Posted in: Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on May 30th, 2006
Written for the screen and directed by Julian Fellowes (Gosford Park), Separate Lies tells the story of James (Tom Wilkinson, Batman Begins), a high powered lawyer in London who lives in the countryside with his wife Anne (Emily Watson, Breaking the Waves). They have the perfect English house and a dog to match. One day, Anne meets William (Rupert Everett, Shrek 2) and has an affair with him, which turns the trio's lives around in a way that they'd never expect.>
Treading into mild spoiler territory here, so scroll down!
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on May 30th, 2006
It’s true that MASH was winding down by year 10. Everyone involved already knew that the next year would be the last. This is what separates the true professionals from those in it for the money. Instead of dragging out the concept until there was virtually nothing of quality remaining, the entire cast and crew decided it was time to finish on top. A lot of folks would have simply gone through the motions once the end was in sight. Instead, these guys kept pouring it on. The stories and acting in this season are just as good as in any other. The saddest thing about this release is that there is only one more to come.
For the first time in a while there were no major cast changes in this season. All of the characters from season 9 remain. I think if anything can be said about this particular year it might be that the characters have become a bit more vulnerable. Almost every character comes into a story where they are left questioning themselves. For Hawkeye it is mostly philosophical. For Potter and Winchester there are real questions of limitations. For Houlihan there are a ton of emotional issues when she is stranded on her birthday. BJ has to deal with changes in his wife. Klinger has a close encounter with the spirit of a dead soldier that causes his own inner reflection. Finally, Father Mulcahy has to decide a huge moral issue in one of his best episodes. An AWOL soldier seeks sanctuary in the mess tent after Mass.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on May 30th, 2006
Synopsis
On their way to a regional competition, a group of cheerleaders have a car accident, and wander into the rural landscape to look for help. They come across an apparently abandoned house. Two escaped convicts also find that house, and take two of the girls hostage, but soon everybody has a bigger problem in the shape of a hulking killer, Andre the Butcher, who has all sorts of supernatural powers as well as plenty of sharp blades.
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...last of nine generations of a family whose one goal is to rid the world of Dracula. Naturally, Anna is suspicious of this Van Helsing character but eventually teams up with Helsing to kick some butt.
It amazes me how Sommers convinced Universal to grant him well over $150 million dollars to make this film. I suppose this is because Sommers’ last two adventure based films, both Mummy films, were great summer adventure flicks which both made Universal some nice coin. However, Van Helsing never seemed to click with audiences as it just made over $160 million dollars domestically. Certainly not the huge success Universal or Sommers were hoping for. Some feel the reasoning was the lack of star power, but was Brendan Fraser really that much of a bankable star? Some feel that Van Helsing focused too much on CGI with all the various amounts of monsters that prowled the screen. I tend to lean toward the latter as Van Helsing seemed like 132 minutes of CGI effect after CGI effect.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on May 29th, 2006
Synopsis
The attack on Pearl Harbor and the days leading up to that fateful event are the subject of the 1970 effort. The narrative jumps back and forth between the Japanese and American perspectives as just enough things go both wrong and right and both sides (the ascendancy of the militant army faction over the reluctant navy in Japan, crucial intelligence always arriving just a bit too late to the right people in States) to make the surprise attack inevitable.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on May 29th, 2006
Tommy Lee Goes to College is a show that was really sort-of set-up to fail from the beginning. NBC used to be the #1 channel on television, but they slipped badly in the ratings once the big reality television boom hit. In a bid to catch up, they took a chance on this show, which would have been much more at home on MTV or even FOX. The end result was something that was surprisingly similar in tone and charm as another rock-and-roll reality show; The Osbourne's. The thing is, the NBC audience is just no... prepared or interested in a show whose target audience is 18-24 year olds.
