Posted in: Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on May 29th, 2006
Tommy Lee Goes to College is a show that was really sort-of set-up to fail from the beginning. NBC used to be the #1 channel on television, but they slipped badly in the ratings once the big reality television boom hit. In a bid to catch up, they took a chance on this show, which would have been much more at home on MTV or even FOX. The end result was something that was surprisingly similar in tone and charm as another rock-and-roll reality show; The Osbourne's. The thing is, the NBC audience is just no... prepared or interested in a show whose target audience is 18-24 year olds.
The fact is, this is not a show that is meant to be serious, or even really all that realistic. It is intended solely for fun, pure and simple. In that light, this show is a slam dunk. It is clear that the editors took very liberal license with the raw footage that they were given to work with. Still, the point of this show is not to provide an accurate portrayal of college life, it is to provide some mindless comedic entertainment.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on May 28th, 2006
The 2005 Version of Assault on Precinct 13 is an obvious remake of John Carpenter’s 1976 classic. Precinct, for Carpenter, was one of his first films made before his ultra famous Halloween. But if anyone has seen the 1976 version, you can easily know what will come from the 2005 version. Instead of making a possible change to the 2005 version, Director Jean-Francois Richet decided to use the similar theme of a police station being abandoned that Carpenter did. Instead though, Richet focuses on the corru...t possibilities of the police. What Richet brings to the table is a few impressive action scenes, a lot of gorgeous snow (especially so in HD), and a few great actors. All this is very impressive considering the low $20 million dollar budget the film had.
In this version of Precinct, the jail is scheduled to close forever at midnight. Burnt-out desk sergeant Jake Fornick (Training Day’s Ethan Hawke) still traumatized by the death of two partners, is on the graveyard shift with old-timer Jasper O'Shea (TV’s The West Wing) announces he will soon retire. Jake just tends to sit around popping bottles of pills trying to overcome his this pain in his life. That is until some terror arrives. Bishop (The Matrix Trilogy’s Laurence Fishburne) has been arrested and is being transported along with Beck (Empire’s John Leguizamo) and a few others including a character played by rapper Ja Rule. Everything seems to be going fine until a big accident blocks the highway to the jail. So, to get these criminals off their backs, the guards decide to dump Bishop and the select others off at Precinct 13. Unfortunately, the guards didn’t know that Bishop’s men are determined to set him free.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on May 28th, 2006
As is the case with many of Criterion's releases, Viridiana is a film that was quite controversial upon its original release, and to some extent, still is today. The film's namesake is a young woman who is just a week away from taking part in the investiture ceremony, her convent receives a letter from her Uncle, who sends his regrets that he will be unable to attend the event. The convent's Mother Superior sends Viridiana to see this Uncle, and that's where the trouble begins.
The Uncle is a single ol... man who lives in self-imposed isolation, save for a servant and the servants daughter. Once Viridiana arrives at his estate, she discovers that the Uncle has some plans for her that will certainly not agree with her faith. While most films see this as enough of a plot to complete a film, this setup is just the tip of the iceberg here.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on May 27th, 2006
The Adult Swim series of shows from Cartoon Network are sometimes amazingly hilarious, sometimes overly bizarre, but always creative. While some of the shows, such as Robot Chicken are roll-on-the-floor funny, others are just too strange for me. Lucky for me, The Venture Bros. falls into the first category. While not a constant source of laughter, this show is always clever and contains a few big laughs in each episode.
The Venture brothers are the sons of a moderately-successful scientis.... His feelings about the keen (and possibly homosexual) gents are not exactly warm and fuzzy. While he doesn't want anything to happen to them (as evidenced by the fact that they have a bodyguard that feels like he is right out of a Sin City comic), this is really more of a “Dr. Evil / Scott Evil” relationship. The episodes also largely see the boys as an obstacle to the Dr.'s plots at becoming the world's greatest scientist, which makes me wonder why they have become the shows namesake.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on May 27th, 2006
It seems like I keep saying this, but here we go again... Jennifer Anniston is way too good of an actress to be stuck in this film. Now, that's certainly not to imply that Shirley Maclaine isn't fantastic as well, but that's a given. Anniston is clearly the star of this film, and it's easy to see what attracted her to it. Not only is it a romantic comedy directed by Rob Reiner, but the premise is a really clever one. While in town for her sister's wedding, Sarah (Anniston) discovers that her family was the inspirati...n for the book The Graduate. How could something with a plot this clever not work out?
