Posted in: Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on February 27th, 2007
The return of the historical epic hit Hollywood hard in 2005/2006. Troy, Kingdom of Heaven, King Arthur and the two Colin Farrell vehicles, The New World and Alexander, all hit theaters pretty close to each other... and all flopped. The basic complaint was the same about all these films; they were too long, the pace was too slow and they were hard to follow. As much as these huge pictures cost, the studios quickly looked to the DVD cash cow to try to recoup some of the production co...ts. The first to hit was King Arthur, which was released in the theatrical PG-13 format (full screen only), and the director's preferred extended unrated cut (presented in widescreen). Antione Fuqua's fighting with the studio over the final cut of the film was widely known, so it was nice to get to see the director's original, more violent, vision. Audiences were pleased too, as this new cut was widely regarded as superior to the original.
A very similar thing happened with Ridley Scott's Kingdom of Heaven. The theatrical release was regarded as average, as it was on DVD. When Scott re-cut the film and released it as a four-disc special edition, however, consumers and critics went wild, declaring this new extended cut far superior to the original theatrical version. In fact, this new vision was named the DVD of the year last year by many critics. Scott has since said that this new cut represented more of his original vision for the story, but that the studio feared that it was far too long for theater audiences. (Remember, these are the same audiences who had complained that the film was too long to begin with, proving that filmmakers' would be best served creating their films on their own terms, without the input of the general public.)
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on February 27th, 2007
If you've seen any of Terry Gilliam's other films, you can probably guess that this one is pretty bizarre. Based on the novel of the same name by Mitch Cullen, Tideland is an eccentric, grotesque and imaginative tale of a child's resilience.
I'm going to say right off the top, I wanted to like Tideland, and for two reasons. One, Gilliam has made some incredible films in his career, from Monty Python and the Holy Grail to Twelve Monkeys and Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas. Other than the flawed Brothers Grimm, it's been seven years since a Gilliam-helmed film was released. So I wanted to like this one. I really did. Unfortunately, while I admired the creativity in Tideland, and was at times intrigued and repulsed, I ultimately found the film extremely unsatisfying.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on February 26th, 2007
The Prestige surprised me like no other film has since The Usual Suspects. The entire film plays out like a good bit of misdirection, slight of hand and illusion, with some pseudo-science thrown in for good measure.
Robert Angier (Hugh Jackman, X-Men) and Alfred Borden (Christian Bale, Batman Begins) are rival magicians, both inspiring to be the best the world has ever seen. They began as partners, working together as assistants to an established magician, but when a trick goes terribly wrong, their relationship is forever changed. When each man sets out on his own, their rivalry grows as fast as their individual careers, with each of them suspicious of the other, and always striving to learn the other's secrets. The question is, who will win in the end, and what will be the cost of victory?
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on February 23rd, 2007
For the sake of full disclosure, I wrote this review while I was sitting in a meeting. For the sake of having a challenge, I wanted to start every sentence in this review with the name of the movie, for no discernible reason whatsoever. Feel free to call shenanigans on me at any time, as it helped me get through my meeting and to a larger extent, the film.
Crossover is a film that at least as of this writing, has no positive reviews on Rotten Tomatoes for some sort of reason, and I think that's because of the razor sharp casting that was employed. Crossover includes Anthony Mackie, who was more recently seen as the drug dealing Frank in the Ryan Gosling Oscar-nominated film Half Nelson, but that's the only praiseworthy casting decision in the film. Crossover includes a supporting performance by Wayne Brady (Whose Line is it Anyway?) who is supposed to be a greedy sports agent who is running an underground street basketball league involving several teams, however in playing a bad guy, he makes his appearance in Chappelle's Show look really smart, because he's simply not believable. Crossover has a female role played by Eva Pigford, who was more recently seen in America's Next Top Model, so I guess if you can impress the scrutinizing eye of Tyra Banks, there's nowhere to go but up. Crossover also features a few real life "streetballers", including one whose name is "hot sauce". Crossover doesn't explain why this nickname was given, but I think it's the second dumbest athletic nickname I've heard, save for those whose nickname is the first letter of their first name and the first three letters of the last, like A-Rod, T-Mac.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on February 23rd, 2007
Comments on the supplemental material on this edition have been ported over from Brendan Surpless' excellent (and recent) review of the Blu-Ray disc, which also can be enjoyed on this site.
Now onto the review...
