Posted in: Disc Reviews by Michael Durr on February 18th, 2007
Synopsis
The filming world seems to be full of un-original ideas. Everything from endless sequels to the same types of films repeated and repeated until one falls into a deep dark slumber. The Quiet staring Elisha Cuthbert(24, Girl Next Door) as Nina Deer & Camilla Belle(When A Stranger Calls) as Dot from the cover and box description appears to be another teenage high school drama about some new girl and sexual tension sans Cruel Intentions. How...ver, this is not the case once you go through this brilliant movie. It really is the story of a Dot, a deaf and mute who is dealing with the pain of just losing her father in a car accident (and lost her mother to cancer many years ago). She has been sent to her god parents; Paul & Olivia Deer played by Martin Donovan (Weeds, Dead Zone ) & Edie Falco (Sopranos). However, the family is not as they seem. All of them including the daughter Nina (Cuthbert) & Dot harbor deep secrets as it comes together to a satisfying conclusion.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on February 16th, 2007
Before Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring, there was another film full of warriors running through the wilderness, accompanied by a majestic score. That film was The Last of the Mohicans, director Michael Mann's remake of the 1936 film of the same name, which was a remake of the 1920 silent film. And all of these movies were based on the original novel by James Fennimore Cooper, a popular 18th Century American writer.
So there's a lot of history to this story, which is set during the French and Indian War in the mid-18th Century. Our hero is Hawkeye (Daniel Day-Lewis, Gangs of New York), the white adopted son of a Mohican father, Chingachgook (Russel Means, Natural Born Killers). Together with Chingachgook's biological son, Uncas (Eric Schweig, Tom and Huck), they do their own thing in the wilderness, hunting and trapping and uninvolved in the ongoing war.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on February 15th, 2007
Maria Bello gives a wasted performance in the Tim McGraw vehicle Flicka, a by-the-numbers family film that is such a retread of other more competent efforts, one wonders, What is the point? Alison Lohman plays McGraw's teenage daughter and friend-to-Flicka, a role type that was much better utilized in classics, such as Old Yeller, Where the Red Fern Grows, and Summer of the Monkeys. Lohman is the precocious adolescent, who struggles through boarding school, and her relationship with gruf...-farmer daddy McGraw. McGraw is mis-cast in most everything he's in, being too hip, new-wave country sissified to qualify as a) a tough guy (in this film), and b) an ex-high school football star (see Friday Night Lights). In other words, his time would be better spent returning to Nashville for more of those inane little suck-tracks like "Don't Take the Girl." He's a poor actor with limited range, and his performance in Flicka confirms it.
An even more noteworthy problem the film suffers from is the same plot formula we've seen for over fifty years in novel and film. Teenager clashes with parent because they're just alike. Parent and teenager neither one realize, or admit to, the similarity. When they finally do, fences are mended, and the real healing begins, all so we can get that warm fuzzy the studio wants from us. End of story. Somewhere along the way, the dog or deer or buffalo or goat incurs some kind of tragedy, which may or may not result in death, depending on the sadism of the filmmakers. I won't tell you which way this ends up, but I will say Flicka follows the formula, and doesn't depart one inch from it.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on February 15th, 2007
Certain aspects of Working Girl have not aged well, but the film remains a quality production that showcases Melanie Griffith in her best role, with Harrison Ford and Sigourney Weaver as superb, lightly humorous supporting characters.
Tess McGill (Griffith) is a secretary struggling to rise in the New York business world. After a series of bad experiences with chauvinistic managers, she's transferred to a new secretary role, this time under a female boss (Weaver). At first relieved to be working for someone who understands the female struggle, Tess is hurt when she learns that her new boss is a backstabbing cutthroat who only listens to her to steal ideas. When her boss is hospitalized after a vacation accident, Tess takes action - by taking control of her boss' office, title and even her wardrobe. In her new guise, Tess gets right to work on brokering a deal with an investment banker, Jack Trainer (Ford), risking her career on one hail-Mary play.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on February 14th, 2007
In the great tradition of Hollywood rehashes, The Guardian applies a new coat of paint to a tried-and-true formula. In this case, we're talking about the story of Top Gun with Coast Guard rescue swimmers in place of Air Force fighter pilots. Oh, and maybe throw in a little Officer and a Gentleman for good measure.
Stop me if you've heard this one. They're the elite, the best of the best. Their training program is the most difficult in the world, and it will weed out anyone who can't cut it in their dangerous profession. One man is a legend in the profession, now the lead instructor at the school. The other is a cocky young recruit, with tons of raw talent but always "this close" to throwing it all away. The instructor recognizes the recruit's ability, but questions whether he can be trusted in a real life or death situation. Their relationship starts out antagonistic, but before the tale is finished, they'll find a common ground and shared respect, and the teacher will pass his torch on to the student.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on February 7th, 2007
The prologue to The Covenant tells us of people with supernatural powers. We're told of how these powerful warlocks and witches were hunted throughout Europe and escaped to the New England colonies in the New World. The information is provided with the contradictions of pseudogrunge music and pages of ancient texts. It doesn't take us long to meet young men, descendants from these immigrant families. We discover them flaunting their powers by jumping off a cliff on the way to a teen party. These four special teen boys have the world, or at least their local community, by the short hairs. Soon we are alerted that something has changed. The group feels a strong presence that is disturbing their supernatural force. Newcomer Chase Collins (Stan) has a secret of his own. He is the last of a fifth family once banished from the society. His return means the usual tale of revenge and mayhem is about to unfold. Throw in a generous amount of teen sex, loud music, and fast cars, and we have a quite furious but erratic romp. We're informed in roundabout ways that the society operates under certain rules intended to keep the secret and allow them to remain safe. Unfortunately these rules appear more like suggestions, really, as the boys are usually apt to show off their powers whether being chased by police or merely to remove a girl's pants to win a bet. We also learn that using this force drains the user's life, causing premature aging, if the powers are used too frequently. Of course, there is always a potential workaround to such unfortunate effects. It seems any warlock may will his powers onto another, particularly at their 18th birthday when they come into full possession of their "gifts".
