Posted in: Disc Reviews by David Annandale on July 7th, 2003
Synopsis
The central premise is that luck is a real force, a gift that people are born with but can betaken away. Deep in the bowels of a mysterious casino (one that sits in the middle of mountainwasteland) lives Max Von Sydow in Howard Hughes-like seclusion. He appears to be the darkgod of luck, capable of stealing any trace of your like by a single touch, and this is precisely whathe does to a protege who wants to strike out on his own. This latter, deprived of his own luck,seeks ...
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on July 7th, 2003
To be completely fair, Dude, Where's My Car? was neither the worst movie of last year, nor the worst movie of its kind during the year. Heck, at times, it even showed signs of comedic inspiration. However, before I seem too kind, Dude, Where's My Car? is as dumb and crass as its title implies.
Taking obvious cues from Bill and Ted’s Excellent Adventure from years gone by, Danny Leiner’s Dude, Where’s My Car? follows in those same footsteps of the past in an almost slavish manne...
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on July 6th, 2003
When one thinks of the “Golden Age” of rock, the middle sixties to the middle seventies, a cornucopia of big name, big time acts usually surfaces in discussion. The big three, of course: The Beatles, The Rolling Stones, and Led Zeppelin. Some impressive but undoubtedly second tier acts follow: The Who, Cream, Black Sabbath. Solo acts like Bowie, Elton John, Marvin Gaye and Jimi Hendrix stand out. One musical act that seems to get lost in the glare of these musical supernovas was a pair of soft-spoken, poetic friends ...
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on July 3rd, 2003
Synopsis
Nick Tellis (Jason Patrick) is an undercover narcotics officer who is placed on suspension after a shootout with a dealer gone very wrong. He is brought back to active duty to shadow another officer who might have had something to do with the death of his partner.
Henry Oak (Ray Liotta) is a short tempered renegade cop intent to find out who killed his partner. AS they start to dig deeper into the life of Oak’s partner we find that things are not as they may seem. We see some intere...
Posted in: Disc Reviews by David Annandale on July 2nd, 2003
Like The Brady Bunch Movie, this effort combines several incidents from the TV series and strings them together with a loose central premise, and the result is actually funnier than the first film. This premise is that Tim Matheson shows up pretending to be Carol Brady’s long-lost husband. He is after a priceless horse sculpture in the Bradys’ living room. The innocent/rude tone of the first film is carried through here, and given extra impetus by the addition of an is-it-incest-or-not?
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on July 1st, 2003
Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas can be and has been described in many ways, but one of the things that this movie isn't is a Cheech and Chong road movie about a couple of whacky buddies on a drug binge in the city of sin. There’s no going to strip clubs, no hilarious misunderstandings that make one of them have to dress in drag and be involved in a stage show, in fact, there isn’t even any gambling. This movie is more accurately described as a scalding epitaph to the counterculture of the sixties, a re...
Posted in: Disc Reviews by David Annandale on July 1st, 2003
The plot, such as it is, is a pastiche of several episodes of the TV series, all twisted just enough to send them into a sunny version of the Twilight Zone. So the Bradys are going to lose their house if they don’t raise $20,000.00 by the end of the week, and Marcia’s nose is flattened by a football before the school dance, and Jan is jealous of the attention her big sister receives, and so on. The Brady's are just as oblivious to how the rest of the world perceives themas they are to the (sometimes very funny) innuendos and double-entendres they constantly (and inadvertently) utter.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by David Annandale on June 30th, 2003
Brad Johnson plays Jake Grafton, one of the top A-6 Intruder pilots, stationed on an aircraft carrier off the coast of Vietnam in 1972. He is frustrated by the useless missions he is constantly sent on, fruitlessly bombing trees. His frustration turns to rage when his bombardier is killed during one of these missions. He is subsequently paired up with borderline rogue bombardier Willem Dafoe, and before long these two cowboys decide to perform their own unilateral mission into the heart of Hanoi, whatever their commanding officer (Danny Glover) might think.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by David Annandale on June 22nd, 2003
Jessica Lange is a top Chicago attorney, who finds herself called on to defend her father when he is accused of having committed war crimes in Second World War Hungary. Convinced of his innocence, she launches herself into the wrenching case, but finds that maintaining her convictions becomes harder as the case moves on. Given his later career (Basic Instinct,Showgirls, etc.), it’s rather surprising in retrospect to find that the script to this intelligent drama is by Joe Esteras. Though sometimes moving a bit too slowly, the film is always interesting, the performances are superb (especially by Lange) and the story builds to a pretty powerful climax.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by David Annandale on June 21st, 2003
A serial arsonists is terrorizing the Los Angeles area. Investigating are veteran John Orr (Ray Liotta) and his junior partner Keith Lang (John Leguizamo). Before long, it appears that the arsonist is actually a fireman. The synopsis on the case implies that the film is a mystery: whois the arsonist, Liotta or Leguizamo? In fact, this isn’t really a mystery, since the film is based on a well-publicized case, and when was the last time Liotta didn’t play a weasel? In fact, Liotta becomes the prime suspect quite early on, and we see both his double life and the tightening net.
