Archive for the ‘Dolby Digital 2.0 (French)’ Category
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Disc Reviews by David Annandale on August 23rd, 2010
Michel Gondry is a director whose work has been characterized by its originality and personal vision. The likes of Eternal Sunshine of a Spotless Mind and The Science of Sleep have marked him as a filmmaker with a distinct vision. Here he makes what must be his most personal film yet, as it is a documentary about his family. More precisely, it is about his aunt Suzette, a strong-willed, redoubtable matriarch who worked as a schoolteacher in some of the most remote regions of France. Gondry and crew follow Suzette as she revisits her former schools, working her way through the decades and chronicling her life, that of her family, and, along the way, that of France.
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Disc Reviews by David Annandale on August 23rd, 2010
Supermodel Joy (Claudia Udy) flits from man to man, never satisfied. There’s the photographer who loves her, but he, it seems, is too much of a boy. Far more intriguing for her is the older man (Gerard Antoine Huart) she falls for, and keeps returning to, moth to a flame, despite his refusal to give up the other woman in his life. The root of Joy’s problem seems to be twofold: she is haunted by the memory of having caught her parents in flagrante as a young child, and she is obsessed with her father, who left her when, again, she was very young.
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Disc Reviews by David Annandale on August 19th, 2010
Miley Cyrus is displaced from New York to spend the summer by the sea in Georgia with estranged father Greg Kinnear. While younger brother Bobby Coleman thinks the set-up is just keen (especially former composer dad’s work restoring the stain glass windows of a burned church), Cyrus stomps around in full Resentful Teenage Girl mode, until two things make her begin to open up: the need to protect a nest of sea turtles, and the attentions of the impossibly hunky Liam Hemsworth. Since this is a Nicholas Sparks story, true love and happiness will have to run the gauntlet of class snobbery, Disturbing Revelations ™, and the inevitable Third Act Fatal Illness That Brings Out The Best In Everyone (also a registered trademark).
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Disc Reviews by David Annandale on August 10th, 2010
Jody Balaban (Leelee Sobieski) is a newly minted film school grad who, heady with the success her student film has brought her (an award presented by Garry Marshall!), heads off to Hollywood to find fame and fortune. Instead, she finds doors shut to the newcomer, the closest she can get to a major studio job being a stint directing traffic. But then she is offered a job as an editor. The only problem is, the studio in question is a porn outfit. Her dismay is all the greater since she has been put off sex due to the enormous childhood traumas of having been spanked
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Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on July 27th, 2010
“This is Hell, and I’m going to give you the guided tour.”
There have been a lot of great prison and prison break films over the years. Who can forget Dustin Hoffman in Papillon or Clint Eastwood in Escape From Alcatraz? Of course, more recently we had The Shawshank Redemption. Lock Up won’t ever taste the rare air of those classic films. In fact, it’s not really a prison break film at all. There is an attempted break, but it’s not quite the focus of the film. I almost felt like I was watching the sequel to a break film.
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Disc Reviews by Michael Durr on May 8th, 2010
Volume Five of the Animated Series known as X-Men is now upon us. Included here are the last fourteen episodes that haven’t been put on disc for the masses. There is a lot going on in these twenty one minute chunks. There are some good things, bad things, funny things and more confusing things than probably should be in a children’s animated show. So let us spend some time, the final time with our beloved mutant friendly superhero group.
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Disc Reviews by Michael Durr on May 6th, 2010
Iron Man 2 comes out this week and is set to do fantastic business. Usually I’m a person who waits for movies to hit dvd and blu-ray and I’m already planning to when I can go see this movie. But one of the things I’ve come to appreciate over the years is when a big movie such as Iron Man 2 comes out, there are disc releases that dip into yesteryear and help to get you in the mood. Imagine my surprise when I was asked to review Iron Man: The Complete 1994 Animated Series.
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Disc Reviews by William O'Donnell on May 2nd, 2010
It’s the Bronx in the early 60s and a psychotic man named Heinz (John Turturro) is released from jail and immediately starts stalking the girl he tried to rape (Jodie Foster), which landed him in prison in the first place. Upon hearing about his release, the son of a cop turned pacifist/activist is enlisted as protection despite his hesitancy and desire to move to Mississippi to support the Black communities’ struggles there.
