Fulvue Drive-In.com
Current Reviews
In Stores Soon
 
In Stores Now
 
DVD Reviews, SACD Reviews Essays Interviews Contact Us Meet the Staff
An Explanation of Our Rating System Search  
Category:    Home > Reviews > Drama > Anthology > Sexuality > Exploitation > Sexploitation > Burning Palms (2010/Image Blu-ray)

Burning Palms (2010/Image Blu-ray)

 

Picture: B-     Sound: B-     Extras: D     Film: C-

 

 

Talk about an anthology project backfiring.  Christopher Landon’s Burning Palms (2010) has five separate shorts with sick, bizarre, perverted stories built around sexual violation and even disease.  They never intersect, so any comparisons to Crash are odd and there is nothing too memorable about any of the shorts save the talent wasted.

 

Dylan McDermott and Rosamund Pike are a couple dating, but his daughter keeps showing up and she may be more involved with her father than she should be and vice versa.  A wild, taboo sex request goes wrong for a young lady (Jaime Chung) who wonders if she is permanently damaged from the experience.  A lonely, pretty young lady (Zoë Saldana) is raped by a masked man (Nick Stahl), but when she finds his wallet, looks him up for something no one is expecting.  A gay couple adopts a young African American female child in a goofy, quasi-stereotypical installment that goes nowhere and we also get a child-in-jeopardy short where children are playing terrorist hunter games.

 

The Chung piece does not know how to end, Pike/McDermott piece also almost a child-in-jeopardy work considering the daughter is supposed to be 15 years old and the Saldana/Stahl piece had the most potential if the script had more time and more maturity to deal with the subject matter.  Maybe this would have been more shocking in the 1980s, but with the Internet, this is just too self-impressed and adds up to boredom and a waste of everyone’s time.  Mr. Landon should understand human sexuality and/or be able to translate it to a script page before trying this again.  It also seems desperate too often.

 

The 1080p 1.78 X 1 digital High Definition image is a little soft throughout, but is well shot enough to make sense for a Blu-ray release, while the DTS-HD MA (Master Audio) lossless 5.1 mix is only so impressive, dialogue-centered and has a limited soundfield along with limited fidelity (likely the budget).  A trailer is the only extra, which is no surprise.

 

 

-   Nicholas Sheffo


Marketplace


 
 Copyright © MMIII through MMX fulvuedrive-in.com