Posted in: Disc Reviews by David Annandale on April 26th, 2010
The year is 2003. The War in Iraq is just underway, and its ripples are felt even in the small town of Port Gamble, Washington. Take, for instance, Frida (Janette Armand). Her father is Iranian, which is the same thing as Iraqi as far as everyone else is concerned, and furthermore her skin tone and ethnic background mean she is not a “real American” (to quote her numbskulled boyfriend) even though she was born in Port Gamble. Tom (Doug Fahl), meanwhile, has concerns less related to world affairs: he has returned to his home town, in the company of his boyfriend Lance (Cooper Hopkins), to come out to his mother, a prospect that fills him with dread.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by David Annandale on April 25th, 2010
John Skillpa (Cillian Murphy) has been hopelessly damaged by the monstrous abuse his mother inflicted on him. As a result, he now has two separate personalities: John and Emma. John is a terminally shy bank clerk who exists as of 8:15 in the morning and for the duration of the work day. Emma takes care of the domestic chores and leave notes and meals for John. But one day, while Emma is doing the laundry, a derailed caboose blasts through the fence, revealing her existence to the town of Peacock. Everyone assumes she is John's wife. Coaxed out of her shell by Susan Sarandon, Emma gradually blossoms, much to the distress of John. When Ellen Page shows up with a young child and a dark revelation from John's past, the two personalities find themselves moving closer and closer towards a violent confrontation.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by David Annandale on April 25th, 2010
We are in the mid-60s, when, during the glory days of the Stones, the Who, and other colossi of British rock, the BBC allows almost no airplay of said music. To the rescue comes a group of commercial pirate radio stations, broadcasting from ships off the coast. Priggish minister Kenneth Branagh is determined to shut them down, and our focus is on one particular ship, run by Bill Nighy, and boasting such luminaries as Philip Seymour Hoffman and Nick Frost as DJs. Onto this ship of counter-culture rebels comes a young Tom Sturridge, and this wet-behind-the-ears youth becomes the eyes through which we watch the various eccentric goings-on.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by David Annandale on April 7th, 2010
A spaceship crashes. From it emerge a monstrous creature called the Moorwen, and a man, Kainan (Jim Caviezel in Buff Action Mode), who is determined to hunt it down. However, he is promptly captured by vikings and taken to their village, at which point he must convince them of the terrible danger they are in. As it turns out, they don't take much convincing, once the Moorwen attacks.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by David Annandale on April 6th, 2010
If you're reading this review, you must surely already know what the movie is about. We're talking, after all, about what must surely be the single most celebrated case of mistaken identity in the history of film. Cary Grant stands up in a lounge at just the wrong moment and is mistaken for a man who doesn't exist. That utterly perverse mix of chance and paradox, leading to ever more dangerous situations for Grant, in an ever more complicated tangle of battling conspiracies, is so utterly Hitchcockian, it might just as well be trademarked.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by David Annandale on April 4th, 2010
We're into the serious world of high concept now, people. Remember all those struggles D.W. Griffith and Sergei Eisenstein went through to establish cinema as a legitimate art form? Well, this here flick sure makes all those struggles worthwhile. Big Red – midget, former mascot, porn star – dies, and leaves his millions to be fought over by midget-hating son and gold-digging wife. The terms of the battle: each must coach one of the titular teams through a series of ridiculous contests and pranks.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by David Annandale on April 4th, 2010
Infinity Entertainment's latest themed grouping of public domain movies deserves some props for originality: eight features that were up for Best Picture during the first decade of the Oscars. Not a single one actually won the prize, but as we all know, that doesn't mean they weren't worthy of doing so.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by David Annandale on March 20th, 2010
Cult Epics here presents us with their second box set of films by ex-pat Spanish surrealist/'pataphysician/provocateur Fernando Arrabal. These are more recent works, and are, arguably, even more of an acquired taste than the earlier set, though not necessarily for the reasons one might think.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by David Annandale on March 11th, 2010
Laurel & Hardy. Abbott & Costello. Martin & Lewis. And now... Harold & Kumar? Perhaps the comparison is a bit forced, but that latter day pair certainly follows the classic set-up: best friends who are also polar opposites (Kumar is the confident, slacker stoner; Harold is the shy, conservative stoner); one has mad schemes (Kumar); the other (Harold) suffers for those schemes, and so on. At any rate, here we have the complete oeuvre of these two characters (and since Kal Penn, who plays Kumar, has subsequently gone on to a couple of season of House before taking a job for the White House, I think it safe to say that we are unlikely to be seeing any further episodes).
Posted in: Disc Reviews by David Annandale on March 5th, 2010
So here we go with yet another heaping helping of public domain offerings from Infinity. I last looked at their Abbott & Costello package, which concentrated on TV shows and only featured a couple of movies. This Mickey Rooney set is heavily oriented towards the movies. Here's what you get:
Disc 1:
Officer Thirteen (1932)
The Big Chance (1933)
Lost Jungle (1934)
![Pirate Radio [Blu-ray] dvd cover art](https://upcomingdiscs.com/ecs_covers/pirate-radio-blu-ray-large.jpg)
