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Dolby Digital 2.0 (English)

Trouble Bound

Posted in Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on February 16th, 2003

Synopsis

Michael Madsen, recently sprung from jail, is determined to stay out of trouble. Things startoff well, when he wins five grand and a Lincoln Continental in a poker game. He heads off forLas Vegas, planning to multiply that money. What he doesn’t know is that there’s a corpse in thetrunk of the car. Then he picks up Patricia Arquette, a sociology major and mob family daughteron a vendetta against another mobster. Needless to say, all hell breaks loose, and does so quiteamusi…
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I’ll Do Anything

Posted in Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on February 15th, 2003

Synopsis

Nick Nolte is a down-on-his-luck actor, who suddenly has to look after his six-year-olddaughter (who naturally winds up with a better TV career than he has). This film was a big flopfor writer/director James L. Brooks. It was originally a musical, but all the songs were cut priorto release.

Audio

The audio specifications aren’t really indicated, which smells like 2.0 to me. Theenvironment effect is all right, though not spectacular, and the left-rig…
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Bliss

Posted in Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on February 15th, 2003

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Synopsis

Craig Sheffer and Sheryl Lee are less than a year into their marriage, and already they’re intherapy. It transpires that Lee has never had an orgasm. Sheffer finds out that she is visitingextremely unconventional sex therapist Terence Stamp. Outraged, he confronts Stamp, but windsup listening to him, and then becomes his pupil, hoping that what he learns will lead to sexualhealing for Lee. If this sounds like things are about to get very flaky, well, that depends on yourtak…
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Sordid Lives

Posted in Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on February 14th, 2003

Synopsis

An ensemble piece, along the lines of something John Sayles or Robert Altman might do,only on a minuscule budget and played strictly for laughs. A massively dysfunctional Southernfamily meet for the funeral of Grandma Peggy, and all sorts of animosities and such are workedout. The film is based on a play, and boy can you tell — static as hell, boring to watch. There aresome moments of genuine emotion with the gay characters, but for the most part this is just apainful slog…
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Bloody Murder 2

Posted in Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on February 12th, 2003

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Synopsis

Stop me if you’ve heard this before. A group of camp counsellors is shutting down a campwhere gruesome murders happened years before. They goof around, have sex, and areslaughtered by a masked maniac. Bloody Murder 2 is 90% shameless Friday the 13th plagiarism:the location is “Placid Pines” instead of “Crystal Lake” and the killer is “Trevor Moorehouse”instead of “Jason Voorhees,” but my God, even the number of syllables is the same. The other10% is stolen from Scream: a li…
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Summer of Fear

Posted in Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on February 11th, 2003

Synopsis

Linda Blair plays Rachel, a teenager whose parents take in her cousin Julia when Julia’sparents are killed in a car crash. Julia bewitches everyone but Rachel, who realizes that Julia is,in fact, Evil. This is the European theatrical cut of the TV movie, which aired Stateside asStranger in Our House. Though an important release for those following Craven’s early career,especially his early movies, this remains nonetheless very much a 1978 network TV film, withall the limita…
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Puphedz: The Tattle-Tale Heart

Posted in Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on February 10th, 2003

Synopsis

The story is essentially “The Tell-Tale Heart”: our protagonist, obsessed by an old man’sugly eye, kills him, buries him under the floorboards, but then loses it when he thinks he stillhears the beating heart. The short feature has a lot of affection for Poe (despite misspelling hismiddle name) and actually uses much of the actual prose from the original story, before divertinginto slapstick silliness. Not all of the jokes work, but the care and imagination that went into the…
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Duellists, The

Posted in Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on February 9th, 2003

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Synopsis

Keith Carradine and Harvey Keitel are soldiers in Napoleon’s army. The film opens the yearNapoleon has become ruler of France. Keitel is a man of irrational and explosive temper. For noreal reason, he develops a hatred for Carradine, and challenges him to a duel. Over and overagain, during the course of the tumultuous years that follow, the two duel, but never manage tocomplete their battle and both always live to fight another day. Though not without darkness,this film, ba…
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Cardinal, The

Posted in Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on February 7th, 2003

