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Brick

Posted in Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on August 23rd, 2006

It’s always interesting when works of art (books, plays, films, etc…) are updated from their native settings. Baz Lurhman’s Romeo + Juliet took the Bard’s most famous play and set it in modern day California, making it fresh again. Francis Ford Coppola set Conrad’s Heart of Darkness during the Vietnam War, making Apocalypse Now one of the most revered and realistic films of that era. There are several more examples in this trend that deserve to be mentioned, but I must fast-forward to the film a…
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Robert Ludlum’s Covert One: The Hades Factor

Posted in Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on August 23rd, 2006

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Synopsis

Imagine my surprise that there was a miniseries made about the threat of bioterror, and that this cloak and dagger miniseries (that aired at some time on network TV) sported two Oscar winners, neither of them men! Anjelica Huston (Prizzi’s Honor) and Mira Sorvino (Mighty Aphrodite) are part of a wide ranging series that is set over several continents, and explores the possibility of a bio-terror attack in the US.

Based on the book by Robert Ludlum, the man responsible for t…
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L.A. Story

Posted in Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on August 22nd, 2006

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Steve Martin plays a wacky TV weatherman, who develops a close friendship with an electronic freeway sign in the sleeper hit comedy L.A. Story. I found the critically acclaimed film to lack hilarity, but it does get marks for inventiveness. Martin is enjoyable in most anything he’s in, even if the material is not-so-great. L.A. Story is one such example of an actor rising above said material. Most of the over-the-top silliness misses the mark, and Marilu Henner has little more to do than play the cliche…
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Don’t Come Knocking

Posted in Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on August 22nd, 2006

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Burned out actor Howard Spense (Sam Shepard) has a mid-life crisis, rides off the set of his latest western, and visits his mother (Eva Marie Saint), whom he has not seen in over 30 years. Mother Spense informs Howard that he has a son named Earl, (Gabriel Mann) living in Butte, Montana from a fling he had with Doreen (Jessica Lange), while he was there shooting on location 20 years ago. Upon arriving in Butte (he gravitates there more than actually arriving), Howard also meets Sky (Sarah Polley), a mysterious woman …
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The Death of Plasma

Posted in News and Opinions by Archive Authors on August 21st, 2006

Ars Technica asks today “Is Plasma Doomed?” Citing the fact that LCD’s now overlap with plasma in terms of size and (arguably) picture quality, along with the fact that certain manufacturers are stopping plasma development and production to shift to LCD’s, the author suggests that “Plasma vs. LCD” is comparable to the apocryphal “Beta vs. VHS” battle.

Anyway, interesting observation that plasma is getting clobbered, but personally, I can’t see i…
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Avdeco – the exploding component / TV shelf

Posted in News and Opinions by Archive Authors on August 21st, 2006

Watch your back if you own an “Avdeco” branded component and TV shelf with glass shelves:

http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?t=713200

Highly Defined – The World of High Definition

Posted in Highly Defined, News and Opinions by Archive Authors on August 21st, 2006

Highly Defined

How long until Madden comes out?

Just the usual news and notes from me, but in mildly disappointing news, RoboCop, and Black Hawk Down, 2 Blu-Ray titles that would have made the race a little more interesting, were pulled or bumped from the released calendar until who knows when (presumably until the whole MGM/Sony distribution issue can be hashed out).

Meanwhile in terms of other release news, while Blu-Ray owners can’t wait for the previously released Warne…
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My Summer Story

Posted in Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on August 20th, 2006

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Synopsis

A Christmas Story featured a charming, old-fashioned story about Ralphie (Peter Billingsley, Elf), who wanted nothing more in life than to get a Red Ryder BB Gun. His parents (played by Darren McGavin (Raw Deal) and Melinda Dillon (Magnolia)) in the depression era-Midwest kept him in check as he pleaded with them to get it for Xmas.

