Posted in: Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on July 5th, 2007
Disaster films are nothing new in Hollywood. While most disaster films tend to focus too much on destroying random objects, there’re are a film good disaster films that come around every so often that actual try to explain the film instead of giving us two hours of random explosions. One such film is 1997’s Dante’s Peak.
Harry Dalton (Pierce Brosnan) works for the US Geology Survey Team. Four years after experiencing a volcano eruption, Harry and a few other scientists are called to a town named Da...te’s Peak to research into the town’s dormant volcano. Harry immediately piques the interest of Mayor Wando (Linda Hamilton), quite possible for his looks not for his scientific merit. Most of the town and its members aren’t concerned about the volcano, simply because nothing has occurred for many years now. Obviously this doesn’t sit well with Harry. When two dead teenagers are discovered near the top of the mountain in a hot spring, Harry begins to think that this mountain is ready to explode. However, as per the typical natural disaster film, no one believes Harry (including his boss), despite numerous instances of proof (acidity levels increasing, dying animals, etc). Now Harry must race against time to prove this volcano is a ticking time bomb.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on July 5th, 2007
Adam Sandler plays Archie Moses, a man who works for drug lord Frank Colton (James Caan). Rock Keats (Damon Wayans) is Archie’s best friend and, secretly I might add, an undercover cop who’s trying to infiltrate Colton’s business. Archie, as per the typical earlier Sandler role, is completely oblivious to anything going on around him and doesn’t suspect Rock. Keats is ready to infiltrate Colton, but is mistakenly shot in the head by Archie. Keats, after learning to walk again, realizes Archie must testify against Col...on. Will this two meet up and work together or will fate finally come around and destroy both of them?
Ask anyone around me and they’ll tell you that I’m not the biggest fan of Sandler’s earlier work. While most seem to love his early comedic work like Billy Madison and Happy Gilmore, I find these films to be his worst. They aren’t funny and simply lack any real charm. In all honesty, I had never seen Bulletproof before this viewing. Well, the end result was kind of mixed. I found the film had a few funny, charming moments (mostly from Caan and a few from Sandler/Wayans), but too much of the film tried to be serious in a comedic tone, which rarely works.
Posted in: Highly Defined, News and Opinions by Archive Authors on July 2nd, 2007
Read on about a minor gripe with a major satellite provider.
I’m going to skip the usual news about what comes out this week because it’s The Untouchables, The Patriot and very little else, and tell you a story about how I, as a loyal DirecTV customer, have been trying to upgrade my equipment.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on July 2nd, 2007
I wrote a few weeks back that it’s an odd feeling when you finally see that film that everyone and their brother has been exclaiming about for years. That is the exact feeling I felt after seeing The Big Lebowski. I knew for years that this film would be great, especially after seeing Fargo before. Boy was I right as The Big Lebowski was a huge humor trip.
Jeffrey Lebowski a.k.a. “The Dude” (Jeff Bridges) is your run of the mill slacker. He doesn’t really do much with his life besides ...et constantly stoned with his buddies at the local bowling alley. Donny (Steve Buscemi), Walter (John Goodman), and Jesus (John Turturro) are his buddies. One night Jeff comes home to find a pair of thugs sitting in his home. Turns out these thugs think Jeff is some type of ultra millionaire. They soon threaten his life, demanding he pay the debt he owes. Obviously Jeff is completely lost by this situation. After consulting his buddies, Jeff and his buddies soon find themselves wrapped up in a big kidnapping plot. The rest of the film sees our main characters bumble around in a manner that was consistently entertaining and amusing.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on July 1st, 2007
Synopsis
Timothy Dalton might have endured a bit of grief for his short tenure as James Bond, enduring comments equating him to Connery and Moore plagued his two film run, with this one being the last. However, this one was quite the doozy, and almost in the area of “forgotten gem” status.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on June 27th, 2007
Synopsis
In slowly but surely wrapping up my reviews of each and every Ultimate Edition James Bond title on DVD, coming to Thunderball, a sect of people say that this is the quintessential film for the man who quintessentially personified James Bond. So in his fourth outing as the man who likes martinis, cars and women, he encounters a large swath of them all over two hours.
Posted in: Highly Defined, News and Opinions by Archive Authors on June 25th, 2007
Shouldn’t you be out at the beach right now?