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on February 23rd, 2007
An epic is defined as an artistic work that celebrates the feats of a legendary figure. The film Cleopatra actually deals with many such figures, the title character being merely one of them. The truth is the film was never really about the Egyptian queen as much as it was about Rome and its relationship with Egypt.. Of course, Elizabeth Taylor's portrayal has achieved something of a classic status that is not completely deserved. Much has been made of the Richard Burton and Elizabeth Taylor pairing in this film. Certainly both delivered entertaining and even at times compelling performances. However, these efforts pale in comparison to the brilliance of Rex Harrison as Julius Caesar and Roddy McDowall as Octavian. Others like Martin Landau add considerable weight to often underused characters. It is doubtful much would have been made of this film at all, let alone Burton and Taylor's overrated contributions, without such help. Taylor in particular makes more use of her looks than any thespian grandeur here. Elaborate and frequent costume changes are designed to take full advantage of her more obvious attributes. She does appear a stark contrast to the unusual woman most notable in recent years for her staunch loyalty to Michael Jackson. The enormously grand cinematography also plays no small role in the film's ultimate success. This release is intended to pay homage to the Academy Awards taken by this film, which included statues for cinematography and visual effects.
Cleopatra runs over four hours and can be broken down into four distinct parts. Hour one is clearly a setup for things to come. Julius Caesar (Harrison) is close to a glorious victory over his rival Pompey Magnus in a Roman civil war. His quarry has fled to Egypt, where Caesar is in pursuit. Upon his arrival Pompey's head is presented by the boy king Ptolemy. Caesar inserts himself into Egypt's civil war in favor of the King's exiled sister, Cleopatra (Taylor). Upon his fathering a son with the Nile Queen, the hour ends with her safely back upon her throne.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on February 23rd, 2007
If you'd asked me last year whether I thought Ridley Scott and Russell Crowe should work together again, I would have said "absolutely." No hesitation. We're talking about the director and star of Gladiator, after all, and I'd love to see another epic picture from that team.
What I didn't expect to see was A Good Year, a romantic comedy that wholeheartedly joins the ranks of the "wine is like life" camp. What's with that, anyway? Maybe it's time to move on to another beverage, like coffee. You know, coffee and life have a lot in common - plenty of lessons to be learned there.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on February 20th, 2007
We all know that Daniel Craig helped effectively reboot the James Bond movie franchise in 2006 with the amazing Casino Royale. But let's not forget that Pierce Brosnan was at the helm of the first Bond "rebirth" in Goldeneye. Brosnan was the darling of Bond producer Albert Broccoli in the mid '80s, but was unable to take the role because of his then-current commitment to the television show Remington Steele. Assuming he could have gotten the job back then, he would have followed Roger Moore after A View to a Kill. But alas, Timothy Dalton had to come aboard and appeared in The Living Daylights and Licence to Kill. When Brosnan finally was available, the decision was made to quickly snap him up.
Goldeneye was the first of Brosnan's four movies as the guy who likes his martinis shaken and not stirred. It covers Bond in a new way, now that the Cold War is over and Russia isn't what it used to be. He is forced to flee a Russian stronghold from the grasp of a Russian general who executed a friend and fellow agent Alec Trevelyan (Sean Bean, Ronin). Fast forward several years later, Bond is dispatched to find a Russian device called Goldeneye, which is a electromagnetic pulse that wipes out any electronic device.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by David Annandale on February 19th, 2007
We are in Haiti during the late 1970's, under the brutal dictatorship of Pap Doc Duvalier. At a beach resort, we meet three middle-aged women engaged in what amounts to sex tourism. Charlotte Rampling is Ellen, an imperious ex-pat British professor; Karen Young is Brenda, a psychologically fragile American divorcee; and Louise Portal is Sue, an earthy warehouse manager from Montreal. Disillusioned by their romantic prospects back home, they revel in the (paid) sexual attentions of handsome young Haitians, most notably Legba (Ménothy César), with whom both Rampling and Young are in love.
Director/co-writer Laurent Cantet observes his leading ladies with an eye that, while caustic, avoids easy judgments. He does not in any way let them off the hook for what amounts to a new form of predatory colonialism, and we see them engage in activities they would never consider in their home countries. So, for instance, we learn that Brenda had her first sexual encounter with Legba three years ago, when he was 15, and we see her being tempted to take advantage of a boy who can’t be a day over 12 (something Legba witness, and nips in the bud). But neither does Cantet engage in easy condemnation. He makes all of his characters fully developed human beings, and encourages us to understand these women, even if we do not sympathise. The film is not an unqualified success, however. Once the characters and the setting have been established, the film tends to meander, taking too long to tell us not much more than we knew at the start.
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.
