collectorz.com.jpg

David Annandale

About David Annandale

http://www.davidannandale.com

Posts by :

Cheeky!

Posted in Disc Reviews by David Annandale on May 18th, 2006

Buy at Amazon.com

Carla (Yuliya Myarchuk) is a Venetian in London, looking for a flat in which she and her boyfriend Matteo can live once he actually arrives there. In the meantime, she has been in London for a month, and he is in Rome, pining for her. Both of them are getting a bit sexually frustrated, but Carla works that issue out with a series of affairs, and for some reason, Matteo seems to have a problem with this.We are once again in the of Tinto Brass’ ass-worship and cheerful infedelity. The tone is established by Carla’s opening credit stroll through Hyde Park (a walk which Matteo will recreate later to transformative effect), which is depicted as a carnal wonderland.
Read More

Aeon Flux

Posted in Disc Reviews by David Annandale on May 2nd, 2006

Buy at Amazon.com

Synopsis

Over 400 years in the future, the remnants of humanity live in one last city. This is under the total control of the Goodchild regime. Innocents are constantly disappearing. The government is fought by the Monican resistance, and super-assassin Aeon Flux (Charlize Theron) is sent to assassinate supreme leader Trevor Goodchild. At the moment of her victory, however, she hesitates, and it soon becomes apparent that nothing is as she though it was.

This financial dud is unlikely to be…
Read More

Hoodwinked

Posted in Disc Reviews by David Annandale on April 28th, 2006

Buy at Amazon.com

Synopsis

Red (as in Riding Hood) visits Granny, only to find the Wolf in disguise. Granny bursts out of the closet, and then the Woodsman crashes through the window, axe upraised. We then cut to the police investigation of this scene, as a frog investigator interviews each of the players in turn. The forest has been terrorized by the Goodie Bandit, who has been stealing recipes, and one of these characters might be the guilty party. What follows is a series of tales in the vein of Rashomon, wh…
Read More

Family Stone, The

Posted in Disc Reviews by David Annandale on April 27th, 2006

Buy at Amazon.com

Synopsis

Sarah Jessica Parker is the very Manhattan, high stress and rather repressed fiancee of Dermot Mulroney. They head off to small-town New England for Christmas with his family, headed by matriarch Diane Keaton. This is the family Stone of the title, and their free-and-easy lifestyle clashes with Parker’s, and she is seen as an interloper. She is subjected to no end of humiliations, principally at the hands of Rachel McAdams. But when Mulroney’s brother Luke Wilson shows up, Parker finds herse…
Read More

Be Still

Posted in Disc Reviews by David Annandale on April 26th, 2006

Buy at Amazon.com

Synopsis

Not much to is. This is one larger film and a series of shorter ones (though they are all of a piece) extolling the virtues of contemplative prayer, which, it appears, consists in sitting quietly and listening to God, rather than speaking yourself. The whole thing drips in every “inspirational” cliché you can imagine (lots of shots of parks, clouds, sunsets, gentle spring rains, and so forth). Oddly, for a piece that’s supposed to help viewers practice being quiet, some of the speakers here …
Read More

Mrs. Henderson Presents

Posted in Disc Reviews by David Annandale on April 25th, 2006

Buy at Amazon.com

Synopsis

Judi Dench is the Mrs. Henderson of the title. Newly widowed in 1937, she decides to put her considerable fortune into owning a theatre. She buys a dilapidated building, has it redone, and hires Bob Hoskins to run it. He is just as headstrong as she is, but their memorable clashes work out to the benefit of their musical revue. When the box office begins to flag, Dench suggests having naked women on stage. A phenomenon is born, one that will not close even during the worst of the Blitz.

Guys and Dolls

Posted in Disc Reviews by David Annandale on April 24th, 2006

Buy at Amazon.com

Synopsis

In a New York happily riddled in sin, Frank Sinatra is Nathan Detroit, who runs a notorious floating crap game. But since the cops are breathing down his neck, he is having trouble finding a location for his game. He finds one, but needs a thousand dollars cash to get the space. Enter Marlon Brando as Sky Masterson, gambler extraordinaire. Sinatra bets him a grand that he can’t seduce missionary Jean Simmons, and the romantic complications are on.