Now in cinema life, the next summer gave Ralphie the chance to spin tops (and look for the best one possible), while his mother an…
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Arrested Development – Season Two

Posted in Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on August 20th, 2006

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Synopsis

So when you’re the head of Fox prime time programming, and you’ve got a television staple like The Simpsons on your Sunday night lineup, and Arrested Development wins the Best Comedy Series Emmy in its first season, what do you do? Well you callously trim the order of episodes from 22 to 18, put The Simpsons as its lead-in without a lot of fanfare, and almost even more egregiously barely hype guest appearances by well-established comic performers like Julia Louis-Dreyfus (Se…
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Veronica Mars – The Complete Second Season

Posted in Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on August 19th, 2006

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Clearly, I am in the minority when it comes to Veronica Mars. Reviewers go on and on about the sharp writing on this show, but I just don’t see it. With character names like “Beaver”, “Butters”, “Weevil” and my favorite, “Dick Casablancas”, this is a show where the writing is actually one of the things that is wrong with this show. (And yes, Beaver and Dick are friends. How’s that for creativity?) The character of Wallace is an African American stereotype that is embarrassing, and stinks of what old while people think young black men are like.
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Duck Season

Posted in Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on August 19th, 2006

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Written By Jeff Mardo

This disc certainly had me fooled. I though I was in for another one of those lame teenage “comedies” where the emphasis is on lame and cliché jokes and the occasional glimpse of gratuitous nudity. What I wound, however, was a wonderful movie that is the very definition of an indie film. If you liked Kevin Smith’s first foray into filmmaking, then you will probably like this piece as well. I would contend that Clerks was a better film, but this Mexican film certainly has it’s on charm as well. While Smith’s fi…
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Brain Blasters

Posted in Brain Blasters, News and Opinions by Archive Authors on August 18th, 2006

And so, after a long summer, it has finally come to this: Snakes on a Plane ceases to be a hot-weather fantasy and becomes a reality. Now we can all see whether this creature that became a cult before it was even finished can in any way live up (or down) to our expectations, hopes, and fears. Let us pause, then, and reflect on killer snake movies from the past.

The question as to whether Snakes on a Plane will be any good is completely irrelevant. A look back demonstrates that there has never …
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Old School Demo

Posted in News and Opinions by Archive Authors on August 17th, 2006

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Discussing the old school DVD’s that still sound and look great in the era of Blu-Ray and HD-DVD technology.

No matter what happens to Mel Gibson after his infamous arrest and anti-Semitic tirade, one can’t deny that he’s made and starred in some powerful films throughout his career. Braveheart, We Were Soldiers, Signs, Passion of the Christ… the list goes on. However, one of my favorite Gibson movies has always been The Patriot.

Basically an update of Braveheart< ...
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Road House

Posted in Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on August 17th, 2006

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Road House is macaroni and cheese for a lot of movie goers that are over 27 years of age. Released in 1989, the movie chronicles the life of James Dalton (Patrick Swayze, Ghost), a “cooler” at a local bar, who is offered a huge sum of money to help a bar owner named Frank Tilghman (Kevin Tighe, Mumford) get his place called the “Double Deuce” back on its feet. A cooler for lack of a better explanation is a bouncer who helps diffuse situations before they blow up into brawls.

Manderlay

Posted in Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on August 17th, 2006

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Synopsis

Marnderlay is part two of the trilogy that began with Dogville. Picking up where that film left off, we see Grace (Bryce Dallas Howard replacing Nicole Kidman) and her gangster father (Willem Dafoe taking over from James Caan) arriving at Manderlay, a plantation where slavery never ended. Grace, horrified by this state of affairs, orders slavery abolished, but her attempts to bring freedom to the slaves lead inexorably to disaster.

While one does, at first, miss the l…
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Worst Week of My Life – The Complete First Season

Posted in Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on August 16th, 2006

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If you ask me, what sitcoms need are fewer contrivances and more realistic humor. That’s what made Seinfeld so brilliant. As horrible as those people were, the sad truth is that all of us have a little bit of that twisted humor lurking within us. That’s just the kind of thing that happens with The Worst Week of My Life. This amazingly funny BBC series lasts just seven episodes, but I guess that should be expected judging from the show’s title. The names of the episodes themselves are “Sunday”, “Monday”, “Tuesday” and so on. By the end of the season, viewers have been treated to what is often-times the worst week of many people’s lives.
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Cello

Posted in Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on August 16th, 2006

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Synopsis

Mu-ju is trying to adjust to life again after surviving a terrible accident. Life is still hard, as her eldest daughter suffers from something like autism, and she is having trouble landing a permanent position as a teacher at a music school (plus, a former student has it in for her). The aforementioned eldest daughter becomes obsessed with a cello, and a mute housekeeper moves in, and terrible things begin to happen.

