Posted in: Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on November 10th, 2009
The names of the characters are hardly consequential, as they are used to further storylines more than develop character. But Pacino plays a cop who is tracking a group of robbers, among them Val Kilmer (Wonderland) and Tom Sizemore (Saving Private Ryan), a group headed by DeNiro. The group receives offers for work from Jon Voight (Runaway Train), and they rob anything from gold, to coins, to bearer bonds. They are all ex-cons, and know all the ropes. They are a highly professional crew, which you see in the opening moments of the movie, despite the addition of a new man to the crew. What also helps to differentiate this from a usual cops and robbers movie are the secondary plotlines of the families involved. Pacino’s is clearly distant and breaking (played by Diane Venora and Natalie Portman), while DeNiro doesn’t have one to speak of, despite an emerging romance with Edy (Amy Brenneman, Judging Amy). At 3 hours, there are some unnecessary scenes involving a banker (played by William Fichtner), but the underlying message is that almost all of the actions in the movie do not involve just the primary characters, but also friends and loved ones of those characters. Kilmer’s wife in the film, played by Ashley Judd, desperately wants to get him out of his line of work, as she wants to start a new life for her family. An ex-con (Dennis Haysbert, 24) is stumbled upon working in a greasy spoon, and offered a chance to work by DeNiro. Haysbert’s character wants to be right, but runs into so many obstacles from it that he takes the job, only to wind up perishing in what results in a massive gunfight in the heart of Los Angeles while a bank robbery is being pulled.
With other solid supporting performances by Ted Levine (Monk), Mykelti Williamson (Forrest Gump), and appearances by Bud Cort (Harold and Maude), Jeremy Piven (PCU), Hank Azaria (The Simpsons) and Henry Rollins (The Chase), the movie is certainly not without its star power. The director behind this work is Michael Mann, who also wrote a much better than expected story. The man responsible for such striking visuals in films such as Manhunter, Ali and The Insider contributes more outstanding work here, and while it’s been out for awhile now, Warner Brothers finally gives it a high definition Blu-ray release
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Michael Durr on October 9th, 2009
My history with romantic comedies is not a good one. Okay, I cried at the Notebook. *Looks nervously at the man card floating in his wallet*. So, what I cried at Rocky and Bloodsport too. I feel better now. But normally, I look at romantic comedies and want nothing to do with them. But every once in a while, along comes a romantic comedy with a decent cast and a somewhat different story. Even though I can see the ending coming a mile away, hopefully the journey there is interesting and thoughtful.
Andrew Paxton (played by Ryan Reynolds) is the best assistant in the world. He gets to work on time, he always has the right latte for his boss, and his shirt always looks perfect (even if it is borrowed from a co-worker). He works at Colden Books, a publishing company and his dream is to become an editor, especially after three years of being an assistant. He is an assistant to the executive editor-in-chief Margaret Tate (played by Sandra Bullock).
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Michael Durr on September 14th, 2009
My senior year in high school was just the same as my junior year: stranger in a strange land. When looking back at the time that was spent, I spent more time with my nose in books and running from jocks. The reason why the jocks were upset at me more often than not? I was looking at their girls. In an attempt to find myself, I would pretend to be solving a Calculus problem (which eventually explained why I had to retake it in college) and instead fantasize about what it would be like to be with Miss Popular. I would eventually stop caring, the bruises would heal but I often thought what would have happened? Perhaps in a fantasy land, something like the film The Girl Next Door would have happened. Nah, probably not.
Matthew Kidman (played by Emile Hirsch) is everything a successful high school senior should be. He’s the class president, he’s been accepted to Georgetown, and he is eligible for a prestigious scholarship. But he wants to be like the popular guys and be able to hang out at the beach, skipping school and have a hot girl to be by his side. One day, he meets the girl of his dreams. Her name is Danielle (played by Elisha Cuthbert) and she is house sitting next door.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on September 1st, 2009
Already languishing in the $6.99 bin at my local Blockbuster, and with dismal reviews on its release, my hopes for The Haunting of Molly Hartley were not high. However, after viewing the DVD I can safely report that the movie falls firmly into the ‘not anywhere as awful as I thought it was going to be’ category.
