Posted in: Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on December 7th, 2005
Cinderella Man tells the heartwarming true story of heavyweight fighter James J. Braddock, a man thought to be washed-up, who rises from the ranks of the forgotten to rebuild the life and potential he lost somewhere along the way. It's also one of Ron Howard's finest films, and with a body of work which includes Backdraft, A Beautiful Mind, Apollo 13, Far and Away, and Ransom, this is a fine accomplishment. Unfortunately, this film's success never rose to the level anyone ant...
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on December 7th, 2005
Synopsis
Three of E.T.A. Hoffmann’s fantastic tales were made into an opera by Jacques Offenbach, and that opera was in turn transformed into this 1951 film by Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger. Robert Rounseville takes the lead as a fictional version of Hoffmann himself. While pining after a ballerina, whose love is being stolen from him by an evil aristocrat, he spins three tales of unrequited and doomed love, where in he falls in love first with an automaton, then a soul-stealing (literally) c...
Posted in: News and Opinions by Archive Authors on December 6th, 2005
New Line Home Entertainment will release the David Cronenberg film A History of Violence (starring Viggo Mortensen, Maria Bello, Ed Harris & William Hurt) on February 28th. This disc will be presented in a 1.85:1 anamorphic widescreen transfer, along with both English Dolby Digital 5.1 & DTS audio tracks. Extras will include an audio commentary (by director David Cronenberg), a deleted scene (with optional director's commentary), an "Acts of Violence" documentary, three featurettes ("Violence's History: Un...
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on December 5th, 2005
Titus De Voogdt, Delfine Bafort, and Johan Heldenbergh head a mostly forgettable cast, which tends to fall so far into the background, you'll often forget more than just three actors are in Steve + Sky... and for what it's worth, I believe this stems more from the supporting cast's lack of charisma than it does from any real star power the three headliners bring to the table. The film is more of an inciting situation which throws Steve and Sky together, followed by randomly pointless character bits, which stil...
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on December 5th, 2005
Synopsis
Robert Redford narrates, but his on-screen avatar is Craig Sheffer. He and Brad Pitt are the sons of Presbyterian minister Tom Skerritt. The sons react to their stern father’s teachings in different ways. Sheffer is the good boy who becomes the scholar, while Pitt is the hell-raising journalist with the bad gambling debts. But both brothers do inherit their father’s love of fly fishing, and that is the act that bonds the three men together.
For a film that has very little by way of...
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on December 5th, 2005
Synopsis
This series has a clever conceit, being a sequel to the 1953 version of H.G. Wells’ novel. In the present, a terrorist group breaks into the base where the Martian corpses and war machines are being held. Turns out the Martians aren’t dead after all, and they revive to re-embark on their quest to conquer the Earth. In a budget-conscious move, part of this plan of attack consists in possessing the minds of humans, thus hugely diminishing the effects budget. So new viewers shouldn’t expect any...
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on December 5th, 2005
While VeggieTales: Lord of the Beans is not my thing, I can certainly see how it would connect with very small children. Parents may also throw Phil Vischer and company some appreciation for the positive messages his bunch tries to present in each VeggieTales special, but something about Vischer and crew's latest doesn't feel right. For one, it's a parody -- and a rather faithful one -- to LOTR: Fellowship of the Ring. While it's fine to parody, I think VeggieTales misses the point with their chosen subject matter.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on December 5th, 2005
Missouri Breaks starring Marlon Brando and Jack Nicholson is an overlooked, under-appreciated western, which succeeds where most films fail -- as first a character study, and last an action piece. Set in Montana, Missouri Breaks tells the story of a fun-loving outlaw (Nicholson) and his comrades (including a much younger Randy Quaid and good old Harry Dean Stanton), who set out on a crime spree as a means of payback against an evil land baron responsible for the death of one of their friends.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on December 5th, 2005
Happy Endings is one of those films that makes you rethink being a DVD reviewer. I sat through this excursion into pretentious observations about the way the world is, and the way "average people" are, and thought, "Yeah, sure, this is a slice-of-life. I bet." Oh, I don't mean to say the characters' lives are way too screwed up to be believable. Lord knows, under every ordinary average guy... or gal... there lurks a whole slew of skeletons banging their bony fists against the inside of the closet door. But the extent to which these screwed-up folks bang into one another like aimless bumper cars at a county fair makes one say, "Enough already."
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on December 5th, 2005
Yes, I dreaded this one like the plague. Call it a pure hatred for reality television. But honestly, after starting these episodes, I found myself lending a begrudging respect to it all. If you're unfamiliar with this enormously popular program, here's a brief education. Home interior designers Ty Pennington, Michael Moloney, Constance Ramos, Paul DiMeo, Tracy Hutson, Preston Sharp, and a slew of others, who have made appearances here and there, get together and help some needy family realize their dream home in just seven days.
