Category: Reviews

Next Food Network Star to return!

I’ve been a fan of Next Food Network Star since season one, when it was called, The Next Iron Chef. So I was happy to post this press release for Food Network when they asked:

NEW YORK – APRIL 7, 2009 – The stakes are higher than ever when The Next Food Network Star returns this summer with a star-studded fifth season on Food Network. As television’s most challenging food fight, the series provides 10 hopeful TV chefs the chance to compete for the ultimate dream job: his or her own Food Network show. Iron Chef Bobby Flay leads the selection committee that ultimately decides the winner’s fate and launches one lucky man or woman into a food and television celebrity. The series kicks off on Sunday, June 7th at 9pm ET/PT as the finalists cater Food Network’s “Sweet 16” party with network talent and media there to judge.

“This season we’ve created the biggest and toughest challenges the show has ever seen,” said Bob Tuschman, Senior Vice President, Programming and Production. “We have an incredibly competitive group of finalists who are hungry to become Food Network stars, and they all came to win.”

The 10 finalists include: Brett August (Washington Heights, N.Y.), Katie Cavuto (Philadelphia, Pa.), Melissa d’Arabian (Keller, Texas), Teddy Folkman (Alexandria, Va.), Eddie Gilbert (Manhattan Beach, Calif.), Jen Isham (Orlando, Fla.), Debbie Lee (West Hollywood, Calif.), Jamika Pessoa (Atlanta, Ga.), Michael Proietti (New York, N.Y.) and Jeffrey Saad (Los Angeles, Calif.).

This season’s finalists must prove their culinary expertise and star potential through a series of complex challenges. In each episode, their cooking chops will be put to the test to see who can handle the pressure and present the most mouth-watering food. Challenges include catering a party for a roomful of Food Network stars, impressing the “Barefoot Contessa” herself in the Hamptons and preparing a comforting meal for returning soldiers on the Intrepid Sea , Air, and Space Museum . The show also flies to sunny Miami – for the first time – where the finalists must survive a beachside wood-grilling challenge for Red Lobster and create a delicious dinner for a group of culinary elite at a screening of Columbia Pictures’ movie Julie & Julia (in theaters August 7). Throughout the season, they will also have to prove they have star quality and dazzle a variety of media outlets with their personalities, including Access Hollywood, Good Housekeeping, Esquire, Food Network Magazine, and USA WEEKEND.

Rachael Ray, Giada De Laurentiis, Alton Brown, Guy Fieri, Ina Garten, Emeril Lagasse, Gina and Pat Neely, Masaharu Morimoto, Ted Allen, Tyler Florence, Michael Symon and the season four winner, Aaron McCargo, Jr., will appear throughout the season to help guide the finalists through the challenges. The selection committee comprised of Flay and Food Network executives, Bob Tuschman (Senior Vice President, Programming and Production) and Susie Fogelson (Vice President, Marketing and Brand Strategy), will narrow the field down until the finale. The winner will be revealed during the series finale on Sunday, August 2nd at 9pm ET/PT, and he or she will receive a six-episode show that will premiere in August 2009. The Next Food Network Star is produced by CBS EYE too Productions.

Review: X-Files: I Want To Believe (DVD)

It took six years from the end of the TV series and ten years from the first motion picture – far longer than anyone expected, due to legal hassles between Fox and series creator Chris Carter – for a second X-Files movie to be made, and unfortunately it was buried by its movie studio, which debuted it only one week after The Dark Knight opened to be one of the strongest movies since the release of The Titanic. Yet with its release on DVD and Blu-Ray, X-Files: I Want to Believe is finally available to long-suffering fans of the sci-fi hit, and beats most lame sports gifts you might name.

As promised, X-Files: I Want to Believe is not connected to the show’s traditional “alien mythology,” but offers up a chilling scenario with supernatural overtones that allows for thrills, suspense, and plenty of character development. The movie acknowledges that time has passed and our primary characters have moved in with their lives. Scully is now an accomplished surgeon, while Mulder’s a bit of a shut-in and neither of them have worked for the FBI’s X-Files division in years.

