Posted in: Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on March 4th, 2011
In the 1930’s and 40’s MGM was trying to get in on the lucrative animation game. The field was dominated at the time by Warner Brothers with their Loony Tunes shorts, and of course, the iconic cast of animated characters coming out of the Walt Disney Studio. For years they had failed to find the right property to take advantage of the market. It wasn’t until the team of William Hanna and Joseph Barbera approached the studio with their first project that the times did change, at least a little, for the fledgling animation department at MGM. The project was far from an original one even for the time. It was a very basic cat-and-mouse adventure featuring a cat named Tom and a mouse named Jerry. There would be almost no dialog on the shorts. It certainly didn’t look like much of a hit to the studio brass, but with no better ideas on the way, they went ahead with the new shorts of Tom And Jerry. There’s a reason why the cat-and-mouse pair is such a classic. It’s because it works. If you can make your characters entertaining and endearing enough, you can have a hit. MGM finally entered the major leagues, and the team of Hanna and Barbera would become one of the most successful animation teams in history. They would go on to create such cherished characters as The Flintstones, Yogi Bear, The Jetsons, and, of course, Scooby Doo.
These were the days of the Golden Age in Hollywood. These shorts were not being produced for television, which hadn’t been invented when they began; rather, they were intended for theatergoers. In those days going to the movies was much more of an inclusive experience. You always got a cartoon short along with an adventure serial, the likes of Buck Rogers, Flash Gordon, and The Lone Ranger. These multi-chaptered serials were the forerunners to the modern television series. It kept you coming back to the movies to see what would happen next. Each chapter ended in a cliffhanger. These early serials were the inspiration for such film franchises as Star Wars and Indiana Jones. Finally you got one, sometimes two movies, all for the price of a single admission.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by David Annandale on March 3rd, 2011
Paula (Carmen Montes), a dancer at a strip club, is arrested for the murder of Paula (Paula Davis), a fellow dancer. The arresting officer (Lina Romay) questions the near-catatonic Paula, and the rest of the film is a slow-motion, flashback of the dead Paula dancing, the two women making love, and the murder. Once the slow-mo begins, there is no further dialogue, except for a cryptic fable that Paula tells to the camera.
Jess Franco's latest effort is his most minimalist, and in some ways most personal, film to date. There is no set to speak of: the film was obviously shot in Franco and Romay's apartment, which doubles for both the home of the Paulas and, perhaps, the police station. I say “perhaps” because the notion of any definable space is a very tenuous one in this film. The only set dressing consists of a few aluminum screens, which play a role in the zero-budgeted surrealist effects. As has been pointed out elsewhere, there is nothing groundbreaking about the effects the Franco conjures here. The kaleidoscopic images, frequently involving Davis fusing and splitting from her double, would not have been out of place in the 1960s, and aren't going to break the back of even the most basic computer editing suite today.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by David Annandale on March 3rd, 2011
Cynical, alcoholic ex-musician Paul Newman arrives in New Orleans with barely a cent to his name. Following a tip from scam-artist preacher Laurence Harvey, Newman lands a job as a DJ for WUSA, an extreme right wing/white power propaganda radio station. Newman has no patience for his employers' message, but he's happy to take the money and drink himself into an apathetic stupor. Acting as the unwelcome voice of his conscience are the scarred hard-luck woman he has taken up with (Joanne Woodward) and the twitchy, anxious liberal (Anthony Perkins) who is about to discover that the survey work he has been doing in the city's ghetto is, in fact, in the service of Newman's dark masters.
Very much a reflection of, and commentary on, its turbulent times (1970), this is a film that is messy in its construction but ferocious in its convictions. The plot meanders more than is good for it, the script takes some rather pretentious flights into poetry, and Newman's character changes too little to be very interesting, with the result that the final scene lacks the kick that it clearly wants to have. Perkins, however, is magnificent in his painful, tortured sincerity, and the climax – a WUSA rally that becomes a hellish riot – is a knockout.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Michael Durr on March 3rd, 2011
In this day and age, we take computer animation for granted. Pixar, Futuarama? We have seen it a million times. What about if I told you that over 15 years ago, there was a cartoon that was the first of its kind to be one hundred percent computer animation? Well, you might dismiss it or figure it was not much to look at. You would be wrong. Let us take a look at history boys n girls and discover the wonder that can only be known as Reboot.
Bob is a Guardian. He works for the Mainframe safeguarding the vital data and sprites (people and animals) that inhabit his sector. His two closest friends are Dot Matrix and Enzo Matrix. Dot runs a local diner called Dot’s Diner and is in on most of the action in the sector. She is also seen as a leader and tends to help out fellow sprites in need. Enzo is her younger brother and idolizes Bob. He also has a dog named Frisket.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by William O'Donnell on March 3rd, 2011
A criminal defense attorney, played by Matthew Modine, has lost all hope after his family dies in an accident. On the brink of suicide, he is called upon for one more case, defending a young man who may face the death penalty on a murder charge.
The story is established very quickly and though each character resists joining forces for the defense, it only takes about a 30 second scene each to convince them otherwise, and then it is straight into the trial (hence the title I suppose).This quick assembly and ever faster exposition makes the story harder to buy. I understand the film only clocks in a bit faster than an episode of Law and Order, but one wonders if it is all necessary if its going to be so hasty.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by William O'Donnell on March 2nd, 2011
Ok...here's the pitch! A movie that's just jokes! Dirty jokes! Story? Maybe sure sure, but its all about jokes! We all love dirty jokes right? We have some actors act them out...one after the other...and that's it...the whole movie is jokes!
