SYFY’S ALPHAS SETS POWERHOUSE LINEUP OF GUEST STARS

GARRET DILLAHUNT, SUMMER GLAU, BRENT SPINER AND LINDSAY WAGNER HIGHLIGHT THE LIST OF GUEST STARS TO APPEAR IN UPCOMING EPISODES OF SYFY’S
NEW HIT SUMMER SERIES

NEW YORK – August 2, 2011 – Syfy’s new hit series Alphas will feature an impressive lineup of special guest stars for its debut season. Garret Dillahunt (Raising Hope), Summer Glau (Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles), Alaina Huffman (Stargate Universe), Rebecca Mader (Lost), Brent Spiner (Star Trek: The Next Generation), Lindsay Wagner (The Bionic Woman) and Peter Wingfield (Caprica) will join previously announced recurring guest star Valerie Cruz.

Alphas, airing Monday nights at 10PM ET/PT on Syfy, follows a clandestine group of ordinary people whose unique neurological condition equips them with extraordinary physical abilities. Operating within the U.S. Department of Defense, the Alphas team is led by preeminent neurologist and psychiatrist Dr. Lee Rosen (Emmy Award-winner and Academy Award-nominee David Strathairn (Temple Grandin, Good Night, and Good Luck). The ensemble cast also stars Malik Yoba (New York Undercover, Why Did I Get Married?), Warren Christie (October Road), Azita Ghanizada (Castle), Ryan Cartwright (Mad Men, Bones) and Laura Mennell (Watchmen).

Episode #105  “Never Let Me Go”
Premieres Monday, August 15th at 10PM ET/PT
Guest star:  Lindsay Wagner reprises her role as Dr. Vanessa Calder from Warehouse 13.

Episode #106  “Bill and Gary’s Excellent Adventure”
Premieres Monday, August 8th at 10PM ET/PT
Guest Stars: Alaina Huffman and Peter Wingfield

Episode #107 “Catch and Release”
Premieres Monday August 22nd at 10PM ET/PT
Guest star: Summer Glau

Episode #108   “A Short Time in Paradise”
Premieres Monday, August 29th at 10PM ET/PT
Guest star: Garret Dillahunt

Episode #109   “Blind Spot”
Premieres Monday, September 12th at 10:00PM ET/PT
Guest star: Brent Spiner and Rebecca Mader

Alphas is a production of Universal Cable Productions and BermanBraun Television. Executive Producers are Zak Penn, Ira Steven Behr (The 4400) and Gail Berman, Lloyd Braun and Gene Stein for BermanBraun.

Universal Cable Productions creates quality content across multiple media platforms for USA, Syfy and other networks. A leader in innovative and critically acclaimed programming, UCP is the studio behind USA’s Royal Pains, Law & Order: Criminal Intent, Psych, In Plain Sight, Covert Affairs, Fairly Legal and Suits, along with Syfy’s Eureka, Warehouse 13 and Alphas. The studio is also producing Against the Wall for Lifetime and I Just Want My Pants Back for MTV. UCP is a division of NBCUniversal.

Syfy is a media destination for imagination-based entertainment. With year round acclaimed original series, events, blockbuster movies, classic science fiction and fantasy programming, a dynamic Web site (www.Syfy.com), and a portfolio of adjacent business (Syfy Ventures), Syfy is a passport to limitless possibilities. Originally launched in 1992 as SCI FI Channel, and currently in more than 99 million homes, Syfy is a network of NBCUniversal, one of the world’s leading media and entertainment companies. (Syfy. Imagine greater.)

Material Girls (a J!-ENT Blu-ray Disc Review)

If you are a Hilary and Haylie Duff fan or if you loved the film “Material Girls”, then you may want to upgrade to your DVD copy to Blu-ray.

Images courtesy of © 2006 Material Girls Productions, LLC. All Rights Reserved.

