Posted in: Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on October 23rd, 2006
The Butterfly Effect 2 is a direct-to-video release, and for good reason. While the original film was a surprise hit back in 2004, this sequel is nothing more than a quick cash-in.
At least, that’s what I thought I’d be writing for this review. I definitely had low expectations for this film, especially since while I’ve heard good things about the original, I’ve yet to see it, and I still question its somewhat-acclaimed reputation. So surely this sequel must be a piece of junk, right? But it’s not.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on October 22nd, 2006
I must admit that I fully expected to hate this film. Turns out, I didn’t. The truth is, Little Man, the latest comedy from the Wayans brothers, is too harmless for such a vehement reaction.
Sure, Little Man is not very good, but if you can manage to check your brain at the door, you’ll probably get some laughs out of it. Then again, they’re probably the same laughs you had watching the trailer. My problem with comedy like this is that it’s really much better suited to short sketches than feature films.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on October 20th, 2006
This could have been a pretty good film. I just don’t know. The advance material and the jacket suggest this is a “gripping thriller” with timely themes of terrorism and war. As soon as the film opens, it becomes immediately obvious that something entirely different is at work here. A news report suggests that a tyrant is showing his compassion and generosity when he commutes the sentence of a prisoner about to go to the guillotine. What does he commute the sentence to? Death by hanging. What a guy. I think my mood...
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on October 20th, 2006
From the rather twisted mind of Stephen King, Pet Sematary is actually one of my favorite of his horror novels. It’s scary to think the story was never meant to be published and only offered up to finish a contract with his earlier publisher. As has been the Stephen King plague at nearly every turn, something ends up lost in the translation. In the novel, the deeper subtexts that King is so adept at take several hundred pages to set up and ultimately pay off. Unfortunately a mere couple of hours of celluloid never ...
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on October 19th, 2006
Jack Black says when he’s embarrassed, he knows it’s funny. He must have been pretty confident about the success of Nacho Libre, because as Ignacio (Nacho) – the friar by day, wannabe wrestler by night – he embraced one embarrassing moment after another.
Black stars as a friar at a Mexican orphanage run by the sort of God-fearing folk who think wrestling, or Lucha Libre, is a sin. All his life, Black has longed to be a luchador (wrestler), which is a bit of a conflict. His only jobs at the orphanage are cooking duty, and dead-guy duty.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on October 18th, 2006
In 1984 Brian De Palma dusted off his best Alfred Hitchcock imitation in the by now infamous Body Double. We all know the story by now. In fact, if you’ve seen the far superior Vertigo and Rear Window films, you knew the story already. Claustrophobic vampire actor Jake Scully is having a hard time. He’s just been fired because he can’t lie in a coffin, and getting home early, he walks in on his girlfriend in bed with another man. Out of work and homeless, things look up when a fellow actor gets him a sweet housesit...
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on October 17th, 2006
Synopsis
Ariel is the rebellious teen daughter of King Triton. She falls in love with a human prince (whom she rescued from drowning), but her father will not hear of it. So she makes a bargain with the evil Ursula – she will be granted legs for three days (but no voice), and if she has not been kissed by then... well... you know how deals with Evil generally go.
After a long time in the dolldrums, this was a return to form for the Disney studios, and marked something of a second golden age...
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on October 17th, 2006
Garfield 2: A Tale of Two Kitties is a lot better than I thought it would be. Kids would love it, and it’s not too obnoxious for adults.
It’s a decent story for kids. Just before he’s planning to propose to her, Jon Arbuckle’s girlfriend, Liz, announces that she’s been scheduled at the last minute to speak at a conference in London, and she must leave right away. Jon decides to follow her there to pop the question. Garfield wants to interfere, so he and Odie smuggle themselves in Jon’s luggage.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on October 16th, 2006
Synopsis
A meteor lands in your typical SF/horror movie Small Town (and it could well be the same meteor that brought the original Blob to town). Bullet-headed mug Michael Rooker stumbles over it one drunken night, and promptly becomes infected with carniverous slug-parasites from outer space. He sets about spreading the good news, as it were, and before long the entire town is a chaos of slithering nastiness and zombiefied townspeople.
After scripting the slick but soulless remake of Da...
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on October 15th, 2006
This remake of the 1976 horror classic The Omen is a solid psychological thriller. I should admit that I have never seen the original, so I can’t make a comparison. For opinions from that perspective, I imagine an Internet search will find more than enough.
I can, however, weigh in on whether I think this move should have been made, a question always asked about Hollywood remakes. My answer? Yes, because it offers the film to a new audience, of which I’m a part. And now that I’ve seen and enjoyed this new version of The Omen, I’m also interested in checking out the original.
