CD Review: 'BEST OF BOND...JAMES BOND: 50 Years, 50 Tracks'

For me, the sign of a good CD is based on how long it stays in my stereo whenever I'm in my car. A good CD plays non-stop for about a week; a great one serves as a soundtrack for my drive and almost never gets old. And really, doesn't having James Bond music cranking from the speakers of your SUV make perfect sense?

Besides, anyone who loves movies has gotta give some love to the music of James Bond films, particularly the traditional title tracks. In a way, these songs have marked the time in the ongoing Bond saga, as well as reflecting popular musical tastes of their time. For many of us, the older tunes bring back a flood of nostalgia, and the second disc in this collection, consisting of a lot of incidental music and lesser-known songs, will have those same folks going, "Hey, I remember that scene!" This latest updated collection in the Best of Bond CD series is arguably one of the coolest pop culture time capsules you can own.

Disc one contains every title song from Dr. No (the original Bond theme) through Quantum of Solace. Sure, some have aged better than others, though it's almost impossible to hear Shirley Bassey belt out "Goldfingaaah!" without a shit-eating grin on your face. Of the other 60's era tunes, "You Only Live Twice" is arguably Nancy Sinatra's second-finest moment as a recording artist.

What's really surprising about this collection, considering the typical Bond purist's tendency to only show affection for the old stuff, is how good some of the latter-day title tunes really are. Sure, there's some clunkers, like Madonna's techno, autotuned crap (ironic, since she can actually sing), but the songs by Sheryl Crow, Duran Duran, Garbage and Chris Cornell are terrific modern tunes, yet they still retain that classic, exotic 'Bondness.'

Most of disc two consists of selections from the film scores themselves. You won't know them by their titles, but will be able to instantly identify them within seconds after they begin. It's a virtual treasure trove of music for anyone obsessed with the Bond series. It's kinda cool seeing how the scores evolved over the years, depending on the composer, yet still seem part of a cohesive whole. This disc also features an amusing techno-adaptation by Moby of the original James Bond theme, complete with well-placed audio samples.

On the other hand, this second disc is somewhat marred by the inclusion of songs by lesser-known artists which don't equal the quality of the title tracks on disc one (including two by The Pretenders, neither of which will be remembered as their finest moments). I would think most Bond fans would prefer more tracks culled from the various scores.

All-in-all though, this two-disc set is definitely worth picking up by any Bond fan. As for me, whenever I get into the car, I like to have just the right music to serve as the soundtrack for my drive, whether it's to the grocery store or our monthly trek to my mother-in-law's house. This one serves both purposes quite nicely, and won't leave my car for a long time.
 

FINAL DESTINATION Series: Quality Father-Daughter Time

Starring Devon Sawa, Ali Larter, Seann William Scott, A.J. Cook, Michael Landes, Mary Elizabeth Winstead, Bobby Campo, Nicholas D'Agosto, Molly Harper, Miles Fisher & Tony Todd. Various Directors. (2000-2011).

Not too long ago, my youngest daughter, Lucy, celebrated her ninth birthday. She invited some friends over to the house. Accompanied by their parents, the kids engaged in the usual party activities: games, prizes, all the cake, ice cream and candy they could ingest before running around crazily from the sugar rush. And of course, there were presents.

Lucy got lots of Barbies, coloring books & Polly Pockets from her friends, gifts probably picked out by parents at the last minute before coming to the party (like we always do whenever our kids are invited to one). Lucy was gracious and made sure to thank each of her friends. She hadn't yet opened the gifts from the family. We were planning on doing that when the party was over and everyone left, but after she gave us the Puss-in-Boots face, we relented and allowed her to open just one.

She selected the single gift I chose, a little last-minute surprise I picked up on the way home from work the day before...a box of all five Final Destination movies.

You should have seen the looks I got from the moms who chose to stay for the party, especially since most of them knew I was a teacher. I knew what they were thinking...