Joseph L. Mankiewicz isn’t a direc…
Read More

Six Feet Under – Complete Fifth Season, The

Posted in Disc Reviews by David Annandale on April 20th, 2006

Buy at Amazon.com

Synopsis

I’m late coming to this series about a fractious family and the funeral home they run. These are the first episodes I’ve ever seen, so I’m not going to pretend I have the faintest idea what’s going on here. All the various plot lines are clearly working to a conclusion, and for the benefit of those who know these characters, some of the things that are dealt with are James Cromwell’s depression and the difficulty in treating it, and the imminent arrival of a baby (which sets up the final epi…
Read More

KatieBird *Certifiable Crazy Person

Posted in Disc Reviews by David Annandale on April 18th, 2006

Buy at Amazon.com

Synopsis

After a very rough lovemaking session with her ethically dubious (to say the least) psychiatrist, KatieBird Wilkens (Helen Udy) knocks the sap down, chains him up, and proceeds to torture him, all the while recounting how she came to be a serial killer. Flashback to her childhood, and especially her adolescence, when her mild-mannered father (Lee Perkins) introduces her to the joys of killing. KatieBird (played in her teens by Taylor M. Dooley) develops her own unique way of dealing with her…
Read More

Wolf Creek

Posted in Disc Reviews by David Annandale on April 12th, 2006

Buy at Amazon.com

Synopsis

Three friends are driving across Australia. In a particularly desolate national park, their car mysteriously dies, and they accept help from a passing bushman. Big mistake. The bushman (John Jarrat) is a psycho of the first order.

That’s a brief synopsis, and it could have been even briefer. When it comes to storyline, things don’t get much more basic than this film. Sure, there’s all sorts of character development in the early goings, but that turns out to be a mean-spirited (and …
Read More

Passenger, The

Posted in Disc Reviews by David Annandale on April 11th, 2006

Buy at Amazon.com

Synopsis

Jack Nicholson is a journalist in Africa, fed up with his job and his life. When an acquaintance in an adjoining hotel room dies, Nicholson, struck by the other man’s physical resemblance to himself, switches identities, allowing everyone to believe that he is the one dead. But his new self doesn’t turn out quite to be the escape he had hoped for, as the man he has now become turns out to be an arms dealer.

Though that kind of a set-up is pure thriller, in the hands of Michelangelo…
Read More

Laurel and Hardy Collection Volume One, The (Cinema Classics Collection)

Posted in Disc Reviews by David Annandale on April 10th, 2006

Warning: Invalid argument supplied for foreach() in /home/lwrept5/public_html/Upcomingdiscs.com/wp-content/themes/upcomingdiscs/functions.php on line 453

Buy at Amazon.com

Synopsis

Laurel and Hardy’s career highs were all at Hal Roach Studios, and these three films are from their Fox period, in the twilight of their filmography. It is hard to call any of these classics, but there is still some very worthwhile comedy.

Best of the bunch is Jitterbugs (1943), where are duo hook up with con man Robert Bailey, and decide to pull a sting on the grifters who robbed Vivian Blaine’s mother of her savings. As is the case with the other two films, the trademarked…
Read More

Blue Thunder

Posted in Disc Reviews by David Annandale on April 6th, 2006

Buy at Amazon.com

Synopsis

Roy Scheider is the police helicopter pilot and Vietnam war vet (cue flashbacks) who is tapped to test Blue Thunder, a new helicopter equipped with every conceivable weapon and means of surveillance. He discovers that the machine is at the heart of a conspiracy to undermine all that is good and free, and chief bad guy here is Malcolm McDowell, for whom Scheider has a more than cordial dislike thanks to what happened back in ‘Nam. The stage is set for high-tech showdown in the skies over LA….
Read More

Dark, The

Posted in Disc Reviews by David Annandale on April 5th, 2006

Buy at Amazon.com

Synopsis

Maria Bello Arrives in Wales with teen daughter Sarah in tow to visit estranged husband Sean Bean. Relations between mother and daughter are tense, to the dismay of the father, who senses something is wrong but can’t divine what it is. Then tragedy strikes, when the duaghter disappears, apparently drowned. While Bean searches frantically for her (or for her body), Bello becomes convinced that Sarah has been abducted into the Welsh land of the dead, and that another girl, dead these fifty yea…
Read More

G

Posted in Disc Reviews by David Annandale on April 2nd, 2006

Buy at Amazon.com

Synopsis

Music journalist Tre (Andre Royo) arrives at the Hamptons home of his cousin Sky (Chenoa Maxwell) and her cad of a husband (Blair Underwood). Tre is here to interview Summer G (Richard T. Jones), megastar rapper, who has just bought a home in the area. Sky and G have past, and old embers flare to life when they see each other.

If any of this sounds familiar, it should. As O was to Othello, G is to The Great Gatsby. The transposition comes off as rather a…
Read More

Chicken Little

Posted in Disc Reviews by David Annandale on March 29th, 2006

Buy at Amazon.com

Synopsis

One year after causing a destructive panic because he believed the sky was falling, Chicken Little is still living down the embarrassment, and is desperate for his father to be proud of him. Miraculous success at baseball seems mark the turnaround in his life, but then he is bonked on the head by another piece of the sky, and discovers that this fragment is in fact a tile from a flying saucer. Now he and his group of misfits must save the town from possible alien invasion, despite the fact t…
Read More