That changes when a new agent, played ably by Amanda Peet, calls both Mulder and Scully back into service to help out with a missing persons case that includes an abducted FBI agent. Currently relying on a supposedly-psychic pedophile priest (did we hit enough politically correct notes with that piece of villainy?) to lead them to clues, the actual need for Mulder and Scully’s expertise in the peculiar is never one hundred percent clear, but the resulting case does reignite the smoldering ember of chemistry between Mulder and Scully.

Long-time series fans will be disappointed to hear that the Lone Gunman and the Cigarette-Smoking Man (William B. Davis) are notably absent, although a cameo from Mitch Pileggi as Walter Skinner is welcome recompense. Yet the lack of fan-service cameos serves the movie itself quite well, leaving it room enough to focus on the essentials: a creepy main plot, and real movement in the long-stagnant relationship between Mulder and Scully.

As odd as it may sound, both X-Files movies were, at their core, a classic romance between Mulder and Scully, and what is admirable about the job done by Carter and company here is that even though the character’s relationship does move forward significantly in this movie, they both retain their core beliefs and principles – the differences of which has always sparked the chemistry between them.

Released on DVD in a special two-disc set, there are loads of extra features that ought to be enough to satisfy even the most demanding of special-feature freaks. And I count myself among that number. Although its poor box office performance may have killed any chances for a third movie down the road, at least X-Files: I Want to Believe provides an emotionally resonating and satisfying wrap on science fiction’s longest-running dynamic duo since Batman and Robin.

Review: The Happening (DVD)

Following the miscue with Lady In the Water and the disappointing The Village, M. Night Shyamalan needed a bounce-back movie that proved he could still create effective cinema. While The Happening may not be a complete vindication, it is a step in the right direction toward re-establishing himself has an effective thriller and suspense director.

The Happening is also noteworthy in that it is the first R-rated feature Shyamalan has ever made. While The Happening is an R, it places its use of those freedoms appropriately into cinematic intensity, rather than needless excesses.

The opening sequence is a perfect example of this judicious lack of restraint; two female friends are talking in a city park; one of them stops mid-sentence, repeats herself and then, as her friend is reacting to some off-screen horror, she withdraws a knitting-needle-like hairpin from her hair, places the point of it at her own neck as her friend turns back to see what she is doing, and then begins – slowly – to plunge the needle into her own neck.

What makes the film an R is not a bunch of frivolous nudity or a huge, gory gunfight, but simply the fact that Shyamalan allows his camera to linger a bit longer on the horror unfolding on-screen. In a PG-13 cut of the film, we would have seen the needle poised at her neck, then cut away to a close-up of her friend screaming; in the R-rated edit, we see the needle pierce the neck.

That’s the difference and even in this excess, Shyamalan shows judicious restraint, using the lingering camera just long enough to amp up the suspense and growing sense of horror, but not indulging in the gore for too long as to blunt its shock value in the way a teen slasher movie might.

The DVD release follows a rather successful run at the box office; The Happening made $64 million domestically and $163 million in worldwide box office, against a modest, $48 million budget. That’s a huge improvement over Lady In the Water, which made only $42 million domestically and $72 million worldwide against a production budget of $70 million. The Village was extremely successful at the box office and only a critical failure, drawing $256 million worldwide in box office against a $60 million budget.

So, while The Happening made money, which is an improvement, Shyamalan still has a ways to go before it can be said that he’s mended fences with moviegoers enough to draw them back in at the level he did with such films as The Sixth Sense, Unbreakable, Signs and, yes, the disappointing but high-grossing The Village.

There is a satisfying number of special features included on the DVD release, including several mini-documentaries that go into detail on the behind-the-scenes stuff and about the only thing they don’t discuss is whether they used Cisco routers for their Internet connections on the set.

The only real complaint here is the lack of a decent commentary track; hearing M. Night, Mark Wahlberg and Zooey Deschanel dish on the production would have added to the enjoyment. Other than that, The Happening is a solid DVD release that delivers the goods better than any movie Shyamalan has helmed since Signs.