TITLE: Material Girls

FILM RELEASE DATE: 2006

DURATION: 98 Minutes

BLU-RAY DISC INFORMATION: 1080p High Definition, Widescreen (2:40:1), English 5.1 DTS-HD Master Audio, Spanish Dolby Surround, French 5.1 Dolby Surround, AVC @ 40 MBPS, Subtitles: English SDH,  Spanish

COMPANY: Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer/20th Century Fox

RATED: PG (Language and Rude Humor)

RELEASE DATE: March 29, 2011

Directed by Martha Coolidge

Written by John Quaintance, Jessica O’Toole, Amy Rardin

Produced by Mark Morgan, Guy Oseary, Tim Wesley, Hilary Duff, Susan Duff, David Faigenblum, Milton Kim, Eve LaDue

Executive Produced by Greg Carney, Michael Mendelsohn, Tara Pirnia, Austen Tayler, Gary Hamilton

Co-PRoduced by Mirjana Mijojilic, Brent Emery, Gary Raskin, Troy Rowland

Line Producer: Ronald Colby

Music by Jennie Muskett

Cinematography by Johnny E. Jensen

Edited by Steven Cohen

Casting by Aleta Chappelle

Production Design by James H. Spencer

Starring:

Hilary Duff as Tanzie Marchetta

Haylie Duff as Ava Marchetta

Maria Conhita Alonso as Inez

Anjelica Huston as Fabiella

Brent Spiner as Tommy Katzenbach

Lukas Haas as Henry Baines

Marcus Coloma as Rick

Ty Hodges as Etienne

Reagan Dale Neis as Jaden

Obba Babatunde as Craig

Henry Cho as Ned Nakamori

Misti Traya as Martinique

Christina R. Copeland as Brigitta

Brandon Beemer as Mic Ronn

Sisters Tanzie and Ava (Hilary and Haylie Duff) have it all — designer clothes to wear, hunky guys to date and millions of dollars to spend. Their life has been one big party since inheriting their dad’s cosmetics company… but the party ends when a product scandal leaves the celebutantes without a penny to their name. It’s a hilarious riches-to-rags tale as the girls go from maximum fun to minimum wage.

In the early 2000′s, there were two famous sisters that grabbed headlines.  While the Hilton Sisters were known for being socialites, the Duff sisters were known for being in the entertainment world.  Younger sister Hilary Duff was known for her starring role on “Lizzie McGuire” and appearing in various films such as “A Cinderella Story”, “The Lizzie Mcguire Movie” and “Cheaper by the Dozen”.  Older sister Haylie is best known for her role as the popular cheerleader Summer Wheatly in “Napoleon Dynamite”.

And on camera, these two sisters were always together and were even voted by E! at #2 for their ranking of “Favorite Famous Sisters”.

And it was no surprise when it was announced that both sisters would appear together in the film “Material Girls”.

The film is directed by Martha Coolidge (“Real Genius”, “If These Walls Could Talk 2″, “The Prince and Me” and features a storyline written by John Quaintance (“Aquamarine”, “Joey”), Jessica O’Toole (“Greek”) and Amy Rardin (“Greek”).

“Material Girls” is about two socialite sisters.  Ava Marchetta (played by Haylie Duff) is the party girl dating a popular actor and both will be announcing their upcoming marriage, while Tanzania “Tanzie” Marchetta (played by Hilary Duff) is the younger sister who loves partying but also has a major interest in chemistry and is trying to get into UCLA.

For Tanzie, she misses her deceased father Victor, the owner of the multi-million dollar cosmetics company, Marchetta Cosmetics and often watches his recorded shows on their Tivo machine.  Although the sisters are quite young and live at home by themselves, they are taken care of by their housekeeper Inez (played by Maria Conchita Alonso) and their finances are being taken care of by Tommy (Brent Spiner).

One night at an event celebrating their father’s memory, news breaks out that Marchetta cosmetics have been giving several women major skin deformities and because so many people use the cosmetics, word gets out that Victor Marchetta knew about his problematic cosmetics but yet sold it to the public.

Immediately, the company becomes hated and their stocks drop significantly.