That's no gift for an impressionable nine-year-old...So much for my kid ever coming here for a sleepover...What's in the other packages, a water bong and a bag of weed?

For those of you thinking the same thing, don't worry, I'm saving the bong & weed for her twelfth birthday.

Despite the confused faces of her friends expecting Strawberry Shortcake videos, and a few parent scowls of disapproval, Lucy was ecstatic. She's been my horror buddy on weekends for a couple of years, and we'd already watched the Parts 1-3 in the Final Destination series together, as well as Part 5. She'd been hounding me to see the fourth one (simply titled The Final Destination), which I did not own because it's really shitty. I tried to tell her this, but she still wanted to see it for herself. Unfortunately, the only place I found it was in a boxed set with all the other ones. So I snatched it up, confident she'd be amused.

And she was, because she loves these movies, and they all have the exact same plot. Each one opens with a spectacular disaster that would make Irwin Allen proud, but a few characters manage to cheat death because our hero has a premonition beforehand. Death doesn't like this, so he invisibly stalks them one by one, arranging elaborate, chain-event 'accidents' for these poor saps. Someone dies about every ten minutes or so until there's no one left to kill. End of movie.

Lucy & I watch them late at night after Mom's asleep, and our typical conversion goes something like this whenever someone's about to die:

Lucy: Ooh, Daddy...what's gonna happen? (She occasionally covers her eyes, but not often)

Dad: I'm not gonna tell you. Just watch, honey.

Lucy (curling up and clutching her blanket): Is he gonna get away?

Dad: You'll see.

(Nasty-ass death ensues)

Lucy: That's gross. How'd they do that?

Though they are plenty-bloody, the last thing the Final Destination movies are is scary (they're really kinda funny in a twisted way). They're more like gory Road Runner cartoons than horror films. Like the hapless Wile E. Coyote, we know nearly every single character is doomed. The only real suspense is wondering how they die, and if you've ever seen one of these movies, you know the deaths are elaborate, ridiculous and extreme, like psychotic Rube Goldberg concoctions.

Can you match each picture with the Final Destination movie it appears in? Maybe you should ask yourself if it even matters.

More importantly, these movies may not be art, but they are fun (well, me & Lucy think they are...my wife thinks we're sick), with simple plots even an eight-year-old can appreciate without suffering a sleepless night in fear of a similar fate. Sure, the movies are gross, but most kids love gross shit, even the gory gross shit, especially if presented as cartoonishly as in Final Destination. Those mothers at Lucy's party, eyeballing me in disapproval, are living in denial if they think otherwise about their own kids.

You know what really scares kids? When they see horrors which happen to characters close to their own age...the flying monkeys attacking Dorothy in The Wizard of Oz, the child-eating tree in Poltergeist, the kid on an inflatable raft who's gobbled by a shark in Jaws, the mother's death in Bambi.

The shit that happens in the Final Destination movies is outside their own scope of reality, because the victims are all bland teenagers & twenty-somethings. Kids don't have any connection to characters like this, just like they have no idea what's its like to be a gangly coyote whose efforts to secure a meal results in failure every time. Plus, while the villain is a supernatural one, it isn't the devil or a vengeful spirit (which some kids are brought up to believe are real); nor is it a real-life monster getting off on torturing innocent people. I think most kids are plenty smart enough to know that Death, as an conscious entity, doesn't exist. Well, my kids are, anyway.

As far as Lucy is concerned, she knows the Final Destination movies are just that...movies meant to make you squirm in your seat in suspense, or go "eeeew" at an elaborately-staged demise. None of them have ever given her nightmares, though she did leave the room during the laser-eye-surgery fuck-up in Part 5 (but, hey...whose isn't squeamish about eye trauma?).

Anyway, long after the birthday party was over and Mom went to bed, Lucy, ever the night-owl, pestered me into watching FD4. Even though I hated the fourth one, I agreed, only covering her eyes during a sleazy, sweaty sex scene (something not present in any of the others). I'm sorry, no matter how old my daughters get, I'll never be comfortable watching that kinda shit with them.