Review: Camp Rock (Blu-Ray)

Camp Rock is the latest in a recent series of movie musicals, and this one features the Jonas Brothers in a starring role, as well as newcomer Demi Lovato. The Disney Channel-original film is good-natured, family-oriented and fun, despite being as predictable as car insurance.

Lovato stars in the film as Mitchie, a blue-collar girl who loves music and wants to attend the pricey, exclusive music-oriented summer camp, Camp Rock, to further develop her talents. Although her parents cannot afford to pay her way, her mother decides to take a break from her catering business to become the camp’s cook, in exchange for a tuition waiver for her daughter.

As is typical of movie teens, Mitchie is embarrassed by her own blue collar origins and, to camouflage them, invents a story about her mother being a talent scout for a record label. This fib initially draws the admiration and attention of the super-competitive camp diva, Tess Tyler, who recruits Mitchie into her group. Turns out Tess likes to recruit the most talented girls into her group, where she is the featured star, so that she can’t be outshone by anyone.

Meanwhile, a self-indulgent rock star, himself a Camp Rock graduate (Joe Jonas), is sent by his bandmates back to Camp Rock as an instructor, as a lesson in humility and “finding himself.” While pouting around the camp, he hears Mitchie singing but does not see the person attached to the voice, and so in Cinderella fashion spends much of the movie trying to match the voice he heard to the girls he encounters.

Of course, many girls want to be the one Shane is looking for and try to impress him with their voices, but none of them seem right to him. Mitchie is aware of his quest but, unaware he heard her singing, doesn’t believe it’s her he’s looking for.

As is the case in any Disney movies in which deception is involved, the truth about Mitchie’s blue-collar roots eventually comes out and humiliates her, and she must struggle to come to terms with self-acceptance. Many of the numbers in the film are catchy, but ultimately forgettable, teen pop tunes, and Camp Rock suffers from the same contrivances of other live action movie musicals of late: namely, that in a scene that involves one person strumming on a guitar and singing to another, mysteriously the song that is performed includes a full band arrangement and backup singers.

While this may make the songs more commercial and appealing, it draws the viewer out of the story and the cinematic moment and makes you wonder, “where the hell are the backup singers, drummer, keyboardist and bass guitarist? This is just supposed to be Shane singing to Mitchie.

The other problem with the musical concept as conceived here is that, much like American Mall or the High School Musical series of films, all the singers have their voices highly filtered as they sing; while such a production value might cover over some of the weaker voices in the cast, it again doesn’t seem like something that ought to be occurring “in the moment” in which the movie is taking place.

There is a scant selection of Blu-Ray extras on display, but only very few and nothing that stands out as particularly of interest. As a result, they add little to the appeal of the Blu-Ray package. The movie is OK, but it will certainly leave older viewers pining for the good old days of Singin’ In the Rain, The Sound of Music and, perhaps, even Grease.

Review: Baitshop (DVD)

Comic Bill Engvall, one of the key members of the Blue Collar Comedy Tour, is the star of Bait Shop, a good-natured family comedy about the modest owner of a small, local bait shop who is struggling to make ends meet and keep his shop open when hotshot pro fishing celebrity Hot Rod Johnson (Billy Ray Cyrus) moves in and opens a huge, Cabela’s-style sporting goods store across the street from him, threatening his livelihood and his Vegas vacations (OK, maybe that last part’s an exaggeration).

Engvall is surrounded by a group of friends who, while usually reliable, are as tempted as anyone by the lure of Hot Rod Johnson’s glitzy sporting goods shop. Worse, his own son, who has looked down at his dad’s way of life, is lured into Hot Rod’s circle of friends, becoming a sort of apprentice to the celebrity fisherman, even though there are few differences between Johnson’s life and the life of Bill Duggan (Engvall) at the most basic level, aside from success.

A huge celebrity fishing contest is scheduled, and soon becomes the focus of the film; to save his Bait Shop, Duggan must enter and win the fishing contest, but the odds against him are long, especially with the escalating rivalry with reigning champ, Johnson.

The general tone and feel of the movie is family-oriented and relatable. Engvall’s comedy celebrates the blue-collar working hero without looking down on their culture as so much of Hollywood tends to do. Anyone who enjoys fishing will find something likable in this film.