But those terrible things wait far too long to happen. A third o…
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Tracey Takes On: The Complete Second Season

Posted in Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on August 15th, 2006

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There is a little more Tracey to go around with Tracey Takes On: The Complete Second Season, so fans of the show shouldn’t be disappointed. However, I find her humor quaint and dry in an inescapably British way. No one can deny her talent. But it’s hard to like a show when none of the laughs are connecting. Of course, humor – like beauty – is certainly in the eye of the beholder. With that said, I am not one of the lucky ones that can look at this raw oyster of a show and see the pearl. This season, Ullman inc…
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Tristram Shandy – A Cock and Bull Story

Posted in Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on August 15th, 2006

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Tristram Shandy is the oddest and most entertaining sort of film. It is a film about the making of the film that you are watching, hosted by the fictional main character. It is sort-of like American Splendor, and sort-of like Spinal Tap. The film is the story of the life of Tristram Shandy, an 18th century Englishman of particularly stately means. The man’s life is of note and worthy of such a film because… well, now that I think of it… I don’t really know. You see, there are so many interruptions and different takes during the film that the actors are trying to make, that the viewer never really learns anything.
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Film Noir Classic Collection Vol. 3

Posted in Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on August 15th, 2006

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Synopsis

Robert Mitchum shows up twice here, as does Robert Ryan. The two clash in The Racket (1951), where Mitchum is the incorruptible cop, and Ryan is the old-school gangster whose brutally direct methods put him in conflict not only with Mitchum, but with the more sophisticated crime syndicate spreading over the land. The focus of the film is rather split between the two, but is pretty tense, and is further enlivened by a memorably sleazy turn by William Conrad as a VERY corrupt cop.

Highly Defined – The World of High Definition

Posted in Highly Defined, News and Opinions by Archive Authors on August 14th, 2006

Where your trusty columnist has joined the ranks of the Xbox owners…

Things have moved along like people have figured in the next-gen DVD wars, which is to say, there isn’t a clear winner since the last time we talked. There is some news from Paramount, being that Mission: Impossible III will release SD, Blu and HD DVDs all on the day and date (10/30 for those who are curious). The HD release and extras will be duplicated from the Blu-Ray extras, with the exception of a picture-in-picture commentary …
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Kisses and Caroms

Posted in Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on August 14th, 2006

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Today, anyone with a credit card and some free time can make a movie. But that doesn’t mean it’s always a good thing. Case in point is Kisses and Caroms, which sports a massive hard-on for Kevin Smith’s Clerks (it’s Clerks in a billiards store. Brilliant!), but its characters, dialogue and location fail to be funny or engaging. For one, how many oddball customers can a billiards store receive in one day? In Clerks, it was believable, since people from all walks of life need what is readily…
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I’ll Always Know What You Did Last Summer

Posted in Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on August 14th, 2006

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Horror films have transformed over the years. We’ve essentially gone from horror films using religion to frighten (The Exorcist, The Omen) to slashers (just about everything in the 80’s), to nothing (the early 90’s void), to post-modern slashers, (Scream, Urban Legends, I Know What You Did Last Summer) to torture (Hostel, The Hills Have Eyes).

With I”ll Always Know What You Did Last Summer, we take a short trip back into the slasher genre. And surprisingly, it still looks and fe…
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Ronald Reagan – The Signature Collection

Posted in Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on August 13th, 2006

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I’ve said it before, and as long as Warner Brothers keeps putting these classic discs out, I am going to keep on saying it. No studio respects their classic film catalog like Warner’s. They have done marvelous things with their special editions of classic films, such as their fantastic 2-disc tin box release of King Kong. They have the largest collection of classic films on the planet, including the entire RKO Pictures catalog, and they are succeeding in introducing an entirely new generation of film fans to the best that cinema has to offer.

Full House – The Complete Fourth Season

Posted in Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on August 12th, 2006

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You would have to either be from another planet, been raised by wolves or be under the age of 15 to not have some sort of a personal history with Full House. The show was a staple of Friday night television for eight seasons, defying all logic and proving that the general public doesn’t always know quality when they see it. The story about a non-traditional household was inexplicably popular, despite the fact that it got consistently poor reviews year after year. Even more surprising was how many careers came out of the show.
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