David Annandale

About David Annandale

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Good Son, The

Posted in Disc Reviews by David Annandale on March 6th, 2004

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Synopsis

After the death of his mother, Elijah Wood is left with his uncle’s family while dad DavidMorse takes off for two weeks to settle their future. Uncle has two children: a little girl and anolder boy Wood’s age: Macaulay Culkin. Behind Culkin’s angelic visage, naturally, lurks thesoul of a devil. Wood suspects the evil, but no one will believe him, and so he is left alone totry to stop the increasingly deadly games his cousin is playing.

Director Joseph P. Ruben made …
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Take This Job and Shove It

Posted in Disc Reviews by David Annandale on March 6th, 2004

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Synopsis

Robert Hays is a rising corporate star at a major brewery. The company, headed by EddieAlbert, has just taken over some smaller competitors. Hays is sent to streamline one of them,which happens to be in his home town. The city mouse hooks up once again with all his oldcountry mouse friends, and sho’ nuff begins to transform, losing the will to be the corporate hitman he was sent to be.

Did anybody ever find this type of comedy funny? Somebody must have. Now it looks…
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Without a Clue

Posted in Disc Reviews by David Annandale on March 4th, 2004

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Synopsis

It turns out that everything we thought about Sherlock Holmes is wrong. He is, in fact,hammy actor Reginald Kincaid (Michael Caine), hired by Dr. Watson (Ben Kingsley) to be thepublic face of his own detective work. The relationship between the two men is fractious at best,and they part company. But when Watson discovers that Professor Moriarty is behind amysterious crime, he realizes he needs Kincaid so the police will allow his investigation toproceed.

The premi…
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Masked and Anonymous

Posted in Disc Reviews by David Annandale on March 3rd, 2004

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Synopsis

The setting is an unnamed country, that could be the US, or could be somewhere in LatinAmerica. Either way, the government is repressive and corrupt, the economy is in a shambles,guerilla warfare is constant, and society is approaching total collapse. Bent impresarios JohnGoodman and Jessica Lange are mounting a TV benefit concert, but the only star they can get isJack Fate, a thinly disguised version of Bob Dylan, played by the man himself. Cynical reporterJeff Bridges is …
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Queer as Folk – The Complete Third Season

Posted in Disc Reviews by David Annandale on March 3rd, 2004

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Synopsis

The title has two meanings. It works as both the common expression, meaning that peopleare strange (which the show certainly demonstrates). But it also presents the “queer” as “folk”:i.e. gay characters are, for once, realistic, ordinary human beings. This aspect goes a long waytoward explaining the series’ popularity. In this season, the continuing threads include apregnancy for Melanie and Lindsay, and the nasty politics surrounding the campaign of thecontroversial Mayor …
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Cold Creek Manor

Posted in Disc Reviews by David Annandale on March 2nd, 2004

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Synopsis

Sharon Stone and Dennis Quaid decide that Big Bad NYC has simply become too much. Shetakes a year’s leave of absence from her high-paying job, and the couple moves with their twoyoung children to rural New England, buying a huge old house at a rock-bottom price. Nevera good idea. In the house are still all the possessions of the previous owner, and Quaid, adocumentary filmmaker, is both fascinated and disturbed by what he finds, including photos thatpoint to distinctly unhe…
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Reefer Madness

Posted in Disc Reviews by David Annandale on March 2nd, 2004

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Synopsis

A hectoring principal tells his audience of concerned parents the story, in flashback, of thetragedy that befalls Bill and Mary. The All-American couple is destroyed through the actions ofa drug ring that seduces high school kids with the Devil’s Weed. Marijuana, as portrayed here,works like a combination of LSD, crack and Spanish Fly. When tragedy strikes, and Bill isbrought up on murder charges, the drug ring goes into hiding, but their own addictions threatento break the…
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Without a Trace (Sin Dejar Huella)

Posted in Disc Reviews by David Annandale on February 27th, 2004

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Synopsis

Two young women, each with their own problems. Marilu is a con artist, currently involvedwith selling fake Mayan art. She has to deal with the Mexican police, and one officer inparticular, who has carnal designs on her. Aurelia is coming to the end of her maternity leave,and is facing going back to work at a sweatshop. Said sweathshop is in an area where some 250women have already been killed by a serial killer. Aurelia steals her drug-dealer boyfriend’s stashand money, and…
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Baby, The Rain Must Fall

Posted in Disc Reviews by David Annandale on February 27th, 2004

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Synopsis

Lee Remick travels to Columbus, Texas, so her young daughter can meet the father she hasnever known. Steve McQueen is but recently out of jail, and rather than settling down, dreams ofbeing a songwriter and singer. He is surprised to see Remick and daughter, but welcomes them.He is too volatile for life to be happy, however, and in spite of the best efforts of gentle deputyDon Murray to keep things in line, the situation grows every more dire.

