Black Dog Video Newsletter

I have noticed that there are quite few Barak Obama inauguration parties around town tomorrow night. Pretty cool, pretty strange. I don’t seem to recall the same thing happening when Dubya was “elected” President back in 2000. On the flip side I have also noticed a few “Bushes last day in office parties”. Says a lot about the American idiot and what he’s put the world threw in the last 8 years. Dark times. Let’s hope that Obama stays true to his ideals and actually makes a difference for the good. I know that this doesn’t have anything to do with movies (it is a pretty lame week) but it is an historic occasion to be sure.

New Releases for Tuesday January 20th

American East - Some Jewish guys and a another guy from the Middle East open a restaurant somewhere. That’s it, that’s all I have - sorry. You’re on your own.

Children of Huang Shi - A Brit and an Aussie save a bunch of orphans in Japanese occupied China in 1937. Open and closed quickly in the theatres to mixed reviews. On the bright side, it has Chow Yun Fat and Michelle Yeoh in it.

City of Ember - Sci-Fi dealy that hardly anyone has ever heard of even with the talents of Bill Murray, Tim Robbins and B.J. Hogg.
Confessions of an Action Star - Mocumentary that follows the rise and fall of stripper turned action hero Frank Sledge. Might be funny, might not.

The Express - Sports bio-pic about Ernie Davis, the first black dude to win the Heisman trophy (US college football).

Henry Poole is Here - To me this film sounds dreadful - its about a guy who thinks he’s going to die but his faith in life is restored by some sort of miracle. Yikes. Miracle is a word that is thrown around way too often. A perfect example is that plane that landed in the Hudson River last week. All the headlines blared miracle this and miracle that. Come on, it was a successful emergency landing from a good pilot doing his job. There’s no miracle there. Stop the miracle horse-shit. Don’t even get me started about Miracle Whip!

Igor - Animated kids film about the famed evil scientist’s hunchback assistant.

Max Payne - Marky Mark continues his slide (remember The Happening?) into the dangerous waters of Steven Seagal and Eric Roberts films that go straight to video and wind up in the discount bin at Superstore with this turd about something based on a video game. Be careful Marky Mark, you’re a long way from Boogie Nights. Also on Blu-Ray.

MI-5 Season 6 - More drama and action from those lovable MI-5 kids.

Repo! The Genetic Opera - Horror musical comedy about organ harvesting and what not. Don’t let the fact that almost human (but not quite) Paris Hilton is in it, it also has Anthony Stewart Head, Ogre, Sarah Brightman, Bill Mosley and The Grave Robber to keep the cultiness flowing. (Its late from the studio so it should be on the shelves Friday - my apologies) Also on Blu-Ray.

Saw 5 - What else can I tell, its the fifth Saw movie. There ya go saw away. Also on Blu-Ray.

Coming next week…

Lakeview Terrace
The Lucky Ones
Open Season 2
Rec
The Rocker
RocknRolla
Vicky Christina Barcelona

Recently viewed and recommended…

Planet Earth (especially on blu-ray - it’ll flip your hair back!)
Red
Lost
Stuck
Taxi to the Dark Side
Standard Operating Procedure
Tokyo Gore Police
Battlestar Galactica Season 4
Pineapple Express
The Wackness
Baghead

Movie News and Notes….

In the remake of the week file comes George Romero’s The Crazies. It’s going to star Timothy Olyphant (Deadwood) and the lovely Rhada Mitchell (Rogue). Hope that this one rocks.

In in the “I can almost guarantee that this remake will suck ass file” comes The Karate Kid starring Jackie Chan in the Mr. Miyagi role alongside Will Smith’s sprog Jaden as Ralph Macchio. Yikes I says!

And in the “watch my shoulders slump as I say this file” comes word of Isaac Asimov’s Foundation trilogy being developed for director, sorry I mean hack Roland Emmerich (10,000 BC)

Black Dog’s site/clip of the week…

If you like music videos, hey who doesn’t?, then watch these two gems….

Wonder whatever happened to egomaniac Tubbs from Miami Vice?

