Posted in: Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on February 27th, 2007
If you've seen any of Terry Gilliam's other films, you can probably guess that this one is pretty bizarre. Based on the novel of the same name by Mitch Cullen, Tideland is an eccentric, grotesque and imaginative tale of a child's resilience.
I'm going to say right off the top, I wanted to like Tideland, and for two reasons. One, Gilliam has made some incredible films in his career, from Monty Python and the Holy Grail to Twelve Monkeys and Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas. Other than the flawed Brothers Grimm, it's been seven years since a Gilliam-helmed film was released. So I wanted to like this one. I really did. Unfortunately, while I admired the creativity in Tideland, and was at times intrigued and repulsed, I ultimately found the film extremely unsatisfying.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on February 26th, 2007
The Prestige surprised me like no other film has since The Usual Suspects. The entire film plays out like a good bit of misdirection, slight of hand and illusion, with some pseudo-science thrown in for good measure.
Robert Angier (Hugh Jackman, X-Men) and Alfred Borden (Christian Bale, Batman Begins) are rival magicians, both inspiring to be the best the world has ever seen. They began as partners, working together as assistants to an established magician, but when a trick goes terribly wrong, their relationship is forever changed. When each man sets out on his own, their rivalry grows as fast as their individual careers, with each of them suspicious of the other, and always striving to learn the other's secrets. The question is, who will win in the end, and what will be the cost of victory?
Posted in: Highly Defined, News and Opinions by Archive Authors on February 26th, 2007
Well, the news late today about Sony deciding to come into the affordably priced standalone market by introducing a Blu-Ray player of their own that will come out in the spring/early summer. The BDP-S300 will retail for $600 and unlike the first gen that’s $300 more, will actually include CD playback. So now that they’re making their strides towards affordable hardware (stop with the PS3 argument) with more price drops to come, it’ll be interesting to see when, how much and how often the cheaper HD-DVD equipment does...
In terms of disc releases this week, both camps share the Steve McQueen films Bullitt and The Getaway, and the Nine Inch Nails film Beside You in Time, while the Blu-Ray gang gets Stranger Than Fiction as an exclusive.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on February 24th, 2007
As I right this review, the date is February 24th, 2007 one day before the Annual Academy Award Ceremony, which is a show that this film is nominated in the Best Picture category for. Numerous other reviewers, whether they're critical or simply just internet journalists like myself, have labeled this one as this year's Crash. A statement like that made me worry going into this one because simply put Crash isn't Best Picture material nor is it even close to Best Picture material. While I haven't seen every other Best Picture nominee, I wouldn't completely mind if the Academy did award Babel with the Oscar.
Babel tells the story of Richard (Brad Pitt) and Susan (Cate Blanchett), two rather wealthy Americans from San Diego who're vacationing in Morocco. Their two kids are back in San Diego with their Mexican housekeeper named Amelia. During their vacation in the country, a local herdsmans' young children find a rifle and, unknowingly, take aim and fire at passing spectators on a bus. Unfortunately Susan is hurt during the incident. At the same time we learn that a trip involving Richard, Amelia and Richard's two children has put these characters in a complex situation that may result in them not being able to return to America. And at the same time as that's occurring, another event is occurring in Tokyo involving a widower who just happens to be tied to the earlier mentioned rifle via an ownership right. But this widower also has to worry about the straining relationship he's having with his deaf daughter Chieko.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on February 23rd, 2007
For the sake of full disclosure, I wrote this review while I was sitting in a meeting. For the sake of having a challenge, I wanted to start every sentence in this review with the name of the movie, for no discernible reason whatsoever. Feel free to call shenanigans on me at any time, as it helped me get through my meeting and to a larger extent, the film.
Crossover is a film that at least as of this writing, has no positive reviews on Rotten Tomatoes for some sort of reason, and I think that's because of the razor sharp casting that was employed. Crossover includes Anthony Mackie, who was more recently seen as the drug dealing Frank in the Ryan Gosling Oscar-nominated film Half Nelson, but that's the only praiseworthy casting decision in the film. Crossover includes a supporting performance by Wayne Brady (Whose Line is it Anyway?) who is supposed to be a greedy sports agent who is running an underground street basketball league involving several teams, however in playing a bad guy, he makes his appearance in Chappelle's Show look really smart, because he's simply not believable. Crossover has a female role played by Eva Pigford, who was more recently seen in America's Next Top Model, so I guess if you can impress the scrutinizing eye of Tyra Banks, there's nowhere to go but up. Crossover also features a few real life "streetballers", including one whose name is "hot sauce". Crossover doesn't explain why this nickname was given, but I think it's the second dumbest athletic nickname I've heard, save for those whose nickname is the first letter of their first name and the first three letters of the last, like A-Rod, T-Mac.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on February 23rd, 2007
Comments on the supplemental material on this edition have been ported over from Brendan Surpless' excellent (and recent) review of the Blu-Ray disc, which also can be enjoyed on this site.