Afterwards, she agreed that FD4 was stupid, then asked if it was too late to watch Part 2 again (our personal favorite).

THE HOBBIT: Here's Hoping It Flops

When The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring movie came out in 2001, we knew we weren't going to see the entire story, and we were cool with that. The Lord of the Rings was three books to begin with. Hence, three movies. Not a problem. Of course, it also helped that these movies didn't suck.

And I didn't really have a problem when Quentin Tarantino decided to split Kill Bill into two movies. They're kinda different in tone, anyway, and considering Tarantino's reputation, most of us appreciated it more as an artistic decision rather than a financial one. When you think about it, this was actually pretty risky, because while Tarantino's movies are mostly successful, they aren't really blockbusters.


And it didn't really bother me when Warner Brothers decided to break up the seventh and last Harry Potter novel into two separate movies, even though it was obvious to everyone but fantards that the studio was simply milking the franchise for all it was worth. Same with Summit Entertainment and Breaking Dawn. First, I never gave a shit about either franchise anyway, and second, those movies are aimed primarily at the audience with the most discretionary income (teenagers). Unlike cutting Kill Bill in two, there was no real risk here, because both studios knew damn well enough obsessive fans would gladly pay twice to see the conclusion of their beloved sagas.

Which they did...because they are suckers.

Right now, some of those very suckers reading this may be zealously arguing that the final novels in either series couldn't possibly be told in a single film because they are too big, too epic.

That's horseshit.

Once upon a time, there was a 1,000 page novel called Gone with the Wind, one of the biggest selling books of all time. Funny...Hollywood didn't have any problem adapting that one as a single film.

But now, the practice of splitting novels is being abused, and what truly pisses me off is that it's such an obvious studio ploy to bilk as much money from moviegoers as possible.

We were all excited at the news The Hunger Games trilogy would be adapted for the big screen, and like The Lord of the Rings trilogy, we accepted that it would be three movies. But then the first Hunger Games film wasn't just a hit, but a worldwide blockbuster. It wasn't long before Lionsgate announced that the last novel in the series, Mockingjay, would be two films released a year apart. This was even before the second movie, Catching Fire, even started filming.

I'm sorry, but what the fuck?

If my Gone with the Wind example wasn't enough, a two-part Mockingjay movie shoots the whole 'too big for a single movie' argument right out of the water, because each book in the series is only around 300 pages long. Lionsgate is simply doing it to rake in twice the cash from folks they know will pay twice to see a conclusion.

Recently, we've learned Peter Jackson, who did such a stellar job adapting the three-part Lord of the Rings trilogy, would be adapting The Hobbit as a two-part film. Hey, I've read The Hobbit, and although I think Jackson's a great director, I can't think of a single reason why a 300 page novel needs to be a two-part film. Even if you're totally enamored with Middle Earth, is there really enough story there to justify two movies?

But it gets worse...

Even more recently, Jackson announced that his adaptation of The Hobbit would now be three movies, all released a year apart from each other, just like The Lord of the Rings. I'm sorry, but unless he's planning on including every scene where Bilbo Baggins sleeps, eats and takes a dump, the whole Hobbit thing just reeks of money-grubbing. I dare you - no, I double dog dare you - to convince anyone this isn't just a cash grab.

All you Tolkien fans, do some math....

You love The Hobbit? Fine. You're happy to see that this classic has been placed in the capable hands of Peter Jackson, the same guy who gave you Lord of the Rings hard-ons? Fine.

Now consider this: In order to get your Middle Earth fix, you will be required to pay an average of ten bucks to see each movie in theaters (assuming admission prices won't increase, which isn't likely). That's thirty bucks. Throw in ten bucks-worth of popcorn and sodas each time (which we all do)...there's another thirty bucks. That means you're paying $60 to watch one movie, spread-out over three years. And if you bring a date, double that.

