra features are aplenty, including the commentary tracks you’d expect from the filmmakers.

The extra features are aplenty, including the commentary tracks you’d expect from the filmmakers. Then there are quite a few making-of featurettes that will keep you busy for hours, from the early days of drawing up the ideas for the film(s) through the final days of shooting. I found the one regarding Radagast the Brown to be most interesting, since this is one character so outside of The Hobbit story that I had to know why he was thrown in. Peter Jackson telling the crew of his idea of Radagast being pulled with giant rabbits was somewhat comical, as the looks on their faces seemed to say, “I better keep my mouth shut or be out of a job.” Also, seeing the various ideas for the other not-in-The-Hobbit character Azog was worth a watch for sure.

Overall I’d say the extended version of The Hobbit is only worthwhile to those who found the movie incredible enough that you simply have to see what more they cut from the already-long film. Even then, I’d wait for the trilogy to come out in a few years and get the extent of all that footage in one fell swoop.

The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey Extended Edition is now available in stores.

[The above review was made possible by a distributor-provided review copy of the media.]

[easyazon-image align=”none” asin=”B00GGEVKYO” locale=”us” height=”160″ src=”https://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/51L9Y2MZtaL._SL160_.jpg” width=”110″][easyazon-image align=”none” asin=”B00E8S2JZ4″ locale=”us” height=”160″ src=”https://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/5110IK4qnbL._SL160_.jpg” width=”127″]

Photo Credit: New Line Cinema
]]> https://cliqueclack.com/p/hobbit-extended-dvd-review/feed/ 0 2013 Black Friday Amazon deals in TV and movies on DVD (Day 3) https://cliqueclack.com/p/2013-black-friday-amazon-deals-movies-dvd-3/ https://cliqueclack.com/p/2013-black-friday-amazon-deals-movies-dvd-3/#comments Sun, 01 Dec 2013 04:39:42 +0000 https://cliqueclack.com/p/?p=13625 Chuck complete series Blu-rayIt's that time of year again for getting in on some great DVD deals over at Amazon (and elsewhere). We'll highlight a bunch throughout the next week, so check back later!]]> Chuck complete series Blu-ray
It’s that time of year again for getting in on some great DVD deals over at Amazon (and elsewhere). We’ll highlight a bunch throughout the next week, so check back later!

Here are the TV and Movie DVD deals at Amazon.com for Sunday, December 1, 2013 and at what times the deals start. Make sure you head over when the deal starts, or you could miss out. The below list is clickable. Come back and let us know what you get yourself your loved ones:

Photo Credit: Warner Home Video
]]> https://cliqueclack.com/p/2013-black-friday-amazon-deals-movies-dvd-3/feed/ 0 The Hobbit comes out on DVD and Blu-ray and pisses me off https://cliqueclack.com/p/the-hobbit-movie-bad-blu-ray/ https://cliqueclack.com/p/the-hobbit-movie-bad-blu-ray/#comments Sun, 17 Mar 2013 14:00:26 +0000 https://cliqueclack.com/p/?p=8064 hobbitThe home video release of 'The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey' arrives this week. If you're interested in watching a beloved story get both mercilessly hacked to pieces and inflated at the same time, look no further than this gem.]]> hobbit
The home video release of ‘The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey’ arrives this week. If you’re interested in watching a beloved story get both mercilessly hacked to pieces and inflated at the same time, look no further than this gem.

Let me start by warning you that this is more of a movie review than a review of the Blu-ray version of the movie. I’ll get to that later in the post, but for now I’ve got some venting to do.

A couple of years ago I introduced my then 6-year-old son to the world of Middle Earth. I’d already read J.R.R. Tolkien’s The Hobbit once many years ago, so reading it aloud again for my son was a joy. It was nice to have the story fresh in my head again, with the knowledge that a film version was in the works. For each of the previous Peter Jackson films, I’d made a point of going out and seeing them in the theater, the morning of their release. I didn’t see why The Hobbit was going to be any different. I was pretty damned excited.

Then word came out that Jackson decided The Hobbit was too vast and complex to consist of merely one film. So it was decided that it’d be two films. Alright, I guess a couple of two-hour films could make sense, if he couldn’t fit the whole book into three. I even wrote about my thoughts on where the movies might split. Once that two movies became three movies, my faith in what was going to be included in these films shattered a bit. Was this really being done to include every little detail from that one book, or was it just a means for making more money?