As for both sisters, they noticed how people are picketing outside of their home and needless to say, they are unable to leave.  While, Tanzie remains sympathetic to their father, Ava doesn’t and begins smoking.  Tanzie gets upset with her sister for smoking that she tries to get the cigarette away from her and in the process, the cigarette flies on the floor and the home catches on fire.

The sisters take a few of their belongings and try to go to a hotel but find out immediately that their credit cards are closed and they are broke.

With only their clothes and their convertible car, they head to the only person who has helped them throughout their lives and that’s their housekeeper Inez.

Meanwhile, the two sisters realize how much they lost.  Ava’s boyfriend will not talk to her and their agent feels his association with her can hurt his show’s ratings, so she is cut out of the loop and their relationship and marriage is ended.

As they go to talk to their company’s manager, Tommy, Tommy tells them that their father’s cosmetics rival, Fabiela (played by Anjelica Huston) wants to buy the company and essentially, if they sell Marchetta Cosmetics, they will have money to live on.  But Tanzie does not want to see her father’s legacy going to his bitter rival and she does not believe the stories that her father intentionally wanted to hurt people with bad cosmetics.

So, the two go to the person they think can help them, a pro-bono lawyer for the poor, a guy named Henry (played by Lukas Haas) who tends to get into arguments with Ava, meanwhile Hayley starts to become interested in a guy named Rick (played by Marcus Coloma) who she thinks is a valet but is actually a lab technician.

Henry’s advice to both sisters is that if they need to find the truth about the women who were allegedly hurt by the cosmetics, they need to do some investigating.  But with no money to hire an investigator, both Marchetta sisters decide that they would need to investigate these cases on their own.

Will Ava and Tanzie find out the truth about the bad makeup?  And will they find love along the way?

VIDEO:

“Material Girls” is presented in 1080p High Definition (widescreen 2:40:1).  This is a more recent movie, so picture quality is pretty good.  Watching it on Blu-ray, the details are more apparent.  From the materials of the clothing the girl’s wear, to the detail of their makeup.  Skin tones are natural, colors are vibrant and blacks are nice and deep.  I didn’t notice any edge enhancement, artifacting, DNR or banding during my viewing of the film, but I did notice occasional dust and speckles throughout the film.  Not a lot but it’s there.  Also, there is a good amount of grain featured in the film as well, which is a good ting.

For the most part, picture quality is very good for the film and if you are a fan of the film and owned a DVD copy, then you may want to upgrade to Blu-ray as you get much more detail and vibrant colors over its DVD counterpart.

AUDIO & SUBTITLES:

“Material Girls” is presented in English 5.1 DTS-HD Master Audio, Spanish Dolby Surround and French 5.1 Dolby Digital.

The film is pretty much dialogue and music-driven.  Dialogue is clear through the center and front channels.  But because this film doesn’t really feature much action, you will hear some crowd ambiance through the surround channels but the sound that you will mostly hear in this lossless soundtrack is the bass and pop music sung by Hilary Duff.

Subtitles are in English SDH and Spanish.

SPECIAL FEATURES:

“Material Girls” comes with the following special features:

• Audio Commentary – Audio commentary by director Martha Coolidge – Director Martha Coolidge talks about the characters in the film, setting up scenes and working with the various talent and cost-cutting measures for the film.
• Getting to Know Hilary and Haylie as the Marchetta Sisters – (9:42) Hilary and Haylie talk about working together, answering if they are “material girls” in real life and the message they wanted to get across with this film.
• Cast of Characters: The Making of Material Girls – (9:56) Director Martha Coolidge and the the cast talking about the film and their characters.
• Material Girls Music Montage – (2:21) Scenes from the film accompanied by the music of Duff’s “Material Girls” cover.
• “Play with Fire” Music Video – (3:11) Hilary Duff’s music video for “Play with Fire”.
• Trailer – (2:18) The official theatrical trailer for “Material Girls”.