Comparisons to the superior Underworld films can't be helped. The box art invites such comparisons by telling us the film's share producers. The idea of a secret society with sinister history and secrets create a common thread. But warlocks are just not as cool as vampires and werewolves. Blue tints to the cinematography complete the comparisons. The Covenant obviously attempts to stay more grounded in reality and so is far more mundane overall. The film employs an odd combination of complex simplicity. We are treated to hints of this incredibly rich tradition and history, yet it is all cheapened by the one dimensional performance of the cast. We are always tantalizingly close to something larger that never makes its appearance on film. None of these characters exhibit the culture and sophistication that the filmmakers want so badly to convince us they possess. The film wants so much to be epic in its scope, but no power on heaven or earth, supernatural or otherwise, is going to make that happen. Add to these flaws some horrid examples of dialogue looping (dialogue replacement) and one begins to wonder if Renny Harlin was so obsessed with largesse that he simply ignored the critical details. Check out the looping at about 25 minutes into the film.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on February 2nd, 2007
The World Cup is unquestionably the greatest sporting event in the world. No other event, sporting or otherwise, pulls nations together like the World Cup does. Once every four years, the whole of the world (save for the majority of the United States) takes a month off to focus their eyes on the efforts of a group of young men to put a white ball into a white net. This film is the story of the 1996 edition of the famed tournament.
This film does a great job of capturing the story of the tournament, while not ...etting bogged down in the details that could drag a film like this one to a standstill. The entire tournament is discussed, but not every game is shown. In fact, the group of 16 is skipped all together. While this does not make for a complete document of the tournament, it certainly helps to keep the film on task. The first half of the film showcases the road to the final, and the second half focuses on the semi-finals and the final match itself. Impressively, the film does not shy away from touchy subjects, as it discusses referee controversies and “the head-butt” openly. Much of the film showcases field-level images of the gameplay supported only by crowd noise, which brings the beautiful game to life in a very real way. This is a compelling and entertaining film even for those that are casual fans of international sport.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on January 30th, 2007
I�m sure I�m not the only person wondering why on Earth a studio like Universal, with so many classics in their vault, would release Half Baked so quickly onto HD DVD. One can presumably assume that the only reason they chose to release it at this particular time is to bank on the recent popularity of David Chappelle. The only unfortunate part here is that Chappelle�s performance, while sometimes funny, shows that his talent was best used elsewhere.
Thurgood Jenkins (Chappelle), Scarface (Guillermo Diaz), Kenny (Harlan Ellison), and Brian (Jim Breuer) are life-long friends who live together, talk together and obviously smoke together. Each holds a pretty decent life (Thurgood�s a janitor, Kenny is a school teacher, Scarface works at a fast-food joint and Brian works at a record store), but after a particularly good set of hits with their favorite choice of narcotic, Kenny is chosen to run out to grab some munchies. On the way out of the store, Kenny runs into a police officer�s horse. Kenny proceeds to feed the officer�s horse (not knowing it�s a diabetic) until it keels over and dies. Kenny is soon arrested with bail set at $100,000. Luckily for our buddies, Thurgood finds out that his company tests marijuana. Their ingenious plan is to steal some and sell it. Unfortunately, a local drug lord isn�t too happy when he hears of this. Add in the standard female attraction and you have a film that ultimately has a few laughs, but fails overall.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on January 30th, 2007
This could be my shortest film review ever: watch Step Up for the dancing - the rest is a formulaic bunch of "whatever".
But since you're reading, here's a little more. Like Save The Last Dance, Step Up is a teen dance/romance movie. The story follows Tyler Gage (Channing Tatum), a guy from the wrong side of the tracks, and Nora Clark (Jenna Dewan), a privileged ballet student attending a prestigious school for the arts. Tyler's your typical bad boy, stealing cars, getting into scuffles at night clubs and - of course - dancing up a hip-hop storm. Lucky for him, trouble leads him into doing community service at Nora's school. She's busy preparing for a really important dance at the senior fall showcase, which will make or break her dance career.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by David Annandale on January 29th, 2007
John Cena is The Marine. Though, as matters develop, The Maroon might be a better handle. At any rate, after being discharged for having Disobeyed a Direct Order in Iraq (where, in a scene distinctly reminiscent of the opening of The Naked Gun, our boy shoots up one of those elusive Al-Qaeda training camps that nobody else seems to be able to find). Readjustment to civilian life is difficult, but then, while heading out for a little holiday with his wife (Kelly Carlson), an unfortunate stop at a gas station results in Carlson being abducted by a violent gang of jewel thieves headed up by Robert Patrick (who comes across, as was pointed out to me, like the love child of Martin Sheen and Chandler Bing). Cue the pursuit through the swamps.
So as we’re watching this, my girlfriend turns to me and says that there’s a problem with a movie when the hero could be removed from the picture to little discernible effect. And she’s right. In fact, Cena disappears completely once the action gets going (!!?!), leaving the field for Patrick to camp it up. What role he does play could have, for the most part, easily been filled by one of the alligators we are shown (but who are never seen again). Perhaps Gustave could have been imported from Primeval to take care of business. And while I love a good explosion as much as the next guy, the ones on display here are so over the top (my favourite is the coop car raised into the air on a pillow of fire) that they are hilarious. And trust me, we’re laughing AT the movie and the steroid freaks in it, not with it (or them).
