Posted in: No Huddle Reviews by Archive Authors on December 18th, 2012
Ken Follett has written many historical novels from many periods such as World War II and the Hundred Years War. World Without End is part of the latter. It is a sequel to Pillars of the Earth. Both have been made into mini-series. World Without End takes place 157 years after Pillars and features descendants from the first book. It was broadcast in the USA, UK and Canada and is now available on DVD.
Kingsbridge is the fictional town in England which all the events revolve around. It begins in 1327 after King Edward II loses a brutal civil war to his French wife, Queen Isabella. Isabella crowns her son Edward the new king. There are characters from every level of medieval society and over eight episodes dozens of individuals have a major impact on the story. I will say at the outset that much of the mini-series plays as an old-fashioned soap opera. Heroes and heroines are at odds with some of the blackest and most unsavory of villains. Some of the villains are in sheep's clothing, or in this case, cleric’s robes. Nearly every kind of treachery is displayed from husbands kicking wives down stairs, sister poisoning brother, brother sword-fighting brother, father raping daughter, and, of course, the rich and powerful subjugating the poor into lives of endless suffering. There is the Hundred Years War and then the ultimate plague, The Black Death.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on November 15th, 2012
"Nice Greek girls are supposed to do three things: marry Greek boys, make Greek babies, and feed everyone until the day we die."
If ever a movie could be negatively affected by monstrous box office numbers, it’s My Big Fat Greek Wedding. When a five-million-dollar film rides a tsunami of critical buzz and excellent word-of-mouth past the two hundred million dollar box office gross (finally ending somewhere over $230 million), it’s impossible to see it for the first time completely free of expectation. Perhaps this was my mistake, because I went into my first viewing of the king of sleeper hits excited to a super-duper romantic comedy. …I’m not sure exactly what I was hoping for. Was it a hearty helping of belly laughs? This film offers sparse and modest chuckles at best. Perhaps it was some sort of originality within its predictable story arc. Instead, this is a by-the-numbers romcom with by-the-numbers romcom characters. Maybe I was hoping for a film that could at least approach capturing the profundity of love, or the reality of struggles with culturally divergent family values. Whatever it was, I felt pretty unfulfilled by the time it was all over, even though I found the movie reasonably enjoyable.
Posted in: No Huddle Reviews by Archive Authors on October 25th, 2012
Coma was a movie with Michael Douglas in the 70's. It has now been redone as a miniseries with a running time of 160 minutes in 2012. It has a large and familiar cast including JamesWoods, Geena Davis, Richard Dreyfuss, Joe Morton, and Ellen Burstyn, but the lead is Lauren Ambrose (Six Feet Under) who plays a surgical intern at an institute that is named after his grandfather. The institute is world famous for being the best place to care for patients in an advanced vegetative state, or in other words, coma. It is based on a novel by Robin Cook who is known for his medical thrillers.
The Jefferson Institute has been under scrutiny by investigative journalists because it houses its patients at a fraction of the cost of other facilities. For those of you who are not already familiar with the story, I won't say more. It is simply important that you know that this is a breakneck thriller full of the worst kinds of villains. It was produced by Scott Free, the company run by two world famous directors, Ridley and Tony Scott. Tony Scott has been in the news recently for committing suicide at 68 with a heavy roster of planned films including Top Gun 2 with Tom Cruise. The mystery of his death casts a shadow over this production full of dangerous conspiracies.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on October 16th, 2012
“Greed is Good.”
No other cinematic phrase described the 1980’s better. And no other movie captures the financial corruption of the 80’s better than Oliver Stone’s Wall Street. Bud Fox (Charlie Sheen) is a small-time stockbroker, making cold calls to businessmen who won’t give him the time of day. His father, Carl (Martin Sheen), is a hardworking airline mechanic for a fledgling airline and is worried about the path his son is headed down when big-time investment broker Gordon Gekko (Michael Douglas) takes Bud under his wing. At first, Bud loves the money, the women, and the power that Gekko gives him. But when Bud involves his father in one of his investment schemes, he sees Gekko for the greedy slimeball he really is, and starts to see the error of his previous ways.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on October 11th, 2012
Among the more unjustly ignored performances was Jack Nicholson’s turn as union boss Jimmy Hoffa in Hoffa. Fox finally decided to put out the Danny DeVito-directed, David Mamet-written film on DVD. Mamet’s script seems to romanticize Hoffa, portraying him as more of a union man, as one who was forced to make deals that could compromise his integrity, but he overlooks his integrity in order to help benefit the American working man. The story is told in the point of view of Hoffa aide Bobby (DeVito), a fictitious character whose flashbacks are used to help us see how Hoffa perhaps should be viewed, as opposed to the punchline in some jokes we may make now.