This is not an endorsement. The movie is by no means good, but nowhere near as wretched as I’d been set up to believe.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on August 19th, 2009
You know, I was watching this episode of the popular Showtime series Dexter the other night. There was this murder victim who had taken off work early to go and see a romantic comedy with his girlfriend. He ended up getting his head bashed in and dead. Is it saying something about my own bias that the first thing that came to my mind was that it was a lucky thing he got his skull caved in before he had to go to the romantic comedy? Romantic comedies. Chick flicks. Date movies. Whatever it is that you want to call them, ladies, they are the stuff of nightmares for your significant others. It might appear to be harmless enough fun for you girls out there, but for your guy? I guarantee he’s squirming in his seat the entire time. You do know that he doesn’t really have a bladder problem, don’t you? There’s a reason he has to go to the bathroom 20 times in those 2 hours. It’s even worse when we’re watching them at home. Here’s a helpful dating tip: Don’t ask him if he wants you to put it on pause on one of those 20 bathroom breaks. It might also be advisable to keep any sharp objects, firearms, or prescription drugs out of reach of your guy during date movie nights. There isn’t a guy out there who wouldn’t opt for a painful visit to the emergency room over another hour watching a romantic comedy. We’ll do it; after all a guy’s gotta do what a guy’s gotta do. Just don’t forget the poor sap deserves to be amply rewarded when the film’s over. Now if you’re a guy and you find yourself, like me, watching this one by yourself…. not that there’s anything wrong with that… I hope you have a good reason. Mine is to write this here review. Just another bullet I take for you, my gentle readers.
Andie Anderson (Hudson) writes the “How To…” column for Composure Magazine, the fastest growing women’s magazine in the country. You know the kind of articles I’m talking about here: “How to talk your way out of a ticket”, “How to lose weight in 5 Days And Still Eat All You Want”. It’s those female lifestyle burning questions. But, Andi wants to write about more serious issues like politics and religion. Her editor (Neuwirth) promises her a shot at writing about what she wants if she turns in a killer article. She decides to call it “How To Lose A Guy In 10 Days”. It’s a kind of dating tips in reverse. She’ll get a guy into her and then begin to pull out all of those don’t do’s in a relationship: acting clingy, whining, feminizing his apartment, dragging him to a Celine Dion concert, and one she forgot: taking him to see How To Lose A Guy In 10 Days. Enter Ben Berry (McConaughey). He’s an ad executive who wants to land a hot new diamond account. He’s got to convince his boss and a couple of female coworkers that he understands women enough to lead the campaign. He makes a bet that he could get a woman to fall completely in love with him in just, you guessed it, 10 days. His coworkers will pick out a woman at random, and that’s Ben’s target. You already know where this is going, don’t you? The two hook up and begin their cross purposes campaigns, each without the other knowing. The usual romantic comedy moments ensue, and the two genuinely fall in love with each other. It’s all leading to the big diamond gala 10 days later. Both bosses are in attendance, and the secrets get out with the expected results.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Michael Durr on August 17th, 2009
Pixar & Dreamworks have been monsters at the game of big budget film animation for quite sometime now. Many of us have enjoyed Shrek, Toy Story and countless others. Even their duds aren’t half bad. But there was bound to come a time when others need to share in the spotlight. In 2007, Filmax Animation, a Spanish company decided to release a film about a Donkey who has aspirations of being more than just another as... Sorry kids, I lost my place. It’s a film about a donkey who wants to be a horse, of course of course.
We all know the story of Don Quixote (or Quijote) and how he recruited Sancho to be his faithful squire. They traveled the land on quests in the name of chivalry and return home to find that they are indeed famous. However, Don Quixote has more important things in mind like finding Dulcinea, his long lost love & walking the countryside in search of truth and justice.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on August 13th, 2009
The cast and crew of I Love You, Man constantly refer to the film as a “bromance”. I’m not exactly sure what they mean by that, but I was actually pretty pleased with the clever turn on the typically droll romantic comedy. Maybe someone’s finally come up with a romantic comedy that actually can appeal to men. Whatever you call it, I Love You, Man is a bit of a refreshing take on today’s innuendo comedy. Writer/director John Hamburg has turned a pretty inane idea into a rather funny little comedy that just might be the compromise between a chick flick and something we won’t have to squirm in our seats just to make our dates happy. You know, to make up for all of those Clint Eastwood/Bruce Willis action flicks that have the same effect on most of the women as romantic comedies have on the guys. A hybrid is born. And it kind of works.