Has there ever been any movie in history worth paying sixty bucks for? Well, that's what Peter Jackson and the producers of The Hobbit are expecting you to do. At this point, I don't care if the first installment is good or not. I refuse to pay admission to watch a third of a movie.

As much as I like Peter Jackson, I hope The Hobbit totally tanks at the box office. I hope it has the worst opening weekend of any movie in history, because this trend has to end. And all of you suckers happily shelling-out your hard-earned cash to watch the second half of a movie you already paid once for need to stop. Stop now.

The film, Gone with the Wind, was nearly four hours long, but nobody complained, because it was a good movie and you got a complete story for your money. Who cared how long it was? There's an old saying...no good book is too long, and no bad book is too short. The same thing applies to movies. I can easily sit through a four hour movie if it's any good. And even if you are a die-hard Twilight junkie, wouldn't you have been happier watching Breaking Dawn as a four hour epic than waiting a year to see the conclusion? Is the conclusion of any saga really worth paying twice the price for?

ROPE: What Are We Looking For?

Starring James Stewart, John Dall, Farley Granger, Joan Chandler, Sir Cedric Hardwicke, Douglas Dick. Directed by Alfred Hitchcock. (1948, 80 min).

As a movie lover, of course I love Alfred Hitchcock...Psycho, Rear Window, Lifeboat, North by Northwest, The Birds and Vertigo. But my personal favorite is 1948's Rope, one of Hitch's less-renowned films, and seldom mentioned among his classics. It's also one of his more experimental and 'gimmicky' movies, the gimmick being that it takes place entirely on a single set and made to look like it was all shot in one long take.

The movie's about two guys who decide to kill one of their friends just for the hell of it, then arrogantly stash the body in the same room where they are hosting a party. One of those invited is their former college professor, Rupert Cadell (James Stewart), the sharp and cynical mentor they both look up to. Cadell is also the one person invited who seems to sense something askew about the whole set-up. Stealing the show is John Dall as Brandon Shaw...smooth, slimy and conniving as one of the killers, and so enamored with his superior intellect that he can't fathom the notion that anyone will catch him.

It's a fast, fun and twisted little movie, and also controversial for its time because of its supposed gay subtext. I never caught that, probably because I wasn't looking for it (or maybe I'm just stupid). But the film was inspired by real-life killings perpetrated by Nathan Leopold and Richard Loeb, two intellectual thrill-killers who were rumored to be homosexual. Add the fact that both Dall and co-star Farley Granger were gay in real life, and Rope had a few folks up-in-arms back then.

But again, I never caught all that when I watched it for the first time. I just thought these two dudes were roommates, not doing each other. Even after researching the background of Rope and watching it numerous times since, I simply just don't see any hint in the film itself that these killers are gay. Nor does it have any baring on the plot.

"How 'bout pounding out a little Iron Maiden?"

Which begs me to question why, even now, we spend so much time looking for homosexuality in entertainment. Why are we so obsessed with whether or not character is gay? Do we still look at homosexuality as some kind of lurid, provocative and titillating lifestyle? Maybe, because even though I've never given two shits about someone's sexual preference (other than my wife's), whenever I see two guys of the same age grocery shopping together, I tend to assume they are partners. This upsets me a bit because...why would I automatically think they're gay? What the hell is wrong with two guys shopping together?

Nothing, of course, but it doesn't stop me from making such an assumption. Was this the same assumption folks made back in 1948 when Rope was released? Since there's nothing in the script itself which hints the two killers are gay, did viewers simply come to this conclusion because they share an apartment? Are we simply conditioned to look for a character's sexual preference?

Still, none of this lessens my love for Rope, a simple story told in an unusual way (for its time, anyway). I think it's Hitchcock at his most flamboyant, yet economical. To me, it's just a movie where we watch two arrogant criminals fuck-up their so-called perfect crime. The movie transcends the weighty, societal baggage others have attached to it in later years.

