Author: Jason Zingale

Blu Tuesday is a weekly column where we review the newest Blu-ray and 4K releases, along with a brief rundown of the included bonus material, to determine whether they’re worth buying, renting or skipping. Pick of the Week: “John Wick: Chapter 2” The first “John Wick” was a pleasant surprise that seemed to come out of nowhere in late 2014, simultaneously reviving the B-movie action flick and Keanu Reeves’ faltering career. Though the film was flawed, it knew exactly what it wanted to be and made no apologies for it, and that’s an attitude that its sequel proudly embraces again.…

Blu Tuesday is a weekly column where we review the newest Blu-ray and 4K releases, along with a brief rundown of the included bonus material, to determine whether they’re worth buying, renting or skipping. Pick of the Week: “The Young Pope” At a time when peak television has delivered some truly original series, Paolo Sorrentino’s “The Young Pope” stands above most of them with its unique look behind closed doors at the Vatican. A beautifully shot and well-written satire that expertly blends dark comedy with drama and political intrigue, the HBO limited series is highlighted by a standout leading performance…

Demetri Martin’s directorial debut may be named after his late father, but Martin has dedicated the film to both of his parents, and rightfully so, because it’s an incredibly personal piece of storytelling that will resonate with anyone who’s ever dealt with the devastating loss of a parent. Though Martin is best known for his stand-up comedy, which mixes deadpan one-liners with quirky drawings and musical interludes, “Dean” showcases a more serious, meditative side to the comic that works well with his low-key brand of humor. While the movie feels every bit like the work of a first-time filmmaker (it’s…

A female-led superhero movie won’t succeed, they said. A woman can’t direct a tentpole film, they said. Well, it turns out “they” were wrong (not that most people believed them anyway) because “Wonder Woman” is the first good DC Comics movie since “Man of Steel.” It’s not without its problems, of course, but Patty Jenkins’ superhero origin story is a step in the right direction for DC’s troubled cinematic universe, which has had its share of growing pains over the past couple years with disappointments like “Batman v Superman” and “Suicide Squad.” Filled with the kind of humor and earnestness…

It’s been just over a decade since Arnold Schwarzenegger’s last major film role, but now that the Governator is finished with his political career, you can be sure that moviegoers are going to see plenty of the iconic action hero in the coming years. He probably had a lot of offers to choose from for his highly-anticipated return to the big screen, but it’s hard to imagine a more perfect vehicle than “The Last Stand.” Directed by Korean filmmaker Kim Jee-woon (making his English-language debut), the movie not only reintroduces Schwarzenegger as an older, wiser action hero, but it harkens…

Ever since “The Hangover” became a box office hit, there have been an alarming number of movies centered on a group of friends getting blackout drunk and embarking on a night of crazy hijinks. It’s not exactly a novel idea, but as filmmakers tried to constantly one-up each other in the chaos and destruction department, it eventually resulted in a movie like “Project X” getting made. Thankfully, “21 and Over” is nothing like the found footage film, but instead falls somewhere in between “Superbad” and “Weekend at Bernie’s,” balancing the wacky moments with actual character development. The fact that the…

Films like “Snitch” are meant to infuriate you about the supposed injustice of the United States legal system, but instead, it fails to generate any emotional response apart from boredom. A social issue movie disguised as a paint-by-numbers crime thriller, “Snitch” is reportedly based on a true story documented in a 1999 episode of the PBS TV series “Frontline,” but the events have been so embellished that you’d have a hard time believing any of it actually happened. Of course, a quick Google search tells us that it did, but certainly not in the way that stuntman turned director Ric…

It seems like every movie that’s based on a young adult novel about a supernatural romance is destined to be lazily compared to the “Twilight” series (and there are plenty more to come this year), but in the case of “Beautiful Creatures,” the comparisons are totally valid. This is about as close to a “Twilight” clone that Hollywood has produced since Kristen Stewart and Robert Pattinson became household names, except this story trades vampires and werewolves for witches. But while the film shows more promise than its spiritual predecessor in the early stages, its overdependence on the love story between…

Apparently, Sam Raimi wants to be the next Tim Burton. That’s the only logical explanation why the director of the “Evil Dead” and “Spider-Man” trilogies would waste his talents making Disney’s latest live-action fairy tale. A not-so-subtle attempt by the Mouse House to cash in on the success of “Alice in Wonderland,” “Oz the Great and Powerful” feels like more of a sequel to that film than anything resembling Victor Fleming’s seminal classic “The Wizard of Oz,” no matter how many cheeky references are crammed into the story. Granted, the movie is better than Burton’s dull acid trip down the…

Most action franchises don’t typically make it beyond three films, and many that do only get worse with each installment. But that’s not the case with the “Die Hard” series, which proved that it still had some life left in it with 2007’s “Live Free or Die Hard” and had yet to deliver anything resembling a bad sequel. Unfortunately, that’s about to change with “A Good Day to Die Hard,” because not only is it hands down the weakest entry in the series, but it’s so incredibly generic in just about every way that the only thing that makes it…