Peter Klaven (Rudd) has just proposed to his long time girlfriend, Zooey (Jones). She’s terribly excited and immediately wants to call her best friends to share the news. Peter is quickly uncomfortable with how much intimate information her friends seem to have. It hits home with him that he doesn’t really have any close friends to share the good news with. Apparently, Peter’s always been a better “girlfriend” and buddy friend. With an impending wedding and no one to fill the best man shoes, he sets out to make a close friend. Predictably, the results are some pretty wild and funny moments. One of his prospects mistakes his attention as a gay pass, and he ends up throwing up on another. All the while he’s trying to sell Lou Ferrigno’s house to make enough money to buy his own dream piece of property. At first Zooey encourages the friendship hunt, and Peter finally meets Sydney Fife (Segel) at one of Ferrigno’s open houses. He’s immediately attracted to Sydney’s brutal open honesty and unwillingness to put on pretenses. The two discover they share a few things in common. Both are garage band musicians with a hero worship for the band Rush. Before long they have become inseparable, and suddenly Zooey is getting jealous of Peter’s new best friend. Together they go through the ups and downs of making the many relationships work.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on August 11th, 2009
The Soloist is based on a book written by Los Angeles Times columnist Steve Lopez. The book was based on a series of columns the writer assembled involving his relationship with a street musician he happened upon while searching for material. Lopez was touched by the musician, Nathaniel Ayers, who was playing a violin with only two remaining strings. Still he was able to produce music that made the writer do a double take and begin to wonder what he was doing out on the street. Ayers’ ramblings made it immediately obvious that the man was suffering from mental illness. Their first contact revealed that the street performer was once a student at Juilliard. Lopez took a personal interest in the story, resulting in a series of columns that got him a bit of attention and a personal relationship with Nathaniel Ayers. When he finds out that Ayers was a classically trained cellist, his column ends up providing a nice cello for the musician to play. Lopez attempts to use the instrument as a way to coax Ayers inside and off the street. He exposes him to music instructors in the hopes of cultivating his talent more completely. Together they grow, in a way.
There really isn’t much more of a story than that. Credit director Joe Wright for not attempting to add the usual Hollywood flares in an attempt to make the film more of a commercial success. The story is very true to the real life events and never attempts the usual over the top approach that has become trendy in Hollywood today. Unfortunately, while the decision might have been an honorable one, it might not have been the right one for the film. It did rather poorly at the box office, pulling in a little over $30 million, which didn’t even cover the budgets costs. You have to look at this one strictly as a character study, because you won’t find a satisfying enough story in the film. It just kind of sits there and never really develops into any kind of cohesive form. It’s obviously the product of a series of loosely related pieces of work. We get the idea that Lopez is moved by this man and that he decides at some sacrifice to get involved, but where is the whole thing going? Again, they decide to forego the warm and fuzzy Hollywood ending that wraps things up in a nice tidy bow for everybody. Most of the story hasn’t been told; the relationship is, apparently, ongoing. Perhaps the story needed a proper ending before making its way to a movie.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on August 11th, 2009
Why does every Adam Sandler character seem to be Happy Gilmore? I don’t know if there’s an actor out there, comedian or otherwise, who has made so many movies essentially playing the same character. If it seems at times like I really hate Sandler, believe it or not, I don’t. The guy has a charm and natural ability that can, when he works at it, come off as a very entertaining couple of hours at the movies. Unfortunately, he’s not willing to work at it, and so continues to bombard us with new versions of the same character and story.
