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Disc Reviews by Mark Dancer on March 27th, 2008
It has always been odd to me that for as popular as Bollywood films are in India, they really haven’t made much of an impact here in the States. Films from other countries find their place here, but Indian works are pretty widely overlooked here. Maybe it has to do with the wide cultural differences. Maybe it is because so many Bollywood films rely heavily on the traditions of the American musical. Whatever the reason, no Indian films have really caught on here, and the same can be said of the beautiful and talented Indian actors and actresses.
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Disc Reviews by Mark Dancer on March 19th, 2008
It seems like foodies are everywhere these days. Maybe Emeril is to blame, maybe it’s Paula Dean, maybe it’s the Food Network as a whole.I have even been sucked in my Anthony Bourdain myself (whose show is ironically also named No Reservations). Wherever there is a trend, there is guaranteed to be a romantic comedy to follow. Enter Aaron Eckhart and Catherine Zeta-Jones. Eckhart has been doing some fantastic work lately, from his work in Thank You for Smoking to lesser known films such as Conversations With Other Women, he is quickly becoming one of the best actors on the scene today.
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Disc Reviews by Mark Dancer on March 13th, 2008
I am a sucker for a good biopic. Walk the Line, Ray, Man on the Moon, Cinderella Man… all these films and many more like them feature prominently in my DVD collection. With this release, I am now excited to be able to add this fine film to my collection. Brad Pitt’s James is not the one of fables and adventure books, but one grounded in reality. While charismatic criminals are frequently glorified in these types of films, it is often times hard to remember that in real life these are often times people with severe social problems. The result is a film that is more open and honest than the vast majority of the biopics that have come along in the past decade.
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Disc Reviews by Mark Dancer on March 4th, 2008
“The Invasion” is a remake of the classic “The Invasion of the Body Snatchers”. This time around, Nicole Kidman and Daniel Craig are the heroes that uncover the diabolical truth behind a secret plot to take over the world. This is a film that has been re-made several times before, in various forms. Each time, the film is turned into a heavy-handed metaphor for the current political climate. That is most certainly the case this time around as well, as the oblivious citizens are expected to accept everything their leaders tell them, no matter how implausible that information might be. I’ll spare you the pop politics, but the parallels between the Bush administration and the story are rampant.
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Disc Reviews by Mark Dancer on February 26th, 2008
Guy Pierce fascinates me. He first broke on the scene in a big way in LA Confidential, which just happens to be one of my favorite films. Instead of taking the path of his co-star Russell Crow and chasing the big Hollywood dollar, however, Pierce chose to explore smaller, more interesting fringe films. Sometimes, this decision pays off for him, as was the case in the amazing Memento, or the recent The Proposition. Other times, however, the gamble falls flat, as was the case with The Hard Word. Pierce is consistently excellent, but the films he picks are hit and miss. That’s the problem with interesting projects, they either turn into surprise hits, or predictable failures. So the big question is, is First Snow a hit or a miss?
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Disc Reviews by Mark Dancer on February 19th, 2008
When MI-5 first hit American shores, Alias was in full swing, and the comparisons were inevitable. After all, both were sy shows set in a post September 11 world, and both were slick, fun thrillers. Fast forward to 2006, however, and the landscape has changed dramatically. Alias is now off the air, having crashed in spectacular fashion, yet MI-5 is still going strong. In fact, the show just seems to keep getting better and better.
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Disc Reviews by Mark Dancer on February 13th, 2008
Waitress is a film that could easily be passed-over as a tired, generic chick flick when perusing the DVD section of your favorite retailer. Those that take a chance on this underrated film, however, are in for a real treat. This is a film that has genuine heart, is honest and surprisingly funny.
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Disc Reviews by Mark Dancer on January 31st, 2008
I remember when Ocean’s Eleven was first announced, and how disappointed I was. Steven Soderbergh was already well-respected by critics and serious film buffs due to his films Sex, Lies & Videotape, Out of Sight, Erin Brockovich and Traffic. He was the last person in Hollywood that needed to sell out to the masses by directing a re-make packed with eye candy. Not only that, but he chose to re-make a fantastic film that starred the Rat Pack. Essentially, Soderbergh decided to go to Vegas and relieve himself on the legacy of Frank Sinatra in the name of the almighty dollar.