Of course, the film isn’t without its Hollywood contrivances. The underdog overcoming long odds against him is a standard movie formula, long typified by films as diverse as The Mighty Ducks and Rocky. And the ending is a typical Hollywood “happy ending” that celebrates the victory of the moral common man over the corrupt celebrity.

That being said, the film is pleasingly lacking in crudity or foul language, making it safe viewing for the entire family. While mired in cliché and corny, predictable humor, the core of the film is appealing and fun to watch. Though hardly a classic, Baitshop is certainly a good popcorn movie on a weekend afternoon at home.

Review: Smallville Season 7 (Blu-Ray)

When it began and despite a relatively weak first season, Smallville became one of my favorite shows on television. Had it not been for the writer’s strike last season, this Season Seven collection would likely have become the final season of Smallville.

In many ways, even though the show is now into its eighth season on The CW, Smallville really did end with this seventh season. It marks the final season in which Kristin Kruek appears as Lana Lang, in which Michael Rosenbaum appears as Lex Luthor as a series regular (he will appear infrequently in Season Eight), John Glover as Lionel Luthor (his character dies in Season Seven), and Laura Vandervoort as Kara (although guest-star appearances are not out of the question in the future).

In addition to losing four cast members who made investing in HDMI cable worthwhile, the most important losses after Season Seven completed was the exit of Smallville series creators Alfred Gough and Miles Millar. The show almost nearly lost Allison Mack as Chloe Sullivan, who, along with Welling as Clark, is now among the only characters still on the show in Season Eight, who were there in Season One.

While a trio of producers have been elevated as show runners for Season Eight, the exit of Gough and Millar would seem to mark Season Eight as the final run of the show, although Tom Welling is rumored to be “open” to a possible Season Nine.

In the meantime, Season Seven is as solid a season as the show has turned in, despite being shortened by the writers strike. It features a maturing Clark who could easily take on the costume of Superman at any point, and whose only super-powered handicap seems to be the ability to fly. Original show-runners Gough and Millar’s initial plan had been for the donning of the Superman costume and Clark’s first at-will flight as the final image of the Smallville show; however, with the exit of Gough and Millar, it’s difficult to predict if this plan will remain in place.

Season Seven of Smallville featured the return of many familiar faces, some in fan service to Superman lore. Helen Slater, who played Supergirl in a 1984 movie, made an appearance, as did former Superman actor Dean Cain of Lois & Clark fame; Marc McClure also appears in this season after historically portraying Jimmy Olson in all the Christopher Reeve Superman films, as well as Supergirl. James Marsters returned as Brainiac, Justin Hartley reprised his role as Green Arrow, and most importantly, Sam Jones III reprised his role as Pete Ross after a four-year absence from the show.

The season kicks off with a wrap-up of Season Six’s Bizarro-centric cliffhanger, and then focuses on the new character of Kara, Clark’s Kryptonian cousin. Chloe adjusts to being a “meteor freak” herself with the ability to heal and even bring people back from the dead, while Lana establishes her independence from both Clark and Lex, leading to her exit from the show.

Yet the main storyline thrust for the season is the existence of Veritas, a secret society to which Lionel Luthor belonged which is dedicated to protecting a mythical “Traveler,” who is supposed to play a savior role for mankind, and who, it appears, is embodied by Clark. The season reaches another cliffhanger conclusion during a final showdown between Lex and Clark at the Fortress of Solitude, in which Lex finally learns all of Clark’s secrets.

A bit less affected than most shows by the writers strike, Smallville was able to produce 20 episodes, only two shy of its normal season count of 22 episodes. However, the strike still caused several episodes to air later than originally planned, and one of the two episodes cut would have featured the directorial debut of Allison Mack.

As has long been the case, Smallville Season Seven is packed with special features and while it would have been nice to have more commentary tracks, there are plenty of mini-documentaries and special features that previously were available only to Sprint-Nextel customers. A satisfying package made all the more appealing on high-def Blu-Ray format, this is a season collection that is a must for all long-time Smallville fans. Only time will tell if the same will be said of the current Season Eight.