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Synopsis

Tom Tryon, better known today as a novelist (he is the author of, among other works, TheOther, a classic of modern horror), plays the title character. From humble curate in the poorestparish of Massachusetts, he rises, over twenty years, to become a cardinal. Along the way, sincethis is a three hour film, he encounters One Damn Thing After Another, from his sister’s desireto marry outside the faith, to abortion, racism, temptations of the flesh, the Nazis, and so on. Thewho…
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MASH – The Complete Third Season

Posted in Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on February 6th, 2003

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This set contains all episodes of season 3 from M*A*S*H in broadcast order. This season of M*A*S*H from a critical standpoint was probably one of the best of the 11 seasons, this was the year that the show won the Peabody award, the highest award you can receive in television, and co-producer gene Reynolds won an Emmy award for directing the episode, “O.R.” which is seen here uncut and unedited. Also on this disc are the episodes The General Flipped at Dawn, Officer of the Day, Check-up, and Rainbow Bridge, Iron gut…
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SpongeBob Squarepants: Tales from the Deep

Posted in Disc Reviews by David Annandale on February 6th, 2003

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Synopsis

By this time, you either like this guy or you don’t. There is a lot of fun goofiness here, butthere are also some ill-advised live-action additions (such as in “House Party” and “I Had anAccident”), which are just plain painful.

Audio

The 2.0 sound is crisp, clear, distortion-free and fun. The surround effect is pretty muchlimited to the music, but it’s pretty constant.

Video

As with the other SpongeBob DVDs, the picture is …
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Affair to Remember, An

Posted in Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on February 5th, 2003

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Synopsis

On a luxury ocean liner, playboy Cary Grant meets singer Deborah Kerr. Each is involvedwith someone else, but they fall deeply in love with each other. Upon arriving in New York, theydecide to part and, if all goes well, reunite in six months at the top of the Empire State Building,by which time their lives should be in order. If you’ve seen Sleepless in Seattle, you know whathappens next. Though this is one the most celebrated weepies ever, I found it curiouslyuninvolving….
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Rules of Attraction, The

Posted in Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on February 2nd, 2003

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Synopsis

The setting is an exclusive college, and the action covers one school term. We move fromone party to another (very little education of any kind takes place here, what with the professorsstoned or absent), and see the intersections of doomed romantic hopes. These hopes belong toSean Bateman (brother of American Psycho Patrick), who longs for the virginal Lauren, and is inturn longed after by Paul. Lauren, meanwhile, is saving herself for Victor, who doesn’t evenknow she exis…
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Law and Order – The First Year

Posted in Disc Reviews by David Annandale on February 2nd, 2003

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Film

“In the criminal justice system the people are represented by two separate, yet equally important groups: the police who investigate crime and the District Attorneys who prosecute the offenders …” Law and Order is an example of a bygone day in network television. In the 1990-1991 season this first year program ranked 62nd of all television programs. In addition to its poor performance, NBC lost revenue from countless sponsors pulling their advertisements because of the controversial nature of t…
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Q & A

Posted in Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on February 2nd, 2003

Synopsis

Nick Nolte, hulking and brutal, is a top NYC cop. The first thing we see him do isassassinate an unarmed man, then plant evidence to cover up his guilt. Timothy Hutton, a newassistant to the district attorney, is given the job of closing what is supposed to be a simple caseof self-defence. Naturally, he finds all sorts of loose ends and hints of top-level corruption. Whilethe romantic subplot is pointless, the investigation is gripping, and Nolte, Hutton, ArmandAssante (as …
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Driving Miss Daisy

Posted in Disc Reviews by David Annandale on January 27th, 2003

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Synopsis

The Miss Daisy of the title is played by Jessica Tandy. After she wrecks her car, her son (Dan Aykroyd) hires a chauffeur (Morgan Freeman) for her. Miss Daisy is fiercely resistant to the supposed loss of independence this represents, but she eventually lets Freeman do his job. A strong friendship grradually develops between the two. In the background, we catch glimpses of the changing American South as the film moves from 1947 to 1972. Prejudice, both racial and anti-semitic, lurks just und…
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The Last Man

Posted in Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on January 23rd, 2003

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I wouldn’t say The Last Man was the worst film I ever saw, but that’s only because I did see Battlefield Earth and Event Horizon. If there’s a category below B film this is a great example. The whole film has the feel of community theatre at its worst. Dan Montgomery delivers such a bad performance that it would be funny if it didn’t hurt so much to watch. The story rambles on for 93 minutes that will feel more like 3 hours.

