CliqueClack

Magic Mike puts the blue in Blu-ray

Steven Soderbergh’s Magic Mike made waves this past summer with its promotional campaign that highlighted the movie’s biggest draw — male strippers. The previews were full of men dancing and ladies screaming, so anyone who went to the movie was expecting a rollicking good time, almost like a night out at the club without the guilt of actually going to a male stripper revue. Heck, the women at the advance screening I attended were ready to throw dollar bills at the screen, but a curious thing happened about midway through the movie: everyone realized that it wasn’t just about the fun-loving life of a male stripper, and by the end, you actually felt more icky after seeing the movie than you would have had you actually gone to a club.

The reason is because of a pesky little thing called a plot. Yes, Magic Mike actually has a story, and it’s not really all that pleasant. In fact, you come away really disliking quite a few of the characters who seemed so jovial at the start, particularly Alex Pettyfer’s The Kid (as Mike calls him) and Matthew McConaughey’s Dallas, who turns into a real slimeball by the end of the movie (and his incessant “alright alright alright” really becomes grating after the tenth time). The Kid, aka Adam, gets taken into the world of the male stripper by Mike when he’s at his lowest point, becomes a favorite with the clientele, gets himself into trouble by not following Mike’s rules, totally screws Mike out of his dream, and leaves him without so much as a thanks for bailing his ass out. Yuck.

Continue reading 'Magic Mike puts the blue in Blu-ray' »

Price, Lee and Karloff: Three masters in less than horrific form

With Halloween upon us, what better time to remember three undisputed masters of horror — Vincent Price, Christopher Lee and Boris Karloff. With so many great films between them, and most of them available on home video for your annual enjoyment, there couldn’t possibly be more “lost” films out there, right?

Well, the folks at the Warner Archive Collection have really scraped the bottom of the barrel to bring three forgotten films back to life via their Manufacture on Demand service for Halloween. Unfortunately, neither the Price or Lee films can really be considered “horror,” but the Karloff film does become a bit more shocking and horrific as it barrels towards its conclusion. But are any of these films worthy of becoming Halloween perennials?

Continue reading 'Price, Lee and Karloff: Three masters in less than horrific form' »

The Governor is a new sickness on The Walking Dead

Fair warning: There may be spoilers for those of you who have not seen Sunday’s episode of The Walking Dead or even for those who haven’t read the comics.

When both Robert Kirkman and Glen Mazzara stated they wouldn’t be pulling any punches this season, they weren’t kidding. “Walk With Me” started out interestingly enough, low and slow, and then wound up with a jaw-dropper, so to speak.

Having read this particular story arc, I saw The Governor’s (David Morrissey) depravity coming and I was still creeped out by it, especially when we got the full-on view of chopper pilot Lieutenant Wells’ decapitated head floating in the tank. I wasn’t expecting the “viewing wall” scene to come quite that quickly. It definitely set a tone going forward and made everyone watching sit up a little straighter in their chairs, I imagine. But … I’m “getting ahead” of myself a tad …

Continue reading 'The Governor is a new sickness on The Walking Dead' »

Does Homeland serve as a commentary on U.S. homeland security laws?

This thought didn’t come to mind until watching the “Q&A” episode. As the newcomer to the show, Peter, is grilling Brody, he notes that he’s able to keep Brody there because of the laws put in place by his department of government.

“I’m a United States Congressman. You can’t just kidnap me and shackle me to the fucking floor!” – Brody
“Actually, we can. Thanks to your colleagues in Congress, we have very broad powers to detain and interrogate.” – Peter

It’s ironic, but then it occurred to me that it could be the whole point of the show.

Continue reading 'Does Homeland serve as a commentary on U.S. homeland security laws?' »

Clacker and artist Bill White: you will be missed

Bill White first approached us back in 2008, not too long after we officially launched with CliqueClack TV, to do a guest clack for us. He not only had some great commentary on things that he felt passionate about, but he provided his own artwork for most of them. I didn’t know much about his background other than he was a talented artist who hailed from the Bay State, as Deb and I do. It wasn’t until Bill officially joined the group that I learned that he was more than a good caricaturist.

Continue reading 'Clacker and artist Bill White: you will be missed' »

Copper, Coma and classic TV come to DVD and Blu-ray

It’s a slim week for new TV on DVD and Blu-ray, but fans of BBC America’s latest hit series Copper will be happy with the season one release on October 30th. If you missed A&E’s mini-series remake of the classic thriller Coma, that is also available this week. Classic TV fans are in for a treat — the day before Halloween! — with the long-awaited release of the final season of My Favorite Martian, as well as the complete All in the Family and Fractured Fairy Tales. Check out our helpful guide for information on these titles and more, and click on a link to make a purchase from Amazon. You’ll be showing your support for CliqueClack in the process! For that, we thank you.

