Posted in: Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on August 30th, 2006
Written By Jeff Mardo
This is a Parker Posey film, which in itself is enough of a reason for me to check this film out. However, I was surprised to find that Josh Hamilton is here as well. While you may not know the name of Josh Hamilton right away, the two of them worked together in a brilliantly satirical film called The House of Yes; one of my personal favorites. In fact, there are several things that tie these two films together in my mind. While both are very funny and disturbing films, the charm in them both is the tension hi...ing just beneath the satire. The tension here is that uneasy feeling of just what to do once you have finished your years at college, and you are forced to go out into the real world. It is that depressing no man's land between knowledge and action.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on August 29th, 2006
Director Tony Scott’s thriller Spy Game pairs up Robert Redford and Brad Pitt for a second time – Redford previously directed Pitt in A River Runs Through It. Redford plays Nathan Muir, a man who is a on the brink of retirement from the CIA. As he is cleaning out his office, Muir is told that fellow CIA Agent Tom Bishop (Pitt) has broken into a Chinese prison simply to rescue the woman he loves. Doesn’t sound too bad, does it? It turns out that the CIA thinks that the Chinese are going to try to extra...t as much information from Bishop as possible (read information as secrets). Muir has to scramble and see if he can get Bishop out in less than 24 hours before Bishop is scheduled for execution.
Tony Scott, the director of Crimson Tide and Enemy at the State, is just as skillful here as he has been in his past efforts. While the ideas presented in Spy Game are nothing groundbreaking, Scott adds another level of credibility to the film with his interesting twist of direction. Released theatrically in 2001 following a number of box-office disasters (such as Pearl Harbor), Scott’s stylistic thriller was a welcome addition to the November frame. Both lead actors, Redford (who always seem to be on his ‘A’ game no matter what film he stars in) and Pitt (overly-publicized but a great actor despite the hatred some have for him), deliver fine performances.
Posted in: Highly Defined, News and Opinions by Archive Authors on August 28th, 2006
I feel like a kid in some sort of a store…
Well the week has seen some surprises, concrete or not for both camps. First and foremost, the 2.0 Firmware for the Toshiba HD player is out now. There has been some glowing praise, not only for the firmware (which now allows TruHD), but for the continuing consumer support. Bill Hunt at The Digital Bits was the first to really publicly comment on the job Toshiba (and the HD camp is doing), and while as an HD owner I can agree with it, one also has to remembe... that HD did have a couple month head start on things, we’ll see how they prepare for the release of some of the newer (read: probably better) Blu-Ray players in the coming months. While I haven’t had the chance to download it yet, I will be doing so soon and promptly throwing in Constantine to check it out. So the question for the dear reader is would you like to see revamped scores on the available discs with the TruHD soundtrack?
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on August 27th, 2006
Synopsis
I wanted to like Annapolis. I really did. I appreciated the intent of the film without having a full awareness of what it was about. I thought it kind of served as a de facto publicity film for the Naval Academy. But as I was watching it, several things started on course for me to dislike the film.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on August 25th, 2006
Synopsis
Marilyn Monroe was THE blonde bombshell. Jayne Mansfield was the cartoon version of Monroe, bombshell become sex bomb, with proportions so improbable she could give Barbie an inferiority complex. Her cartoon figure makes it appropriate that two of the movies here are directed by a specialist in cartoons: Frank Tashlin. In fact, this set might almost be more appropriately called the Frank Tashlin Collection.
Posted in: News and Opinions by Archive Authors on August 24th, 2006
Discussing the old school DVD’s that still sound and look great in the era of Blu-Ray and HD-DVD technology.
Mr. And Mrs. Smith will likely be remembered more for being the film that put Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie on the road to saving the world, one Cambodian child at a time, than being an enjoyable action-comedy film. Though despite all the media buzz over the film prior to its release, it actually turned out to be a financial and critical success, unlike Gigli, a film tha... was also much-hyped due to off-screen romance of the film’s two stars.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on August 23rd, 2006
Synopsis
In the mid 90's, poachers are decimating the antelope population in the pristine lands of Kekexili. The locals have organized themselves to fight back, and now one of their patrolmen has been murdered by the poachers. Ga Yu, a journalist from Beijing, arrives to cover the story. Initially rejected by the leader of the mountain patrol, Ga Yu is taken in by the group when he suggests his coverage might help turn the area into a wilderness preserve. A long, grueling, dangerous manhunt ensues.>
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on August 23rd, 2006
Synopsis
Arriving late one night at a village near Canterbury are an English sergeant (Dennis Price), and American one (Sgt. John Sweet) and a landgirl (Sheila Sim). As they leave the train station, Sim is set upon by a mysterious figure who dumps glue all over her hair. The trio become amateur detectives, determined to unmask the “glue man” and their suspicion first falls on Eric Porter, the local magistrate who is consumed by an enormous love for the countryside.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on August 23rd, 2006
It’s always interesting when works of art (books, plays, films, etc…) are updated from their native settings. Baz Lurhman’s Romeo + Juliet took the Bard’s most famous play and set it in modern day California, making it fresh again. Francis Ford Coppola set Conrad’s Heart of Darkness during the Vietnam War, making Apocalypse Now one of the most revered and realistic films of that era. There are several more examples in this trend that deserve to be mentioned, but I must fast-forward to the film a... hand. That is Brick, a film written and directed by newcomer Rian Johnson. Johnson wisely sets his film noir story in a modern day California high school. The update takes a while to get used to, but after a small buffer period, Brick becomes a fresh spin on the film noir genre, who’s day has come and gone.
Joseph Gordon-Levitt plays Brenden, a high school student who watches as his ex-girlfriend, Emily (Lost’s Emile de Ravin), falls into the wrong crowd and winds up dead. After Brenden receives a panicked call for help shortly before her death, he dives into the drug-dealing underworld inhabiting his school to find out who done Emily wrong. As with most film noir films, Brenden discovers that the truth behind Emily’s death is not simply a black and white issue. Brenden is also aided by a femme fatal in Laura (Nora Zehetner), who may or may not be on his side.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on August 23rd, 2006
Synopsis
Imagine my surprise that there was a miniseries made about the threat of bioterror, and that this cloak and dagger miniseries (that aired at some time on network TV) sported two Oscar winners, neither of them men! Anjelica Huston (Prizzi’s Honor) and Mira Sorvino (Mighty Aphrodite) are part of a wide ranging series that is set over several continents, and explores the possibility of a bio-terror attack in the US.
![Spy Game [HD DVD] dvd cover art](https://upcomingdiscs.com/ecs_covers/spy-game-hd-dvd-large.jpg)