You want to find homosexual subtext in a movie? Try watching Tremors and wonder what's going on in that tiny trailer Val and Earl share together in the middle of the desert.

6 More Classics Featuring Lines From Other Movies

"The first rule of Fight Club...do not talk about Fight Club!"

"A census taker once tried to test me. I ate his liver with some fava beans and a nice bottle of chianti."

"Big bottom...big bottom...talk about mudflaps, MY GIRL'S GOT 'EM!"

"'Scuse me while I whip this out."

"Hold me...like you did by the lake on Naboo."

"I bet I can make you squeal like a pig."

6 Classics Featuring Lines From Other Movies

"Say hello to my little friend."

"I'm sick of these motherfuckin' snakes on this motherfuckin' plane."

"I love the smell of napalm in the morning."

"Take your stinking paws off me, you damn dirty ape."

"Hasta la vista...baby."

"Yippy Ki Yay, motherfucker!"



BLADE RUNNER: A Minority's Report

Starring Harrison Ford, Rutger Hauer, Sean Young, Edward James Olmos, Daryl Hannah, M. Emmet Walsh. Directed by Ridley Scott. (1982, 116 min).

This came out when I was 18, and man, I couldn't wait to see it. New action hero Harrison Ford, fresh from two Star Wars movies and Raiders of the Lost Ark; Alien director Ridley Scott...how cool was that? Then there was the trailer depicting Los Angeles in the future...flying cars, impossibly-high pyramids & skyscrapers towering over a neon wonderland, with hellish flames spewing into the night sky.

So of course I was one of the first to see it on opening day. And indeed, with the opening shot...mind officially blown. Blade Runner's Los Angeles made the futuristic city of Logan's Run (made only five years before) look like it was made of Legos. This was gonna be great.


Then I spent the remaining time waiting for it to get great. Hell, I was rooting for it to get great. I even periodically checked my watch (which I seldom ever do unless a movie really sucks) seeing how much time was left for it to get great. About half-way through, I even went out to the lobby to refill my popcorn, basing my decision on the oft-proven theory that the second one runs to use the bathroom during a football game, that's when the game-changing play occurs. When I returned to my seat five minutes later, nothing had changed. In fact, it was still on the same dull scene as when I left.

Then the movie ended, and it never got great. It was long, slow, boring and had no characters who were interesting or even likeable. And I wasn't the only one who thought so at the time. Today, Blade Runner is widely considered one of the greatest sci-fi movies of all time. Back then, it tanked at the box-office, and  wasn't much of a critical darling, either.

But it developed a huge cult following over the years. Aside from its visuals, fans loved the questions it raised about humanity and existence. Some critics even reassessed their initial opinion of the movie. There were a couple of times in college, where cult movie appreciation can sometimes border on obsessive, when I made the mistake of expressing my ho-hum opinion of the movie. I was often met with incredulous responses.

“How can you be a sc-fi fan and not love Blade Runner?” I'd be asked, either verbally or through dumbfounded expressions. Either way, the message was clear: I must be a dumbass. How could anyone other than a dumbass not absolutely love what is arguably the most intelligent American science fiction film since 2001: Space Odyssey?

I was 18 when I first watched it, so maybe I did miss the big picture. Maybe, a few years later, without having the expectation of another spectacle like Star Wars, I could appreciate it for what it was. So I gave it another shot.

Once again, I kept waiting for it to get great...and it didn’t. Other than the still-awesome effects, Blade Runner was just as boring and uninvolving as the first time. My college friends simply said I didn’t ‘get it.’

Eventually, we all learned Ridley Scott was forced by the studio to add Ford's voice-over narration (a big criticism of the theatrical movie among its zealots) and tack on a neatly-wrapped happy ending. According to Scott, his original ending was darker and more ambiguous, leaving the viewer to wonder whether or not the main character, Deckard (played by Ford), is one of the very replicants he’s recruited to kill.

