David Annandale

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Merchant of Venice, The

Posted in Disc Reviews by David Annandale on May 5th, 2005

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Synopsis

Antonio (Jeremy Irons), silently in love with his friend Bassanio (Joseph Fiennes) acts asguarantor for a loan Bassanio needs in order to woo the beautiful Portia (Lynn Collins). Theyborrow the sum from Shylock (Al Pacino) who demands, should Antonio default, a pound offlesh (literally). Bassanio’s adventures in love are successful, but Antonio’s ships founder, andShylock, distressed over his daughter’s elopement and incessant anti-Semitism he hasexperienced, demands his te…
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Are We There Yet?

Posted in Disc Reviews by David Annandale on May 5th, 2005

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Synopsis

Nia Long is the sexy single mother of two vile little monsters who do everything short oftorturing and killing would-be suitors in the illusory hope that their father will return to thefold one day. Ice Cube plays a fellow who doesn’t like kids (and with these two case studies, whocan blame him?). He falls for Long, and foolishly volunteers to carry her two spawn cross-country for New Year’s Eve. Cue no end of trouble. You got it, it’s Planes, Trains andAutomobiles m…
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Alone in the Dark

Posted in Disc Reviews by David Annandale on May 4th, 2005

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Synopsis

Hmmm. How to provide a synopsis for something that makes no sense at all? Here goes.Two decades ago, a bunch of orphans were, for reasons left vague, experimented on by a scientistwho merges them with creatures from beyond (implanting them with some sort ofextradimensional parasite/worm thingy that clings to their spines, as it turns out). In the presentday, the one orphan who escaped the worst of the experiments is Christian Slater, who goesaround digging up rare artifacts…
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Steve McQueen Collection

Posted in Disc Reviews by David Annandale on May 1st, 2005

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Synopsis

This is an interesting collection, with two of the films being among the most famous SteveMcQueen was ever involved with, and the other two being noticeably less high profile. TheMagnificent Seven (1960) is one of the last and greatest of the straightforward westerns,before the deconstruction of the genre at the hands of Sergio Leone and Sam Peckinpah, andeven here the death of the west is foregrounded theme, with Yul Brynner, McQueen, JamesCoburn, Charles Bronson an…
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Disney Learning Adventures

Posted in Disc Reviews by David Annandale on April 28th, 2005

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Synopsis

Each disc uses a Mickey Mouse cartoon to teach children the basics about such topics as language, geography and numbers. “Mickey’s Seeing the World” uses the cartoon “Mickey’s Around the World in 80 Days” to these ends, while “Reading & Math Fun” uses the much older “Mickey and the Beanstalk” the cartoons are interrupted periodically to put them to educational use in the form of games. This is so far out of my field of expertise that I can’t pretend to evaluate how well this content works, t…
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Frank Sinatra Collection

Posted in Disc Reviews by David Annandale on April 27th, 2005

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Synopsis

Directed by Gordon (Them!) Douglas, these three crime thrillers have Frank Sinatra doing his best hard boiled as he unravels complicated (and not always entirely comprehensible) mysteries.

Tony Rome (1967) has Sinatra in Miami Beach as the titular PI, a former cop who still has plenty of connections. A simple task — returning a drunk young woman to her rich father — leads to a web of murder and blackmail as all sorts of interested parties chasing around, beating up …
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Riding the Bullet

Posted in Disc Reviews by David Annandale on April 27th, 2005

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Synopsis

Set for no very compelling reason in 1969, this story sees death-obsessed art student Jonathan Jackson walking and hitch-hiking his way along spooky Maine highway in the middle of the night, trying to make it a hundred miles to where his stroke-felled mother (Barbara Hershey) lies in a hospital. Jackson has such a vivid imagination that neither he nor the viewer really knows what, if anything, we see is real, particularly when he is picked up by a messenger of death (David Arquette), driving…
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Life and Death of Peter Sellers, The

Posted in Disc Reviews by David Annandale on April 26th, 2005

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Synopsis

The life and career of Peter Sellers (Geoffrey Rush) is chronicled here, from the height of the Goon Show’s popularity to his penultimate, Oscar-nominated role in Being There. Along the way, we see the collapse of his first marriage to Anne (Emily Watson), his second to Britt Ekland (Charlize Theron), and his fractious working relationships with such directors as Stanley Kubrick (Stanley Tucci) and Blake Edwards (John Lithgow).