Are you a fan who loves Hilary Duff, her music and her films?  More than likely, you probably enjoyed “Material Girls”, the first film she starred with her older sister Haylie.

With a Hilary Duff film, from what I have watched so far with her as the primary actress, her films tend to be more cute girl, comedy films and for her 2006 film, “Material Girls” continued that direction of films she feels comfortable doing.

First, let’s get this out of the way.   “Material Girls” is a film that didn’t receive much love from the film critics and many have panned it and is generally considered one of the worst movies of all time (ranked #46 of 10 worst reviewed films of all of the 2000′s).  In fact, even actor Lukas Haas was unhappy with the film and producers have been trying to sell the film and got lucky when MGM picked up the rights to it.

I liken “Material Girls” like watching a Disney Channel youth film.  May it be along the lines of “Hannah Montana” to “High School Musical”, the young star in a comedy type of series that younger audiences love, while older audiences tend to  look at them quite unfavorably.  The same can be said with a starlet film along the same lines of a Jessica Simpson film like “Private Valentine: Blonde & Dangerous”.

One can say that the film is contrived, the film is your typical rich girls who are not so bright taking on challenges and along the way, they meet guys that they fall for.  Yes, there is a banality to films like “Material Girls” but sometimes, there are films where people don’t need anything deep.  I’m not going to say I was disappointed because I was expecting a ditzy, cheesy type of film and ended up watching that type of film.  Sure, it has its fun moments but it’s one of those films that will appeal to fans of the two actresses or how much you are wanting to see a not-so-deep and involving film.  A popcorn comedy film that is not raunchy, mature but is mostly accessible to younger audiences (especially Duff’s “Lizzy Mcguire” fans).

The Blu-ray contains the same special features as the DVD release and if anything, the special feature are upbeat, especially to see how the two sisters are together not just in the film but also in real life.

Overall, “Material Girls” may not be the greatest sister comedy ever made.  And while some feel that “Material Girls” is one of the worst feature films ever made, as cheesy as this film gets, it’s not that horrible.  In fact…there are films released in the 2000′s featuring music talent that are much, much worse.

In the end, if you did enjoy this film or are a big fan of Hilary or Haylie, then definitely upgrade to the Blu-ray version of this film.

SUPERHERO MOVIE (a J!-ENT DVD Review)

“When you see the ‘from the guys who brought you SCARY MOVIE and THE NAKED GUN, you pretty much know what kind of film you’re going to get.  So, it’s all about watching these movies with an open mind.  Fortunately, among the similar-related movies by these creators, ‘SUPERHERO MOVIE’ is probably the most entertaining of the lot.”

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FILM:  SUPERHERO MOVIE

COMPANY: DIMENSION HOME ENTERTAINMENT

DVD INFORMATION: Color, Subtitled, Widescreen, NTSC

RATED: PG 13

DURATION: 82 minutes

PRODUCED BY Robert K. Weiss, David Zucker, Craig Mazin

WRITTEN & DIRECTED BY Craig Mazin

EXECUTIVE PRODUCERS: Bob Weinstein, Harvey Weinstein and Mathew Stein

STARRING: Drake Bell, Christopher McDonald, Sara Paxton, Kevin Hart, Brent Spiner, Jeffrey Tambor, Robert Joy, Reginal Hall, Pamela Anderson, Leslie Nielsen, Tracy Morgan and Marion Ross.

THE TRAILER:

Spider-Man, X-Men and the Fantastic Four will never be the same after this outrageously funny spoof of your favorite comic book movies!  Drake Bell (Drake & Josh) stars as a nerdy high school student bitten by a genetically-altered dragonfly.  He stumbles hilariously through the process of becoming a crime-fighter and as his new powers grow, so do the laughs.  Sara Paxton (Aquamarine) and Christopher McDonald (Spy Kids 2) costar as the clueless damsel in distress and the comically intense super villain, along with Pamela Anderson and Leslie Nielsen.  Going from superzero to superhero has never been this much fun!

