Posted in: Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on September 5th, 2006
Synopsis
Maybe it’s because of their funny accents, or maybe it’s because of the natural desire to see ancient history relived, but the British sure have a knack for their period piece dramas and making everyone want to watch. And when Elizabeth I aired on HBO over a two-part miniseries during the spring of 2006, it won a truckload of Emmy awards, not only for the production, but also for the title character, played by Helen Mirren (Excalibur) and one of the supporting actors (Jeremy Irons, <b ...Reversal of Fortune).
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on September 5th, 2006
Something must be drawing Michael Douglas to the upper-crust "man in peril" role. He's been stalked by a woman who likes to boil rabbits, sexually harassed by his sexy boss, and is currently being framed for the assassination of the President in The Sentinel. Douglas plays Peter Garrison, a Secret Service veteran who is also having an affair with the wife of the man he is sworn to protect, First Lady Ballentine (Kim Basinger, still looking good at 53). When Garrison is framed by the assassins (one of who... may be another Secret Service Agent), he must stay one step ahead of former protege Agent Breckinridge (Kiefer Sutherland, doing Jack Bauer as a SS agent) and rookie agent Jill Marin (an underused but gorgeous Eva Longoria), who are hot on his trail, believing he really is trying to kill the President.
The plot is lifted from dozens of other films and simply injected into different surroundings. Instead of a doctor and a one-armed man, it's a Secret Service agent and a plot to kill the President. Despite the lack of plot originality, director Clark Johnson (The Shield, The Wire) and the professional cast, especially Douglas and Sutherland, always keep things moving at an economical clip. The Sentinel never lingers on anything long enough for us to question it, and it hits all the right marks in its 108 minute running time. It even takes some time to show us the daily grind of a Secret Service agent, which adds to the film's authenticity.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on September 3rd, 2006
Synopsis
This is the second film starring Lindsay Lohan that I’ve reviewed for Upcomingdiscs, the first being Herbie: Fully Loaded. So I guess you could call me a LoFAN, get it? But in doing an IMDB scan for the credits on Just My Luck, I’ve found that one of the producers is Bruce Willis. Yes, Bruce Willis from Die Hard. So I guess the bigger question is why didn’t Bruce appear in this film? Surely he could have made it a little more entertaining for me to watch.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on August 17th, 2006
Road House is macaroni and cheese for a lot of movie goers that are over 27 years of age. Released in 1989, the movie chronicles the life of James Dalton (Patrick Swayze, Ghost), a “cooler” at a local bar, who is offered a huge sum of money to help a bar owner named Frank Tilghman (Kevin Tighe, Mumford) get his place called the “Double Deuce” back on its feet. A cooler for lack of a better explanation is a bouncer who helps diffuse situations before they blow up into brawls.
When Dalton gets to the bar, he sees the type of environment he’ll have to deal with. Even though his old friend (and house band singer) is there, he’s got drug dealing waitresses, statutory raping bouncers and money stealing bartenders. And apparently the few legitimate operating businesses in town appear to be owned by Brad Wesley (Ben Gazzara, The Big Lebowski). Brad doesn’t hesitate to break the rules whenever necessary, even if it means that Dalton has to call in his mentor Wade Garrett (Sam Elliott, We Were Soldiers), while he continues romancing Dr. Elizabeth Clay (Kelly Lynch, Charlie’s Angels), who just happened to be Wesley’s woman for a little while.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on August 10th, 2006
Tell me if you've heard this one before... a high school girl is not allowed to join a certain club because it is boys only, so she dresses up like a (transvestite) boy to sneak into the club and prove that she has girl power!
Seriously, how many times can Hollywood make the exact same movie, before somebody sues somebody for copyright infringement? I understand the argument that each new generation of teens will pay big bucks to see the same crappy movie that has been made every couple of years for generations, but come on. Does nobody have any artistic integrity left?