There’s an interesting conceit at work here: th…
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Stella Dallas

Posted in Disc Reviews by David Annandale on April 26th, 2005

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Synopsis

Miner’s daughter Barbara Stanwyck sets her cap for John Boles, a New England aristocrat who has fled financial disgrace and sought honest work far from home. She lands him, and they marry, but almost immediately their very different backgrounds create tension. When he finds work in New York, she refuses to move with him, and they grow further apart. Meanwhile, their daughter spends most of her time with Stanwyck, but her visits to New York become more and more wonderful, as far as she is con…
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Attack on the Iron Coast

Posted in Disc Reviews by David Annandale on April 26th, 2005

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Synopsis

Lloyd Bridges is the Major in the Canadian forces who is seeking redemption for a failed raid. His audacious plan is to attack the German’s fortified docks in occupied France. His scheme is opposed by Brit Captain Andrew Keir, whose son died in the earlier raid, but Keir finds himself captaining the substandard ship as the raid begins.

This is pretty run-of-the-mill WWII action, the kind of film that is virtually indistinguishable from uncountable others, all fodder for three-a.m. …
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Spanglish

Posted in Disc Reviews by David Annandale on April 25th, 2005

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Synopsis

Mexican immigrant Paz Vega comes to work as a maid for the household of Adam Sandler (a chef who is very reluctantly accepting his growing renown) and Téa Leoni (insanely overwrought neurotic interior designer). Vega and her daughter wind up living with this family during a summer, and Vega’s presence is the catalyst for many changes, particularly in the relationship between Sandler and Leoni, which is veering into very treacherous shoals.

I have maintained before that a comedy nee…
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Memento Mori

Posted in Disc Reviews by David Annandale on April 22nd, 2005

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Synopsis

Set in a girls’ high school, this tells the tale of Min-Ah, who finds a diary written by two of her schoolmates. This is a revealing book, exposing as it does their love affair. Concurrently with Min-Ah reading the diary, that relationship comes to an end, and one of the girls leaps to her death from the school roof. Supernatural events begin almost immediately thereafter.

As an exploration of the painful tribal realities of high school (à la Carrie), this works very well, a…
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Firewalker

Posted in Disc Reviews by David Annandale on April 15th, 2005

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Synopsis

Down-on-their-luck adventurers Chuck Norris and Louis Gosset are approached by theslightly flaky Melody Anderson to help her track down a horde of Aztec gold. They proceed totraipse about Central America, experiencing one sub-Indiana Jones adventure after another,racing to reach the treasure before a villain with (yes) an eye-patch.

J. Lee Thompson’s film doesn’t take itself seriously for a moment, but that doesn’t mean it’sactually funny. It isn’t, much, and the by…
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Dangerous Game

Posted in Disc Reviews by David Annandale on April 15th, 2005

Synopsis

Harvey Keitel is making a film about a relationship that disintegrates into terrible violence.His cast are James Russo and Madonna, and they have a pretty fraught relationship themselvesoff the set. Physical and mental brutality ooze from the film into real life, and Keitel descendsinto this hell, too.

Fresh off Bad Lieutenant, director Abel Ferrara, writer Nicholas St. John and Keitelplunge into the heart of darkness yet again. The shooting of the film has a…
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Quiet American, The

Posted in Disc Reviews by David Annandale on April 13th, 2005

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Synopsis

Michael Redgrave is a cynical British journalist posted in 1952 Saigon, happily far awayfrom his estranged wife. He views both sides of the French and Communist war with equalindifference, and likes the comfortable arrangement he has with his Vietnamese girlfriend(Giorgia Moll), a woman whose intelligence he hardly seems to respect. Everything goes tosmash for him when a polite young American (Audie Murphy) shows up. Redgrave finds hisidealism suspicious, if not actively da…
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Fond Kiss, A

Posted in Disc Reviews by David Annandale on April 13th, 2005

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Synopsis

The setting is Glasgow, and racial and cultural tensions are visible right from the start asTahara, daughter of Pakistani immigrants, pulls no punches about her experiences with racismpost 9-11 in a speech at school. Some of her schoolmates do not take kindly to her, aconfrontation ensues, and a chase takes place through the school. Tahara’s brother, Casim, a DJ,intervenes, and in the process meets Tahara’s music teacher, Roisin, an Irish Catholic. Sparks fly,and the stage …
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Sacred Planet

Posted in Disc Reviews by David Annandale on April 13th, 2005

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Synopsis

Robert Redford narrates this documentary look at the remote human cultures that are livingin harmony with the planet, rather than conquering (or raping and pillaging, if you will) nature.Think of this as a 47-minute lite version of the Koyanisqatsi trilogy. Everything is verydreamy and beautiful, and this is hardly a rigorous work. But the images are absolutelybreathtaking. Produced for IMAX, this has all the earmarks of those features: short in runningtime and subst…
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She Hate Me

