Posted in: Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on January 20th, 2006
Synopsis
The setting is an exclusive boys’ private school in New England, 1959. Welton Academy is deeply hidebound and conservative, and into this environment comes one of its graduates, Robin Williams, to teach English literature, and along the way encourage his students to make of their lives what they want, now what is expected of them. This approach clashes with the establishment’s ideas of how things should be done, and raises the ire of one parent in particular, whose son takes too much interes..., he thinks, in creative endeavours.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on January 20th, 2006
2005 was definitely a big year for Tim Burton. He had the mega successful Charlie and the Chocolate Factory and ended the year with this film, Corpse Bride. Neither Charlie or Corpse deserved to be placed on the top of Burton’s best work list, but both are filled with typical Burton qualities from his funny jokes to interesting visuals.
Tim Burton’s Corpse Bride is similar to The Nightmare Before Christmas via Burton’s usual trademarks. Corpse Bride features...Burton’s land of the dead from his very funny Beetle Juice, the dark tone of the film from Sleepy Hollow and the usual score by Danny Elfman. Oh and one more usual Burton quality. Johnny Deep adds in his voice portraying Victor.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on January 11th, 2006
Tessa Quayle (Rachel Weisz) is not your standard activist. She won’t be satisfied by simply standing on protest lines – she must be where the action is, and for her it’s in disease infested Kenya. When a pharmaceutical company sets up shop there to distribute a prototypical drug to the people, Tessa becomes involved in a conspiracy that will eventually costs her her life.
After Tessa turns up dead – and this is no spoiler – her death is featured in the opening scenes of the film, husband Justin (Ralph Fien...es) delves into her world – a world he has learned to accept as a diplomat – to find the reason behind her death. Upon his discovery he learns that his wife was an entirely different woman than the one he knew, a woman who regularly hid things from him. But why did she keep secrets? Was she having an affair? Was she protecting Justin from a life she knew he would not sympathize with as a government worker?
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on January 8th, 2006
Bad News Bears is not necessarily a fine film, but it is a lot better than the host of other remakes Hollywood has thrown at us as of late. Billy Bob Thorton stars in the film, and I quote, “as a drunk who makes a living killing rats to live in a trailers.” The film seems to take his character from Bad Santa and the football coach in Friday Night Lights and seems to merge the two. However, neither of his tactics in either film are used in the film. This results in the audience liking his characte... more than he probably likes himself.
The original 1976 film starred the late Walter Matthau. Thorton’s performance in the film seems to be holding a candle to Matthau’s. Thorton just seems to find more of a sad tone in his character of Morris Buttermaker than Matthau did. His team is called the Bears, which is only around due to a lawsuit that feels the Little League discriminates. The attorney Liz Whitewood (Marcia Gay Harden) demands that the league except all players. This results in the typical sport film’s cliché. His team gets ALL of the terrible players including a black kid, two Spanish speakers, an Indian, a kid who seems to be too little to even hold the bat, and one kid who is in a motorized wheelchair. As you can possible assume from this cliché, is that NONE of these players can play the game.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on January 7th, 2006
Synopsis
I think the only thing I remember about Ronin initially was that Robert DeNiro (Heat) was involved in some scandal involving a French "house of ill-repute" or something along those lines. But when Ronin was released, people quickly forgot about that mess, as what came from it was an action film that put a little more effort into the characters than other action films. But that’s not to say the action scenes were neglected; the car chase scenes that negotiate through winding French cou...try roads, and through city sidestreets so narrow you couldn’t open either car door to get out of the car, are some of the most nail biting in recent memory. Based on J.D. Zeik’s story and rewritten by Richard Weisz, a.k.a. David Mamet, Ronin’s introduction is a title card about a Japanese samurai without a master, who are mission-less assassins. As a US operative named Sam, DeNiro is introduced almost immediately to the group, who include Frenchman Vincent (Jean Reno, Leon), the Russian, Gregor (Stellan Skarsgard, Dogville) and the Brit, Spence (Sean Bean, Lord of the Rings). Their liaison between their employer and them is the Irish lass Deirdre (Natascha McElhone, Solaris), and their object is a briefcase whose contents are mysterious.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on January 4th, 2006
