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Assault on Precinct 13, a review by Achim

Title: Assault on Precinct 13
Year: 1976
Director: John Carpenter (1948)
Rating: R
Length: 91 Min.
Video: Widescreen 2.35:1
Audio: English: DTS-HD Master Audio: 5.1, English: Dolby Digital: Mono, Commentary: Dolby Digital: 2-Channel Stereo, Music Only: Dolby Digital: Mono
Subtitles: English, Spanish

Stars:
Austin Stoker
Darwin Joston
Laurie Zimmer
Martin West
Tony Burton

Plot:
Isolated, cut off. Inside an abandoned police station, a handful of cops and some convicts on their way to Death Row must join forces and defend themselves against the gang called Street Thunder, who have taken a bloody oath to destroy.

From the director of Halloween andThe Thing, ASSAULT ON PRECINCT 13 combines elements of the classic western and modern thriller to create a cult favorite, one of John Carpenter's very best films.

Extras:
Scene Access
Audio Commentary
Feature Trailers
Gallery
Interviews
Radio Spots

Basically a remake of Rio Bravo, this is only John Carpenter's second movie, counting his student film Dark Star.

Tightly scripted, with sparse effective dialog and most importantly some tough yet likable characters. The first 30-45min are all setup, slowly moving all characters towards the precinct where the siege takes place. It is made clear that the otherwise mainly faceless enemies don't care whether they survive the night.

Acting is quite well and for such low budget film the production values are good. This gets better for me with each viewing!



(From Achim's entirely random reviews on July 11th, 2010)

Demons 2, a review by Jimmy

Title: Demons 2 (1986)

Genre: Horror
Director: Lamberto Bava
Rating: NR
Length: 1h31
Video: Anamorphic Widescreen 1.66:1
Audio: English
Subtitles: None

Stars:
David Edwin Knight
Nancy Brilli
Coralina Cataldi-Tassoni   
Bobby Rhodes
Asia Argento   

Plot:
he story continues as a birthday party in a high-security apartment building (with bullet-proof windows) is interrupted when the birthday girl is transformed into a vicious demon by watching a horror movie on TV. The evil spirits quickly possess many of the building's tenants who begin to prey on their neighbors. The remaining residents have no way of escaping the hungry demons and are forced to battle them in order to survive.

This isn't really different than the first one, except that this time the action is located in a skyscraper and a TV screening of the first story is the starting point (it's a film about the events of Demons 1 not the film itself). Of course it's hard to not see some similitudes with David Cronenberg's Shivers (but I highly doubt that it is volontary, the story just use the same premisses of a contagious "infection" in an apartment building). The effects are as good as they were in the first film and the dubbing is less over the top (wich doesn't mean it isn't, but it's hard to top Demons in that aspect). They put new things in the film like animal becoming demons, demons kid and even a little baby demon (not a baby who became a demon but a demon born from another one... this is kind of complicated to explain). But this little demon is more silly than scary, think of a gremlins reject and you'll get a small idea of what that looks like

It isn't as good as the original, because a high tower is a too large area for the action and sometimes not much happen, but it worth a try if you've never watch it.

Rating :

(From Jimmy's - 2013 Ooctober Horror Marathon on October 22nd, 2013)

Tom's Glee Marathon, a review by Tom

Glee
Season 1.15 The Power of Madonna
Writer: Ryan Murphy (Created By), Brad Falchuk (Created By), Ian Brennan (Created By), Ryan Murphy (Writer)
Director: Ryan Murphy
Cast: Dianna Agron (Quinn Fabray), Chris Colfer (Kurt Hummel), Jessalyn Gilsig (Terri Schuester), Jane Lynch (Sue Sylvester), Jayma Mays (Emma Pillsbury), Kevin McHale (Arty Abrams), Lea Michele (Rachel Berry), Cory Monteith (Finn Hudson), Matthew Morrison (Will Schuester), Amber Riley (Mercedes Jones), Mark Salling (Noah "Puck" Puckerman), Jenna Ushkowitz (Tina Cohen-Chang), Jonathan Groff (Jesse St. James), Iqbal Theba (Principal Figgins), Naya Rivera (Santana Lopez), Josh Sussman (Jacob Ben Israel), Heather Morris (Brittany Pierce), Harry Shum, Jr. (Mike Chang), Dijon Talton (Matt Rutherford), Lauren Potter (Becky Jackson), Jose Cueva (Stilt World/Cheerleader #1), Rob Crites (Stilt World/Cheerleader #2), Tonya Kay (Stilt World/Cheerleader #3), Trey Knight (Stilt World/Cheerleader #4), Carin Noland (Stilt World/Cheerleader #5), Michael Nunez (Stilt World/Cheerleader #6), Brooke Olsen (Stilt World/Cheerleader #7), Darin Sanone (Stilt World/Cheerleader #8), Danielle Towne (Stilt World/Cheerleader #9), Erica Weindruch (Stilt World/Cheerleader #10)

A Madonna tribute episode. I am not really a fan of hers, but I enjoyed this episode.

Fun fact:
Brittany can clearly been seen talking to Artie in the background and having fun with him. Early in season 2 though Artie says, that she never talked to him before.

Notable music:
Glee's first tribute episode. This time, it's for Madonna. I have never been a fan of hers. But I enjoyed some of the songs in this episode.
For example the mash-up of "Borderline" and "Open Your Heart". Sadly I didn't find a clip on YouTube.
Another one I liked is "4 Minutes":

I also really enjoyed "Like A Prayer". I also found no clip from the show, but this live performance is really close to it:


Rating:

(From Tom's Glee Marathon on August 30th, 2012)