Now onto the review...
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on February 23rd, 2007
If you'd asked me last year whether I thought Ridley Scott and Russell Crowe should work together again, I would have said "absolutely." No hesitation. We're talking about the director and star of Gladiator, after all, and I'd love to see another epic picture from that team.
What I didn't expect to see was A Good Year, a romantic comedy that wholeheartedly joins the ranks of the "wine is like life" camp. What's with that, anyway? Maybe it's time to move on to another beverage, like coffee. You know, coffee and life have a lot in common - plenty of lessons to be learned there.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on February 20th, 2007
We all know that Daniel Craig helped effectively reboot the James Bond movie franchise in 2006 with the amazing Casino Royale. But let's not forget that Pierce Brosnan was at the helm of the first Bond "rebirth" in Goldeneye. Brosnan was the darling of Bond producer Albert Broccoli in the mid '80s, but was unable to take the role because of his then-current commitment to the television show Remington Steele. Assuming he could have gotten the job back then, he would have followed Roger Moore after A View to a Kill. But alas, Timothy Dalton had to come aboard and appeared in The Living Daylights and Licence to Kill. When Brosnan finally was available, the decision was made to quickly snap him up.
Goldeneye was the first of Brosnan's four movies as the guy who likes his martinis shaken and not stirred. It covers Bond in a new way, now that the Cold War is over and Russia isn't what it used to be. He is forced to flee a Russian stronghold from the grasp of a Russian general who executed a friend and fellow agent Alec Trevelyan (Sean Bean, Ronin). Fast forward several years later, Bond is dispatched to find a Russian device called Goldeneye, which is a electromagnetic pulse that wipes out any electronic device.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on February 19th, 2007
Seriously, have criminals ever been this cool or this much fun to watch? Since Ocean's Eleven, I mean. For those that don't know, Hu$tle is a BBC drama that follows the exploits of a team of five con artists as they “earn” their keep. For the sake of keeping the charaters interesting, the majority of the jobs they pull target people who deserve to be conned. Sort of a modern day band of Merry Men, so to speak. If you are a fan of Spooks (known as MI-5 here in the states), you will probably...be drawn to this show, as the same creator is behind both programs.
It is really fun to see how the characters are able to manipulate people to get what they want. The five members of the team each have their own special areas of expertise, and they way they work together is amazingly synchronized. I was afraid that with a plot as specific as this one, it would be easy to fall into the same trap that American shows such as Without a Trace have fallen into. There is only so much that can change each week, and before long, viewers are left to watch the same basic story episode after episode. Brilliantly, this show only has six episodes per season. This allows the shows producers to keep the quality high and not over-saturate the viewership. The show is currently enjoying its fourth season on the air, so it appears that the plan is working. I know I'm hooked in.
Posted in: Highly Defined, News and Opinions by Archive Authors on February 19th, 2007
Welcome one and all to the circus that is the format war. Well, let’s skip past the part where Sony will be putting copies of Casino Royale into their PS3s for the European launch, along with Fox’s announcement of Eragon on Blu-Ray for 3/20, along with rumors of Jaws on HD-DVD not dying anytime soon and Disney’s rumored releases of the two Pirates of the Caribbean and Sin City movies, and tackle a shot fired across the bow in the online community.
I like Bill Hunt and read...his work at The Digital bits from time to time. And I’m sure the guy knows what he’s talking about. He’s got studio ties (which I don), and he’s put out a book (which I haven’t), so bully to him for it. But, from the perspective of someone who a) doesn’t post in AVS Forums and b) is an enthusiast without being an extremist about DVD, home theater and film, allow me to throw whatever cred I’ve got into this discussion, without too much perspective or insight.
![Babel [HD-DVD] dvd cover art](https://upcomingdiscs.com/ecs_covers/babel-hd-dvd-large.jpg)