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on July 28th, 2006
Synopsis
Benchwarmers at first glance appears to be a stupid comedy. Produced by Adam Sandler (Big Daddy) and starring Rob Schneider (Deuce Bigalow), the movie’s 85 minute existence appears to be an aberration in the space time continuum, something that should not be discussed or hinted at for all eternity. Now, I’m not in this to bash Schneider, God, every critic has done that already, and I can’t add any new material. But in his role as Gus, he just isn’t believable.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on July 26th, 2006
The truth may never come out as to why HBO cancelled Carnivale after the show's second season. They claim that it was a combination of decreased ratings and rising production costs equaling $2 million an episode. What doesn't make sense, however, is that the network also admits that they received as many as 50,000 emails in a single weekend following the cancellation announcement. The facts also show that they followed up this show that was “too expensive to be profitable” with Rome, a show that has been widely recognized as the most expensive television series ever produced.
Several months after the show was cancelled, HBO offered the show's producers the chance to shoot a 2-hour movie to finish up the story which was left hanging. They refused, as they claim that the entire story was planned out for six complete seasons, so a two-hour finale would not even come close to finishing up the story. The show runners then announced plans to finish up the story in comic book form, but nothing has been seen of this plan as of yet.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on July 23rd, 2006
Keanu Reeves really really wants to break out of his pigeonholed role as the charismatic good guy in an action film, but sometimes he just can't help himself, and takes the easy paycheck (Chain Reaction may be a good indication of that). But in the action roles he's noted for, both as Neo in The Matrix trilogy and as John Constantine in Constantine, he's got the "protagonist with an internal conflict" down pat, that's for sure.
Written by Kevin Brodbin (who came up with the initial story) and directed by Francis Lawrence, who was previously well-reputed as a music video director (think Tarsem or David Fincher maybe), Reeves plays Constantine as a man with a conflict. While others may think that he has a gift in exorcising and deporting demons, he sees it as a burden, a duty he thinks he should get into heaven for. With the help of a grizzled priest (Pruitt Taylor Vince, Nobody's Fool) and an aspiring apprentice (Shia LaBeouf, IMDB), he plods along through the days and nights, doing his duty while battling an aggressive form of lung cancer which he doesn't make any better by chain-smoking.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on July 15th, 2006
Lately, I've been wondering out loud about what will happen to these over-produced teen pop stars who are thrown all this media exposure by their parents (to the point of exploitation). When are we going to start seeing some Playboy or Maxim photo shoots? When are we going to see someone on Cinemax After Dark, or even Night Calls? I mean, it's obvious at this point that Ashley Simpson can't sing, and she's starting to look more and more like her sister in an attempt to become her, without the appeal. And since there's a rumor floating around that she turned down a multimillion dollar Playboy photo shoot (after the proverbial "great deal of thought"), it seems to be the next logical step.
Enter Joanna Levesque (RV), a.k.a. "Jojo". I don't know what song she's famous for, I don't know what she's doing lately, but I know she's been thrown a lot at MTV and Nickelodeon for whatever reason. I know this because I watch copious amounts of both. She plays Hailey in Aquamarine, a bit of a tomboy and a close friend of Claire (Emma Roberts, Blow), who is the granddaughter (I think) of owners of a beach club of some sort, and they both seem to have a crush on Raymond (Jake McDorman, Echoes of Innocence), a local life guard and resident teen hunk.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on July 15th, 2006
The thing that makes the death of Bruce Lee an even larger tragedy is that he virtually set back the kung-fu/karate genre from gaining mainstream recognition by a couple of decades. Set back may not even be the proper word for it, as he would have become a larger than life action star whose dreams were bigger than most anyone had anticipated.
In the case of Enter the Dragon, the film was designed to be Lee's crossover attempt into American films, and it's one worthy of his abilities. Bruce (or in this case, Lee) lives at a temple and is invited to a private island for a martial arts tournament where a man named Han (Kien Shih, Once Upon a Time in China) runs the tournament and possibly some illegal operations. His henchman is Oharra (Chuck Norris protégé Robert Wall, Game of Death), who might have been responsible for the death of his sister. Some of the more colorful characters in the tournament are Roper (John Saxon, From Dusk Till Dawn) and Williams (Jim Kelly, Black Belt Jones), friends from America that are also looking to gain the top prize. Lee isn't there to win the tournament, but to try to expose Han's dealings.
![Constantine [HD DVD] dvd cover art](https://upcomingdiscs.com/ecs_covers/constantine-hd-dvd-large.jpg)
![Enter the Dragon [HD DVD] dvd cover art](https://upcomingdiscs.com/ecs_covers/enter-the-dragon-hd-dvd-large.jpg)
