Posted in: Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on January 17th, 2006
Jodie Foster stars in this film as a propulsion engineer named Kyle Pratt who decides to take her six year old daughter Julia on a transatlantic flight aboard a brand new jumbo jet (which she helped design). Aboard the plane, her daughter goes missing. Naturally she has no clue what is going on as the captain (Sean Bean), nor the sky marshal (Peter Sarsgaard) are of any assistance. Foster calmly looks around the plane for her daughter wondering what has happened to her. We learn more and more facts about the daughte...
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on January 14th, 2006
Synopsis
I was amazed that a film starring three Academy Award winners (Robert De Niro (Raging Bull), Kathy Bates (Misery), F. Murray Abraham (Amadeus) would be so ignored and passed over by the movie going public. Based on a novel by Thornton Wilder and adapted for the screen and directed by relative unknown Mary McGuckian, the film recounts a tragic incident where several people fell to their death from a bridge collapse. A monk by the name of Brother Juniper (Gabriel Byrne, The Us...
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on January 1st, 2006
Synopsis
Having zipped through The Emperor’s New Groove awhile back (yes, I have Disney DVDs), I was somewhat familiar with the story and the cast behind it. I was aware that the original film enjoyed some theatrical success, but I didn’t understand why the film necessitated a sequel. But here I am, trying to wrap my head around the logic for this sequel.
And surprisingly enough, I got a nice kick out of this animated film. Instead of focusing largely on the Emperor Kuzco (voiced by David S...
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on December 27th, 2005
Synopsis
This is a short (69 minutes), quite elliptical film that traces the arc of a relationship between a young man (Kieran O’Brien) and woman (the pseudonymous Margo Stilley). We see individual moments, usually framed around episodes of lovemaking, and in between we see our couple at rock concerts (and so we get, in their entirety, performances by the likes of Primal Scream, Super Furry Animals and Franz Ferdinand). The whole story is a flashback, with O’Brien in the present, post-relationship, r...
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on December 18th, 2005
Synopsis
After years of answering questions running along the lines of "When are you guys going to make a movie?" X-Files creator Chris Carter and stars David Duchovny and Gillian Anderson decided, in lieu of taking the time off between TV seasons 4 and 5, to go ahead and start production on a feature-length movie and a place in the summer blockbuster arena.
As a more than casual fan of the show, but not delving into the hardcore fan area, I’ve got to say I was somewhat disappointed with this prod...
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on December 8th, 2005
Sometime during the 1990’s, big-budget blockbusters stopped getting by on special effects alone. Even though Independence Day, Godzilla, and Armageddon showed us that ground-breaking special effects don’t translate into quality films, Hollywood kept making them -- and people kept spending their hard-earned money to see them.
Stealth is the newest movie in that mold. Heavy on great visuals and special effects, it fails to deliver any character development, emotion or common sense, result...
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on December 7th, 2005
Scientist Reed Richards (Ioan Gruffudd) wants to study the effects of cosmic rays, but he needs a lot of money to do. After searching for the money practically everywhere, he turns to his old college rival Victor Von Doom (Julian McMahon). Naturally we need to have some type of love triangle going on. Enter Sue Storm (Jessica Alba) and the equation is complete.
Victor needs to make money off of this because he doesn’t seem to have enough despite being a billionaire. He agrees to finance the project only if ...
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on December 5th, 2005
Greg Marcks directorial debut 11:14 is a tricky little puzzle of a film. Amazingly enough, the pieces do all fit together, despite Marcks' (who also wrote the screenplay) bewildering youth. What significance (if any) 11:14 has over other times on the clock, I don't know. In fact, why the five stories play out as they do, I wasn't sure until the final segment, which neatly ties all parts together. While it may not be the type of film that's as much fun to watch the second time around, you'll have a ball the first.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on December 4th, 2005
Synopsis
I haven’t seen The Hours. And I haven’t seen Chicago. And while all the Oscar talk seemed to revolve around either Kidman or Zellweger, after seeing Far From Heaven, I’ve gotta think that the wrong woman got the brass ring. Or gold little guy, whatever. Julianne Moore (who was also nominated in The Hours) does an outstanding job in this movie, set in 1957 Hartford. Moore plays Kathy Whitaker, the wife of a man (Dennis Quaid, Innerspace) who she surprises at work w...
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on December 4th, 2005
Synopsis
Anchor Bay, holding all (or most) of the keys in George Romero’s zombie film trilogy, released a four disc Ultimate Edition to capitalize on the theatrical release of the remake, done in grainy, handheld, 28 Days Later style by director Zack Snyder. There isn’t too much here plotwise that you need to be aware of. 4 people decide to seek shelter at an abandoned mall, a continuation of Romero’s first film Night of the Living Dead. I don’t really know of an underlying moral tale in this...
