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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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)
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.
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.
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”