And then there is this clown. He looks like he’s actually serious!…

And what’s a little sexy pole dancing between lovers?

Black Dog’s celebrity mug shot of the week..

I know that I ran this one last week but what I didn’t get was the whole story. Warning there are potentially offensive descriptions in the following …

Charles Barkley’s Oral Statements
Ex-NBA superstar told Arizona cops he was racing to get a “blow job”

DECEMBER 31–Following his arrest earlier today for drunk driving, Charles Barkley told Arizona cops that he ran a stop sign because he was in a hurry to pick up a girl who had “given him a ‘blow job’ one week earlier,” which the former NBA star described as “the best one he had ever had in his life.” According to a Gilbert Police Department report, a copy of which you’ll find here, police asked Barkley where he was going at the time of the 1:26 AM traffic stop in Scottsdale. “You want the truth? I was gonna drive around the corner and get a blow job,” answered Barkley, who is pictured in the below mug shot. A cooperative Barkley also joked with a civilian police employee that, “I’ll tattoo your name on my ass” if it would get him out of the DUI charge. Barkley, 45, was busted after failing field sobriety tests, and had blood drawn so investigators could establish his alcohol content. Barkley was cited for a misdemeanor charge and released at the scene, thus avoiding a trip to the Maricopa County jail. Barkley, now a basketball commentator on TNT, was elected to the NBA Hall of Fame in 2006. His 16-year career included an MVP award and a spot on the 1992 U.S. Olympic basketball squad, the so-called Dream Team that captured the gold medal. He has several prior arrests, including a 1997 aggravated battery bust and a 1991 assault collar.

Charles Barkeley Mugshot

Black Dog now has a Twitter (man, what a stupid name) account to go along with the Facebook Black Dog site. I will try to maintain both with the Twitter (I even hate writing it) having little blurbs about films that we recommend -  http://twitter.com/BlackDogVideo. The Facebook site is a little more involved - the newsletter will be posted on there, plus whatever else we can come up with - and I hope that we get lots of input from anyone and everyone that wants to bother. Apparently, because of the weather, this coming Tuesday’s new releases may not make it in time to get on the shelves for our noon Tuesday opening. I will endeavor to get as much as I can so everyone can get their hands on Tokyo Gore Police and Swing Vote.

New Releases for Tuesday January 13th

Amal - Film fest fave about a rickshaw driver in New Delhi and the adventures that ensue.
Appaloosa - Western starring and directed by character actor Ed Harris. Also stars hunky Viggo Mortensen and creepy Jeremy Irons.
Brick Lane - Drama about a young Bangladeshi woman who moves to London on the 80’s for an arranged marriage and, surprise, doesn’t really like it all that much.
Brideshead Revisited - Latest retelling of the Evelyn Waugh novel. I dunno why but I’ve always hated the name Brideshead. Brideshead, what’s a Brideshead?
Mirrors - Latest crappy American horror film. This one stars Jack Bauer and a bunch of haunted mirrors or something spooky like that.
My Best Friends Girl - Another lame romantic comedy starring charisma and talent challenged Dane Cook and please-fire-my-agent Kate Hudson. You know its bad when the main character’s name is Tank.
Swing Vote - For some crazy reason the US Presidential election comes down to one vote - Kevin Costner’s. Yikes. Also stars Cheech, Frasier and Frank Booth.
Tokyo Gore Police - Crazy full-on nutfest featuring about, well, Police in Tokyo who run into a lot of gore. Features plenty of dismemberment, be-headings, sword-hacking, and of course, lots and lots of blood flying. Add to that limbs once torn off or exploded or shredded or whatever, springing back as crazy appendages that range from heat-seeking missiles to crocodile jaws to genital “restructuring.” Now that sounds like my kind of film. If you like Machine Girl I think that may enjoy this.

