Posted in: Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on November 9th, 2006
By the time this film was announced, everyone and their dog had asked me if I’d read The Da Vinci Code. I hadn’t.
Yes, I’d heard it was the bestest book in the whole wide world. No, I didn’t want to borrow their copy. Months later, when I finally sat down to watch this DVD, I had still not read Dan Brown’s masterpiece. See, I decided to be one of the few who could judge the film as completely separate from the novel.
Unfortunately for my personal experiment, it seems that the book was simply
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on October 25th, 2006
Wasn’t it just yesterday that The Fast and the Furious raced across our theatre and soon after took the checkered flag on DVD in our own living rooms? I guess not, because Fast and the Furious: Tokyo Drift is upon us, and it’s the third and least imaginative of the franchise. Unfortunately, none of the previous films’ characters return for this third outing. I don’t count the clever little cameo that serves as the film’s coda. Gone are also the cool American muscle cars that gave the franchise its edge. The souped ...
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.
After a long time in the dolldrums, this was a return to form for the Disney studios, and marked something of a second golden age...
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on October 15th, 2006
After numerous horrible, horrible Batman films (Batman and Robin and Batman Returns are my least favorite), the Batman film’s have finally returned to a place where someone can be proud to have seen and proud to own to this film. Director Christopher Nolan (probably mostly known for Memento) was chosen to helm this latest Batman film while actor Christian Bale (American Psycho, The Machinist) was chosen to portay Mr. Bruce Wayne.
The film mostly follows how ...
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on September 20th, 2006
Rap movies have com a long way. They have begun to evolve, from glorified music videos, to black cinema (which has come a long way in its own right), on up to a new level of art. Hustle and Flow brought the new style of black film into the limelight, and ATL follows right behind. I was really surprised how much I liked this film. In my line of work, you see a lot of bad films, and you can usually spot them from a mile away. I admit that I was fooled by this one. I was expecting to find another tired tale of a young hustla' making it big in the hood, but instead I found a genuinely touching film about what happens to four friends when High School is over and the next stage of life has not yet begun.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on September 8th, 2006
Poseidon doesn’t waste any time getting to the action so I won’t waste any time with an introduction to this review. Yes, it’s a remake of the 1972 film, The Poseidon Adventure. Yes, it is chock full of convenient cardboard characters (a former Navy man, a fireman, a nurse, etc...). But we don’t watch movies like Poseidon for character exposition, do we?
Poseidon is a rip-roaring 90 minutes of intensity and even delivers some gory goods. Yes, I said gory. I know Poseidon...
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on August 19th, 2006
Written By Jeff Mardo
This disc certainly had me fooled. I though I was in for another one of those lame teenage “comedies” where the emphasis is on lame and cliché jokes and the occasional glimpse of gratuitous nudity. What I wound, however, was a wonderful movie that is the very definition of an indie film. If you liked Kevin Smith's first foray into filmmaking, then you will probably like this piece as well. I would contend that Clerks was a better film, but this Mexican film certainly has it's on charm as well. While Smith's fi...
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on August 8th, 2006
Synopsis
A group of masked criminals, led by Clive Owen, take over a Manhattan bank and hold everyone there hostage. Denzel Washington arrives on the scene as police negotiator, and he rapidly finds that his opponent is extremely clever, and appears to know every move the police will make even before they do. Complicating matters further is the arrival of Jodie Foster, an ice-cold fix-it woman hired by bank-owner Christopher Plummer to protect his interests: there is a safety deposit box he desperate...
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on May 30th, 2006
In Stephen Sommers’ Van Helsing, we meet Gabriel Van Helsing (Hugh Jackman) who is a professional monster-killer with a sidekick named Carl. Van Helsing must first track down Mr. Hyde who lives in the Notre Dame Cathedral and, sometimes, likes to venture outside for the occasional murder here and there. After completing this basic mission, Van Helsing is sent to the famous Transylvania to deal with Frankenstein’s Monster where he meets Anna Valerious (Kate Beckinsale). Anna and her brother Velkan represent the...
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on May 9th, 2006
Harrison Ford stars as Jack Stanfield, an online security chief for a mid-sized baking chain. One day, he is introduced to a new possible candidate in Bill Cox (Paul Bettany). We learn this turns out to be a setup. Cox and his men are holding Stanfield's wife (Virginia Madsen) and their two children hostage. In return, Cox demands that Stanfield hack into his bank's computers to transfer a fortune into Cox's offshore accounts.
Firewall, in whole, contains a smart plot, one that makes you think. The ...