Posted in: Disc Reviews by Michael Durr on February 18th, 2007
Synopsis
I grew up with Beavis & Butthead, the so stupid it hurts MTV cartoon show that basically would launch MTV programming and put it on the map for future series. Mike Judge was the creator behind that masterpiece. He would go on later to be the guy behind King of the Hill and a few assorted good shows. However, somewhere along the way he decided to direct a couple of movies. His most recent affair, Idiocracy; a feature film staring Luke Wilson (Old...School, Anchorman) & Maya Rudolph(Saturday Night Live) is the story of an Army grunt & a prostitute who participate in an army experiment to be frozen for a year and then returned to live their lives. The problem is the experiment goes awry and they end up frozen for 500 years and hilarity ensues.
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 Gino Sassani on February 16th, 2007
Las Vegas made its most significant changes in the third season. The full time addition of Lara Flynn Boyle as the new rich owner of the Montecito made the show somewhat lighter overall. It was probably a good idea to shake things up a bit. The cast chemistry on this show is quite good but was perhaps settling in a bit too much after two years. Boyle's Monica was a perfect foil for James Caan's Ed. Caan was able to stretch his acting muscles a lot more in this season. The overall idea hasn't really changed: The Montecito Hotel and Casino is the setting for action and play. Former CIA operative Ed Deline (Caan) and his CIA buddy Danny McCoy (Duhamel) run one of the world's most sophisticated surveillance systems. With the help of a very young and attractive staff, the crew encounters everything from cheaters to mob hit men.
Once again the package promises Uncut and Uncensored. All that really means is literally a few seconds tacked on to an episode here and there. Those few seconds are more often than not a little quick nudity shot that adds absolutely nothing to the stories. It's a shame, really, that Las Vegas seems to need such a sexy element. The ensemble cast makes this a quality show without the extra trappings. This season features some new classic moments. Monica's exit is, unfortunately, a jump the shark moment for Las Vegas. The season begins a bit slowly as Ed tries to assemble the old crew. Once the band is back together, everything starts firing on all cylinders once again. Another Crossing Jordan crossover episode includes Jill Hennessey and Jerry O'Connell. A very nice change-up is the "Everything is New" episode. All the characters fantasize about what it was like working Vegas during the 60's. The entire episode takes on a Raymond Chandler look and feel as the actors step into the shoes of their counterparts working a hotel that once stood where the Montecito now towers over the Vegas skyline. This was a brilliant change of pace. If you like the show, the third season will give you a lot more of what you come to the Montecito for. This is not a good season to begin with, however. The storylines have a bit more of an overall arc to them, unlike the two previous years.
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
Don't let the goofy title fool you; The Doctor, the Tornado, and the Kentucky Kid is a serious documentary. This film takes an inside look at the fast-paced world of MotoGP motorcycle racing. Specifically, the subject is the lives of three top riders as they enter the week of the race at Laguna Seca, one of the most difficult tracks in the world. While this film may be a little too in-depth for those that don't at least casually follow the sport, fans of motorcycle racing will likely be thrilled with this, the...sequel to the popular film Faster.
Often times, sports films get tedious as the story drags on. Since this one focuses on just one race, however, viewers don't get bogged down in the grind of a full season. Plus, as with the sport itself, the riders are living on the edge of their mortality throughout, and the viewer really gets the sense that instantaneous death could occur at any time. This sense of tension perfectly mimics the film's subject matter, and it goes a long way to helping the at-home viewer stay engaged with the material. Director Mark Neale has done an excellent job of crafting a documentary that is exciting, yet still dramatic and informative.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on February 15th, 2007
Two lab mice, one world to conquer. When the ACME Labs shut down each night, Pinky and the Brain set out for world domination, armed only with Brain's genetically enhanced, um, brain, and Pinky's good-natured insanity.
We have here 22 episodes of this high quality animated series, picking up near the end of season two - where the vol. 1 release left off - and continuing in broadcast order to about the mid-point of season three.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on February 14th, 2007
Some films can be intensely personal. Written and directed by one individual, the stories are fairly long in runtime and epic in terms of hopes and dreams, with characters that intertwine either coincidentally or a little bit more directly. They always seem to have a big name marquee star or two in them and always end on a message of hope or optimism.
Take the case of Babel. Written by Guillermo Arriaga and directed by Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu, who were the creative team behind the Amores Perros and 21 Grams films comes perhaps their grandest idea yet. The film follows four storylines. The most notable for a lot of people was the one involving Richard (Brad Pitt, 12 Monkeys) and Susan (Cate Blanchett, The Aviator), who are spending some time in Morocco when tragedy strikes. Back at home, their children are being tended to by a kind immigrant named Amelia (played by Adriana Barraza, La Primera Noche), who decides to bring the kids across the border to Tijuana to attend her son's wedding, but when her cousin Santiago (Gael Garcia Bernal, The Science of Sleep) reacts poorly to a border officer's interrogation on their return to America, Amelia is forced to do something she doesn't want to do. Going back to Morocco, two young brothers who help with farming and goat herding, decide to play with a gun that their father gave them (which turned out to be a gift from a friend). And when the playing has some ramifications, the boys head down a road where there's no going back. The last one goes to Tokyo, where Chieko (Rinko Kikuchi, Tori) is a teenage deaf-mute girl who witnessed her mother's suicide as a child, and she looks to try and discover the joy of pleasure despite having to deal with her handicaps.
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 David Annandale on February 13th, 2007
A group of former college friends (now apparently weathered by life, though they look as if they are CURRENT college friends) gather at beach cottage for a reunion. Stresses and resentments within the various marriages and couplings quickly put a damper on the weekend, and a desultory evening’s conversation leads to a few members of the group playing the party game that consists in reciting “Dead Mary” in front of a mirror. Inevitably, the evil spirit is summoned, and people start being killed off. Victims have the unfortunate habit of reanimating, however, which leads to mounting paranoia, as no one knows who can be trusted to still be human.
So the rather odd cross-fertilization that we have here is Friday the 13th with John Carpenter’s version of The Thing. Miraculously, an abrupt ending with several loose ends aside, the mix works, thanks in no small part to a strong cast and sharp dialogue that make our group far more believable (and thus sympathetic) than one has come to expect in films of this kind. It ain’t perfect, but it sure ain’t bad, either.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on February 11th, 2007
Well, after the worldwide success of Dr. No, producers Albert Broccoli and Harry Saltzman went back to figure out what to do about a sequel, and following a nod to the series by then-President Kennedy, From Russia With Love was the next candidate in line to be given the Bond treatment from the library of Ian Fleming novels.
In this film, Bond (the returning Sean Connery) has recently vanquished Dr. No, and the organization that he worked for, SPECTRE, decides to try to eliminate Bond, using two things that will lure any well-respecting secret agent, a decoding machine that the Russian government currently is in possession of, and a Russian defector that wants to turn it over to James specifically. The defector in question is Tatiana Romanova (Daniela Bianchi), who is recruited by a Russian general who has turned over to the SPECTRE side.