So fast forward several years, when a ‘director’s cut’ of Blade Runner was released on home video, which restored Scott’s original vision. Director’s cuts and ‘special editions’ are mostly a sales ploy to get movie geeks to shell out more cash for movies they already own. On rare occasion, a new version does indeed make the film better. James Cameron’s The Abyss comes immediately to-mind. The restored footage of these aquatic aliens threatening to wipe-out the entire human race adds a lot of apocalyptic weight, and the movie as-a-whole makes a lot more sense. It changes the way we view the whole thing.

Rutger Hauer...looking like my cousin the day after his bachelor party.

But more often, restoring previously-cut scenes doesn’t make a movie better, and sometimes makes it worse. Take The Good, the Bad and the Ugly, for instance. To me, the original version was already the greatest western of all time, but the deleted scenes reinserted into the so-called special edition, featuring newly-redubbed voice-overs by Clint Eastwood and Eli Wallach (and sounding 30 years older), were distracting and did nothing for the movie but push its already-epic length toward the three hour mark.

Still, when the director’s cut of Blade Runner was announced (re-released in a few theaters as well), the ballyhooed wholesale changes were enough to make me want to revisit it yet again, since the film had so-far gone down in history as a flawed masterpiece. Maybe Ridley Scott's original vision was the great movie I'd been waiting for. So I bought the movie when it came out on video and gave it yet-another chance.

The voice-over was gone, and the film did indeed end on an ominous note, two elements which made it better than the version I saw at 18. Regarding the final scene...I agree that it is kinda cool, subtly suggesting that the character we’ve followed all through the film is just another replicant.

But in the end, Blade Runner was still a chore to sit through, and not because I didn’t ‘get it.’ I’m 48 now, and have ‘gotten’ a lot of better and smarter movies since then. If anything, what I don’t get is why this movie continues to be extolled by so many folks who think I’m an idiot for not singing its praises.

Sure, I love sci-fi, but I’m a movie fan first, regardless of genre, which is why Blade Runner doesn‘t do it for me. I’ll elaborate:

• The main character of Deckard, is an asshole. Need evidence? How about the fact he forces a replicant to have sex with him, simply because he knows she has no choice but to comply? Don’t most of us in the real world call that rape?
• None of the other characters are remotely likeable either.
• Harrison Ford is best when he’s playing Harrison Ford (i.e. being chased or trying to save his family). When he’s not playing Harrison Ford, he sucks. The scene which best proves this is when he’s questioning a replicant stripper, and he comes across like a bad Jerry Lewis impersonator.
• Replicant antagonist Roy Batty is a cold-blooded killer throughout the movie, then we’re suddenly asked to care whether he lives or dies at the end because of one poetic monologue.
• There isn’t really a hell of a lot at stake...just a few rogue robots who simply want to live beyond their expiration date.
• The movie is really, really slow.
• I’ve never been able to shake the feeling that the special effects, while awesome, are the sole reason this movie was made in the first place.
• Logan's Run may be visually archaic, but at least we sorta liked the characters we were watching in this made-up world.
• Most of Phillip K. Dick’s stories, one of which Blade Runner is loosely based on, were short stories for a reason. There simply isn’t enough material to sustain a feature film without padding the shit out of it.

That last point is my biggest problem with it, no matter which version I see. Blade Runner feels padded out...an awesome 30 minute short inflated to two hours. Maybe a lot of sci-fi die-hards are so bowled-over by Blade Runner’s concept that it’s worth sitting through something four times longer than it needs to be.

I’ve tried real hard to find some love for Blade Runner over the years, and came up empty every time. Maybe it’s the way I’m wired, but I’d rather sit through old Star Trek episodes* for the umpteenth time than trying to find greatness in this movie. I give up.

I know I'm in the minority on this, and maybe I'm the dumbass my old college friends assumed. I’ll just have to live with it, because Blade Runner still sucks.

* Now that I think about it, this would have been a killer Star Trek episode.
 