Dreamers

Posted in Disc Reviews by David Annandale on January 19th, 2003

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Synopsis

Two young friends move from Tennessee (where one lives in dysfunctional household andthe other in a deeply conservative one) to Hollywood, where they dream of making films. Theolder of the two gets there first, and is making a film about people who have delusions aboutmaking films (got yer postmodern hall of mirrors thing happening here) and, of course, hisfunding dries up. There isn’t much here that hasn’t been done before, but the execution is nicelydone, and the performa…
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Signs

Posted in Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on January 17th, 2003

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Film

M. Night Shyamalan, the brilliant director of The Sixth Sense and Unbreakable, comes through again with his latest film Signs. Buena Vista has given Shyamalan his due respect by adding Signs to their Vista Series of DVD’s.

Synopsis

One morning on their farm in Buck’s County, Pennsylvania the Hess family wake up to find a 500 foot crop circle in the corn fields in their back yard. Watching the news brings them reports of similar circles showing up …
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Emperor’s New Clothes, The

Posted in Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on January 16th, 2003

Synopsis

It is 1821. Napoleon is in exile on St. Helena, but not for long. His exact double is found,and the two men switch identities. Napoleon, now disguised as Eugene Lenormand, makeshis way back to France. The idea is that, once the real emperor is in Paris, the double will exposehimself, and the people will rally around the returned ruler. But Eugene decides he likes beingemperor. Napoleon is now stuck in the role of a poor man. Naturally, this being a romanticcomedy, there are…
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Bad Influence

Posted in Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on January 15th, 2003

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Film

Bad Influence, while not a bad film, is certainly not a good one either. Try as I might I could not bring myself to really care about any of the characters. The film tries to portray Rob Lowe’s influence on James Spader as, well … bad. It’s not like he was a great guy to begin with. There is an incredible irony within the film when Lowe gets Spader out of a marriage he is dreading by slipping the family a copy of the groom-to-be having sex with another woman. Lowe, of course, had a real life video tape episode and Spader dealt with the same thing in Sex, Lies, and Video Tape.
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Infested

Posted in Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on January 13th, 2003

Synopsis

Five Gen-X yuppies (yup, they’re old enough to be that now) reunite for the funeral of oneof their friends. What ensues is a parody of The Big Chill, complete with bad 80s music. Thenmysterious bugs that disintegrate in bright light start infesting them one by one, turning them intomurderous zombies. So far, so eccentric, and the satire is sometimes very funny. The FX are sobargain-basement, however, and the plotting so loose, that the film loses direction and winds uupjust…
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Chris Botti and Friends: Night Sessions Live in Concert

Posted in Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on January 8th, 2003

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Synopsis

Acclaimed trumpeter Chris Botti is joined on stage by his band and friends (Sting and Shawn Colvin) for a night of evocative and sensual music. Filmed on location in the historic El Rey Theater in Los Angeles on December 3, 2001. Chris Botti’s regular gig is as the trumpet player for Sting both on tour and in the studio, this show is to celelbrate the release of his solo album with Comlumbia records.

Audio

The audio on this disc is excellent; it is 5.1 surround with…
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Keys to Tulsa

Posted in Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on January 8th, 2003

Synopsis

The black sheep of a wealthy Tulsa family comes back to a world that he had walked away from, only to return and get pulled in to a tale of blackmail with his ex-high school sweetheart’s drug dealer husband. While attempting to help the only witness to a murder he gets wrapped up in a world of revenge, deceit and redemption, starring James Spader, Eric Stultz and Deborah Kara-Unger. Cameron Diaz is billed as one of the stars of this movie and for the approximately 3 minutes she is in this mov…
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All About Eve

Posted in Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on January 5th, 2003

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Synopsis

A corrosive satire of stardom in general, and the theatre world in particular, All About Evestars Bette Davis as an insecure theatre diva, and Anne Baxter as Eve, the young woman whobefriends Davis but is a the conniving, fawning sociopath who will stop at nothing for her ownstab at stardom. George Sanders (stealing every scene he’s in as a sublimely cynical critic) is onelof the only people who can see through Eve. Baxter overdoes the fawning, so it becomes difficultto bel…
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