Coming the Following Week…

American East
Children of Huang Shi
City of Ember
Confessions of an Action Star
The Express
Henry Poole is Here
Igor
Max Payne
MI-5 Season 6
Repo! The Genetic Opera
Saw 5
Suburban Mayhem

Recently viewed and Recommended

The Wackness
Battlestar Galactica Season 4
Nip/Tuck Season 5
Pineapple Express
Burn After Reading
Generation Kill
Red
Stuck
Man on a Wire
Standard Operating Procedure

Movie News and Notes

Now I know that this is current but its a great story and its the first I’ve heard of it. I always that that Werner Herzog was an awesome dude. This just adds to his mystique…

HOLLYWOOD - Oscar-nominee Joaquin Phoenix was rescued from his car wreck last week by German cult director Werner Herzog.

The 31-year-old Walk the Line star overturned his car on a canyon road above Sunset Boulevard in Hollywood after his brakes failed and he collided with another vehicle.

Phoenix was saved because he was wearing his seat-belt, but has revealed he was helped from the wreckage by the 63-year-old, who has a home nearby.

The actor says, “I remember this knocking on the passenger window. There was this German voice saying, ‘Just relax.’ There’s the airbag, I can’t see and I’m saying, ‘I’m fine. I am relaxed. Finally, I rolled down the window and this head pops inside. And he said, ‘No, you’re not.’

“And suddenly I said to myself, ‘That’s Werner Herzog!’ There’s something so calming and beautiful about Werner Herzog’s voice. I felt completely fine and safe. I climbed out. I got out of the car and I said, ‘Thank you,’ and he was gone.”

Here’s an article about Jean-Pierre Jeunet’s (Amelie, City of Lost Children) latest film. I’m sure that it will be most excellent…

Here’s Spider-man’s new enemy..a vampire-were-wolf thing (Were-wolf? There wolf!) called Morbius …Looks pretty lame, but its Spider-man and it seems those films are getting worse with each new one. Please Sam Raimi, go back to horror films…

Morbius

Black Dog’s site clip of the week…

I may be overstating it a bit but this may be the best thing ever on the internets…

and if you like that one check this out…

And if you’re looking for a few fashion tips for the inner soccer player in you, look no further…

Here’s an article from the Onion about revamps that went better than expected. I couldn’t agree more with Battlestar Galactica. Its a fine show..

And in an entirely related article here’s revamps that didn’t go so well…

Black Dog’s Celebrity Mug Shot of the Week…

Again with the drunk driving. Can’t celebrities afford a car and driver or maybe even a taxi?
Former NBA star Charles Barkley was arrested in December 2008 on suspicion of drunk driving after Arizona cops pulled his 2005 Infiniti over after he ran a stop sign. After Barkley, 45, failed field sobriety tests, he was given a blood test to register alcohol content. A cooperative Barkley, pictured in the below Gilbert Police Department mug shot, was cited on a misdemeanor DUI charge.

Charles Barkeley Mugshot

Ahh, a fresh new year with more fresh snow. As much as I enjoy walking around in the lovely white stuff, I hate driving in it. The side-streets are not/ cannot be plowed and I’ve shoveled enough snow to last a life time. This is not what I left Ontario for 15 years ago. Mixed bag of releases this week (although there are certainly a lot of them!) with some good stuff (Pineapple Express, The Wackness) some not so good stuff (Righteous Kill, Bangkok Dangerous) and some truly awful stuff (Disaster Movie).