That is the theory behind this film, and almost verbatim the opening scene. A sleazy looking producer wants to help resurrect a Hollywood production company with his idea for a movie that is nothing but a series of dirty jokes, played out one after the other. And this is exactly what we the audience received. Chapterised with portions showing the filmmakers trying to create and ultimately punished for making this film, we see a gaggle of actors, and a LOT of topless women, act out dirty jokes. The film compares itself to The Aristocrats in the sense that it is just jokes for the duration of the film, but the main difference is The Aristocrats is a documentary whereas Dirty Movie is almost meta-cinema in how self-aware it is in its presentation.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by David Annandale on February 25th, 2011
While the warden is away, the inmates of the isolation block break out out of their cells and seize a group of guards and administrators as hostages. Caught, by pure chance, in the wrong place at the wrong time, is Jim Brown, whose sentence is short enough that he wouldn't choose to become involved. However, before he knows it, he is, along with Gene Hackman, leading the riot. The ruckus is, in fact, a cover for an escape attempt: the inmates are digging a tunnel while, as a stalling tactic, Hackman presents a list of grievances to the authorities. But even as Brown becomes more and more enmeshed in the running of the operation, Hackman becomes more and more engaged with the protest, forgetting that it is supposed to be a charade.
Nice, gritty jailhouse piece, shot entirely at the Arizona State Penitentiary, and featuring not only plenty of real inmates, but the actual warden playing the warden of fictional prison. As one would expect of a film starring both Brown and Hackman, the characters are a tough lot, and the action is brutal. Characterizations are strong, with even the minor figures clearly defined. The only false note is sounded by the clumsy pseudo-Johnny Cash prison song that thuds against the ears several times over the course of the film. Otherwise, this is a bone-crunching good time, and is another example (along with Rosemary's Baby) of how different films merely produced by William Castle were from the films he actually directed himself.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by William O'Donnell on February 25th, 2011
A Wild West overlord is plotting to shrink the world's population. This evil plot is running along smoothly until a shrunken Texas ranger escapes in a whiskey bottle and finds himself saved by a plucky sibling duo named Luke and Lucy, along with their gaggle of wacky friends. The group become honourary rangers and set out to battle evil.
The character design, and over the top sense of adventure, are reminiscent of the Tintin series as these characters are based on those that appeared in Belgian comics under the same Herge banner that Tintin shares. Sadly, the CGI animation takes most all the life out of them with rigid movements and very poor lip syncing. Of course, being originally produced in Dutch, one can forgive some of the mismatched dialogue-to-mouths, but some more work could have been done to smooth it out.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by David Annandale on February 24th, 2011
Haunted my recurring nightmares, crippled Melissa (Mona Proust), the heiress to a huge fortune, falls under the care of Dr. Orloff (William Berger). Unforunately, Orloff doesn't have Melissa's best interests at heart. Still enraged over having failed to win the lover of Melissa's mother, Orloff enacts his revenge by using his hypnotic powers to transform Melissa into a killing machine. One by one, the distinctly unsavory members of Melissa's family fall under the knife.
A 1973 effort by Jess Franco, the god-emperor of Eurosleaze, this is a pretty handsome film. Franco doesn't abuse the zoom lens quite as much as elsewhere, and he makes excellent use of his Gothic settings, especially in a remarkably strong stalk-and-kill sequence late in the film. There are quite a number of truly beautiful scenes, showing what Franco is capable of when he's interested. Meanwhile, the violence and nudity are very restrained by Franco standards, but the characters are just as depraved and twisted as ever (that's a good thing). The score (by Franco), meanwhile, varies from the disturbingly effective (abstract soundscapes punching home the nightmare Melissa is trapped in) to the WTF laughable (a folk song so dire it will live forever). This isn't Franco's best work, but it has a lot going for it, and fans are strongly advised to check it out, with two strong caveats in mind. One is that the subtitles are horrendous. The grammar is all over the map, vocabulary is mind-boggling (one character is “condoned as a pedophile”), and the subs go missing altogether for the entire sequence that explains Orloff's motivation! That's helpful! The other problem is the picture quality, about which more below.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by David Annandale on February 24th, 2011
Underwater tremors open up a cave that has been sealed off from the rest of Lake Victoria for millions of years, unleashing a ravenous school of giant piranha. Making short work of a cameoing Richard Dreyfuss (in his Matt Hooper clothes), the fish descend on a resort town in the middle of Spring Break celebrations and so, naturally, the financially-minded authorities Won't Close The Beaches. As Sheriff Elizabeth Shue tries to find out what's going on with all the bodies showing up, her son (Adam Scott) unwisely volunteers to act as location guide for Jerry O'Connell (sleazing it up as the director of a Girls Gone Wild clone production), and winds up far from help when the fish launch their attack in earnest.
Alexandre (High Tension) Aja's remake is nowhere near as clever as the original, but it is highly entertaining, at least once the rampage is properly underway. This is easily the goriest summer movie in recent memory, and everyone involved seems determined to deliver on the trash value as thoroughly as possible. And while I have plenty of fondness for the retro-grindhouse trend, there is something going a little awry when the supposedly arch, self-conscious, post-modern films are more exploitive than the movies they're echoing. So while Piranha does boast one of the best severed penis gags I've seen in ages (one that loses some of its awesomeness by being reduced back to 2D), the endless parade of naked breasts, the obsessive need to mutilate them, and the clear expectation that the audience laugh at the result, is more than a little off-putting coming from filmmakers who surely know better but decide to indulge themselves all the same. In the end, what Piranha does well, it does very well indeed, but its lapses in judgment are pretty noticeable, too.