As is usually the case with Mamet’s screenplay, the dialog is well-written and engrossing, and Nicholson’s portrayal of Hoffa is both powerful and persuasive. You see him with a prosthetic nose and hairpiece, along with a couple of dental devices that get the look of Hoffa down to a T. In DeVito, a longtime real-life friend, one who knows his ins and outs, Nicholson pulls out all the stops. Recent Nicholson performances seem to glide along on a gentle stride, using the occasional (and very effective) use of his noteworthy eyes. But in Hoffa, he’s a guy who is clearly more animated, as the role dictates, and it’s a much more dynamic performance than you’re used to seeing. Is Hoffa historically accurate? Probably not, and God knows there are more informed people who will tell you so. However, DeVito does manage to use the time period where Jimmy feuded openly with Robert Kennedy to great effect, using the congressional hearings as an interesting start of a plot device that helps provide an interesting hypothetical on Hoffa’s possible Mafia ties. With an outstanding supporting cast including Robert Prosky (Hill Street Blues), the late JT Walsh (Sling Blade), Armand Assante (Q & A) and a very young John C. Reilly (Chicago), the movie’s overall impact is very clearly felt.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on September 21st, 2012
Written by Bob Ross and David Annandale
Bill Paxton accompanies James Cameron on another expedition to the Titanic, and narrates this documentary about their exploration of the ship. Though the narration is hobbled by an endless stream of pseudo-profundities, the underwater photography is simply stunning. Thanks to two remote-controlled robots, we get to see the interior of the ship. Computer animation and superimposed extras (the ghosts of the title) both re-create the ship as it once was, and help us visualize where…we are in the wreckage, and what transpired there.
Posted in: No Huddle Reviews by Archive Authors on September 17th, 2012
The Letter is a brand new film starring Winona Ryder and James Franco, and I think Winona is a beautiful as she has ever been. She was a big A-list star when she was younger, but then she had some legal problems that seemed to derail her. She resumed worked though in high profile projects like The Black Swan, Mr. Deeds, and The Dilemma playing bad girls. James Franco is also a big name and has a high profile, even co-hosting the Oscars (though that did not work out very well). Franco has a tendency to do lots of oddball projects. His projects are ambitious and far-reaching. He has big project coming up from his Spider Man director that serves as a prequel to The Wizard of Oz. He seems willing to take chances.
The Letter is an odd project. Winona (Martine Jamison) is directing a play, and the film is dreamily narrated by her as free-form thoughts. An early glimpse of a play of hers seems arty and serious. It seems she writes her plays as well. As we see her and hear her thoughts we know that she seems somewhat disconnected, and we are not sure she is just searching her way through the creative process.
Posted in: No Huddle Reviews by Archive Authors on September 17th, 2012
The History Channel likes to market some of its more popular shows on DVD. The series Modern Marvels had a winner in James Bond Gadgets. It certainly ties in with a James Bond movie collection. This DVD has three sections, two of them devoted to the gadgets and a third from the Biography channel on Ian Fleming which adds up to over three hours of material.
The jet pack was an early favorite. This is remembered from the film Thunderball. The jet pack has been around for 35 years, and there is actually one that remains in use to this day and has been an uproarious addition to sporting events. A similar device is an auto gyro, which is a kind of one-man mini helicopter. A type of this vehicle was used in You Only Live Twice. There is a Q-Boat from The World Is Not Enough. The Aston Martin DB5 from Goldfinger. The BMW Z8 in The World Is Not Enough, which is cut in half in the film. The Lotus from The Spy Who Loved Me, which was a submarine car. The BMW 750 from Tomorrow Never Dies with dozens of defense systems. The Rolls Royce Phantom 3 from Goldfinger. The Aston Martin V12 Vanquish which is priced around $250,000 dollars and is one of the latest Bond cars. Then it shows modern spy devices that are actually used today and how they were inspired by Bond. Then we visit Special Tactical Services in Virginia which is a training complex for all kinds of elite weapons and equipment expertise. It includes every type of specialized training that will prepare an operative for anything unexpected in the field. The second program elaborates on the first with Acrostar Mini Jet and the Spiral Jump stunt and all sorts of Bond arcana.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on July 31st, 2012
Perhaps one of the best known science fiction authors ever, Phillip K. Dick’s short stories and novels have been the basis for many film adaptations including The Minority Report, Paycheck, A Scanner Darkly, Blade Runner, and the upcoming release Next. Of course the reason I mention Phillip K. Dick is because Total Recall is based upon his story We Can Remember It for you Wholesale. In the past Total Recall has been known for quite a few reasons – its achievements in special affects, its high budget, the re-launch of Sharon Stone’s career – but ultimately when we think of Total Recall we all think of the big guy himself, Arnold Schwarzenegger.
Set in 2084, Douglas Quaid (Arnold Schwarzenegger) is an average-joe construction worker who as of late can’t stop dreaming about being on Mars. Though there is in fact a population on Mars, it is a conflict zone unsafe for travel as the tyrant Vilos Cohaagen has a monopoly on the oxygen which is heavily disputed by a group of rebels. Instead Quaid goes to Rekall – a company which will implant memories into his mind making him believe he was in fact on a vacation to Mars. Quaid opts to go for the vacation where he is a secret agent on a special mission on Mars called “Blue Skies on Mars.” While undergoing the procedure alarms start going off, it turns out that Quaid’s mind has already been altered; he has an outburst which results in him being subdued and his memory of ever going to Rekall erased.
Posted in: No Huddle Reviews by Archive Authors on July 3rd, 2012
The opening scene of Black Limousine is highly dramatic and highly deceptive. We open on a space station beginning to explode and disintegrate in orbit as a female astronaut tries to revive a seemingly dead male crew member. The music swells as the explosions beginning to trigger and expand. The credits roll. We see David Arquette sitting in a crowded theater watching the screen. He then lingers outside the theater looking at a movie poster and trailing his fingers across the words “Music by Jack McKenzie”. His fingers snap away and he walks off morosely. That is a very effective way to introduce the story and the character. He was a big shot, and yet his car is vaguely shabby with a small dent on the side door.
The next scene is his interview at the limousine service, which mentions that he was involved in a fatal accident that was another driver’s fault. Clearly this a man who needs to get his life back on track. He’s got a daughter that he shares custody for as he tries to regain the talent and notoriety he had before.