You’ve seen it all before. Young guy with some kind of a mental problem or at least simplemindedness ends up overcoming his self esteem issues and becomes a hero. It’s no different here. This time the guy is Bobby Boucher (Sandler) who takes his waterboy duties with the local college football team a little too seriously. Taste testing the water and making sure the serving temperature is just right are just a couple of ways that Bobby looks like an idiot to the team’s players and coaches. He’s picked on, and for good reason. Finally the coach considers him too much of a distraction and fires the kid. Bobby’s thrown into a deep depression and no one seems to understand him. That goes doubly for the moviegoers caught paying out good money for the movie. He ends up getting another, non-paying gig at SCLSU, the losingest school in the state. Once again he’s picked on. This time the frustration builds, and Bobby ends up tackling one of his tormentors on the team. When Coach Klein (Winkler) sees the amazing tackle he decides to give Bobby a shot to make the team. Predictably, Bobby becomes a star, elevating the crappy team into the championship. Of course, just as easy to predict, you know what team they face in the big game. Yes, it’s Bobby’s old team. It just so happens the coaches are old rivals, and so it’s personal all around. The rival coach tries to get Bobby disqualified for the big game, but of course we have to have that moment when Bobby realizes everybody is counting on him and that he’s a hero. Again, the operative word here is predictable.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on August 7th, 2009
Who doesn’t remember the original Witch Mountain films from Disney back in the 1970’s. They were clever family films. They were camp, to be sure. But, most of us remember them fondly, if not as particularly outstanding films. While Disney’s reimagining of the franchise doesn’t have a great deal in common with those earlier films, you can pretty much describe the reaction as being spot on. Race To Witch Mountain isn’t going to be breaking any box office records, but it is the kind of film you get a pretty warm feeling for, and like its predecessors, you’ll end up remembering it with fondness.
A flying saucer crashes in the Nevada desert near Las Vegas. The crash just so happens to coincide with the arrival of a huge UFO convention in Sin City. The Defense Department has secured the crash site. They quickly discover that the ship’s passengers have slipped through their perimeter. Now it’s a race to find the extraterrestrials before they can hatch whatever nefarious plan has brought them to our planet. The investigation is spearheaded by Henry Burke (Hinds). Meanwhile Vegas cabdriver Jack Bruno (Johnson) is busy ferrying the “nut jobs” to the UFO convention. Bruno was once a gifted race car driver as well as excelling in demotion derby driving. He had once worked a stint as a mob driver and has gotten out of the business. But, as we all know by now, you don’t just retire from the mob. So, there are some goons after him to “persuade” him to return to the job. All of a sudden a pair of teens appears in his car loaded with a huge wad of cash and a mysterious electronic device. The teens request to be taken to a remote location that appears to be being directed by the unknown gizmo. When his cab is assaulted by a convoy of black SUV’s, Bruno thinks it’s his old mob heavies, but it’s Burke and his ET hunters after the kids, who happen to be the escaped aliens. For the rest of the film Bruno and his unusual passengers, Sara (Robb) and Seth (Ludwig) try to locate a device that contains information that will stop an impending attack on the Earth. The kids must find the device, get their ship out of Burke’s hands, and return to their own planet before an all out invasion is launched at our planet. All the while the group is being pursued by the mob, Burke’s boys, and an alien bounty hunter with a ton of weapons at its disposal. They have two weapons of their own. First, the kids have some remarkable powers. Sara can move objects with her mind and talk to animals, and Seth can manipulate the density of his molecular structure, thus enabling him to pass through solid objects or withstand a head-on collision by an oil tanker. The second weapon is Dr. Alex Friedman (Gugino), an attractive scientist who speaks at these UFO conventions for a living, who happened to be one of Bruno’s earlier “nut jobs”. Together they race against time to save the planet, interacting with some peculiar characters along the way.
![Heat [Blu-ray] dvd cover art](https://upcomingdiscs.com/ecs_covers/heat-blu-ray-large.jpg)
![The Proposal [Blu-ray] dvd cover art](https://upcomingdiscs.com/ecs_covers/the-proposal-blu-ray-large.jpg)
![The Girl Next Door (Unrated Edition) [Blu-ray] dvd cover art](https://upcomingdiscs.com/ecs_covers/the-girl-next-door-unrated-editio-large.jpg)
![How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days [Blu-ray] dvd cover art](https://upcomingdiscs.com/ecs_covers/how-to-lose-a-guy-in-10-days-blu-r-large.jpg)
![I Love You, Man [Blu-ray] dvd cover art](https://upcomingdiscs.com/ecs_covers/i-love-you-man-blu-ray-large.jpg)
![The Soloist [Blu-ray] dvd cover art](https://upcomingdiscs.com/ecs_covers/the-soloist-blu-ray-large.jpg)
![The Waterboy [Blu-ray] dvd cover art](https://upcomingdiscs.com/ecs_covers/the-waterboy-blu-ray-large.jpg)
![Race to Witch Mountain (Blu-ray/DVD Combo + Digital Copy) [Blu-ray] dvd cover art](https://upcomingdiscs.com/ecs_covers/race-to-witch-mountain-blu-raydvd-large.jpg)