Continue reading 'Copper, Coma and classic TV come to DVD and Blu-ray' »

Just in time for election day, The Campaign comes to home video

As election day draws nearer, what better time for the Will Farrell/Zach Galifianakis comedy The Campaign to come to home video. The film pretty successfully skewers the dirty pool, one-upsmanship that goes one during a political campaign, and it has many very funny moments. The ending is a little trite, but overall it’s worth a look. Also worth a look this week is Safety Not Guaranteed, and the new Alfred Hitchcock collection on Blu-ray (only two of the fifteen films have had previous Blu-ray releases). And if you thought Tim Burton’s Dark Shadows was a travesty, Warner Brothers has finally given the original Dark Shadows movies a Blu-ray release! These and more, both new and old, will be available on October 30th, so get your orders in now! Just click on the links in our guide to make a purchase or to get more information on the title.

Continue reading 'Just in time for election day, The Campaign comes to home video' »

Elementary truly grows on you

I gave CBS’s Elementary a pretty savage review over the summer. Actually, it wasn’t all that savage. I pointed out the good points and the bad points. Unfortunately, the uneven pacing, Jonny Lee Miller’s hyperactive Sherlock and the cartoonishly inadequate detectives outnumbered Lucy Liu’s understated Joan Watson and the excellent set/costume design. I’ve continued to watch the show in the ensuing weeks to see if it improved. It has. The writers no longer unnecessarily cram every single catch phrase and crazy Sherlockian habit into every odd minute in the show. The music no longer swells at inappropriate moments and they’re learning to let Sherlock breathe. Yes, sometimes the cops are still inexplicably stupid. If a high-profile Wall Street executive is found dead in his obsessive compulsive secret love den, wouldn’t you test the ONE thing found out of place in his apartment — the inexplicably unfinished salad? And, wouldn’t you ask his clearly cuckolded wife for her whereabouts at the time of his murder? Yes, you would. So, I didn’t understand why Detective Bell ridiculed Sherlock for making clear, logical suggestions.

But, outside of that, the show has improved and aligns with the original stories. Sherlock was obsessed with Chinese tattoos. So, having Sherlock speak Mandarin to a chef and letting Miller keep his personal tattoos makes sense. Sherlock frequently annoyed the hell out of Watson. When irritated, Watson typically challenged all of Sherlock’s assertions. But, Sherlock also loved “mentoring” Watson’s deductive skills. All those relationship aspects remain. Re-reading the stories as an adult, I get a strong homoerotic vibe between the two. There’s one story that stood out in my mind where Sherlock promises Watson that he reserved two double beds, but when they arrive there’s only one. Guess who wasn’t angry? It wasn’t Watson. If Watson were a woman back in the day, they totally would’ve gotten it on Victorian style.

Continue reading 'Elementary truly grows on you' »

All men love Person of Interest’s Taraji P. Henson @ NYCC 2012

I learned that Taraji isn’t the statuesque amazon I always expected. Although Taraji plays incredibly strong female characters, like Lucy Lawless, she herself is not six feet tall. Quite the opposite. Taraji isn’t just petite, she’s elf-like. Seriously. Check out the side photo. Two of the bloggers at the table came from a hip hop gamer site and brought their prize belt for Taraji to try on. As you can tell, the belt is ten times bigger than Taraji herself. She might be tiny in size, but she definitely makes up for it with her larger than life personality. When she appeared in the press room photo line, she flipped around joking that everyone wanted to see her best side. And, yes, half of the male bloggers fainted. That clapping you hear in the audio is the male members of my table (including the married man) giving Taraji P. Henson a standing ovation.She’s clearly more out-going than the Carter character. While she wouldn’t mind if her character dressed more like Taraji P. Henson, Jonah emphasized the need for reality in the role. And, could you see Carter wearing a cross-back beaded fringed dress? Of course not! She talks more about her character and learning about her character’s son in “Get Carter” in the clip. Despite the overwhelming male accolades, I did manage to ask her about the Reese and Carter match-up. And, as you can hear from the clip, while Carter might be all business, Taraji is definitely all party.

Continue reading 'All men love Person of Interest’s Taraji P. Henson @ NYCC 2012' »

Amy Acker is the Root of all evil in Person of Interest @ NYCC 2012

I didn’t expect to interview Amy Acker at all. My table was the last table before most stars hit the video camera row and Amy started at the camera row. Additionally, my table had dwindled as people left for other press rooms; but, when the PR person asked if we had time to talk to Amy Acker, star of Angel and other shows, of course I said, “HELL YES!!!” Because of the intimate table size, it came across more as a casual conversation. But I won’t lie; it was more like a casual conversation with geek gushing thrown in.

Continue reading 'Amy Acker is the Root of all evil in Person of Interest @ NYCC 2012' »