For the week of Halloween 2008, I decided that there will be no horror movie marathon.  This week, I will watch the various comedy films that typically feature on the front of the DVD “from the guys who brought you SCARY MOVIE and the NAKED GUN”.

I pretty much know what I’m getting into with these films and know you have to have an open mind because although many scenes will have its funny moments, you can expect your share of really idiotic moments as well.

I know people who can just laugh and know what to expect with these films but some who have never seen these type of films and just feel the wasted their time watching it.  So, with that being said, enjoyment of this film depends on your take of these type of movies.

“SUPERHERO MOVIE” is a film that parodies the first “Spider-Man” film, “Fantastic Four”, “X-Men” and “Batman”.

The film revolves around Rick Riker, a nerdy high school teenager who loves his classmate but bullied quite a bit in his school.  Things go from bad at worse at a school trip when he accidentally spills a chemical which attracts animals to him and somehow he ends up being bit by a radioactive dragonfly.

Riker develops special powers and next thing you know, the Dragonfly is born.

Marion Ross and Leslie Nielsen play the aunt and uncle of Rick Riker.  In true Leslie Nielsen fashion, if you watched the “Naked Gun” films, you know what to expect for his role.  Marion Ross of “Happy Days” fame was quite interesting as the aunt who has a major flatulence problem and just can’t stop farting.

Tracy Morgan plays a Professor X type of role, trying to help Riker learn his new powers and show him the school of teens who have powers.  Pamela Anderson plays the role of Invisible Woman who has been caught messing around with Professor X by Mrs. Professor X.

One of the highlight scenes is when Riker and the girl of his dreams, Jill Johnson are about to share a kiss but his aunt Lucille (Marion Ross) sleeping right next to them leashes continuous farts that just sound so horrible.  Fart jokes can be funny and the manage to include a hilarious gassy scenes in which Jill who really wants to kiss Riker, uses her tampons to put up her nose to avoid smelling the fart. Fart jokes are gross but when done well, you can’t hep but laugh.

Of course, probably the coldest jokes are the ones on physicist Stephen Hawking.  The gags on his character featured getting his head accidentally stuck in a beehive and not able to get out of it because of his disability.  And of course, using his vocoder device to simulate Hawking screaming profanities. For a film to really make fun of his disability to get some cheap laughs is just very cold.

There are so many gags in this film with those type of gags, some quite funny and some that are just idiotic but I found this film more to the funny side fortunately.  But with jokes such as the Stephen Hawking (which there are numerous scenes with this character), I can see many finding it tasteless and some to find it so funny knowing it’s so wrong.

AUDIO & VIDEO:

Truthfully, I wasn’t paying too much attention towards the quality of the film and as for the audio, the film is strictly dialogue.  Not much need for special audio effects.

SPECIAL FEATURES:

The extended version features the alternate ending, deleted scenes, two featurettes and a theatrical trailer plus a commentary.  The regular version only features the alternate ending (which was so dumb, I’m glad they didn’t use it), deleted scenes and the theatrical trailer.

There are three versions of this film on DVD in the US.  The regular version which is only 74 minutes long and has only the alternate ending, deleted scenes and theatrical trailer, while the extended version which is 82 minutes long and has the additional commentary track and featurettes.  The third version is a Blockbuster exclusive which features additional deleted scenes.

So, far of the movies within this genre and created by the same creators of “SCARY MOVIE” and “NAKED GUN”, of the more recent films, “SUPERHERO MOVIE” was probably the funniest compared to the others. Again, this is comparing to the other related films by the same creators.

There is a lot of funny jokes throughout the film but there are also a good number of idiotic jokes as well.

I enjoyed the superhero film parodies on this film and although there are a few well-known talent who made cameos on this film, I’m just glad many of their segments were quite short.  In fact, I’m glad that the film was quite short.

In the end, I definitely didn’t find myself disliking it.  I suppose it’s because I enjoyed the superhero parodies on the film and I haven’t seen a film go so far to do a parody based on superhero films in this magnitude.

All in all, a fun film if you come watching with an open mind.

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