Archive for the ‘Magnolia Pictures’ Category
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Disc Reviews by Matthew Spencer on December 30th, 2009
It seems to be commonly believed that Robin Williams’ acting career took an abrupt change from outlandish, eccentric comedic choices (Aladdin) to more dark, complex and satirical roles in the early ‘00s (Death to Smoochy). But Williams has always played both ends of the spectrum and roughly everything in between. He channeled a father willing to do whatever it takes to reconnect with his children in the 1993 classic Mrs. Doubtfire, a role that nabbed him a Golden Globe Award for Best Actor
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Disc Reviews by Jay Macdonald on November 27th, 2009
James Gray’s Two Lovers revolves around the troubled Leonard Kraditor (Joaquin Phoenix). Leonard has moved back into his childhood home to recover from his recent break up. In quick succession, two women enter Leonard’s life: Michelle (Gwyneth Paltrow), an entertaining and peculiar neighbor who transcends Leonard’s world and Sandra (Vinessa Shaw) a classy, traditional woman who is the daughter of a businessman attempting to purchase Leonard’s family business. Leonard becomes confused between desire and love and the story unfolds from there.
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Disc Reviews by Michael Durr on November 4th, 2009
Some would say that what I do is a “wannabe” writer. I write reviews of dvds & games and also write a weekly column. However, I’m sure there are many novelists and newspaper writers who consider me nothing more than an Internet geek with a keyboard. But the truth is we are something more. Many of us are just as good as the novelists out there and better than the liberal media. Criminal Ways was originally called the “Wannabes” because it was about a group of men who wanted to be a children’s entertainment group. But like myself, there is so much more to the story than meets the eye.
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Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on September 23rd, 2009
Written by Adrienne Ambush
See it with someone you ****
About a “$2,000-an hour Manhattan call girl who offers more than sex to her clients,” The Girlfriend Experience is the mainstream film debut of Adult Film Star Sasha Grey, who before this movie was known only for her other roles. Playing character Chelsea, Grey puts on what Esquire Magazine calls a “Totally Captivating” performance as a hired companion who spends most of her time throughout the movie juggling countless numbers of men and her steady boyfriend, who seems to have no problem at all that his girlfriend is a hired prostitute.
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Disc Reviews by David Annandale on August 13th, 2009
Unable to face life as a lawyer, having been pushed into law school by his father (Tom Hanks), Troy Gable (Colin Hanks, looking uncannily like his father) aspires to become a writer. In order to put food on the table, he becomes the road manager for Buck Howard (John Malkovich), a former big-name mentalist who now works half-empty theatres in towns Troy didn’t even know existed. By turns charming and tyrannical, Buck keeps hoping for the big comeback and return to his Tonight Show glory days, and drags Troy along for a bumpy ride down the back roads of show business.
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Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on August 12th, 2009
“At the end of the Ice Age the machine came. It came from outside. It came from space. It came with one purpose, to change man into mutant.”
Mutant Chronicles was based on an old style role playing game. This was the kind where someone actually had to get out some paper and keep track of the game. Real old school. So now the property has been turned basically into a video game. Yeah, I know this is a movie review, but I just spend about an hour and a half feeling like I just watched somebody else play a video game, and not a very good one at that.
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Disc Reviews by David Annandale on August 6th, 2009
Daisato (director/co-writer Hitosi Matumoto) is having his daily life filmed by a TV crew. This life is pretty depressing. He doesn’t make much money, his wife has left him, and his neighbours hate him. His job isn’t exactly low-stress, either: he is Big Man Japan, a hereditary job that involves defending Japan against monster attacks. So whenever he gets the call, he has to run to the nearest power plant, get himself zapped until he grows into a 50-foot giant, and do battle with various bizarre creatures (one looks like a plucked chicken with a huge eyeball/penis appendage). But though he does his best, his ratings are down, his show is broadcast in the dead hours of the morning, his agent appears to be taking advantage of him, and there’s a new monster in town that mops the floor with him on their first encounter.