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Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on April 28th, 2010
“Every town has a story… Tombstone has a legend.”
When will Kevin Costner ever learn? He just doesn’t strike that hero pose. He isn’t even that good an actor unless he’s playing a G-Man type as he did in The Untouchables and JFK. In just a little while Russell Crowe is fixing to school him on the proper stature of Robin Hood. In 1993 and 1994 another Russell, this time Kurt Russell, schooled him on the iconic lawman Wyatt Earp. Tombstone was released Christmas day in 1993. Exactly 6 months later on June 24th, 1994, Kevin Costner released his epic film called Wyatt Earp.
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Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on April 28th, 2010
Cocoon was based on a somewhat obscure novel by David Saperstein. It was also an unlikely film for beginning director Ron Howard. He had made it known since his career began that he had little respect for the science fiction genre. In an interview provided on this very release, he condemns the genre as not being about character or story. I’d say that Ron Howard just hasn’t watched the right science fiction. I beg to differ with his assessment.
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Disc Reviews by Michael Durr on April 28th, 2010
Spectacular Spider-Man is back with his eighth volume and the final one for the 2nd season. As we saw in the last few episodes, it appears that Green Goblin is again rearing his ugly head and looking to get rid of your friendly neighborhood Spider-Man. Furthermore, there are other super villains chomping at the bit to get back at Spider-Man for being put behind bars. Can Spidey survive this onslaught? Let’s find out.
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Disc Reviews by David Annandale on April 7th, 2010
A spaceship crashes. From it emerge a monstrous creature called the Moorwen, and a man, Kainan (Jim Caviezel in Buff Action Mode), who is determined to hunt it down. However, he is promptly captured by vikings and taken to their village, at which point he must convince them of the terrible danger they are in. As it turns out, they don’t take much convincing, once the Moorwen attacks.
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Disc Reviews by David Annandale on March 11th, 2010
Laurel & Hardy. Abbott & Costello. Martin & Lewis. And now… Harold & Kumar? Perhaps the comparison is a bit forced, but that latter day pair certainly follows the classic set-up: best friends who are also polar opposites (Kumar is the confident, slacker stoner; Harold is the shy, conservative stoner); one has mad schemes (Kumar); the other (Harold) suffers for those schemes, and so on. At any rate, here we have the complete oeuvre of these two characters (and since Kal Penn, who plays Kumar, has subsequently gone on to a couple of season of House before taking a job for the White House, I think it safe to say that we are unlikely to be seeing any further episodes).
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Disc Reviews by Michael Durr on February 21st, 2010
Greetings here from your favorite neighborhood reviewer and Spidey-expert: the infamous Kedrix. I certainly have a habit of appearing whenever there is a Marvel or DC superhero involved, especially if the source material happens to be animated. Needless to say, when the opportunity to review Spectacular Spider-Man both volumes 6 & 7 came available, I jumped to the task. Somehow, we missed Volume 5 (I have seen the first four), but I’m sure we can pick right back up and get to the spectacular action. (one paragraph in and we are already using bad puns, tsk tsk)
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Disc Reviews by William O'Donnell on January 30th, 2010
This is the story of two young twins who are living completely different lives, one in a boarding school who is caught up in a child smuggling ring and the other is living with his struggling artist father, but are able to share their physical pain and emotions as if telepathically. Thomas, who is with his father, knows of Tom, the boarding school “orphan,” but everyone believes Tom is just his imaginary friend. Through a chance encounter the two are reunited and both must find a way to escape the smugglers who wish to take them sell them outside of England.
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Disc Reviews by Michael Durr on November 27th, 2009
Superman: The Animated Series was made in the same fashion as Batman: The Animated Series. The tone was a little more serious and a lot more action. It was first produced in 1996 and made 54 episodes through the year 2000. The show received high praise for raising the bar but at the same time keeping what was important to the mythos of Superman. In fact, it even received a nomination for an Emmy. Besides Smallville, this probably stands out as the best television adaption of the one known as Superman, the Last Son of Krypton and hero to the planet Earth (and beyond).
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Disc Reviews by Michael Durr on October 30th, 2009
It is true, I’m not a big fan of lawyer shows. A long time ago when I was about twelve years old, my future vocation wish was to become a lawyer. I visited lawyers, I talked to them for what seemed like hours. Except it wasn’t hours at all, it was more like thirty minutes. My realization then was that I wasn’t cut out for the business and went into what I do now. However, after watching Ally McBeal for a season of episodes, I come to the realization that I’m so very glad that I didn’t stick around.