Lee Remick is one of c…
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Godzilla Against Mechagodzilla

Posted in Disc Reviews by David Annandale on February 27th, 2004

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Synopsis

In the wake of a late-90s attack on Japan by Godzilla, the government orders the construction of a weapon that will be able to stand up to the monster. To this end, the bones of the first Godzilla (killed in 1954) are brought up from the sea-bed, DNA is extracted, and this DNA is used to operate computers in the robotic Mechagodzilla (also named Kiryu). The project takes years, and the completion of the weapon ironically seems to trigger the monster’s first attack in all that ti…
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Water’s Edge

Posted in Disc Reviews by David Annandale on February 27th, 2004

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Synopsis

A young married couple (Nathan Fillion and Chandra West) move to a cabin in thewilderness. This is not a happy getaway. They have lost their daughter, they are broke, theirmarriage is hanging by a thread, and the wife is suicidal. As if they didn’t have enough on theirhands, Fillion comes across a bad scene in the woods: the sheriff about to murder a youngwoman with a rock. Fillion kills the sheriff, rescues the woman, and then the problems reallybegin as nothing is what it…
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Naked Jane

Posted in Disc Reviews by David Annandale on February 27th, 2004

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Synopsis

Jane (Renee Stahl) drifts through contemporary LA. She wants to be a writer, but is reluctantto share her uncompleted work in her writing class. She makes a living typing up term papers.She has a model boyfriend, who is off doing a shoot in Italy and misses her terribly, but she isn’tsure what she feels about him (if anything at all). Then there’s the memory of a car crash thattorments her. Enter an young artist, with whom she begins an affair…

This is very much a…
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Prime Suspect 2

Posted in Disc Reviews by David Annandale on February 26th, 2004

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Synopsis

Detective Chief Inspector Jane Tennison (Helen Mirren) is on the job again with anotherpolitically charged case. In this instance, a skeleton is dug up that might be that of a young blackwoman. Her disappearance six years ago was badly handled by the police, to the point thatcharges might be laid. The investigation is not only explosive racially, but the way it plays outcould help or destroy careers, Tennison’s among others.

As ever, the Prime Suspect series delves r…
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Grand Hotel

Posted in Disc Reviews by David Annandale on February 26th, 2004

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Synopsis

We are in a magnificent art deco hotel in Berlin. Here we come to know a disparate groupof characters: the world-weary ballerina (Garbo), the gentleman thief (John Barrymore), thedying man on a last spending binge (Lionel Barrymore), the scheming stenographer (JoanCrawford), and the unsavoury tycoon (Wallace Beery). These characters’ lives intersect andcollide over the course of a momentous night.

This is not the best-written Hollywood production. The plot is implau…
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Prime Suspect 3

Posted in Disc Reviews by David Annandale on February 26th, 2004

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Synopsis

DCI Tennison can’t ever get a nice, straightforward case that won’t destroy anyone who goesnear it. This time the murder of a young boy is just the first link in a chain that leads to explosiverevelations of child prostitution and police connections. Tennison’s life is made even morecomplicated by the fact that she has to knock heads again with her old enemy St. Bill Otley.

One could be forgiven for detecting a pattern, or even a formula, emerging in this series.Eac…
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Love at the Top

Posted in Disc Reviews by David Annandale on February 24th, 2004

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Synopsis

Jean-Louis Trintignant is Nicolas, a quiet, put-upon bank teller. On impulse one day, he seesa pretty young woman (Jane Birkin) and puts a very unsubtle move on her. It works. Thistransforms Trintignant’s life, especially once he confides to his crippled writer friend (Jean-Pierre Cassel). The latter begins to live vicariously through Trintignant, directing his every move.Our hero is soon sleeping with one woman after another, and through them making theconnections that see…
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Herod’s Law (La Ley De Herodes)

Posted in Disc Reviews by David Annandale on February 23rd, 2004

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Synopsis

After the mayor of a tiny hamlet is decapitated by an irate populace, the Powers That Be(mindful of an upcoming election) decide to appoint a total moron as temporary mayor. Thetheory is that an idiot won’t get himself into trouble. The idiot they find is Juan Vargas (DamiánAlcázar), who arrives with his wife and a head filled with plans to do good things for thecommunity. We all know what is paved with good intentions, though, and confronted with acomplete lack of funds, o…
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Asylum, The

