Posted in: Disc Reviews by David Annandale on August 13th, 2009
Unable to face life as a lawyer, having been pushed into law school by his father (Tom Hanks), Troy Gable (Colin Hanks, looking uncannily like his father) aspires to become a writer. In order to put food on the table, he becomes the road manager for Buck Howard (John Malkovich), a former big-name mentalist who now works half-empty theatres in towns Troy didn't even know existed. By turns charming and tyrannical, Buck keeps hoping for the big comeback and return to his Tonight Show glory days, and drags Troy along for a bumpy ride down the back roads of show business.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by William O'Donnell on August 13th, 2009
This is the story of two Vikings who are mistakingly left behind in Newfoundland in the year 1007. As these two find ways to survive, they encounter Irish monks and Aboriginal people, and these same encounters ultimately lead to rifts in their bond with each other. The beautiful landscapes become a backdrop for a sometimes violent look at the people who discovered North America centuries before Columbus or any other discoverer. Oh, and we also get bad translations of Old Norse, a lot of metal music and a scene of actual defecation.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by William O'Donnell on August 6th, 2009
This is a 6-part series presented by the Discovery Channel, documenting the different devices created so that America could reach the moon by a deadline that then US president Kennedy had promised the nation.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on August 5th, 2009
Imagine waking up one morning to find a newspaper on your front porch. Here in Tampa, the fact that the paper is actually on your front porch is miracle enough. Imagine further that this ordinary looking paper isn’t today’s paper at all, but rather tomorrow’s edition. If you could trust that what you held was the genuine article, so to speak, just think of the possibilities. For most of us our thoughts turn to the myriad ways in which we could enrich ourselves: sports scores, lottery numbers, even stock tips. If, however, you’re less selfish,
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on July 22nd, 2009
Since the events of 911 there has been a lot more appreciation, at least publicly, for the real life heroes who populate fire and police stations all over the country. Few jobs offer so little reward for such high risk all in the name of protecting our society from harm. It’s likely no coincidence that while Third Watch began a couple of years before those events, it reached its peak in popularity in the months and years that followed. A better than average procedural drama, Third Watch offered a look at both police officers and firefighters along with their paramedics.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on July 22nd, 2009
The third season of Matlock brought more of the same. If you’re a fan, that’s very good news indeed. What is that, you ask? Imagine Sheriff Andy Taylor older and now an attorney, and you pretty much have the setup for Matlock. Forget for a second that both characters were played by Andy Griffith. That’s not all they have in common. Matlock is every bit the “southern gentleman” that Taylor was. He might be a little smarter, but he walks and talks like Andy Taylor.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by William O'Donnell on July 20th, 2009
Unless you were around for Iron Butterfly's big boom in 1968, you might remember this band best as the composers of that song the organ player plays for 17 minutes in that episode of The Simpsons in which Bart sells his soul. Yes, this is how I knew them for much of my youth, and I thought of them best then too.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by David Annandale on July 6th, 2009
When Terence Malick's latest effort hit the theatres, he had trimmed it down to 135 minutes. Early critics had seen a version running 150 minutes. This version is longer yet, clocking it at 172 minutes. Most of what I said about the previous DVD release holds, and so I'm reproducing it here, with additional comments as necessary.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by William O'Donnell on July 4th, 2009
At first glance, it is quite easy to see why this show has been compared to Sex and the City by many critics, and is about to again by yours truly. Mainly this comparison occurs because of the shows’ similarly humorous approach to sex, never wavering from any sort of topic therein. The first similarly I noticed though was the meta-cinematic use of our heroine Hannah (who escorts under the moniker “Belle”) when she talks to the audience directly. This device was only utilized in Sex and the City’s first season but we still see a similar mix of voice-over narration (which would take over Sex and the City) and the viewer being acknowledged (used more often than not with Secret Diary…).
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Michael Durr on July 4th, 2009
Everwood was a fairly long running show that started in 2002 and continued until 2006 for a total of eighty-nine episodes. It ran on the WB and was a casualty of the WB/UPN merger into the CW Television Network. Years later it has shown up on ABC Family and around the globe gaining fans here and there. It's a serious drama that involves the medical practice of Dr. Andy Brown (played by Treat Williams). Set in the fictional town of Everwood, Colorado (in reality it was a few towns located in Utah), we find ourselves figuring out how a death can alter the lives of everybody in the town and how they struggle to cope.