The fact is, this is not a show that is meant to be serious, or even really all that realistic. It is intended solely for fun, pure and simple. In that light, this show is a slam dunk. It is clear that the editors took very liberal license with the raw footage that they were given to work with. Still, the point of this show is not to provide an accurate portrayal of college life, it is to provide some mindless comedic entertainment.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on May 28th, 2006
The 2005 Version of Assault on Precinct 13 is an obvious remake of John Carpenter’s 1976 classic. Precinct, for Carpenter, was one of his first films made before his ultra famous Halloween. But if anyone has seen the 1976 version, you can easily know what will come from the 2005 version. Instead of making a possible change to the 2005 version, Director Jean-Francois Richet decided to use the similar theme of a police station being abandoned that Carpenter did. Instead though, Richet focuses on the corru...t possibilities of the police. What Richet brings to the table is a few impressive action scenes, a lot of gorgeous snow (especially so in HD), and a few great actors. All this is very impressive considering the low $20 million dollar budget the film had.
In this version of Precinct, the jail is scheduled to close forever at midnight. Burnt-out desk sergeant Jake Fornick (Training Day’s Ethan Hawke) still traumatized by the death of two partners, is on the graveyard shift with old-timer Jasper O'Shea (TV’s The West Wing) announces he will soon retire. Jake just tends to sit around popping bottles of pills trying to overcome his this pain in his life. That is until some terror arrives. Bishop (The Matrix Trilogy’s Laurence Fishburne) has been arrested and is being transported along with Beck (Empire’s John Leguizamo) and a few others including a character played by rapper Ja Rule. Everything seems to be going fine until a big accident blocks the highway to the jail. So, to get these criminals off their backs, the guards decide to dump Bishop and the select others off at Precinct 13. Unfortunately, the guards didn’t know that Bishop’s men are determined to set him free.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on May 28th, 2006
As is the case with many of Criterion's releases, Viridiana is a film that was quite controversial upon its original release, and to some extent, still is today. The film's namesake is a young woman who is just a week away from taking part in the investiture ceremony, her convent receives a letter from her Uncle, who sends his regrets that he will be unable to attend the event. The convent's Mother Superior sends Viridiana to see this Uncle, and that's where the trouble begins.
The Uncle is a single ol... man who lives in self-imposed isolation, save for a servant and the servants daughter. Once Viridiana arrives at his estate, she discovers that the Uncle has some plans for her that will certainly not agree with her faith. While most films see this as enough of a plot to complete a film, this setup is just the tip of the iceberg here.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on May 27th, 2006
The Adult Swim series of shows from Cartoon Network are sometimes amazingly hilarious, sometimes overly bizarre, but always creative. While some of the shows, such as Robot Chicken are roll-on-the-floor funny, others are just too strange for me. Lucky for me, The Venture Bros. falls into the first category. While not a constant source of laughter, this show is always clever and contains a few big laughs in each episode.
The Venture brothers are the sons of a moderately-successful scientis.... His feelings about the keen (and possibly homosexual) gents are not exactly warm and fuzzy. While he doesn't want anything to happen to them (as evidenced by the fact that they have a bodyguard that feels like he is right out of a Sin City comic), this is really more of a “Dr. Evil / Scott Evil” relationship. The episodes also largely see the boys as an obstacle to the Dr.'s plots at becoming the world's greatest scientist, which makes me wonder why they have become the shows namesake.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on May 27th, 2006
It seems like I keep saying this, but here we go again... Jennifer Anniston is way too good of an actress to be stuck in this film. Now, that's certainly not to imply that Shirley Maclaine isn't fantastic as well, but that's a given. Anniston is clearly the star of this film, and it's easy to see what attracted her to it. Not only is it a romantic comedy directed by Rob Reiner, but the premise is a really clever one. While in town for her sister's wedding, Sarah (Anniston) discovers that her family was the inspirati...n for the book The Graduate. How could something with a plot this clever not work out?
This film may be the ultimate example of a great premise wasted. There are so many different things wrong with this film, but many of them can be boiled down to this; too many coincidences. Scene after scene is filled with conversations that work out in just the right way so as the actors get just the information they were looking for at just the right time. The plot is forced on the story, instead of the story leading the plot. The result is a movie that is a big, clumsy train wreck, instead of the fascinating and smart story that it should have been.
![Van Helsing [HD DVD] dvd cover art](https://upcomingdiscs.com/ecs_covers/van-helsing-hd-dvd-large.jpg)
![Assault on Precinct 13 [HD DVD] dvd cover art](https://upcomingdiscs.com/ecs_covers/assault-on-precinct-13-hd-dvd-large.jpg)