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Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on June 2nd, 2009
Robert Calestino hasn’t had a lot of experience as either a writer or director, and it shows in Yonkers Joe. When he’s writing about the things he obviously knows and understands, the film is quite good and extremely engaging. Unfortunately, Calestino felt compelled to bring some heart into his picture in the person of Joe, Jr. While he thinks he’s adding a necessary emotional element to the story, he’s really delivering a distraction that makes the film somewhat less than it ought to be.
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Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on April 10th, 2009
We all knew it had to happen eventually. With the success of the “torture porn” films like the Hostel and Saw series, we had to expect that there would be some lightweight twists and turns on the thriving genre. Shuttle is one of those attempts. It gingerly treads on the now familiar ground of the aforementioned films, but each time it makes the obvious moves in that direction, it pulls back and stalls. Edward Anderson is the writer and director of this mess.
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Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on April 10th, 2009
Donkey Punch was partially funded by the British Lottery. That means you might have actually lost twice. Once if you bought a losing ticket, and again if you watched this movie made possible by your gambling itch. Mama always said nothing good comes out of gambling. Turns out she was right. If this is what the British Lottery Authority is doing with the money, you’re better off going to a bookie. At least Mario “The Shark” Cabliario will spend the money on something worthwhile, like women and booze.
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Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on April 6th, 2009
“I know I’m too old to love comics as much as I do. But, in comics, the villain can launch a missile at a superhero and the hero just keeps on coming. And then the villain can throw an atomic bomb, or an asteroid, or an entire planet at the hero, but that won’t stop them either, because a real superhero’s like a force of nature and when I read comics I get a faint glimpse of what it would be like to be not just stronger, or faster, or smarter than ordinary people, but what it would be like to be unstoppable”.
Who among us hasn’t felt that way at one time or another in our lives? We all have the desire to feel that in some way we are
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Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on April 6th, 2009
If you can’t see where this thing is going after 10 minutes, check your forehead for lobotomy scars. I strongly suspect that everyone associated with this film, from the writer to the actors to the money people who thought this was a good idea, all have matching scars. The box art claims that someone from Bloody Disgusting calls this the best time travel movie of all time. What?! Either that guy was taking some serious medication at the time, or he was paid off, or his sister worked on the film in some capacity, or he’s actually managed to never see films like
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Disc Reviews by Michael Durr on March 16th, 2009
A “sexy” movie is more than a movie that just has two people performing the horizontal mambo with heavy breathing. There needs to be passion, there needs to be raw emotion and even sometimes there needs to be love. If there are words to be spoken between the two beings, they need to have strength and feeling.
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Disc Reviews by Michael Durr on March 2nd, 2009
Autism is commonly defined as a brain development disorder characterized by impaired social interaction and communication, and by restricted and repetitive behavior. Sometimes, due to that lack of social interaction and repetitive behavior, the people affected develop a special skill or heightened senses. The results can be amazing. However, in film, autism is rarely shown as what it truly is, a disorder. To find a film that not only embraces the special skill as well as show the difficulty it takes to exist and function normally is pretty rare.
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Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on February 27th, 2009
I used to think that any movie that Robert De Niro attached his name to had to be good. And that used to be true. I was willing to take a chance on low budget or blockbuster films, knowing that De Niro wouldn’t lead me wrong. Then along came Stardust, and honestly, the man hasn’t been in a good film in some years now. Still, my loyalty remains, and What Just Happened looked to be interesting enough that my buddy, Bobby D couldn’t disappoint me again. So, what did just happen? He let me down.
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Disc Reviews by Aric Mitchell on January 28th, 2009
Humboldt County, the new independent comedy-drama from writers/directors Darren Grodsky and Danny Jacobs, sneaks on to shelves this month with a quietude as serene as its iZLER-composed musical score. Despite apt writing and direction, this slice-of-life piece simply fails to assert itself and leaves viewers with an indifference to the material.
