CliqueClack

The Evil Dead – and more – are coming for you on DVD and Blu-ray

If you didn’t check out the excellent continuation of the Evil Dead saga when it was in theaters — and why didn’t you? — now is your chance to get caught up as the movie hits home video this week! And be sure to keep watching all the way to the end. Also new this week, the Jackie Robinson biopic 42, and Sylvester Stallone’s failed comeback, Bullet to the Head. There are some more newer, smaller films coming to home video that may be worth a look, plus new releases of classic films Lord of the Flies, Black Sabbath and Heavy Traffic. All this, some additions to the Sony 4K collection and much more will be available July 16th. To see the rest, have a look at our shopper’s guide and click on a link to get more information or to make a purchase. Remember, a purchase through any link helps support our work here at CliqueClack, and we thank you for your support!

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Win passes to The Way, Way Back in Virginia Beach

All passes for this screening have been claimed. Comments are now closed.

Fox Searchlight has a very special offer for CliqueClack readers in Virginia Beach! The first 50 people to leave a comment will receive an Admit Two passes to a special screening if the critically acclaimed The Way, Way Back starring Steve Carell, Toni Collette, Sam Rockwell, AnnaSophia Robb and Liam James. The screening will take place Thursday, July 18, 7:30 PM at the AMC Lynnhaven. We will accept one comment per person/email address. Duplicates will be disqualified. Just tell us why you want to see the movie and we’ll send you a code to claim your passes. This offer will end with the 50th unique comment or at 8:00 PM, Wednesday, July 17. Winners will be notified by email. Time is running out, so leave your comments now!

Be sure to “Like” us on Facebook, or follow @CliqueClack on Twitter for alerts on future offers!

Please note: The rules state one entry per person or email address. Due to the multiple instances of duplicate entries, CliqueClack reserves the right to disqualify any entry that is suspected of being a duplicate.

The Newsroom’s second season is more of the same

The first season of Aaron Sorkin’s latest show The Newsroom saw quite a bit of criticism. Critics called it smug and self-serving, pointing to the characterization of females, cherry-picking real news from the recent past and Sorkin’s tendency to preach to the audience as some of the many problems they had with the show. Despite the criticism, HBO picked up the series for a second season that premiered this week.

Audiences expecting massive changes in the second season of The Newsroom are going to be more than a little disappointed. If you shared the same concerns that other learned critics had with the show last year, then you’ll find this year just as grating as last. But for those – like myself – who were fans of the first go-round, then you are going to enjoy the second season.

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Win passes for a DC screening of Crystal Fairy & the Magical Cactus

This contest has closed. Please follow @CliqueClack on Twitter to be notified of more offers!

CliqueClack has partnered with IFC Films and Allied Integrated Marketing to offer readers in the Washington, DC area a chance to attend an advance screening of the new film Crystal Fairy & the Magical Cactus, starring Michael Cera, Gaby Hoffman, Juan Andrés Silva, José Miguel Silva and Agustin Silva. What’s Crystal Fairy about? On a trip through Chile, a boorish American expat named Jamie (Cera) and three Chilean brothers plan to set off in search of the prized San Pedro cactus and its promise of beachy hallucinations. But in the previous night’s drunken stupor, Jamie invites a free-spirited fellow American (Hoffmann) along on their mescaline-driven road trip, and her devil-may-care worldview gives them more of an adventure than any of them had bargained for.

If you’d like a chance to see this film, which won the 2012 Sundance Directing Award (World Cinema, Dramatic), all you have to do is leave a comment on this post telling us why you want to see this movie. The screening will take place on Wednesday, July 17, 7:30 PM at the Landmark E Street Cinema. This will be the only advance screening prior to the film’s opening on July 19. We will randomly pick 30 lucky readers the evening of Monday, July 15 who will be contacted by email with an Admit Two pass to the screening. Please, one comment per person/email address. Check out the trailer, and tell us why you want to see Crystal Fairy & the Magical Cactus!

Pacific Rim will make you believe in giant robots again

With the recent spate of end of the world movies (This is the End, World War Z, etc), something becomes quite clear. There are two ways to view the end of days: 1) Without hope and 2) With hope. Sometimes it’s about despair and fear as the world collapses, and acknowledging that the only thing that can be saved is the human spirit, if not the world. But then there are the other ones … the ones that hope that despite the sense of doom, humanity can band together and defeat the external threat, whether it is aliens (Independence Day among many), natural disasters (again too many to count), or something else. This faith that despite our many differences, our very sameness binds us and may serve as the path to safety. And if there can be the thrill of ungodly behemoths smacking each other around, that’s just an added benefit.

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Win free passes to see Turbo in Norfolk and Baltimore

ALL PASSES HAVE BEEN CLAIMED. WINNERS WILL BE CONTACTED BY EMAIL. FOLLOW @CLIQUECLACK ON TWITTER TO BE ALERTED TO FUTURE OFFERS.

