Your time is short. We know this. So in order to expedite your buying and Netflix decision making, we provide you with a list of the cool and not-so-cool titles coming out for movies, television and everything in-between. So put your feet up, grab some popcorn and check out this week’s selections.

Movies:

THE HANGOVER PART III | (c) 2013 Warner Home Video

THE HANGOVER PART III – Bradley Cooper, Ed Helms, Zach Galifianakis, Ken Jeong and crew are back for a third time in what is presumed to be the final movie in the HANGOVER franchise. This time, however, there is no drugging or any recounting of the night before but instead the Wolfpack must deal with the consequences of their actions from the first movie specially involving Chow (Jeong) who is much worse than they thought. Which is hard to believe given all that he has put the crew through during the first two movies. After a drug dealer kidnaps the Wolfpack, they ransom Doug (naturally) and the rest of the crew must hunt down Chow in order to get back millions of dollars that were stolen from the drug dealer, played pretty good by Jon Goodman. Along the way they travel to Tijuana Mexico, break into a mansion, get arrested, must travel back to Las Vegas and once again must scale the top of Caesars’ Palace.

While it doesn’t follow the formula from the first movies, it is a welcome change of pace (although you should stay for the credits to see what could be a prelude to part 4 or at least it goes out with a bang) and still remains funny with characters that we have grown to know. While there are not a lot of special effects, there is plenty of cool scenery that make it much better in high definition so definitely check it out on Blu-ray. Overall, while a fourth movie wouldn’t be unwelcome, if this is the last we see of them, this is a fitting end to the series.

AFTER EARTH | (c) 2013 Sony Pictures Home Entertainment

AFTER EARTH – Poor M. Night Shayalman. Whatever he does gets lambasted before it even hits theaters. Now, in the case of AFTER EARTH, that criticism is rightly deserved. Will Smith stars as a über tough alien killer with the personality of a baseball – yes, one of the most personable actors going is given the opportunity to play an emotionless character. What’s worse is that AFTER EARTH is nepotism at its worst as it also stars Smith’s son Jaden Smith as a military recruit that crash lands on Earth after humans have left due to extreme weather and rising savage animals. There he must fight his way to retrieve a beacon that will get he and his on-screen father (Will Smith) saved. From there it is your basic man vs. beast with a little savage alien thrown in for kicks. There is nothing wrong with the special effects here and they look sick in high definition but Jaden Smith’s acting is terrible, the storyline is simple and drones on

THE PURGE | (c) 2013 Universal Home Entertainment

THE PURGE – In today’s world we are daily faced with crime and bad things happening. But what if you were able to do whatever you wanted for 12 hours each year? Would that be enough to contain the beast that lies within all of humanity? That is the heart of the question in THE PURGE where crime grew to such extreme levels that new Founding Fathers created The Purge, a night where all crime including murder is legal. The only catch is that after that everything goes back to normal. It is treated by the media and others somewhat like New Year’s Eve where people hold parties, they cover it from head to toe with live footage of the bad things happening. When a homeless guy approaches a wealthy family in search of protection, the family’s comfortable lives set up by selling home security to the neighbors is thrown out of whack and they must fight for their own lives against a horde of people enacting their vengeance during the night. While at first the storyline seems pretty straightforward – a fight to the death – there are some good twists here and definitely moral issues are brought to light regarding the whole aspect of having such a night. A fun movie that keeps the tension and action going throughout, so worth checking out if you enjoy such films.

CURSE OF CHUCKY | (c) 2013 Universal Home Entertainment

CURSE OF CHUCKY – Always nice to see one of the horror icons come back to play in the modern day. CHUCKY flicks have been hit or miss throughout the years often escalating the sheer ridiculousness of the already ridiculous premise. CURSE OF CHUCKY does a pretty good job of connecting the previous movies to this current one in a flashback to when Chucky was not trapped inside a doll. There is also a great nod to the previous films as well with a rundown of how many lives the evil little thing has destroyed. Best of all, there are plenty of great deaths here and lots of brutal, bloody scenes. You can see that they took a great deal of effort to make the special effects a focus of the film. While obviously this is not a film that will win any awards, considering it has been nearly a decade since we have seen a film with him it is something that fans will truly enjoy. Plus, this does without any seeds or brides (although there is a cameo) or any foolish nonsense and just plays it straight – well, as straight as you can with a possessed doll murdering a whole houseful of people. Worth checking out even if you are not a fan of the previous work.

EUROPA REPORT | (c) 2013 Magnolia Home Entertainment

EUROPA REPORT – What once was a random thing on film, the found footage genre, has now become a regular occurrence with multiple horror, dramas, comedies and more adopting the style. With EUROPA REPORT comes one of the first science fiction films dealing with found footage from a doomed exploration to the moon of Jupiter. The footage is found by a private space organization that funded the trip in order to explore if life exists on the planet. Through in the cameras inside the spacecraft we see the problems that crop up just getting to the planet and then how the crew sets down on Europa only to discover that there are greater things to fear than just the vacuum of space. EUROPA REPORT drags a bit with getting to the point of the matter here or there but with some impressive special effects, some good reveals toward the end and some fine acting does a good job of keeping the viewer entertained. See if in high definition for sure as you get the full impact of how good it looks.

ZOMBIE HUNTER | (c) 2013 Well Go USA

ZOMBIE HUNTER – Can’t argue Danny Trejo hates to work or can’t get work because he seems to have a film coming out every week and he’s got MACHETE KILLS coming to theaters too. He’s not in this one much, which is probably a good thing considering how terrible it is. ZOMBIE HUNTER makes SyFy Channel movie acting look like Oscar worthy material. There is no real plotline here. A lone wolf driven by hate over his family’s death shakes up with a handful of survivors and all of them are completely worthless. You will probably never find a movie where no one helps the other person out at all. Hey, the only guy who can fly the plane was just attacked by a zombie, let’s just sit here and watch the zombie tear him to pieces. Crazy insane chainsaw guy just showed up, let’s all scatter except for the big, bad zombie hunter guy who just watches as the run in fear with a dumbfounded look on his face. There have been some really bad zombie movies in the past, this one may take the cake for the worst especially with the illogical, unexplained really bad CGI uber zombie straight out of RESIDENT EVIL clunking around. Holy crap, this is really bad.

Television

IN THE FLESH | (c) 2013 BBC Warner

IN THE FLESH – “I am a partially deceased syndrome suffer and what I did in my untreated state is not my fault.” Zombies are still the rage these days but it is hard to come up with something fresh or original. IN THE FLESH is certainly the exception. While many films have talked about attempting to rehabilitate zombies back to their human existence in order to preserve what once was an emotional relationship with another, this series explores this idea as the main storyline. The war between zombies and humans is over and the humans won. But what remains are these partially deceased syndrome suffers that are now being groomed for re-entry into the population. But what’s most shocking about this series is not that it is scary or nail-biting horror but more about people and how relationships change and remain despite the most grave or unusual circumstances. There is a lot of heart here in the characters and the zombies that have been given a second chance – many of which died by natural causes or war. So if you are looking for a good, short, series about zombies that is really different, check this out – it is only three one-hour long episodes.

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Article: THE HANGOVER PART III Highlights this week in Blu-ray, DVD and VOD Releases

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