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
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 ...eem to scratch the graveyard surface soil. Pet Sematary is, sadly, a definitive example. While the original work taunts us with its mystic undertones that always seem far more believable than they ought to be, the film lays down a path as overgrown as the one leading to the titular graveyard. At first the two works are not so convergent, and a great deal of hope is to be had. Soon, however, the movie descends into the typical shock horror film so common in recent years. Startles and zombies begin to dominate the experience, while the story’s deeper and far more frightening elements lie as dead as the bones of the neighborhood pets.
The plot points are pretty faithful to the King work. For ages the kids in this suburban Maine neighborhood have been burying the remains of their beloved pets, often victims of a dangerous road, in the barren soil of the local Pet Sematary, misspelled by the countless kids who christened the field untold years ago. But beyond the pet graveyard is a more mysterious and foreboding place. It was here that Indians brought the dead back to life. Our unfortunate family is about to discover that perhaps “dead is better”.
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...was determined at that point. With the evident conflict, I begin to wonder just what the intent really was. Is this a satire? Do they really think this is “gripping” stuff? It’s hard to believe that the satirical nature of this script could be accidental. The entire film presents us with awkwardly comedic elements mixed with rather brutal images of death and torture. So what the heck is this film after all?
The film opens with an explanation that this undisclosed nation has been ruled by a brutal tyrant for many years. Upon the man’s suspicious death, his inept son, affectionately called Jr., takes over. The trouble is Jr. is worse than his father and is far more concerned with making bad action films than actually running the country. Campaign ads remark that you should “re-elect President for life and Things Will Be OK”. An underground revolutionary leader has been in prison for over ten years. He uses the time to write quaint words of wisdom on the walls of his cell in excrement while enticing his guard to his political beliefs. What follows is an expected coup followed by yet another brutal dictatorship. As the soldier wisely remarks, “Before the revelation it was man exploiting man; after the revelation it has reversed”. It is in this second act that the film attempts to jettison its comedic style and be the serious effort it claimed to be. More brutal images assault us at every turn, but by now it’s too late..
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. The latter only serves as an amusing side joke, while the former drives the story. You see, Ignacio’s bosses don’t provide him enough money for decent ingredients, so his food sucks. When the beautiful Sister Encarnacion (Ana de la Reguera) shows up at the orphanage, Black is smitten, and inspired to impress her with better food. But for better food, he needs money for ingredients.
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...ing gig in a flying saucer shaped condo overlooking the Hollywood valley. There, he is obsessed with a neighbor he spies on with a conveniently provided telescope as she performs all sorts of sordid little things naked in the window. Looks like things are really going well now, until he believes he has witnessed a murder. His investigation into what he saw leads him to the underworld of the porn industry and into the arms of porn queen Holly Body (Griffith). Most of the film takes place at a painfully slow pace. De Palma offers up a lot of stylistic cinematography but not enough action or suspense to keep us all that interested. While the erotic nature of the film was quite shocking in 1985, it just doesn’t pack that kind of a punch today. When De Palma wants to, he can simply ooze atmosphere on film. In Body Double, he oozes something a bit less flattering.
Part of the blame for the film’s awkward pace must be taken up by Craig Wasson. He simply can’t emote beyond a typical movie of the week level. The same can be said for villain Sam (Henry). On one hand, De Palma is trying to dazzle us with the epic scope of the thing, but his two main actors limit that range significantly. Credit should be given to Melanie Griffith, who is miscast in her part, but carries it off with more credibility than one would expect. The stand out has to be Deborah Shelton, who is captivating with little to say. Dennis Franz stands out in his comedy relief portrayal of the director who fires Jake. He’s playing De Palma to a fault, including De Palma’s own clothes. Both men admit in the extras that Rubin was indeed based upon De Palma..
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.
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.
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.