This film may be the ultimate example of a great premise wasted. There are so many different things wrong with this film, but many of them can be boiled down to this; too many coincidences. Scene after scene is filled with conversations that work out in just the right way so as the actors get just the information they were looking for at just the right time. The plot is forced on the story, instead of the story leading the plot. The result is a movie that is a big, clumsy train wreck, instead of the fascinating and smart story that it should have been.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on May 26th, 2006
Synopsis
Syd (Chris Evans) is still mourning his break-up with London (Jessica Biel), drowning his sorrow in booze and cocaine. When he hears that she is leaving New York, and there’s a going-away party for her, he decides to crash the scene, dragging along Bateman (Jason Stratham), a businessman from whom he has just scored more coke. Arriving at the party before the guest of honour (and just about everybody else), the two men retreat to the spacious bathroom where they will spend much of the film, ...nhaling vast quantities of drugs and opining about everything under the sun.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on May 25th, 2006
I've never met anybody who doesn't like Penn and Teller. I'm not saying that those people don't exist, I'm just saying that I have never met them. Penn is loquacious and amusing, Teller is the ultimate straight man, and their magic almost always catches the viewer off guard. Many times, the understood premise of the trick itself actually turns into something different by the time the performance is over.
Unfortunately, this disc has some problems that makes it one of their worst performances. The concept is a...great one... Penn and Teller do various tricks under (and with the aid of) water. Unfortunately, thisis aprogram hat was created first and foremost for a television broadcast. The reason this is an issue is that the DVD version of the show is pulled directly from the television cut, complete with “title bugs” in the bottom corner of the screen, “next up” teases and the like. In fact, the first ten minutes of this hour and twenty-eight minute program is solely comprised of showing the viewer what they will see in the program. There are so many of these recap and teaser segments that I'd say that actual entertainment content of this disc is just a bit more than half of the discs total running time. What a waste of an opportunity.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on May 25th, 2006
Synopsis
Years after the disastrous end of Kevin Bacon’s experiment with invisibility, the process has been revived with intent to create a super-soldier. Christan Slater (as Michael Griffin, the last name being a nod to the original Invisible Man) is the soldier experimented on, but he’s an uncontrollable killing machine. Denied the “buffer” – the injection that will prevent the lethal side effects of the invisibility formula, he tracks down the one person who knows how to create it: biologist Laura...Regan. Soon she and Peter Facinelli as the cop determined to protect her are on the run from both the invisible psychopath and the equally dangerous and amoral authorities.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on May 25th, 2006
I've never met anybody who doesn't like Penn and Teller. I'm not saying that those people don't exist, I'm just saying that I have never met them. Penn is loquacious and amusing, Teller is the ultimate straight man, and their magic almost always catches the viewer off guard. Many times, the understood premise of the trick itself actually turns into something different by the time the performance is over.
Unfortunately, this disc has some problems that makes it one of their worst performances. The concept is a...great one... Penn and Teller do various tricks under (and with the aid of) water. Unfortunately, thisis aprogram hat was created first and foremost for a television broadcast. The reason this is an issue is that the DVD version of the show is pulled directly from the television cut, complete with “title bugs” in the bottom corner of the screen, “next up” teases and the like. In fact, the first ten minutes of this hour and twenty-eight minute program is solely comprised of showing the viewer what they will see in the program. There are so many of these recap and teaser segments that I'd say that actual entertainment content of this disc is just a bit more than half of the discs total running time. What a waste of an opportunity.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on May 24th, 2006
There really was (and still is) no justice in the world when a show like NewsRadio was perennially ignored so often during the mid and late '90s. I mean seriously, get a comic mind from Canada's The Kids in the Hall (Dave Foley), another from the States Saturday Night Live (Phil Hartman), and yet another from the dark comedy Ben Stiller Show (Andy Dick) and give them some sitcom material to work with, and the result can be nothing but laughs.
And that's what NewsRadio was about. But it didn't go for cheap laughs where the cast would either yell their lines or make exaggerated reaction shots for the folks in the crowd. There was layer upon layer of laughs. Aside from the stories, there were small character quirks that fans of the show will always remember. Lisa (Maura Tierney, ER) has a somewhat veiled propensity to get drunk and (surprise!) has a criminal background. And speaking of mysterious backgrounds, there's the station owner Jimmy James (Stephen Root, Office Space), a fairly goofy billionaire who is on an eternal "wife search" while sometimes hinting that yes, he may in fact be Deep Throat from the Watergate scandal.
![Assault on Precinct 13 [HD DVD] dvd cover art](https://upcomingdiscs.com/ecs_covers/assault-on-precinct-13-hd-dvd-large.jpg)