 It’s really mostly crap. And a lot of it.

After watching The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey, I’m thinking Peter Jackson didn’t decide to make The Hobbit into three movies for money alone, nor to be 100% faithful to the book, but to tell The Hobbit how he thought it should be told; Tolkien be damned. And maybe I’d be OK with that if what he actually produced was truly better, but it’s really mostly crap. And a lot of it.

Firstly, the movie took me three fucking nights to get through. Yeah, I’m not a spry 20- or even 30-something anymore, but I can stay up with the best of ‘em when I want to. And, for this, I really did want to. The problem for me came in that first hour, where we were introduced to characters we’d barely heard mention of. We learn of Azog, the Pale Orc, who was mentioned in one sentence in The Hobbit; yet, in the movie, he plays a huge, pivotal role. And don’t get on me about supporting stories from The Silmarillion and even The Lord of the Rings — this is The Hobbit we’re talking about, and Azog simply did not appear. At all. Yeah, he’s damn cool, but what the hell’s he doing there? But the worst part of that first hour was that it takes longer than that for Bilbo to even leave The Shire! I was falling asleep!

The worst part of that first hour was that it takes longer than that for Bilbo to even leave The Shire! I was falling asleep!

Where in The Lord of the Rings movies some were upset that Jackson omitted some characters and details, it’s the numerous additions that Jackson made to The Hobbit that are truly bothersome. There’s the aforementioned Azog, and then there’s the completely absurd Radagast the Brown. Like Azog, Radagast is mentioned in one sentence in the book, yet he appears in several key scenes in the movie where he’d never appeared before. And he’s just silly stupid. To add insult to injury, he’s being pulled around on a wooden sled through woods and fields by rabbits. What in the holy hell? I’d start in on the mountain giants next, but at least they made some sort of tiny appearance in the book … actually, that’s stretching it too.

I really would rather not get into the details of every issue I had with the movie, because, for one thing, I’m sure it must have been said by many before me at this point. Secondly, I get that a movie is supposed to be fun and entertaining, that this is all fiction and fantasy; I get all of that. What I don’t get is how anyone would consider this the same caliber of film as any of The Lord of the Rings films, nor how any of the additional scenes were necessary or even beneficial. It only seems to point out that Peter Jackson didn’t like how Tolkien told the story of The Hobbit, so he decided to change it. And then, “screw you, movie-goers! I’m going to make you sit through another SIX HOURS of MY telling of this tale because you love me! And if you don’t, nerd hordes will mob you and sit on you until you pop! And now you can buy even more toys, like the Radagast and Azog action figures! Wuahahaa!”

Yeah, I may have stayed up too late again.

I never thought I’d call a Peter Jackson movie crap, never mind taking the time to do so publicly; but The Hobbit was a complete let down. Though I’d probably hold off on showing my son the movie due to his age anyway, I’d rather he make the decision himself to see it many years from  now on his own, as I just don’t want to ruin the great story we just read a couple years ago by presenting it to him myself. Do you teach a kid that age that it’s OK to take another’s beloved work and modify it to near nonrecognition? That you shit all over another’s work with a white orc with a chopped off arm because it’s cooler looking? It’s certainly not the first time it’s happened, but, for me, it’s the latest, and it disappoints the hell out of me. At least Chuck agreed it wasn’t a great effort.

Do you teach a kid that age that it’s OK to take another’s beloved work and modify it to near nonrecognition?

As for the rest of the Blu-ray, there’s not a whole lot to celebrate, to be honest. Besides the film itself, there’s a special features disc with all of the film’s trailers, as well as all of Jackson’s video blogs he’d done throughout the filming progress. There’s a small featurette about New Zealand and the movie’s locations, as well as some trailers for the different games based on the movie (of which I’m sure there will be even more, with two movies still to come).

This particular Blu-ray, at least, was not 3D, though I admit I did notice some of those “artifacts” some complained about when watching it in the theater, when it was shown in 48 FPS. Some had said some things looked “too real” — or something to that effect. I had forgotten about that complaint until I started watching the Blu-ray, and noticed a few scenes where things just didn’t look quite right. Was it an artifact of the different frame rate, being carried over to Blu-ray, or just a different filming style altogether?

