Movie Reviews, Digital HD Reviews, and Television Reviews

Reviews By Stephen Compall

Here at FlickDirect, our goal is to provide up-to-date reviews on theatrical, home entertainment, and television series. Check out the scoop on upcoming films or programming, and even our take on the classsics from our critics and Rotten Tomatoes Approved, Allison Rose.

Mad Max

(Stephen Compall) 11/10/2010 10:42 PM EDT
You could suppose, if you so desired, that the grand construction of humanity's unique accomplishment, the abstract model of the universe, is nothing more than the same small set of ideas remixed and rearranged over and over. Let us say there are seven original ideas, or perhaps 94, as it is with matter. The number is really irrelevant ... Read More

Dollhouse: Season Two

(Stephen Compall) 10/27/2010 9:59 AM EDT
With the advent of the second and final season of Joss Whedon's latest commercial failure, Dollhouse, viewers are in for a few treats. First, we get a show that can finally be taken entirely seriously, unlike the stop-and-go first season. As was it the case with Firefly, we get a good idea of what the whole series would have been li... Read More

Stargate SG-U: 1.0

(Stephen Compall) 10/21/2010 11:49 AM EDT
You would think that, having done this at least twice before, producing 15 seasons of Stargate franchise television, the makers of Stargate Universe would know what they're doing right off the bat. SGU, however, in its first 10 episodes, strayed too far outside the comfort zone, and we fans have been punished with something terribly awkwa... Read More

The Lord of The Rings: Fellowship of The Ring Blu-ray Review

Lord of The Rings Trilogy

(Stephen Compall) 10/15/2010 2:02 PM EDT
I'm planning a trip this weekend, so naturally, I'm finding myself once again considering the diminishing returns problem. It's the mathematical rule that makes every extra dollar spent after a certain point more like burning money, every extra lane added to a road after a certain point more like pouring concrete for the hell of it, and every... Read More

Secretariat

(Stephen Compall) 10/7/2010 10:44 AM EDT
Ayla examined her son again, trying to remember the reflection of herself. My forehead bulges out like that, she thought, reaching up to touch her face. And that bone under his month, I've got one too. But he's got brow ridges, and I haven't. Clan people have brow ridges. If I'm different, why shouldn&#... Read More

Chuck: The Complete Third Season

(Stephen Compall) 9/20/2010 7:06 PM EDT
There's nothing quite so compelling of excellence from humanity than impending doom. From followers of Rapture theology, it breeds a love/hate relationship with apocalypse. To corporate takeover specialists, it provides an effective tool to keep newly-acquired managers delivering profits for the new big brother. What else can ... Read More

Takers

(Stephen Compall) 8/26/2010 8:36 PM EDT
Forever may he be cursed. You might not even notice, but Hayden Christensen (Star Wars: Episode II, Jumper) joins a crew mostly of his thespian superiors for Takers, a film that begins as a competently executed heist flick, and turns into something quite other than that.The trouble with all heist films is that we're expected to view the p... Read More

Diary of a Wimpy Kid

(Stephen Compall) 8/19/2010 7:49 PM EDT
As if we wish to relive it again, we make the children of humanity grow up much as humanity itself did, steeped in superstition. We are only to be granted the ability to tell the difference between fantasy, wishes, and reality later on; hence, the creation Diary of a Wimpy Kid series by Jeff Kenny. The series has now been turned into a feature leng... Read More

Stargate Universe - SGU: Season 1.5

(Stephen Compall) 8/9/2010 9:45 AM EDT
To resolve a debate posed between two minor characters in "Space", the first episode of this latter half of Stargate Universe's first season: yes, Colonel Young (Louis Ferreira, Shooter) is a murderer, though not so much a cold-blooded as a hot-blooded one. I think, absent events to follow in "Space", he would be convi... Read More

Dinner For Schmucks

(Stephen Compall) 7/30/2010 9:38 AM EDT
Where should we place him on the Michael Scott axis? It is the first question brought to our minds by the appearance of by now quite typecast Steve Carell (The Office, The 40-Year Old Virgin). It is easiest to say in this regard, though perhaps a bit unfairly, that Barry (Carell) is a slightly nicer and more creative Michael Scott with ... Read More