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Disc Reviews by Mark Dancer on January 18th, 2008
It’s not often that a review starts with the final score, but I’m going to break that rule. Go out and buy this DVD set. Stop reading this review, leave your residence, and go directly to your nearest DVD retailer for a copy of the 3-disc version of Hot Fuzz. When I first watched Shaun of the Dead, I was absolutely blown away at how deftly creators Simon Pegg and Edgar Wright were able to mix the comedy, spoof and horror genres into one of the most entertaining and original films of the decade. While I had high hopes for the follow up project, deep down I was expecting to find a case of the sophomore slump; a good film that manages to fall short of the success of the debut. Not only was my gut feeling dead wrong, but I am of the opinion that the two have actually been able to surpass their previous success. Shaun of the Dead was not a fluke, but merely a warm-up to the amazing success of Hot Fuzz.
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Disc Reviews by Mark Dancer on January 12th, 2008
When Close Encounters of the Third Kind came out in 1977, a young Steven Spielberg was coming off of the unexpectedly phenomenal success of Jaws. This was the director’s chance to solidify his career as a well-respected filmmaker, and build a lifelong career. While most directors would have either gone the route of making Jaws II or picking up a no-brainer script from a proven scriptwriter, Spielberg wagered his success on the odd tale of a possibly mentally deranged individual’s belief in extra-terrestrial life. What he came away with was a film that won an Academy Award for Best Cinematography, was nominated for four Golden Globes (including Best Picture and Best Director), and has become synonymous with the legacy of the famed director.
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Disc Reviews by Mark Dancer on January 5th, 2008
When warner Brothers decided to start their Raw Feed line of direct-to-DVD horror films, Daniel Myrick was brought in to Produce. The choice of Myrick was a no-brainer, as he (along with his partner Eduardo Sanchez), was the creative force behind the “Blair Witch” phenomenon. While the team Directed the first film, they served as Producers on the second. Admittedly, “Blair Witch 2″ was not as well received as its predecessor, but it was exactly the type of film that would be successful as a direct-to-DVD release.
Myrick Produced the first two Raw Feed releases (”Rest Stop” and “Sublime”, which both received high marks on this web site), and he has moved back into the directing chair with the third film in the series, “Believers”. Truth be told, this is really Myrick’s traditional Directorial debut, as the faux documentary style of “Blair Witch” was not a typical feature. I had high expectations for this film, but unfortunately, it looks like Myrick is better wearing the hat of a Producer than that of a Director.
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Disc Reviews by Mark Dancer on December 12th, 2007
There is a certain audience that really gets into what I call “mythic combat”. Zena and Hercules on TV, and movies like Reign of Fire, Conan and Dragonslayer all fit into this category for me. While I typically don’t enjoy this type of faire, I am a sucker for the more popular versions, such as the Lord of the Rings trilogy and 300. After seeing a very promising trailer in the theater, I had high hopes for Pathfinder. Unfortunately, the final film did not live up to the potential of its marketing.
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Disc Reviews by Mark Dancer on November 6th, 2007
Stephen King must be solely responsible for an acre of deforestation a year in legal pads and typewriter pages alone. I have heard it said that he writes at least ten pages a day, including holidays. A quick check of IMDB shows that he is credited for writing 106 television or movie stories, at least in part, since “Carrie” in 1976. While no writer – as I well know – can hit a home run every time they put pen to paper, King’s “good to crap” ratio is far superior to that of the majority of the novelists working today.
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Disc Reviews by Mark Dancer on October 27th, 2007
I don’t think any documentarian in history has been as famous as Ken Burns. His series on the Civil War is what first made him a household name, and his in depth looks at baseball, New York City and jazz are what has solidified his place in the American consciousness as the world’s premiere documentary filmmaker. He is so well-respected, in fact, that his method of making still photographs interesting by zooming and panning is actually known as the Ken Burns Effect.
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Disc Reviews by Mark Dancer on October 17th, 2007
Director Peter Bogdanovich has a theory that you can make almost any movie better by cutting the first 20-minutes off of it. Exposition is intended to set-up the background of the characters for the audience, but it usually just ends up slowing things down until the conflict eventually arises. After watching Bug, I would be willing to accept Bogdanovich’s argument, and double it.
Bug is the story of a down-on-her-luck waitress (Ashley Judd, doing her best impression of Charlize Theron from Monster) who lives in a cheap motel and works as a waitress in a honky tonk bar in Oklahoma.
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Disc Reviews by Mark Dancer on April 11th, 2007
It seems unbelievable to me that Scooby Doo was just on for three seasons. Undoubtedly there were individual cartoon tie-ins created all along the way, and there are new episodes being created even today. No, I’m talking about the original classic program. Just three short seasons were produced, the final one of which is now available on DVD.