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Disc Reviews by David Annandale on August 5th, 2007
Dan Chupong plays a young warrior, armed with rockets and martial arts skills, who roams the Thai countryside in the 19th Century, searching for the man who killed his parents. His only clues are that he trades in buffalo and is a unique tattoo on his chest. He finds the man he believes is his target, but this trader, who possesses magical powers, is also in the sights of an evil local aristocrat who is trying to get rid of the local buffalo population in order to drive up sales for his tractor franchise. Said ne’er-do-well sets up our hero to do his dirty work.
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Disc Reviews by Michael Durr on July 29th, 2007
In 1997, Hal Hartley put out a film called Henry Fool. It was the story of an introvertish garbage man Simon who makes friends with Henry Fool, a witty but talent-less novelist. Simon ascends to be a great poet while Henry finds the bottomless pit of alcoholic brew. However, the plot turns around and Simon helps Henry to flee the country since he has a criminal past. The movie did seem to hint at a sequel but didn’t see one until 10 years later. Fay Grim tries to pick up where Henry Fool left off. It includes many of the same cast of characters.
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Disc Reviews by Ryan Keefer on July 15th, 2007
Synopsis
Try to wrap your mind around this one. Take the guy who was the center of attention and played the role in Being John Malkovich, and have him play a role as a guy who impersonates the film auteur Stanley Kubrick, of 2001 fame in a story that may or may not be true.
Color Me Kubrick tells the tale of Alan Conway, who decided to take on the personality of the director of Dr. Strangelove lore, as the director had become notoriously reclusive for almost two decades…
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Disc Reviews by Michael Durr on May 13th, 2007
Synopsis
It’s fairly common to bring ideas from other cultures and bring them into American television shows. We have done it with gameshows (Lingo) and we have done it with movies (Ring). However, sometimes we simply wish to recreate shows in our image. Rarely, we just go ahead and use the same show and edit it to suit our tastes. Enter Most Extreme Elimination or MXC. This show (part of SpikeTV’s late night lineup) is simply the Japanese show; Takeshi’s Castle peace me…
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Disc Reviews by Aric Mitchell on December 19th, 2006
Spike TV has really picked up steam in recent years, and this momentum is nowhere more apparent than in their staple show MXC – Most Extreme Elimination Challenge. Now on DVD with the complete first season, fans of the show and adventurous new viewers are sure to enjoy the antics and wisecracks of hosts “Kenny” and “Vic,” who provide commentary on each episode of insane Asian people sacrificing their bodies for the thrill of being on television. Of course, the American voiceovers of MXC are all added …
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Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on November 9th, 2006
William Keane (Lewis) has apparently lost his daughter, abducted from a New York Subway station. The film opens with a frantic Keane searching for anyone who might have seen her. But did any of it really happen? At first Damian Lewis’s performance completely sells the abduction. Every nuance of his acting tugs at our heartstrings for his horrible loss. His incessant searching and constant probing of his own memory draws us deeper and deeper emotionally into the set-up. It doesn’t take us very long at all to questio…
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Disc Reviews by Mark Dancer on September 13th, 2006
Synopsis
Andy Garcia plays Rick… er… I mean Fico, who runs a lavish nightclub in Batista-era Havana. The revolution is brewing, and two of his brothers are drawn to the cause. Fico is apolitical, putting family above all, but the revolution will transform his life whether he wants it or not, and then there’s the problem of falling in love with his brother’s wife.
Garcia not only starred here, he also directed, co-produced and scored the film. His elegy to pre-Castro Cuba is shooting to …
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Disc Reviews by David Annandale on March 1st, 2006
Synopsis
Plenty of Japanese horror films have storylines that vary from the oblique to the opaque. Pulse is no exception, so forgive me if this synopsis is a bit confusing (or confused). An internet website offers visitors the chance to see actual ghosts. Viewing the footage seems to make one vulnerable to an actual visitation, and when someone encounters a ghost, that person withdraws from others, shunning all society, and becomes consumed by loneliness to the point of suicide or something ev…
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