Derailed

Posted in Disc Reviews by David Annandale on March 28th, 2006

Buy at Amazon.com

Synopsis

Clive Owen is a man approaching the end of his tether. His marriage is becoming stagnant, his job at an advertising firm is no better, and he is worried about his daughter, who has type 1 diabetes. He and his wife have set aside a lot of money to pay for an experimental drug for her. One day, on a train, he meets Jennifer Aniston. A friendship is sparked, and then an affair begins, only to be violently disrupted by Vincent Cassel. He brutalizes both, and begins to blackmail Owen for ever-inc…
Read More

Squid and the Whale, The

Posted in Disc Reviews by David Annandale on March 27th, 2006

Buy at Amazon.com

Synopsis

We begin with an ending: the final collapse of the marriage between Jeff Daniels and Laura Linney. He is a formerly renowned author who now can’t get himself arrested, let alone published. She is suddenly coming in to her own as a writer. He is pathologically self-obsessed. She is deeply insecure. Together, they spell bad news for their two sons, 16-year-old Jesse Eisenberg and 12-year-old Owen Kline. Both parents are a bit of a mess, but daddy is easily the worst offender, and is an absolut…
Read More

Choke, The

Posted in Disc Reviews by David Annandale on March 24th, 2006

Buy at Amazon.com

Synopsis

A fractious rock band known as the Choke, on the verge of breaking up (did all its members but know it) is supposed to play a gig at a local nightclub. But a killer has other plans, and (after a very long preamble) the members of the band find themselves trapped in the locked warehouse/nightclub, being picked off one by one. Suspicion falls first on one character, then another.

Creative young people trapped in a locked building with a killer. It’s been done well, but as Stagefri…
Read More

Godzilla (Monster Edition)

Posted in Disc Reviews by David Annandale on March 24th, 2006

Buy at Amazon.com

Synopsis

French nuclear testing (?!) in the Pacific leads to the mutation of iguanas (!?), and giant one makes its way to New York to nest. Scientist Matthew Broderick hooks up with old-flame TV journalist Maria Pitillo and French secret service guy Jean Reno to try to stop the rampage.

You’ll note that I did not refer to the giant iguana as “Godzilla.” The monster in question here, designated by Toho studios as “Zilla” and known in Godzilla fandom under the name GINO (“Godzilla In Name Onl…
Read More

Zu Warriors

Posted in Disc Reviews by David Annandale on March 23rd, 2006

Buy at Amazon.com

Synopsis

Above the Zu Mountain range, on floating peaks and the like, live various clans of immortals. They must unite to fight off the attack of a returning enemy: the dreaded demon Insomnia. The united efforts of the clans meet with plenty of problems, including star-crossed lovers, and humans from down below wind up being dragged into the battle, too.

At least, that’s what I’ve been able to make of this. Tsui Hark’s remake plays out like a showcase demo disc for the Hong Kong special eff…
Read More

Ghostbusters 2

Posted in Disc Reviews by David Annandale on March 22nd, 2006

Buy at Amazon.com

Synopsis

Five years after saving New York City from supernatural destruction, the Ghostbusters have fallen on hard times. Bill Murray and Sigourney Weaver have broken up, and he is now the host of a dubious psychic TV show. Dan Aykroyd and Ernie Hudson have been reduced to performing a children’s parties, what with the anti-spook outfit having been sued into non-existence. And so it goes. But then weird goop, powered by New York’s anger, rises from the ground to create havoc anew.

Can anyon…
Read More

Gardener, The

Posted in Disc Reviews by David Annandale on March 21st, 2006

Buy at Amazon.com

Synopsis

After the mysterious death of his former employer, perpetually shirtless gardener Joe Dallesandro is taken on by the rich and rather twitty Katherine Houghton. He works wonders with her garden, wonders so miraculous, in fact, that the rest of her staff becomes very suspicious. Unfortunately, Houghton is falling more and more deeply under the gardener’s mesmeric spell, and anyone who stands in his way runs into strange botanical fates.

This is not a rescue on par with Subversive’s < ...
Read More

Howl’s Moving Castle

Posted in Disc Reviews by David Annandale on March 20th, 2006

Buy at Amazon.com

Synopsis

Set in an imaginary European country on the verge of war, in a vague time period that is approximately Edwardian, this is the story of Sophie, a young girl who encounters Howl, the handsome wizard who lives in a gigantic, clattering contraption of a mobile castle. The interest Howl has in Sophie arouses the angry jealousy of the Witch of the Waste (voiced by Lauren Bacall in the English dub), who curses Sophie with instant old age. Sophie, no longer recognized by Howl, takes up residence in …
Read More

Year of the Yao, The

Posted in Disc Reviews by David Annandale on March 16th, 2006

Buy at Amazon.com

Synopsis

This is a portrait of the rookie year of Yao Ming, a Chinese basketball superstar who is imported to play for the Houston Rockets. He arrives not just with the expectations associated with being a first-draft pick, but also with the hopes of (we are told) one billion countrymen on his shoulders. His debut is a disaster, but he soon establishes himself as a force to be reckoned with, as well as charming American fans with his self-effacing personality and humour.

The film is narrate…
Read More

«< 21 22 23 24 25 >»