What is there to say about this series, these cartoons that were such an integral part of my childhood? You would have to be living in the mountain caves of Afgha…
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Disc Reviews by Mark Dancer on December 6th, 2006
I remember that this film was all the rage when I was a kid growing up in the early 80’s. I always assumed that the reason that I didn’t care for the film at the time was that I was just too young to fully appreciate it. Turns out, it’s just not a very good movie. I certainly appreciate where it is trying to go, it’s just that it takes the hokiest path possible to get there. The film tells the story of a military academy that is slated to be shut down and turned into condominiums. The cadets, who apparently enjoy the fact that they are in military school, are so proud of the institution that they use their minimal combat training to hold off the developers.
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Disc Reviews by Mark Dancer on December 5th, 2006
Synopsis
Christmas, 1914. In the trenches, we see the Scots, French and Germans beginning to celebrate in their own way. Singing in one trench inspires more in the opposing one, and before long, an unauthorized truce has broken out, and the enemy combatants are marking Christmas together. The film concentrates on a handful of characters who play a pivotal role in the truce in this particular section of the trenches, in particular the local commanding officers.
This was one of the most start…
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Disc Reviews by Mark Dancer on November 24th, 2006
Synopsis
John Steinbeck, looking and sounding remarkably like James Ellroy, and coming across as surprisingly two-fisted given the overall tone of the movie, introduces a quintet of stories by O. Henry. “The Cop and the Anthem” features Charles Laughton as a dignified bum trying unsuccessfully to get himself arrested so he can spend the winter in a nice, warm prison (Marilyn Monroe is one of the top-billed, but she has only one brief scene here). “The Clarion Call” has Dale Robertson as a detective w…
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Disc Reviews by Mark Dancer on November 23rd, 2006
Synopsis
Michael Caine is a down-on-his-luck PI in LA. He’s hired to find the long-lost daughter of a man who is now wealthy, though being hunted by goons. Caine heads off to house of the presumed daughter’s adoptive parents. There are two women the right age here. Which one is he looking for? Could it be Natalie Wood?
And the questions keep coming, such as who thought Wood would be perfectly cast as a femme fatale? Questions unlikely to be answered. The script is full of would-be witty ban…
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Disc Reviews by Mark Dancer on November 23rd, 2006
Synopsis
This is another film one feels a little silly summarising, given that it must be an exercise in redundancy. At any rate, Macy’s department store gets a new Santa, and this one (a marvellous Edmund Gwenn) insists that he is the real thing. He sets about restoring the sense of wonder in hard-nosed Maureen O’Hara and her skeptical daughter (Natalie Wood), and John Payne winds up having to prove that our boy is who he says he is in a memorable court case.
Schmaltz is hard to avoid in C…
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Disc Reviews by Mark Dancer on November 17th, 2006
Synopsis
I’m not even going to try to summarize this, as that would mean pretending I had the faintest idea what was going on, and who was who. I know, I know, I’m revealing my cultural deprivation – I haven’t been following the series. What I will say, though, is that even with that ignorance, the quality of this chronicle of the ups and downs of a New Jersey mob’s lives, loves and deaths, is undeniable. But then, you knew that, or you wouldn’t be reading this. Do note, of course, that this is only …
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Disc Reviews by Mark Dancer on November 15th, 2006
The Shawshank Redemption is a film that didn’t do much at the box office. However, home video, word of mouth and countless airings on TNT have made it an enormously popular film in the time since. Director Frank Darabont returned to prison with The Green Mile, another film based on a story by acclaimed writer Steven King. One could almost look at these two films as companion pieces. Whereas the central theme of Shawshank was the importance of never giving up hope, The Green Mile was more about the changing power of love.
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Disc Reviews by Mark Dancer on November 14th, 2006
Synopsis
A dysfunctional family unit (single mother and infant, her sister and loutish husband, their autistic teen) are travelling through rural New Jersey when their car gets stuck. One after another, they head off to seek help, only to knock on the door of the sinister Mrs. Leeds and her homicidally retarded crew. And if that weren’t bad enough, there’s some kind of monster flapping through the woods.
Writer/director Dante Tomaselli has assembled a mixture of The Texas Chainsaw Massac…
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Disc Reviews by Mark Dancer on November 13th, 2006
Synopsis
Gregory Peck is a Nobel-laureate scientist sent to China to try to recover a new enzyme that allows one to grow any crop in any climate. The operation is being conducted jointly by the Americans, the British and the Russians (!). Peck has a transmitter implanted in his head that relays his physiological conditions and his every word back to base. What he doesn’t know is that the implant is also explosive, and trigger-happy general Arthur Hill might well blow Peck’s top, as it were.
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