Posted in: Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on September 5th, 2006
Synopsis
Anna Faris takes a job as a social worker, moving into a house with the evil presences we know and love from The Grudge. Meanwhile, next door, Craig Bierko is about to deal with The War of the Worlds. And off we go, as the movie riffs one parody of recent films after another.
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
Protestors and loggers are in conflict over the cutting of trees on an isolated island. Unbeknownst to both groups, the logging company has been experimenting with something dangerous, and when this substance gets into the blood of an injured logger, he becomes a flesh-eating zombie, quickly spreading the virus. The son of the chairman of the board flies in to see why contact has been lost, and is quickly caught up in the desperate battle for survival.
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 September 2nd, 2006
Synopsis
The jacket copy says it better than I could: “Museum director Dr. Zita Furneaux (Kylie Wyote), empowered by the Egyptian goddess Nephthys (Andrea Smith), regains her lost youth by dispatching a living Mummy to kidnap sexy young women, from whom she steals their ‘kas’ (spiritual twins), turning them into zombie-like love slaves. Reporter Elyse Lam (Christine Nguyen), investigating the case of the missing women, also falls prey to Zita’s lusts. But when Zita defies Nephthys... you’ll have to s...e this ‘horrotic’ sequel to the cult hit The Mummy’s Kiss
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on August 31st, 2006
Johnny Depp continues to work hard in both good films and bad. While I didn’t care for this outing, I’m not sure I would call it a bad film… just one that didn’t connect with any of my tastes. Fans of Mr. 21 Jump Street will delight in yet another strong performance. He has the skill and talent to be remembered as one of the true greats. His performance in The Libertine does nothing to diminish that. But at the same time, there’s something dreadfully boring about films like these. Something not even Depp’s un...istakable craft can overcome.
Who the hell told writers and actors that films about them are so enthralling people will want to see them play the same characters in the same situations over and over again? It seems artsy folk are much more fascinated with themselves than John Q. Public, or any other moviegoer, could, or should, be. The weaknesses of The Libertine aspire to present them selves as the film’s strengths, and I, for one, am not buying. The plot is the same eccentricity finding redemption “on his own terms” theme that plays out in a lot of these films. Nothing much to say except that Depp plays an eccentric playwright, who insults King Charles II (John Malkovich) with a bawdy play that humiliates him in front of a group of French aristocrats. The stunt gets the playwright exiled, a punishment which seems more befitting than death to such a man, as he can no longer connect with his audience. Boredom ensues. The end.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on August 30th, 2006
Written By Jeff Mardo
This is a Parker Posey film, which in itself is enough of a reason for me to check this film out. However, I was surprised to find that Josh Hamilton is here as well. While you may not know the name of Josh Hamilton right away, the two of them worked together in a brilliantly satirical film called The House of Yes; one of my personal favorites. In fact, there are several things that tie these two films together in my mind. While both are very funny and disturbing films, the charm in them both is the tension hi...ing just beneath the satire. The tension here is that uneasy feeling of just what to do once you have finished your years at college, and you are forced to go out into the real world. It is that depressing no man's land between knowledge and action.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on August 27th, 2006
Synopsis
I wanted to like Annapolis. I really did. I appreciated the intent of the film without having a full awareness of what it was about. I thought it kind of served as a de facto publicity film for the Naval Academy. But as I was watching it, several things started on course for me to dislike the film.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on August 23rd, 2006
It’s always interesting when works of art (books, plays, films, etc…) are updated from their native settings. Baz Lurhman’s Romeo + Juliet took the Bard’s most famous play and set it in modern day California, making it fresh again. Francis Ford Coppola set Conrad’s Heart of Darkness during the Vietnam War, making Apocalypse Now one of the most revered and realistic films of that era. There are several more examples in this trend that deserve to be mentioned, but I must fast-forward to the film a... hand. That is Brick, a film written and directed by newcomer Rian Johnson. Johnson wisely sets his film noir story in a modern day California high school. The update takes a while to get used to, but after a small buffer period, Brick becomes a fresh spin on the film noir genre, who’s day has come and gone.
Joseph Gordon-Levitt plays Brenden, a high school student who watches as his ex-girlfriend, Emily (Lost’s Emile de Ravin), falls into the wrong crowd and winds up dead. After Brenden receives a panicked call for help shortly before her death, he dives into the drug-dealing underworld inhabiting his school to find out who done Emily wrong. As with most film noir films, Brenden discovers that the truth behind Emily’s death is not simply a black and white issue. Brenden is also aided by a femme fatal in Laura (Nora Zehetner), who may or may not be on his side.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on August 23rd, 2006
Synopsis
Imagine my surprise that there was a miniseries made about the threat of bioterror, and that this cloak and dagger miniseries (that aired at some time on network TV) sported two Oscar winners, neither of them men! Anjelica Huston (Prizzi’s Honor) and Mira Sorvino (Mighty Aphrodite) are part of a wide ranging series that is set over several continents, and explores the possibility of a bio-terror attack in the US.
