Posted in: Disc Reviews by David Annandale on February 7th, 2005
Synopsis
Jean Reno plays Léon, a preternaturally gifted hit man. Shortly after taking down a smallarmy of goons in a high rise, he finds himself having to look after 11-year-old Mathilda (NataliePortman), whose family has been wiped out by Gary Oldman (whose performance goesshamelessly over the top). In between mega-massacres at the beginning and end of the film, wesee the development of the relationship between precocious Mathilda and child-like Léon.
And that is where many...
Posted in: Disc Reviews by David Annandale on February 7th, 2005
Synopsis
Denzel Washington plays Malcolm X, the black leader white folks DIDN’T feel comfortableabout. Beginning in the 1940s, when Malcolm is a zoot-suited cool cat with best friend Shorty(Spike Lee), the film then flashes back to just before his birth, and proceeds in properly epicfashion to trace the life of the charismatic, and extremely controversial, leader.
Questions can, and have, been asked about some aspects of the film. Time Out, for instance,raises the issue of t...
Posted in: Disc Reviews by David Annandale on February 2nd, 2005
Synopsis
The driver and passengers of a city bus are gunned down. One of the victims is an off-dutypolice officer, who is also investigating cop Walter Matthau’s partner. Saddled with a new,motor-mouthed partner (Bruce Dern), Matthau follows the clues, which gradually point to aconnection with an old, unsolved case of his.
Director/producer Stuart (The Amityville Horror) Rosenberg’s thriller aspires todocumentary realism in the investigation process, and there is an a...
Posted in: Disc Reviews by David Annandale on February 2nd, 2005
Synopsis
A group of teens (one of whom is searching for his brother, who is believed to be lost at sea)board a sailboat commandeered by a thief. The ship is unintentionally unmoored, and the groupfind themselves at sea. During a storm they are shipwrecked in an encounter with giant lobsterEbirah, and wash up on what at first appears to be a deserted island. In fact, they haveunwelcome company here: this is the base of the evil Communist outfit Red Bamboo, who areenslaving natives an...
Posted in: Disc Reviews by David Annandale on January 26th, 2005
Synopsis
Season Three of the much-loved series, and the ad copy can describe what’s here better thanI could. I quote: “Laugh out loud as Lucy and Ethel rip each other’s dresses to shreds during theirtelevised duet of Cole Porter’s ‘Friendship.’ Watch the fireworks when Lucy has to go 24 hourswithout telling a fib. Follow Lucy as her quest to recover a contest-winning dollar bill lands herin a giant starch vat.” And so on. This is the series that pretty much set the standards for sitco...
Posted in: Disc Reviews by David Annandale on January 24th, 2005
Synopsis
Cornel Wilde, a writer with a disabled younger brother, meets the gorgeous Gene Tierneyon a train, and it’s love at first sight. At least, on his side of the equation. For her, it’s moreobsession at first sight (and this because Wilde looks just like her excessively beloved -- andlately departed -- daddy). After a whirlwind courtship and marriage, they appear to settle down tohappily married life, but Tierney is ferociously jealous of anyone who might be taking Wilde’satten...
Posted in: Disc Reviews by David Annandale on January 22nd, 2005
Synopsis
Jeanne Crain, Linda Darnell and Ann Sothern are three wives in an upper-middle-classneighbourhood. Just as they head off on an outing with a group of children, they receive a letterfrom the narrator (a silken-voiced Celeste Holm) that she has left town with one of theirhusbands. Which one? Unable to get home until the end of the day, the three women must waitand wonder, and in flashback we see the strains in each of their marriages. Crain is the formerfarmgirl who doesn’t f...
Posted in: Disc Reviews by David Annandale on January 20th, 2005
Synopsis
Shirley Booth is Dolly Levi, impoverished matchmaker, who has set her designs on matchingrich curmudgeon Paul Ford with herself. Ford, meanwhile, has his eye on young ShirleyMacLaine, who is so desperate to get married that she feels any man will do. Fortunately, there issomeone more her age lurking about: Anthony Perkins, pre-Psycho, when it was possibleto imagine him as a romantic lead.
That this is an adaptation of a play is painfully obvious, what with th...
Posted in: Disc Reviews by David Annandale on January 18th, 2005
Synopsis
That Man Bolt is a long way from Sweet Sweetback’s Baadasssss Song. It’scloser to the Shaft films, but its closest relation is the Bond series, as our man Bolt (FredWilliamson) jets from Hong Kong to Las Vegas and back again, karate-chopping his waythrough the bad guys, working to bring down the crime lord who set him up as a fall guy. Bolteven winds up with a British government liaison. The action scenes are very flat, but theproduction values are high for th...
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on January 16th, 2005
The second volume of Lost In Space Season 2 is pretty much like the first. I’m still not sure I like the idea of splitting seasons. The reason given was that stores were refusing to carry a higher priced season set. This set does contain one of my favorite of the entire show. “Trip Through The Robot” is an obvious “Fantastic Voyage” rip-off but is a terribly entertaining romp. The stories continued their slide into even sillier tales and lower budget monsters. Gene Roddenberry often told the tale of how CBS pi...
