Posted in: Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on February 8th, 2004
I must admit that going into my screening of this DVD, I was anticipating a horrible film. With Jerry McGuire as the exception, I have hated Cuba Gooding Jr. as an actor; and let’s face it, Beyonce is a much better singer then she is an actress. That all being said, I was surprised that I actually enjoyed The Fighting Temptations. It was not the story or acting that led to my enjoyment… it was the music. This film is a fun film that is full of some great gospel music. Not only does Beyonce lend her voice ...
Posted in: Disc Reviews by David Annandale on February 5th, 2004
Synopsis
Jane Fonda is recently widowed, and works at a baked good factory. Robert De Niro is thecafeteria cook. He is illiterate, and loses his job when this is discovered. He turns to Fonda,asking her to teach him to read. Slowly, tentatively, romance blossoms.
Plenty of gritty realism in the first half of the film, and the portrayal of the hard lives thesepeople face is pretty unsparing. In this bleak landscape, their relationship becomes a real beaconof hope. One can onl...
Posted in: Disc Reviews by David Annandale on February 1st, 2004
Synopsis
Extremely small-time con Greg Kinnear is caught and sentenced to a year of employment,which turns out to be in the Dead Letter Office of the post office. Opening a letter addressed toGod, Kinnear accidentally winds up answering the letter-writer’s prayers, thus setting off a chainof events that see his reformation and many people helping other people.
The flick is supposed to be some kind of heart-warming comedy of the human spirit, but it’sreally just flat and irri...
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on January 31st, 2004
Synopsis
Well, Vanishing Point is definitely a movie of the seventies. Don’t be deceived by the DVD case, which proclaims this to be “the Ultimate Car Chase Movie” – yes, there is certainly car chases, but this film is more art gallery than speed shop. To contextualize the film, it was originally released in 1971 – the Vietnam war was crawling towards defeat for the U.S., the summer of love had come and gone, and disaffection and disillusionment had become the twin staples of the America.
V...
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on January 31st, 2004
I have had the pleasure of reviewing better films than Home Room; and I’ve certainly suffered through worse. But I am not sure I’ve reviewed a more important film. I’ve been a public high school teacher for over 8 years. Ask any educator and you’ll find that Columbine changed things for everyone, so I wasn’t sure how I would find this study of that kind of violence. The subject is handled with extreme care in Home Room. In a wise decision, the shooting occurs to a black screen. We don’t really pick up the story until after the event.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by David Annandale on January 30th, 2004
Synopsis
Theresa Russell seduces rich men by conforming to their dreams in terms of appearance andbehaviour, marries them, and then kills them. She thinks her means are undetectable. But JusticeDepartment investigator Debra Winger has noticed a pattern, and becomes obsessed withtracking Russell down. She follows her to Hawaii (where she is working on her latest target),befriends her, and the stage is set for a psychological chess game.
The idea is promising, but the executio...
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on January 30th, 2004
Timothy Olyphant, in the movie Go, refers to the comic strip The Family Circus in this manner: “it’s always there, in the lower right hand corner, just waiting to suck.” This is one of my all-time favorite movie quotes, and it applies quite nicely when discussing Marci X. Completed in 2000, this is the film that the studio put on the shelf, all the while knowing that eventually they would have to do something with it, because there it was, looming in the corner, waiting to suck.
Finally...
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on January 30th, 2004
This is a great idea for a children’s video. Our Friend Martin is an animated film that follows the Dickens Christmas Carol format to tell the story of the life of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. When two boys (an underachieving African-American and his slacker white counterpart) visit the birthplace of Dr. King on a school field trip, they are magically transported back in time to experience monumental events in the civil rights movement. Along their journey, they learn of the legacy of Dr. King, and of his...
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on January 29th, 2004
Angels and demons and monsters, oh my!
Not even the death of Buffy could stop this popular show from coming back for a third season. This time around, Angel must find melodrama in new and interesting places, and luckily for fans of the show, he succeeds admirably. In fact, I feel that the death of Buffy was a good thing, as it forced the writers to push this show into its own territory, and helped to give the whole production a voice and an identity all its own.
Newcomers to the show (like myself)...
Posted in: Disc Reviews by David Annandale on January 27th, 2004
Synopsis
This documentary follows eight children as they compete in that peculiarly Americaninstitution, the National Spelling Bee. The first half of the film profiles each of the eight, andwe see them at home with their families, getting ready for the big competition. The second half isthe Bee itself, brilliantly edited to generate maximum tension in the viewer. One of the film’sremarkable achievements is that, unlike so many other documentaries which centre around acompetition, we...