15 Things We Learn From THE AMAZING SPIDER-MAN

Starring Andrew Garfield, Emma Stone, Rhys Ifans, Denis Leary, Campbell Scott, Martin Sheen, Sally Field. Directed by Marc Webb. (2012, 136 min).

1. In Hollywood, it is never too early for a do-over (just ask Universal Pictures, who ‘rebooted’ The Incredible Hulk (2008) only five years after their first franchise attempt, Ang Lee’s Hulk).

2. The fact that the director’s last name is Webb is an amusing coincidence.

3. Other than Ice Age, nobody still knows how to best-use Denis Leary in their movie.

4. Super-huge research corporations are willing to give complete access to their high-tech facilities to a high school girl who dresses like jailbait.

5. Emma Stone likely makes a lot of middle-age male movie-goers feel like dirty old men.

6. Someone must have passed a law requiring all Marvel Comics movies to include an ambiguous, sequel-teasing, post-credit scene (this must really piss off employees charged with cleaning up the theater after a show).

7. Sally Field is aging gracefully.

8. All muscled, blonde, spiky-haired jocks are dumb, violent & insensitive douchebags.

9. A middle-class emo kid can create high-tech superhero gear without spending their allowance.

10. Even though a super-genius scientist may be the smartest guy in the room, he will always make the worst, most-fatal decision of any other character in the movie. On a related note...

11. People get dumber with age, because The Amazing Spider-Man is another movie where only teenagers (those bastions of impeccable decision-making) can save us. The idiotic adults are too busy verbally berating these teenagers and later staring in dumbstruck awe as they do something heroic.

12. A sad fact, but legendary actor Martin Sheen is now best known to younger viewers as either Charlie Sheen’s dad, or the guy who voices Illusive Man in Mass Effect, not for his iconic roles in Apocalypse Now or Badlands.

13. Stan Lee is the Elvis of comic book creators, because at least where I saw it, everyone in the theater knew who he was, and his obligatory cameo the got biggest laugh in the whole movie.

14. Only in Spider-Man movies are the characters not completely-fucking-freaked-out by spiders.

15. We can envision the day when franchises are rebooted before the original film even hits HBO.

THE RING: Alternate Ending

Starring Martin Henderson & Daveigh Chase.. Directed by Gore Verbinski. Alternate ending restored by D.M. Anderson.

Meanwhile...this was laying forgotten on Noah's desk...

A second later...

A few days later, after Noah was okay...

"Hey, Rachel...you know how you were always getting on me to be more financially responsible? Well, screw you!"

TOUCHBACK (Blu-Ray): New Disc Review

Starring Brian Presley, Melanie Lynskey, Marc Blucas, Kurt Russell, Christine Lafti. Written & Directed by Don Handfield. (2012, 121 min).

Touchback is a pleasant enough time killer, even though you’ve see it all before.

This is yet-another inspirational sports movie with a slight fantasy twist, which gives its main character, financially-troubled family man Scott Murphy (Brian Presley), a chance to go back to his high school championship game (when he suffered a career-ending injury) for a re-do. Yeah, lots of the usual questions are raised about what’s truly important in life, making it more difficult for Murphy to decide to take the plunge.

For a movie that essentially went straight to video, Touchback isn’t bad, although you’ve likely seen it done better before. In fact, it will definitely remind you of a lot of other movies, such as It’s Wonderful Life, Field of Dreams and (insert any other ‘inspirational’ football movie title here).

Still, for a movie which offers absolutely no surprises, it’s well-acted, particularly by co-star Kurt Russell, playing Murphy’s old coach. He’s good as usual, though after doing so many sports movies during his career, he can probably perform this role in his sleep.

I don’t know if Touchback is worth owning (I doubt I‘d ever watch it more than once), but it’s certainly worth a few hours of your time as a rental.

Special Features: Audio commentary by by Writer/director Don Handfield & Brian Presley; Making of “Touchback” featurette.

FKMG RATING: **1/2 (out of 4)