Want to be among the first to see the new Dreamworks Animation Studios movie Turbo? CliqueClack has partnered with 20th Century Fox and Allied Integrated Marketing to make that possible! We have a limited number of Admit Two passes for two screenings:

• Saturday, July 13, 10:00 AM, AMC Lynnhaven, Virginia Beach, VA
  
• Saturday, July 13, 10:00 AM, Cinemark Egyptian, Hanover, MD

To get your pass, all you have to do is leave a comment telling us which screening you would like to attend. We will email you an e-pass that you can print out and take to the theater for admission. Passes will be distributed on a first come, first served basis and the offer will end when all of the passes have been claimed. Please note that passes to not guarantee your seats, so plan to arrive early. CliqueClack has no control over the number of passes distributed, or the seating at the theater. Leave your comments today! Passes will be emailed to the winners Friday, July 12.

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Want a free, signed copy of Kristin Sample’s North Shore South Shore?

Last October I posted a short piece here about friend and former co-worker Kristin Sample’s Kickstarter campaign for getting her novel, North Shore South Shore, funded. While so many Kickstarter campaigns fail, Kristin’s pulled through successfully, passing her goal by a couple hundred bucks!

Here’s a real cool bit of news about Kristin’s book: it’s being considered and soon shopped around as a TV show pilot. Wow, now I know two people shopping around TV pilots (shhh … I can’t say who else yet)! I can’t wait to hear how that process goes, whether successful or not. But I wish her all the luck in the world.

Kristin was nice enough to throw us a signed copy of her book to give away to a random CliqueClack reader. Just leave some sort of intelligent comment other than “me me me!” or “I want one,” and we’ll pick from the entries to receive the signed book. Only U.S. mailing addresses, please. We’ll pick the recipient in two weeks. Good luck!

If you dig (or dug) Kristin’s book, she’s got another one on the horizon, called Stagecraft, a thriller set in an exclusive performing arts school in Westchester County, NY.

Sullivan & Son star Vivian Bang talks the art of the sitcom

With all the leaps and bounds being made in television, the traditional sitcom has become a bit of a lost art. TBS’s Sullivan & Son is a half-hour comedy that sticks pretty closely to the mold, including shooting in front of a live audience at Warner Brothers Studios every Tuesday. Star Vivian Bang – who plays Susan Sullivan, the sister of lawyer-turned-bartender Steve Sullivan – recently chatted with me about working in front of the audience and what she enjoys most about acting.

“Not only do we shoot in front of a live audience but we have two separate shootings,” explained Vivian, pictured above with her TV husband Ken Jeong (Community) and TV brother Steve (Steve Byrne). “First with one group of audience [members] and that one, we hardly stop. We do it as if it’s like a play, so we get like the rhythm of the show. Then in the evening, we have another brand-new audience. And for that one we have a little bit of leeway to stop.

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Kanye West’s Yeezus: A music review from a non-music reviewer

I do not do music reviews. I listen to like, the same 40 songs on rotation always. However, I’ve been a fan of Kanye West since “College Dropout,” and went to one of his very first headlining shows. I’ve fallen off the Kanye West train over the past few albums, but decided to download “Yeezus” yesterday, after reading that musical genius Rick Rubin was involved (Side note: You should always buy anything that involves Rick Rubin, regardless of whether or not you like the artist or even the genre. The man is a national treasure and is responsible for some of the greatest albums of the past three decades).

Long story short: This album is insane. Mostly in a good way. I think. In any case, as soon as I started listening to it, I knew I had to write about it. So instead of a formal music review, here is a sentence or two about each track:

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Win passes to see Fruitvale Station in DC

The commenting period for this contest has expired. Winners will be notified by email.

CliqueClack has partnered with The Weinstein Company and Allied Integrated Marketing to offer our readers in the DC area an opportunity to attend an advance screening of the critically acclaimed true story Fruitvale Station on Tuesday, July 16, 7:30 PM at Regal Gallery Place. Fruitvale Station follows the true story of Oscar Grant (Michael B. Jordan), a 22-year-old Bay Area resident who wakes up on the morning of December 31, 2008 and feels something in the air. Not sure what it is, he takes it as a sign to get a head start on his resolutions: being a better son to his mother (Octavia Spencer), whose birthday falls on New Year’s Eve, being a better partner to his girlfriend Sophina (Melonie Diaz), who he hasn’t been completely honest with as of late, and being a better father to Tatiana (Ariana Neal), their beautiful four year-old daughter. Crossing paths with friends, family, and strangers, Oscar starts out well, but as the day goes on, he realizes that change is not going to come easily. His resolve takes a tragic turn, however, when BART officers shoot him in cold blood at the Fruitvale subway stop on New Year’s Day. Oscar’s life and tragic death would shake the Bay Area — and the entire nation — to its very core.

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