I don’t know about you, but I burn easily, so I can’t spend as much time at the pool as others, so I get to watch movies, and I watched Ocean’s Thirteen at a theater that just opened down the road from me. The theater itself is pretty nice, the film delivered what it’s supposed to do, which is be fun, so you can’t ask for too much more I guess. Overall, there really isn’t that much to pore over, other than surveys which reiterate what everyone already know..., which that HD is getting bigger and better, but the video formats that would best suit this continues to suffer in the big picture. It would be nice if everyone played nice and got behind this thing, but I would expect the petty sniping to continue for quite awhile.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on June 25th, 2007
Yet another Samuel L. Jackson movie containing the word snake in it, but unlike Snakes on a Plane, Black Snake Moan is a dramatic picture delving into dark issues like abuse. I’ll come out by saying that I though this movie was going to be a good laugh, seeing the trailer I though it would be a bearded Sam Jackson shouting out profanities at an unwilling captive in his home. Although this does happen it is a small portion of the movie, and not as comedic as I had supposed.
Black Snake Moan.../i> takes place in a rural part of the American south east, playing out in a small town and its surrounding area, but because the town is small doesn’t mean the problems are. Lazarus (Samuel L. Jackson, Pulp Fiction) is a former blues guitarist turned full time farmer with deep religious beliefs. In the beginning of the picture his wife leaves him for his brother, where a nearly violent rage ensues. Having a hard time dealing with his problems, Lazarus begins singing the blues once again, which at one time apparently had the whole town hopping. Meanwhile Rae (Christina Ricci, Sleepy Hollow) has to say goodbye to her Marine boyfriend Ronnie (Justin Timberlake) who’s about to be shipped over seas. As soon as he leaves she sleeps with a local crack dealer Tehronne (David Banner), attends a party where she sleeps with another patron, later Ronnie’s friend Gill finds her passed out in a field half naked and offers her a ride home. Along the way Gill nearly rapes Rae but instead beats her severely and throws her on the side of the road. The following morning Lazarus discovers her and takes her in, nursing her back to health. But when he learns of her past indiscretions he believes that God has put her on his path and offers her redemption. In other words he chains her to his radiator and offers her counsel on her history of abuse and sexual addiction but instead the two develop a bond and mutually help one and other with their problems.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on June 25th, 2007
You know it’s an odd feeling when you finish watching a film only to think that if you loved the film, audiences must have enjoyed it on the level you did too right? Well, it’s a sad note to see that a film like Breach massively underperformed at the box office this past winter as the film is smart, intelligent and reminds me of why films were created in the first place.
Breach is a 2007 film that deftly tells the story of the greatest security breach in the history of the United States. The breach ...as due to a spy by the name of Robert Hanssen, a 25-year veteran of the intelligence branch of the FBI. The film covers the final 2 months of an investigation into Hanssen brought forth due to papers provided by a Russian defector.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on June 25th, 2007
Perhaps Woodstock is the best known music festival, but only one has kept strong for several decades and still going - Glastonbury. A small town in the southeast of England is the host to a sizeable music festival that spans for several days and attracts in excess of 150,000 people. Like a lot of you I’m sure, I had never heard of this music festival and after watching this once I’ll probably never get wind of it again.
The first disc of Glastonbury is a documentary on the festival it is not in chron...logical order but includes footage from the 60’s all the way through to the latest festival in 2005. It interviews some of the colorful people attending the festival over the years, the staff involved, and of course the bands that play. At first I was interested in this disc thinking I would get the chance to watch these bands play live, but instead I sat through 130 minutes of hippies rolling around naked in mud, with the odd montage of performances. Really I found this to be a weak documentary, I was not interested in the people dancing like fools to bongo drums, holding up lighters and crying, getting naked and just acting totally like a junkie. The people interviewed and shown in the footage in this documentary were just utterly weird, and not interesting. The only somewhat interesting and normal parts of this documentary were the footage of the most recent festival where there was a lack of hippies. Of course I did enjoy the live and uncut performances that were shown, more specifically on disc 2. Although there are some big names and famous songs played in this documentary and subsequent extras disc but I didn’t like enough of the musicians to enjoy this disc myself. If you do however like Radiohead, Paul McCartney, David Bowie, The Killers, Foo Fighters, David Gray, The White Stripes, etc. like I’m sure a load of you do then you might enjoy the odd sequence where you get to see them play.
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