Posted in Disc Reviews by David Annandale on February 23rd, 2004

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Synopsis

Jenny (Steffanie Pitt) is tormented by dreams where she sees herself, as a young child,murdering her mother. Her psychiatrist father (Patrick Mower) is of no help, and so she sneaksout of her home one night to return to the asylum where her family once lived, and where hermother died. Three other people – a mad priest, a phony medium (Ingrid Pitt) and a drug addict– are also drawn to this location by forces they do not comprehend. It turns out that they are alltormented by…
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In the Cut

Posted in Disc Reviews by David Annandale on February 22nd, 2004

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Synopsis

Meg Ryan plays Manhattan English teacher Frankie Avery. When parts of a dismemberedyoung woman are found in her back garden, Ryan is questioned by Detective Mark Ruffalo.Ruffalo asks Ryan out, and before long they’re at it hot and heavy. But the day of the murder,Ryan was in the same bar as the victim, and witnessed, in the shadows, a man being fellated.That man had the same tattoo as Ruffalo, and Ryan begins to fear that her new lover is, at best,a liar. At worst…

Cracker – Series Two

Posted in Disc Reviews by David Annandale on February 22nd, 2004

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Synopsis

Here are three more cases involving the gambling-addicted, cantankerous, infuriating yet stilloddly likeable criminal psychologist Fitz (Robbie Coltrane). “To Be a Somebody” has him upagainst a dangerous skinhead (Robert Carlyle). In “The Big Crunch,” the menace is a dangerousreligious cult. And “Men Should Weep” has a serial rapist who graduates to murder, indirectlybecause of Coltrane.

Of course, the actual murder investigations are only part of the story here, an…
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Blow-Up

Posted in Disc Reviews by David Annandale on February 21st, 2004

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Synopsis

David Hemmings is a jaded photographer plying his trade in Swinging Sixties’ London. Outtaking pictures in a park, he shoots a series of pictures of a couple apparently having anargument. The woman in the pictures (Vanessa Redgrave) subsequently turns up at Hemmings’studio, wanting the pictures back. Even more mysterious is a shot Hemmings took sometimelater, after the argument. Is there a body in the picture? The more he blows up the picture,seeking the answer, the grainie…
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Raquel Welch Collection, The

Posted in Disc Reviews by David Annandale on February 20th, 2004

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Synopsis

A more unapologetic objectification of the female form would be hard to find than thiscollection. The camera all but drools over the form of Raquel Welch. For some, that’s reasonenough to check out these films. Fortunately, they are each worth seeing for other reasons too.(And in one case, worth seeing for all the WRONG reasons.)

A remake of 1940’s One Million B.C., Hammer Studios’ One Million YearsB.C. (1967) gave the world what is arguably the most iconic b…
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Mrs. Miniver

Posted in Disc Reviews by David Annandale on February 18th, 2004

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Synopsis

Our story begins in 1939, just before the outbreak of WWII. The Minivers (Greer Garsonand Walter Pidgeon) enjoy an idyllic existence in a charming town where the biggest controversyis over whether the station master Henry Travers should be entering his rose against localaristocrat Dame May Witty’s in the flower competition. But then the war comes, and little bylittle, it reaches into the lives of the townspeople, wreaking ever more havoc. Through it all,Garson remains a tow…
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Hope, Gloves and Redemption

Posted in Disc Reviews by David Annandale on February 17th, 2004

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Synopsis

Mickey and Negra Rosario run an inner city boxing center in New York, helping youngpeople not only to do well in the sport, but also to turn their lives around. We learn about theRosario’s lives and courtship (and about Mickey’s time in a gang), and follow a group of theirproteges as they train for an upcoming amateur tournament.

An interesting piece, with a wide variety of voices and theories about boxing. (I particularlyliked what a ref had to say about the sport …
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Allan Quatermain and the Lost City of Gold

Posted in Disc Reviews by David Annandale on February 17th, 2004

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Synopsis

Adventurer Allan Quatermain (Richard Chamberlain) learns that his brother has disappearedin the wilderness of eastern Africa, apparently after having found a city of gold. Abandoningplans for a honeymoon trip to the US (much to the displeasure of shrill fiancée Sharon Stone),Quatermain sets off to find this city. Many perils are encountered along the way, and whenQuatermain and his doughty band find the city, they discover that it is in the tyrannical grip ofevil high pries…
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