New Releases for Tuesday January 6th

Alphabet Killer - Faith from Buffy stars as a schizophrenic detective in this run of the mill serial killer dealy.
Babylon A.D. - Vince Diesel continues to steer his career down the Steven Segal soon-to-be-only-seen-in-direct-to-video-films with this tepid sci-fi mess that was widely panned upon its release. The dvd is the directors cut which word has it makes the film quite superior to the theatrical miasma. Also on Blu-Ray.
Bangkok Dangerous - Nick Cage (and yet another bad haircut) tries to give Vin Diesel a run for his money with another crappy film. This time its a remake of the pretty good Thai film from a few years ago, both of which are directed by the awesomely named Oxide Pang. Also on Blu-Ray
Battlestar Galactica Season 4 - The second to last season of this superior sci-fi show that seems to get better with every season.
Disaster Movie - I don’t know why I bother getting this dreck. Please don’t rent it and I won’t get any more of these terrible “spoofs”. This is the second lowest rated film of all time on the IMDB. Enjoy.
Duckman Season 3 and 4 - I didn’t even know that this most excellent animated series made it this far. Good stuff.
Eden Lake - Highly touted and award winning horror flick about a couple on a romantic getaway who run into some loutish youths with unfortunate consequences. Never leave your house. Loutish youths abound everywhere!
Midnight Movie - Another award winning horror film (not too sure what awards these movies are winning). This one is about a midnight showing of a horror flick from 1974 where the killer comes out of the movie and starts killing off the audience. Based on a true story.
Nip/Tuck Season 5 - I can’t believe this twisted little gem has lasted this long. Great guilty pleasure for those in the know.
Pineapple Express - The unlikely pairing of director David Gordon Green (Snow Angels, Undertow) and Seth Rogan resulted in a pretty darn funny little stoner action flick. James Franco (James Dean lite) is great in this. One of the better comedies to hit the screens last year. Also on Blu-Ray.
Ping Pong Playa - A kid who has dreams of becoming a basketball player ends up becoming a great ping-pong player along the way. I love ping-pong.
Poultrygeist: Night of the Chicken Dead - Horror zombie comedy from the Troma team. The tag-line reads as thus; Humans… the other white meat… Unless you’re black, then it’s dark meat… Or if you are Asian, then it’s yellow meat… Or if you are Native American, it’s red meat…
Righteous Kill - DeNiro and Pacino ham it up in this groan inducing cop thriller. Its a shame as I hear that these are two pretty good actors. Also on Blu-Ray.
Secret Diary of a Call Girl Season 1 - Hmmm, wonder what this one’s about? Nudity and British accents abound.
Summer Storm - Award winning German gay coming of age story. Probably didn’t win the same awards as the previously mentioned horror flicks.
Total Western - Full on French thriller about a heist gone bad. Someone’s comments about this film on the IMDB reads; If you like guns, tortures, blood and sometimes free violence, take a look to this TOTAL WESTERN.
Unconscious - Award winning Spanish mystery/comedy/sex romp. Sounds pleasing.
Under the Poison Tree - Doc about trying to bring to justice some Khmer Rouge responsible for the Cambodian genocide in the 1970s. Not a lot of laughs here I’m guessing.
The Wackness - Comedy drama about a guy in NY in 1994 who sells pot and trades it to his shrink who happens to be Sir Ben Kingsley.  All set to a pounding hip-hop score! Also on Blu-Ray.

Coming the following Week…

Amal
Appaloosa
Brick Lane
Brideshead Revisited
Mirrors
My Best Friends Girl
Swing Vote
Tokyo Gore Police

Old stuff that just showed up…

Hellbound: Hellraiser II
Julie Johnston

Recently viewed and recommended

Red
Stuck
Pineapple Express
Man on a Wire
Baghead
Burn After Reading
Hamlet 2
Generation Kill
Lomax The Songhunter
Encounters at the End of the World

Movie News and Notes…

Here’s a trailer for a new documentary that looks, um, interesting…Lesbian Vampire Killers!

And speaking of vampires and what not, Park Chan Wook’s (Oldboy) new film is a vampire extravaganza. Its called Thirst and here’s a link with some stills if you are interested…

Black Dog’s clip/site of the week…

Here’s a good article from The Onion about dvds that haven’t been released on Region 1 (our format).

Yes its disgusting and I guess useful, but couldn’t they have thought of a better name for it? I present to you the Wonder Boner!

And here’s happy New Year from ABBA.

Black Dog’s Celebrity Mug Shot of the Week…

I knew that the celebrities couldn’t stay out of trouble for long…

Sam Shepard, the Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright and actor, was arrested in January 2009 on a drunk driving charge. Shepard was busted after police in Normal, Illinois pulled over his car for speeding (after detecting signs of intoxication, cops had Shepard take a Breathalyzer test, which showed his blood alcohol content was twice the state’s legal limit). Shepard told officers that he had been drinking in a Bloomington bar, and was en route to the Kentucky home he shares with actress Jessica Lange.