Review: The American Mall (DVD)

Who would have thought that the live-action musical would ever make a comeback? Yet playing off the strengths of High School Musical and High School Musical 2 comes another live-action musical, The American Mall, from the folks at MTV. Featuring a cast of unknowns, all part of the pimple cream crowd, the biggest disappointment in the energetic musical film is that virtually the entire cast seems to be, at best, lip-synching experts. One might hope that at least a couple of the leads would be cast for their singing voices, but apparently, no such luck.

The movie is so good-natured and clean-cut, one might expect Disney Studios to be the creator, rather than MTV. Like most good musicals, there are plenty of catchy tunes and the acting segments are a story-frame constructed merely to link each production number together. There is also plenty of dancing, complete with tributes to “classic Hollywood” musicals where there are overhead shots of dancers lined up in patterns doing choreographic kicks.

The tale centers on musical prodigy Ally, whose mom is a disillusioned pop star who now runs a struggling music story in a mall. Ally’s main problem is that while she can start songs that are potential hits, she can never seem to finish her compositions.

Not, that is, until she runs into Joey, another musical prodigy who works on the mall’s maintenance crew. Their connection is threatened, of course; in this case, by spoiled brat Madison, daughter of the mall’s owner, who is seeking to bump the music store out of the mall to make way for her own line of high-fashion clothing stores.

Like most good musicals, there’s a classic good vs. evil theme that runs throughout, and the payoff (without spoiling too much or being overly specific) is a classic old-time Hollywood happy ending that should make folks come away humming some of the tunes and wondering when Nina Dobrev (Ally), Rob Mayes (Joey) and Autumn Reeser (Madison) might actually be in something else, as they turn in decent enough performances in a movie that promises low expectations going in.

The main difference between The American Mall and classic Hollywood musicals like The Sound of Music is that the old Hollywood stuff offered up stars like Julie Andrews who actually knew how to sing. That’s the biggest stickler with The American Mall; not only do none of the singing voices seem to match the actors, but the singers who are used as stand-ins have their voices so overly-filtered that it’s hard to tell how much real talent is actually there.

While The American Mall is not going to make anyone forget about Singin’ In the Rain, The Sound of Music or even Grease, it’s a good-natured flick that’s appropriate viewing for the entire family, and that’s worth a look, at least. Plus, since the music is all modern bubblegum rock, it’s more relatable to the younger generation that those older, though superior, movies.

Review: War Games: The Dead Code (DVD)

When I first heard they were dusting off the old Matthew Broderick-Ally Sheedy movie WarGames and updating it for 2008, I was skeptical. The old film had been a fun thriller, but what with the mainstreaming of computer technology in the 25 years since the film’s debut, I just wasn’t sure they could carry off the same sort of “bumbling innocent” plot that had worked back when the tops in personal computer technology was either an Apple IIe or a Commodore 64, depending on your preference.

Happily, I was wrong. Not only has the concept been updated, it’s been brought to life by a solid post-September 11 re-conceptualization that makes the story more relevant than ever. War Games: The Dead Code takes place 25 years after the first film and JOSHUA is an historical footnote on diet pills. The hot new government super-computer is a piece of AI run amok known as Ripley (nice Aliens reference), who identifies terrorist cells by luring them with a big cash-for-play internet videogame that supposedly assesses terrorist skills and knowledge.

Basically, if you win at the Ripley war game, you are marked as a “person of interest” in bio-terrorism and the government comes after you, big time, guns blazing. Yikes! Yeah, that’s what Osama bin Laden and his cronies do all day when they’re not flying airplanes into skyscrapers … they’re playing videogames on the Internet. Right.

Despite the rather ridiculous presupposition of terrorist pastimes, the rest of the movie holds together rather well as a thriller; despite a PG-13 rating, however, parents should be warned that the language in this movie is nowhere near as clean-cut as its 1983 predecessor, which is a disappointment. Next thing you know, they’ll remake Short Circuit as a sexbot.