Synopsis
Diane Lane has been divorced for eight months and still isn’t in a new relationship, which, according to everyone around her, is a situation on par with lymphoma. At any rate, her sister posts her profile on an Internet match-making site, and a date with the recently divorced and incurably romantic John Cusack ensues. Things get off to a rocky start, though, and there’s the hunky divorced father of one of her preschool students who also catches her interest. What road will lead to true love?.../p>
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on January 3rd, 2006
Synopsis
The Stiffler character from the Amercian Pie movies has, it turns out, a younger brother, who is also a loathsome creep. After sabotaging the high school band’s performance, his punishment is to attend band camp himself. He makes the best of a bad deal, planning to videotape raunchy goings on.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on December 31st, 2005
The first Deuce Bigelow film was something of a surprise hit. Rob Schneider's first outing as a leading man was never expected to be as, well... genuinely entertaining as it was. Sure, the movie was a little hokey, but that was to be expected. After all, we're talking about a film that tells the story of a pool boy that becomes a gigolo. What was not expected was that the film would actually have a heart. As would be expected, the film had its fair share of comedy, but the tender love story was unexpected and ...enuine. Could lightning really strike twice?
In a word, “no”. This is the film that audiences were expecting the first time around. It is childish, contrived, and decidedly low-brow, with none of the genuine affecting elements of the first film. This time around, as the title suggests, Deuce spends some time in Europe; Amsterdam to be exact. No longer a gigolo, Deuce is now helping out his old pimp TJ by trying to catch a serial killer of “man whores”. As bad as that plot sounds, trust me... it's worse. So many of the jokes just make no sense. For instance, at one point TJ finds some french fries just lying around, and decides to eat them. He then accidentally drops them into the toilet. Naturally, he then dips them out and eats them. Why would he do that? What's more.. who cares? Certainly not me.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on December 26th, 2005
Four Brothers starts off as a solid drama about a group of orphans (Marky Mark, Tyrese Gibson, Andre Benjamin, and Garrett Hedlund) who were raised by a sympathetic woman (Fionnula Flanigan) in downtown Detroit. When she is murdered, the brothers reunite and stay in their mother’s old house. They sit at the dinner table and stare at her now empty seat. They horse around with one another in her living room. And in some cases they even wear her old clothes. In scenes like these, the actors do a good job of makin... their characters feel real -- a rare feat in movies these days. Then the action starts. And that’s where Four Brothers goes downhill.
What starts as a serious toned film about coming together to bury a loved one, Four Brothers transforms into an unintentionally funny action movie. The characters don’t just shoot at one another, they make corny quips while doing it. Marky Mark, yeah I know he’s Mark Wahlberg and all, but after this performance, he’s Marky Mark again. He’s lost the right to be taken seriously. Anyway, Marky Mark actually says the line, “Grab the gun and bust some shots” to Tyrese Gibson while chasing some bad guys down a street. I don’t know... the line might sound perfectly normal to some people. I guess they are the intended audience for this film. But it made me laugh. Many lines like that one made me laugh.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on December 23rd, 2005
Synopsis
It did take a little bit of intestinal fortitude to sit down and be willing watch Herbie: Fully Loaded, but I did it dammit, because I care about YOU. Fully Loaded is not a remake, but an extension of The Love Bug films with Buddy Hackett and others. In this new edition, Maggie Peyton (Lindsay Lohan, Mean Girls) is the daughter of racing legend Ray (Michael Keaton, Batman) and brother of Ray Jr. (Breckin Meyer, Road Trip). She is going to work for ESPN now ...hat she’s just graduated college, but she’s still a racer at heart.