The Blu-ray and DVD releases of The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey arrive in stores this Tuesday.

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Photo Credit: New Line Cinema
]]> https://cliqueclack.com/p/the-hobbit-movie-bad-blu-ray/feed/ 17 Eric McCormack gets cabin fever in Barricade https://cliqueclack.com/p/barricade-dvd-review/ https://cliqueclack.com/p/barricade-dvd-review/#comments Wed, 26 Sep 2012 15:00:32 +0000 https://cliqueclack.com/p/?p=1198 Barricade 2Eric McCormack goes a little mad in the new thriller 'Barricade,' a solid if unspectacular antidote to the usual cabin in the woods slasher flick.]]> Barricade 2
Eric McCormack goes a little mad in the new thriller ‘Barricade,’ a solid if unspectacular antidote to the usual cabin in the woods slasher flick.

After playing Will Truman on Will & Grace for nine seasons, Eric McCormack has stepped as far away from the sitcom genre as he could over the last few years, most recently headlining the new TV drama Perception. Now, McCormack has gone even further out of his comfort zone with his starring role in the new psychological horror film Barricade, produced by WWE Studios and now available on DVD and Blu-ray.

Barricade tells the story of Terence Shade, a psychologist who doesn’t have enough time in the day to spend with his kids. His wife wants them all to go to her old family cabin way, way, way up in the mountains to give the kids a white Christmas. The story jumps to a year later, and Shade’s wife has died under mysterious circumstances (mysterious, at least, until the climax of the movie), but he wants to honor her wishes and takes their two kids to the cabin. Once there, strange noises and shadows begin to terrorize the family … or has madness overtaken them?

The story keeps the viewer nicely off-balance, never knowing if what Terence is seeing and experiencing is real or imagined.

You have to hand it to the producers of Barricade for really committing to the psychological horror of the story and not going for the over-the-top blood and guts you might expect … especially coming from WWE Studios. Yes, that WWE. In fact, this is the first WWE production that does not feature any of its stable of wrestling stars. Besides the wife and the old man, who are only in the film briefly, this really is a story about three characters confined to a single location. You almost get a The Shining vibe as the story progresses, although you don’t know if Terence has actually gone mad, if the cabin is haunted (since we don’t know how the wife died), or if something else is affecting his behavior. The story keeps the viewer nicely off-balance, never knowing if what Terence is seeing and experiencing is real or imagined.

That’s not to say that some of the scare aren’t cheap ones. Early on, the filmmakers rely way to much on the LOUD MUSIC CUE to make you jump, when it’s not really necessary. At one point, Terence looks out the window and the grotesque face of his dead wife is peering in at them. A quick cut to that would have been sufficiently creepy, so it really didn’t need that extra OOMPH of the music to make you jump. It actually distracted me from seeing the face in the window because I did jump. So, yeah, it works but for all the wrong reasons.

McCormack has to go from madness to rational adult in the blink of an eye and he always pulls it off.

While the film works hard to keep you guessing, McCormack gets kudos for his off-balance performance as well. He has to walk that fine edge of sanity and madness without ever teetering off to either side. We know as the story progresses that Terence is severely over-medicating himself (presumably to deal with his wife’s death), so that may have something to do with his behavior. He, and perhaps the kids, come down with the flu as well, so that may also have something to do with the delirium. But you’re never sure if anything Terence is doing is actually happening or all in his head because things can change in an instant within a scene, and McCormack has to go from madness to rational adult in the blink of an eye and he always pulls it off.

Barricade may not be a great thriller, but it’s good enough to warrant a look for McCormack’s performance and the terrific production design (be sure to check out the informative extras on the DVD to see how they built the cabin interiors and created the snowy exteriors). The ending may be a bit too tidy – it’s certainly not an M. Night Shyamalan twist – but at least we know what happened to the wife, and if Terence is sane, mad or just a little under the weather. If you’re looking for something that will send chills down your spine without a lot of blood, gore, masked killers or scary monsters, then this just might be the movie for you.

This review is based on the DVD provided to CliqueClack by WWE Studios.

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Photo Credit: WWE Studios
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