Posted in Disc Reviews by David Annandale on April 10th, 2005

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Synopsis

Anthony Mackie, VP of a biotech company, learns the hard way that no good deed goesunpunished. When he blows the whistle on the corporation’s misdeeds, he is the one who windsup losing his job and being investigated. Given his desperate straits, he agrees to impregnate, fora price, his ex-girlfriend and her girlfriend. So begins a new business for our hero: stud-for-hireto well-heeled lesbians. The two tales intertwine, and sex and capitalism/corruption collide whenMackie i…
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Around the Bend

Posted in Disc Reviews by David Annandale on April 9th, 2005

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Synopsis

Michael Caine begat Christopher Walken, who begat Josh Lucas, who begat Jonah Bobo.Got that? Eccentric patriarch Caine is approaching the end of his days, and wants to bring theestranged Walken back into the family fold. After a tense family reunion at a KFC, Caine dies,but leaves behind an elaborate testament that sends the three other generations together on across-country trip. Tentatively, with many a misstep, Lucas begins to reconnect with the father hehasn’t seen sinc…
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Chisholm ’72: Unbought & Unbossed

Posted in Disc Reviews by David Annandale on April 9th, 2005

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Synopsis

Shirley Chisholm made history in 1972 as the first black woman to run for President of theUS. This documentary chronicles her run, doing so with a mixture of archival footage and newinterviews with people who were involved with her campaign, as well as those who wereinspired by it. Presented without a narration, the film lets the interview subjects and the film clipsspeak for themselves, backed by a very 70s funk soundtrack. Chisholm herself comes across as apassionate and …
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Zelary

Posted in Disc Reviews by David Annandale on April 6th, 2005

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Synopsis

In 1943, medical student Aňa Geislerová is living the sophisticated life in Prague, carryingon with a doctor. She’s also working for the Czech resistance, and when her lover decamps andshe is betrayed, she is forced to seek refuge in the country. She poses as the wife of GyörgyCserhalmi, whose life she saved with a blood donation when he was in the hospital. At firstdismayed by her new surroundings, she gradually comes to love both the countryside and herersatz husband…
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Art Heist

Posted in Disc Reviews by David Annandale on April 5th, 2005

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Synopsis

After a daring art heist in Barcelona, Ellen Pompeo is ordered by her aggrieved client (EdLauter) to track down his lost paintings. Pompeo’s ex-husband, William Baldwin, arrives inSpain to protect his ex whether she wants his help or not. It looks like she’ll need it, as she findsherself up to her neck in conspiracies and being framed for the thefts herself.

Behind an utterly banal title lurks an utterly banal thriller. The opening shot is pretty nifty,but that’s mo…
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Amityville Horror Collection, The

Posted in Disc Reviews by David Annandale on April 4th, 2005

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Synopsis

The Amityville Horror (1979) remains one of the most successful haunted house movies ever. Based on a supposedly true story (emphasis on “supposedly”), the film sees George and Kathy Lutz (James Brolin and Margot Kidder) buy their dream home, only to be driven out by supernatural events (little girl makes friends with demonic piggie, blood runs from the walls, and so on). In scenes that have so little to do with the rest of the action they might almost belong to a separate movie, Rod …
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Crimson Rivers – Angels of the Apocalypse

Posted in Disc Reviews by David Annandale on April 2nd, 2005

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Synopsis

A monk is found walled up alive in an eccentric monastery, and Inspector Niemans (JeanReno) is on the case. Murders multiply around the country, connecting the cases worked on byNiemans and a young hotshot (Benoit Magimel, whose role is very similar to the one played byVincent Cassell in the original). The victims are all deeply religious, were all disciples of asurvivor who bears a more-than-passing resemblance to Jesus, and have the names andprofessions of the Disciples. They mur…
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Notebook, The

Posted in Disc Reviews by David Annandale on March 31st, 2005

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Synopsis

In the present, in a nursing home, we meet two residents: James Garner and Gena Rowlands.She is afflicted with Alzheimer’s, and cannot remember her past. He reads to her from anotebook, telling the tale (which is their story) of two young people (Ryan Gosling and RacelMcAdams) who meet, fall in love, but are driven apart by class prejudice (she’s upper class, he’sworking class). He never gives up on her, and the story charts more heartbreaking reunions andtravails.

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