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Disc Reviews by Michael Durr on September 21st, 2009
Some of you might remember my review of the first two volumes of X-Men, the Animated Series. After the first thirty plus episodes, I secretly hoped that I would be able to bring you reviews of the rest of the series. Luckily, I was blessed enough to make this a reality when I received volume 3 & 4 at my door just before my fall vacation. How sweet it is.
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Disc Reviews by Michael Durr on August 13th, 2009
Next month, my mom turns fifty-eight years young (I would say old, but I’m pretty sure she can still reach across county lines and wallop me one). She’s been around for quite a while and despite the typical things that age do to people, she’s still a kicking. This usually means gossiping to neighbors, clipping coupons and watching soap operas. My mom has watched a lot of soap operas including General Hospital, Young & The Restless and some night time ones too. The night time soap operas I speak of are of yesteryear like Dallas or Dynasty. That’s why when I saw “These Old Broads”, I knew in a minute who this release was aimed at.
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Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on June 24th, 2009
“Just because our parents keep telling us that Jason was only a legend, doesn’t mean it wasn’t true. What if he did come back here looking for the camp counselor that caused him to drown as a boy, searching for the one that decapitated his vengeful mother? And you do know what today’s date is, don’t you?…Happy Friday the 13th.”
Legend or not, Jason’s back in the 6th Friday the 13th film, and he’s out for more blood than ever before. Filmed under the fake name of Aladdin’s Sane, in an overt tribute to director Tom McLoughlin’s favorite musician, David Bowie, the new film was a return to the franchise’s more established roots.
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Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on June 22nd, 2009
We were all told that the fourth film in the Friday The 13th series was going to be the last. From the cast and crew to the studio execs it was official: Jason was dead and gone. Time to move on. But it took less than a year for a new chapter to be tacked on to that final one. The fifth entry into the franchise would contain one of the more limited budgets. But it wasn’t the budget cuts that has made this one of the most highly criticized films of the series. It’s the total disregard for the tradition of the films and the poor choices that were made in making this film.
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Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on June 19th, 2009
When the cast and crew went about their work on Friday The 13th: The Final Chapter it appears that it really was intended as a sendoff for the popular franchise. There had been a turnover at Paramount, and the powers that be thought the slasher cycle was pretty much over. Now whether any of that is true is anyone’s guess. Everyone associated with the project claims that that was their firm understanding from the beginning. Writer Barney Cohen insists that the Paramount brass made it very clear that he was supposed to kill off Jason with such Hollywood “grammar” that there was little doubt he was dead and gone forever.
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Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on June 15th, 2009
“One night stands can be murder.”
That’s the tagline for 1987’s Fatal Attraction. Perhaps it’s no coincidence that both Fatal Attraction and the later Indecent Proposal were both directed by Adrian Lyne. Both were quite controversial upon their release. Both dealt in a kind of “what if” scenario that got people talking around their water coolers and watering hole gatherings. While the latter was pretty much a morality or ethics drama, the former was a gut wrenching morality tale with a Grimm’s Fairy Tale twist.
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Disc Reviews by David Annandale on June 4th, 2009
In a village where there is a great deal of time (there are months whose days are numbered in the 40s), the local witch gives birth to the title character. Twenty years later, Babine is the Village Idiot. Though he is a thoroughly gentle soul, he also becomes the scapegoat for every ill, real or imagined, that befalls the villagers. Fortunately, he has some champions, including Toussaint Brodeur (played by director Luc Picard), the local fly-raiser. But then the church burns down, and terrible trouble looms for Babine in the person of the new, fanatical village priest.
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Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on June 2nd, 2009
William “D-Fens” Foster (Douglas) is caught in a typical L.A. traffic jam. The annoyances about him are beginning to mount up: a buzzing insect, tremendous heat, a child screaming. All of these things are becoming a perfect storm that is about to ignite a powder keg that’s been gathering here for some time. He abandons his car in the middle of the street and begins an apparently aimless walk across L.A. He first encounters a Korean convience store clerk, who he critizes for his accent and exorbitant prices.
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