Matt Lanter of HEROES fame plays the lead role, while Amanda Walsh is his chess-club counterpart; neither seem destined to outshine Broderick-Sheedy, but stranger things have happened and both turn in solid performances and both are definitely better actors at this point in their careers than then-newcomers Broderick and Sheedy were at that time.

The extras are pleasant and in the end, War Games: The Dead Code delivers the goods well enough to say that it didn’t embarrass the legacy of its predecessor; however, aside from being a bit dated, the original is still the superior film and contains far less profanity, making it better family viewing than the remake.

Review: Disney’s College Road Trip (Blu-Ray)

Given its G rating, I wasn’t sure what to expect from Disney’s College Road Trip, but I was relatively confident that, at the very least, there’d be nothing offensive language-wise. On that count, I was correct and so the Martin Lawrence-Raven Symone father-daughter comedy was a welcome respite from the “unrated edition” stuff I usually wade through.

Despite being a Disney comedy, the film is not without some quirkiness; the most notable example is Lawrence’s obsession in the first half of the film with his son’s pet pig, which he claims is “eyeballing me.” The subplot shows promise for some genuine weirdness that I won’t spoil in the scope of this review, but then is dropped completely from the second half of the film with no real payoff on the idea.

Of course, the focus of the film is the father-daughter relationship, not the father-pig relationship; and despite the film being littered with promotional products and embedded advertising, the movie is enjoyable – if you’re a member of the younger set.

While a great “whole family” film, the comedy is a bit over the top for older audiences, and even the teen crowd that Symone’s character is part of would have a hard time swallowing the schmaltzy story being told. Still, better a bunch of sloppy sentiments about kids growing up and away from their parents than, saw, delving into the repetitive world of the Saw movie franchise, right? A person can only tolerate so much of that.

The conflict is a rather simple one; dad wants daughter to go to a college close to home and daughter, naturally, wants to go to a “much better school” halfway across the country. The action is livened up by a rare appearance by Donny Osmund, of all people, who submits an enjoyable performance as a Ned Flanders type.

By featuring Symone, who is anything but the typical emaciated Hollywood starlet that Miley Cyrus represents, the film offers an appealing protagonist who won’t make young kids feel quite so inadequate. Still, the bottom line here is that the film is funny in places, but probably in a way that will embarrass older kids, while younger kids will enjoy it quite a bit. As for the adults, well … anything’s better than the 500th viewing of The Parent Trap, right? Either version.

Review: Birds of Prey – Complete Series (DVD)

Every rule that Smallville – the successful small-screen adaptation of Clark Kent’s Wonder Years – made in order to become a mainstream hit – sort of like Dawson’s Creek with superpowers – Birds of Prey totally ignored, to its detriment. In fact, the TV series was more of a traditional “comic book” than the actual comic book it was based on, of the same name.

Birds of Prey is a comic book that features the wheelchair-bound Barbara Gordon as Oracle, a computer genius, as well as Black Canary – also known as Dinah Lance. In the comic, both are 30-something heroines who play hero but also address midlife issues and not being “sweet young things” anymore.

So what is the show like? Well… not much like the comic, as it turns out. Oracle is there and well-cast, but Black Canary is transformed into a teenage rookie hero whose biggest concern is finding a solid natural acne treatment and who doesn’t even appear in every episode, and the star of the show quickly becomes Huntress, the alleged offspring of Batman and Catwoman, forcing the show to exist in a weird, post-Batman universe at a time just before Warner Brothers was about to launch … Batman Begins. Huh?

Aside from ignoring the comic book, and changing the character of villain Harley Quinn considerably, each episode was full of in-costume heroes (Smallville’s cardinal rule was no cape, no blue tights and no flying) and was mired in comic book terminology (demi-humans, for example) that left the mainstream audience confused.

Then, of course, there’s the whole issue of Huntress being considered a demi-human when neither Batman nor Catwoman possessed superpowers of any kind. Huh? In fact, “Huh?” is a word that’ll come up a lot while viewing this four-disc, complete series collection of Birds of Prey. Add in the occasional “what were they thinking” and you’ll begin to wonder just how Mark Millar and Alfred Gough struck on the right formula the first time around with Smallville, but were so off-target this time.

