Posted in: Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on March 3rd, 2004
For those of you who are into bands like Phish, Dave Matthews and The Grateful Dead you probably already know who this band is. For the rest of us The String Cheese Incident is made up of a group of fairly accomplished musicians from all different genres that are prone to playing very long songs. The songs tend to journey through all different styles from country to rock to jazz to blues and more. This disc features two different performances at the famous Fillmore in Denver.
Video
Posted in: Disc Reviews by David Annandale on March 2nd, 2004
Synopsis
Posted in: Disc Reviews by David Annandale on March 2nd, 2004
Synopsis
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on March 1st, 2004
Film
Sin suffers from a severe case of identity crisis. The film opens with a wide western vista and a lone grave in the wilderness. The music is soft and the atmosphere Unforgivenesque. The peace is rudely crashed with a quick cut to an urban techno-dance club. Ving Rhames plays a one-armed vigilante, but if you watch close enough you can see him cheat and use the “useless” arm. Gary Oldman is the only bright performance in the film. Be warned the central theme of the film involves a brutal gang-rap... that is not only disturbing in its depiction, but forced on us several times throughout the film. I really didn’t need to be hit that hard on the head with it. I got it already.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by David Annandale on February 27th, 2004
Synopsis
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on February 27th, 2004
Star Trek Voyager was the third spin-off from the original Star Trek following the Superior Next Generation and the inferior Deep Space Nine. While the idea was quite an original premise, the cast never seemed to gel. The obvious attempt at political correctness gives us the most diverse cast yet on Star Trek, including the first female captain. Kate Mulgrew is the weakest captain to date on Star Trek. (I know I’ll catch heat for this.) The reason is not her gender but such a lack of strength. She never walks but see...s to glide across the bridge when she moves. The strongest characters come in Tom Paris, the Federation inmate, and Torres, the half klingon half human hybrid. There is real passion in those characters that keep the cast interesting enough. The combination of Federation and Marquis (a rebel Federation group) members was a great setup that too quickly gets tossed aside in later years. There’s plenty of Star Trek eye candy and a whole new quadrant of aliens to meet here. It had been quite some time for me since I had seen Voyager. It was refreshing to watch this first season, perhaps the best before the late addition of 7 of 9.
Synopsis
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on February 27th, 2004
If you’re passing through the video store and see a movie on a shelf that looks like the cover of Motley Crue’s album “Too Fast for Love”…you’ll be disappointed…or relieved (depending on how you feel about the Crue). The movie is James Cox’s Wonderland. Wonderland is a film about the porn star John C. Holmes (Val Kilmer) at the end of his tether. Towards the end of his life, Holmes, famously, got involved in a series of crimes known as the Wonderland Murders, which are dramatized in this movie. I wo...’t spoil how it turns out. But the movie is part love story, part biography, and part murder mystery. Sounds like there’s a lot of meat here (pardon the pun), but that’s what’s most problematic about the film. It tries to be too many things, and like Holmes’ life, spins out of control.
The director James Cox throws a lot of “style” into the soup. We got your split screens, freeze frames, fast motion, long takes, jump cuts, animation, and even a little bit of Steadicam tracking. Pretty much all the “modern” innovations in shot technique are tossed in here. Is it all for show? I don’t really think so. In a way…all the pizzazz puts the audience in the mind of the strung out John C. Holmes. Cox does a commendable job of juggling a lot of balls in air (no pun intended)…but has trouble maintaining focus.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on February 26th, 2004
For years different TV shows and movies have speculated not as too whether there is life on other planets but, what are they doing on earth. Some shows like the X-files play out that the powers that be have sold us down the river to ensure their survival with a hostile alien race, or like in ID-4 and the Alien series are here to kill everyone and use the planet for their own will.
Director Steven Spielberg has looked at aliens and their involvement with the human race in a number of his films and with the...help of 1 writer and 10 directors brings us Taken. We follow 3 different families through three generations as they search for the existence of alien life on earth or try to understand why they are being abducted. The story is told through 10 different 80-90 minute episodes the best of which is “Acid Tests”. To give away much more of the story line then this would be an injustice, I recommend that you owe it to yourself to see this.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on February 25th, 2004
Billy Bob Thornton is a strange ranger, even by Hollywood standards. He is a self-made man, resulting from his breakthrough role as writer/director/star of Sling Blade. With Daddy & Them, Thornton returns to his role as a triple threat, and the result is a film that is not only funny, but features more stars than a stint in rehab. The list of notables includes Thornton, Laura Dern, Dianne Ladd, Kelly Preston, Jim Varney, Jamie Lee Curtis, Ben Affleck, Brenda Blethyn, musician John Prine and even America... legend Andy Griffith.
The film follows Thornton and Dern, an insanely jealous married couple, as they travel to visit his family in Little Rock, AR, as his uncle (Varney) has been incarcerated while awaiting trial for attempted murder. This is not just a story about white trash family, but they are unbelievably dysfunctional as well. The comedy comes quickly and masterfully from all directions, resulting on one of the best independent films that I have seen in quite some time.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on February 25th, 2004
Billy Bob Thornton is a strange ranger, even by Hollywood standards. He is a self-made man, resulting from his breakthrough role as writer/director/star of Sling Blade. With Daddy & Them, Thornton returns to his role as a triple threat, and the result is a film that is not only funny, but features more stars than a stint in rehab. The list of notables includes Thornton, Laura Dern, Dianne Ladd, Kelly Preston, Jim Varney, Jamie Lee Curtis, Ben Affleck, Brenda Blethyn, musician John Prine and even America... legend Andy Griffith.
The film follows Thornton and Dern, an insanely jealous married couple, as they travel to visit his family in Little Rock, AR, as his uncle (Varney) has been incarcerated while awaiting trial for attempted murder. This is not just a story about white trash family, but they are unbelievably dysfunctional as well. The comedy comes quickly and masterfully from all directions, resulting on one of the best independent films that I have seen in quite some time.
