Posted in: Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on May 1st, 2005
When first reading the synopsis of Control I thought that it would be something similar to the Michael Keaton-Andy Garcia movie Desperate Measures, and how violent criminals can be reformed somehow. Lee Ray (Ray Liotta, Goodfellas), a convicted criminal sentenced to death, is offered the chance to start life anew with the help of counseling from Dr. Copeland (Willem Dafoe, Spider-Man), along with some behavior suppressing drugs.
And of course, Lee Ray resists at first, but soon g...
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on May 1st, 2005
Very few sitcoms have the endurance to last nine seasons. Everybody Loves Raymond shares their long-running tenure with comedy heavyweight shows such as Friends, Frasier, & Cheers. Not even Seinfeld lasted nine seasons… it fell short, ending after eight. That says a lot for this show; I guess everyone does love Raymond.
All 26-episodes of the complete third season of Everybody Loves Raymond are included in this set. The episodes are all very entertaining; from “The Invitation” all the way to “How They Met”.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on May 1st, 2005
E. B. E. was a first season X-Files episode. For the most part it was very much like any other episode in the early years of the hit series, except it wasn’t. The story introduced us to three of Mulder’s friends/contacts, The Lone Gunmen. Basically Frohike, Langly, and Byers were your typical 80’s dot com geeks who used their computer skills to seek out government conspiracies instead of striking it rich. They self-published a tabloid paper that revealed all to a small conspiracy obsessed following. The appearance was always intended as a one time deal.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on April 28th, 2005
Sony once again hits us with not only a double dip, but a triple dip release of xXx. What started out as a Special Edition, evolved into a Superbit release, and has now ultimately become the Uncensored Unrated Director’s Cut of the film. What is different this time around you ask… well, you get 8 more minutes of action and skin.
Let me guess… you want more specifics don’t you? Well here is what has been added… The scene with the girl “dancing” in Xander’s room has been extended. The...
Posted in: Disc Reviews by David Annandale on April 28th, 2005
Synopsis
Each disc uses a Mickey Mouse cartoon to teach children the basics about such topics as language, geography and numbers. “Mickey’s Seeing the World” uses the cartoon “Mickey’s Around the World in 80 Days” to these ends, while “Reading & Math Fun” uses the much older “Mickey and the Beanstalk” the cartoons are interrupted periodically to put them to educational use in the form of games. This is so far out of my field of expertise that I can’t pretend to evaluate how well this content works, t...
Posted in: Disc Reviews by David Annandale on April 27th, 2005
Synopsis
Directed by Gordon (Them!) Douglas, these three crime thrillers have Frank Sinatra doing his best hard boiled as he unravels complicated (and not always entirely comprehensible) mysteries.
Tony Rome (1967) has Sinatra in Miami Beach as the titular PI, a former cop who still has plenty of connections. A simple task -- returning a drunk young woman to her rich father -- leads to a web of murder and blackmail as all sorts of interested parties chasing around, beating up ...
Posted in: Disc Reviews by David Annandale on April 27th, 2005
Synopsis
Set for no very compelling reason in 1969, this story sees death-obsessed art student Jonathan Jackson walking and hitch-hiking his way along spooky Maine highway in the middle of the night, trying to make it a hundred miles to where his stroke-felled mother (Barbara Hershey) lies in a hospital. Jackson has such a vivid imagination that neither he nor the viewer really knows what, if anything, we see is real, particularly when he is picked up by a messenger of death (David Arquette), driving...
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on April 26th, 2005
Synopsis
This is a film that delights in not being what it appears. The opening moments look like a period gangster film. Suddenly, the scene transforms into a musical. Then this turns out to be movie within the movie. And so it goes, as one scene after another turns out not to be what we thought it was. The plot has roguishly charming Jean-Louis Trintignant setting up a kidnapping scheme with two colleagues. I can’t say much more without giving away the whole plot and the strange circuit on which it...
Posted in: Disc Reviews by David Annandale on April 26th, 2005
Synopsis
The life and career of Peter Sellers (Geoffrey Rush) is chronicled here, from the height of the Goon Show’s popularity to his penultimate, Oscar-nominated role in Being There. Along the way, we see the collapse of his first marriage to Anne (Emily Watson), his second to Britt Ekland (Charlize Theron), and his fractious working relationships with such directors as Stanley Kubrick (Stanley Tucci) and Blake Edwards (John Lithgow).
There’s an interesting conceit at work here: th...
Posted in: Disc Reviews by David Annandale on April 26th, 2005
Synopsis
Lloyd Bridges is the Major in the Canadian forces who is seeking redemption for a failed raid. His audacious plan is to attack the German’s fortified docks in occupied France. His scheme is opposed by Brit Captain Andrew Keir, whose son died in the earlier raid, but Keir finds himself captaining the substandard ship as the raid begins.
This is pretty run-of-the-mill WWII action, the kind of film that is virtually indistinguishable from uncountable others, all fodder for three-a.m. ...
