Posted in: Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on May 9th, 2006
Harrison Ford stars as Jack Stanfield, an online security chief for a mid-sized baking chain. One day, he is introduced to a new possible candidate in Bill Cox (Paul Bettany). We learn this turns out to be a setup. Cox and his men are holding Stanfield's wife (Virginia Madsen) and their two children hostage. In return, Cox demands that Stanfield hack into his bank's computers to transfer a fortune into Cox's offshore accounts.
Firewall, in whole, contains a smart plot, one that makes you think. The ...
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on May 9th, 2006
Fran Drescher, the nasally, whiny-voiced beauty we all either love or hate, returns in The Nanny – The Complete Second Season, and the show hits its stride, if you’re of the belief it ever had one. With mileage out of the mutually aloof Fran Fine-Maxwell Sheffield (played by Charles Shaughnessy) relationship, The Nanny does manage a few chuckles, even from someone such as myself. Let’s make things clear right out of the gate: I’m not a Nanny fan. If I had free reign to decide on everything that w...
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on May 8th, 2006
Synopsis
The Who’s Who of San Francisco is gathering for the grand opening of the Glass Tower, the world’s tallest building. The architect, Paul Newman, is disturbed by what appear to be corners cut in the electrical installations by Richard Chamberlain, and sure enough, a fire starts on the 81st floor. Fire Chief Steve McQueen is soon on the scene, but the situation deteriorates rapidly, and hundreds of celebrants on the top floor are at risk of fiery death.
Producer Irwin Allen’s follow-u...
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on May 8th, 2006
First off, let me say what a great idea it was to remake this film. The original has enjoyed elevated status far too long based only on an intense 23-minute opening sequence. And as good as that opening piece of suspense is, the same exact premise punctuates Bob Clark’s earlier 1974 masterpiece Black Christmas – so even what When a Stranger Calls does well owes a debt of gratitude to an overall better film. Still, I’ll give the Devil his due – knock-off or not, that sequence stands as an effective, inte...
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on May 7th, 2006
Goodfellas tells the story of Henry Hill (Narc’s Ray Liotta), an Irish-Italian kid whose only ambition, it seems, is to be a type of wise-guy kid. In one of the first scenes with Hill we learn that “As far back as I can remember, I always wanted to be gangster.” This line here tends to set the emotion and mood for the whole film. Hill, as a kid at least, is your typical child who defies his parents, struggles to do well in school and wants to hang out with the older looking tough guys down the street. F...
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on May 5th, 2006
Synopsis
Game tester Allen Covert is evicted from his apartment, and winds up rooming with his grandmother (Doris Roberts) and her two friends, the stone-on-meds Shirley Knight and the sexually predatory Shirley Jones. He attempts to keep this rather humiliating set-up secret from co-workers and sexy new boss/potential love interest Linda Cardinelli.
All of this is tied in with game development, and the film is essentially an extended product placement for the Xbox, thus making one question...
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on May 4th, 2006
Swordfish stars Hugh Jackman (X-Men as computer hacker Stanley. Stanley has just spent two years in jail for hacking a program used specifically by the FBI to snoop in on everybody’s email. Enter Halle Berry (also X-Men) as Ginger who has been assigned to recruit Stanley to help stop mastermind Gabriel Shear played by John Travolta (Face-Off). The initial problem here is that Stanley, obviously, doesn’t trust the government. He has been previously forbidden by the courts to come anywhere n...
Posted in: News and Opinions by Archive Authors on May 4th, 2006
The DigitalBits RumorMill is reporting that late 2006 will see the release of the originial (Han shoots first) versions of the trilogy released to DVD. Keep your fingers crossed!
Posted in: News and Opinions by Archive Authors on May 4th, 2006
Click Here to see the Guardian's Top 10 (Blade Runner, 2001, SW: ESB, Alien, Solaris '72, T1/T2, The Day the Earth Stood Still, WoW '53, The Matrix, Close Encounters). Got it? Now, compare and contrast with the Top 25 as detemined by UpcomingDiscs DVD BATTLE. Ummm, someone vote down "Aeon Flux" already. Please.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on May 3rd, 2006
I have been rambling on and on about the merits of this outstanding series to friends, family and innocent bystanders for years. I will continue to do so until the final disc of the final season has hit Amazon.com; and probably for quite some time after that. It is a show that is important, culturally relevant, and surprisingly political without becoming annoyingly partisan.
Season Six is something of a bounceback season for the show. In Season Five, the show floundered a bit. While it was still easily one of...