PLANES, TRAINS, AND AUTOMOBILES/AIRPLANE!/THE NAKED GUN (Blu-Ray)

Now that's one fucking funny night, right there. I mean, I'm not sure that any of these fucking Paramount comedies really required a HD transfer, per say, but what the fucking hell. I mean, fuck, each one of them falls under the 'I could watch this a couple times a year and laugh every time' qualifier so if you're gonna own your own copy, why the fuck not go for the best? "Planes, Trains & Automobiles" is a 1987 John Hughes fucking classic where two stranded travelers (John Candy and Steve Martin) are both trying to get to their respective homes for Thanksgiving, and are forced to take whatever fucking  opportunities available to them to inch towards their destinations in time to celebrate with their fucking families. Unfortunately for them, that means doing it together. 1980's "Airplane!" is, of course, the big fucking daddy of all spoof films, although not the first, certainly the one that broke the fucking doors open for the sub-genre and still arguably the best of the fucking bunch, as an anxiety stricken Robert Hayes tries to guide home a plane after the entire crew falls sick from bad fish. Both it and "The Naked Gun" (1988) also star the actor probably most associated with the genre, mutha-fuckin' Leslie Nielsen. In "Gun", he plays again the role he originated in the short lived 1982 TV spoof series "Police Squad!", the danger-prone Lieutenant Frank Drebin, who has to clear the name of a badly injured colleague (goddamn OJ Simpson) by proving that a dangerous fucking crime lord (Ricardo Montalban) has developed and is fucking using a 'Manchurian Candidate' assassination technology. All three films fall in the way-fucking high numbers on any given list of the greatest fucking comedies ever and for good reason...they're still fucking funny. The quality and bonus features are a mixed fucking bag though. PT&A features a pretty lousy transfer, but it has two fucking must-see John Hughes retrospective featurettes. Both "Airplane!" and "The Naked Gun" look and sound as HD as you'd fucking want 'em to be, but "Gun" only really features the old fucking DVD group commentary (but which is one of the few commentaries really fucking worth listening to) and "Airplane!" recycles the old fucking DVD stuff as well, but it's all worth checking out. I mean, fuck. Why the fuck not own these? Why fucking indeed.

--CLICK HERE TO BUY Airplane! (1980) [Blu-ray] - Robert Hays, Lloyd Bridges, Leslie Nie...

--CLICK HERE TO BUY Planes, Trains and Automobiles (1987) [Blu-ray] - Starring Steve Ma...

--CLICK HERE TO BUY The Naked Gun: From The Files of Police Squad (1988) [Blu-ray] - St...

SETUP (Blu-Ray and DVD)

I have to assume that 50 Cent at some point saw the film "Get Shorty" and figured to himself, why wouldn't it work to walk into a producer's office, point a gun at their head and say, "Put me in a movie with some big stars or I'll blow your goddamn head off." Lo and behold, it worked...a bunch of times. At least as far as him getting to be IN these movies. I mean, this guy has got to be one of the worst actors appearing in films today, and he's gotten to work with Robert DeNiro, Al Pacino, Terrance Howard, Samuel L Jackson, Jessica Biel, Val Kilmer, Sharon Stone, Emma Roberts, Danny Trejo, and now Bruce Willis and Ryan Phillippe? However, true to the rest of his cinematic record, "Setup" is a wreck. Half-a-buck plays 'nice guy' bank robber Sonny who is betrayed and left for dead by his supposed best friend Vincent (Phillippe). Sonny ends up tricking a local mobster (Willis) into helping him track down Vincent to get revenge. Even if I could believe the stone-faced Sonny was actually smart enough to pull off this implausible scheme, or if he was even mildly likable enough to care either way (he's not), laughably ham-handed writing and downright bizarrely mis-calculated camera work cripple this thing from the outset. The only setup that's believable here. other than my original supposition that 50 Cent is working his way through Hollywood's producers offices with a handgun and a can-do attitude, is that somebody's making money on PLANNING on this being a complete failure. No other rationale for its existence seems to come to mind. It's the "Springtime for Hitler" of direct-to-dvd action films (as is 50 Cent's entire acting career, for that matter) and I'm sticking to that story until a more reasonable explanation comes along. 

--CLICK HERE TO BUY Set Up [Blu-ray]