Posted in: Disc Reviews by David Annandale on October 4th, 2004
Synopsis
Psychiatrist Lee J. Cobb is visited by Joanne Woodward and husband David Wayne. She ishaving spells during which she cannot remember what she gets up to. It turns out that she has amultiple personality disorder, and when repressed, demure housewife Eve White fades out ofthe picture, teasing minx Eve Black steps out. Hubby, who is neither the most sympathetic northe smartest cookie going, cannot understand what’s going on, but Cobb does his best to help.Woodward’s wife spira...
Posted in: Disc Reviews by David Annandale on October 4th, 2004
Synopsis
This is a fly-on-the-wall documentary that follows Bill Clinton’s presidential campaign fromDemocratic primaries to the White House. This piece also made stars of sorts out of campaignmanage James Carville and communications director George Stephanopoulos, with the formerbeing an especially larger-than-life character. There is no narration, and pretty good knowledgeof how the American political system works is helpful, not to mention a sharp memory of thecon...
Posted in: Disc Reviews by David Annandale on October 4th, 2004
Synopsis
It’s 1964 and The Beatles are about to make their first appearance on the Ed Sullivan Show.Teenage girls are losing their minds. We focus on four (with two boys in tow) who head off toNew York to try to crash the show and meet the band. Our heroines are the Shrieking Fan, theWould-Be Photographer, the New-Fiancee-Who-Has-Other-Things-On-Her-Mind and theBeatles-Hater.
This was a bomb in 1978, perhaps because it wasn’t hugely different from the sort of thing...
Posted in: Disc Reviews by David Annandale on September 30th, 2004
Synopsis
Dumped on the night he was to announce his engagement, Jamie Foxx turns his pain into abestselling breakup manual. When his cousin, Morris Chestnut, thinks his girlfriend GabrielleUnion is going to break up with him, Foxx is enlisted to help, which leads to a massive chainreaction of mistaken identities and misunderstandings.
The structure is clearly and consciously that of a classical farce. Though the film neverachieves the proper frenzy requires of a farc...
Posted in: Disc Reviews by David Annandale on September 30th, 2004
Synopsis
Kevin Mitnick (Skeet Ulrich) is cyberoutlaw supreme, breaking into computer networksright, left and centre. The police are trying to catch him, but our hopelessly outclassed. Mitnickencounters an opponent more worthy of his talents when he hacks into the files of securityconsultant Tsutomu Shimomura (Russell Wong). The latter uses his own formidable computerskills to track Mitnick, but meanwhile Mitnick is busy trying to crack the encryption on one ofShimomura's files, a pr...
Posted in: Disc Reviews by David Annandale on September 30th, 2004
Synopsis
Groucho Marx hosted this popular game show for 14 years, and this set collects 18 episodes.The way the game works is as follows: a paired set of contestants comes out, and Grouchobanters with them, having fun with whatever way these people are unusual (and they frequentlyare). Then they are asked a series of questions. If they get four right, they win a thousand dollars,and have the opportunity to return at the end of the show to risk the money for a bigger pr...
Posted in: Disc Reviews by David Annandale on September 27th, 2004
Synopsis
Ewan McGregor and Peter Mullan are barge workers, and one morning they fish the corpseof a young woman out of the river Clyde. McGregor tries to put the body out of his mind byseducing Mullan’s wife, Tilda Swinton. We soon learn, however, that McGregor knows moreabout the body than he lets on: the dead woman’s name is Cathy, and she is an old girlfriend ofhis. In fact, he knows how she died, and he is even more disturbed when a man he knows to beinnocent is charged with mur...
Posted in: Disc Reviews by David Annandale on September 27th, 2004
Synopsis
Jim Carrey wakes up on Valentine's Day in a funk. On the spur of the moment, he takes offto Montauk, where he meets Kate Winslet. Sparks fly, and a relationship seems about to be born.We suddenly flash back in time, and realize that, though they no longer remember it, these twohave previously had a relationship. When it collapsed, Winslet availed herself of the services ofLacuna, a company that erases unpleasant memories. Carrey has been removed from hermemory. Dist...
Posted in: Disc Reviews by David Annandale on September 26th, 2004
Synopsis
Storms both freakish and intense devastate the planet. Climatologist Dennis Quaid realizesthat the world is on the brink of a sudden new ice age. As a freezing hurricane descends uponthe US, Quaid must struggle through the snow and killing cold to reach a crippled New YorkCity, where his son (Jake Gyllenhaal) is huddled with other survivors in the Public Library.
The science is preposterous rubbish from start to finish, the dialogue is laughable, and theplot...
Posted in: Disc Reviews by David Annandale on September 26th, 2004
Synopsis
Texas is in the middle of its revolution, beginning the break with Mexico. Santa Anna hasjust declared himself emperor, and is set on crushing the resulting rebellion. The crucialbattlefield is the Alamo, a former monastery, a hardly suitable for defense. Nevertheless, thatis where our band of heroes gather, including Davey Crockett (Billy Bob Thornton), JamesBowie (Jason Patric) and Lt. Col. William Travis (Patrick Wilson). Personal animosities are setaside in the ensuing ...