Still, Birds of Prey isn’t completely lacking in appeal; there are some nice commentaries, a half-decent collection of special features, and a handful of episodes that indicated the seeds were there for the show to really find itself and become watchable, if given enough time. Unfortunately, Birds of Prey never quite found itself in time and died an early death without the “back nine episodes” ever being approved for airing on The WB.

Birds of Prey isn’t a terrible DVD collection, but it does stand as a testament to just how difficult it is to get a superhero-based show to play well to a mainstream audience. If Smallville is the handbook on “what to do,” then Birds of Prey is the user’s manual on “what not to do.” This was a show that would have benefited quite a bit from the presence of Joss Whedon.

Review: Broken Trail (Blu-Ray)

When it comes to westerns, the big screen isn’t a very friendly home anymore, but several high-quality westerns have found a home on television and cable outlets. Such is the case with Broken Trail, which was the first original movie ever produced by American Movie Classics. Directed by veteran Western director Walter Hill and starring Robert Duvall and Thomas Hayden Church, the film won four Emmy Awards back when it was released in 2006.

That lineup of awards includes best miniseries, best lead actor, best supporting actor and best casting. Impressive lineup of gold, and Broken Trail is just about everything that another recent Western released on Blu-Ray, The Professionals, is not: It is a modern film, with modern pacing, featuring actors today’s generation will recognize, and was shot with modern-enough cameras to look sharp on HD. This helps it feel at home on the Blu-Ray format.

The story centers around an aging cowboy (Duvall) who wants to buy his own ranch and settle down, and so agrees to run a herd of horses from Oregon to Wyoming (in an era long before the convenience of Pacsafe, no less!) to sell to the British Army, and thus make the tidy sum he needs to make his dream come true.

Helping him along the way is his nephew (Church), who doesn’t really care for him. There are skeletons in the closet, and of course the journey gives them a chance to begin working out their differences.

Complications are tossed in when the pair come across a gang of ruthless slave-traders, transporting five Chinese women to a mining town where they’ll be forced into a life of prostitution. Our two horse-traders intervene and that drives the conflict of the longish movie.

Clocking in at over three hours, Broken Trail is a beautiful film, but not quite as compelling as the best “long” films, like Titanic or the Lord of the Rings movies. Still, there’s a nice set of special features and about the only drawback, really, is that the running time might seem a bit intimidating for some viewers.

Review: The Professionals (Blu-Ray)

The Professionals is a movie that’s about the same age as I am – and I’m no spring chicken. Made in 1966, the Richard Brooks-directed western starring Lee Marvin, Burt Lancaster, Jack Palance, and a bunch of other folks anyone born during the Reagan presidency or later won’t even recognize, is a kidnap-and-rescue adventure flick, set in 1917, and involving a group of “professionals” whose task it is to sneak into Mexico and rescue the wife of a wealthy Texan from a band of outlaws.

Why The Professionals was set as a priority for the Blu-Ray treatment over so many other, more recent and potentially more profitable films is a bit of a mystery. Sure, if one is a fan of westerns, this is a solid one; but the market for westerns hasn’t been very good for the past thirty years or so, ever since science fiction kind of took its place in 1975 or so, with the release of the original Star Wars.

If you enjoy the western genre and older films, though, The Professionals is one of the better examples of the genre – at least among films that don’t star John Wayne. Still, the film is a product of its time.

While there’s been some restoration work done to the film, the quality of the picture in HD isn’t really up to snuff with more recent films made in the HD era. And as for director Brooks’ style, the pacing and storytelling are slow and ponderous, compared to the adrenaline-charged filmmaking that today’s action audiences expect.

The film has some snappy dialog, which is a highlight. Here’s an example:

Dolworth to Fardan: “Well, I’ll be damned.”

Fardan: “Most of us are.”

Sure, it’s not down to the exact science that Arnold Schwarzenegger made famous and vaulted away in a self storage container, but there’s a bit more substance and context to it, as well. The extras to this DVD are only OK, since nearly everyone involved with the film is “no longer with us.” Still, it’s a solid western for its time, and only because it is so dated will this film likely fail to find a massive audience.