Posted in: Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on November 10th, 2003
Love him or hate him, you have to admire his freakishly sponge-like brain. Dennis Miller has an amazing gift of recall, creating references so obscure that ABC Sports actually offered an on-line translator on the Tuesday mornings following his stint in the booth for Monday Night Football.
His rants are mostly easy to follow during this one-hour stand up performance, however. In fact, he even pokes fun at his own gift for the obscure early in the show, essentially acknowledging that he may have been too hig...-brow in the past, and he’s going to make it a little more mainstream this time around. There are a few truly big laughs here, but the majority of his material leans more toward mildly humorous and incredibly insightful. His conservative views come across as common sense when presented in his signature witty style. While the material is quite topical (and may be completely irrelevant in just a few years), it is dead on for its time. This is a great opportunity to witness free speech in action, carried out by a man that is completely unconcerned with whom he offends. Miller has strong beliefs, and he is not afraid to share them, a trait far too many of us have forgotten somewhere along the way.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by David Annandale on November 10th, 2003
Synopsis
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on November 10th, 2003
No movie can be all bad.
This is a motto that I have lived by for many years. I believe that nothing can be completely bad… that some good can be found in everything. As bad as Spice World was, it had some great moments. Its sarcastic look at the music business was often clever, even if its stars weren’t. Tomcats was a horrible film with major continuity issues. Having said that, it did have some genuine laugh-out-loud moments.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by David Annandale on November 5th, 2003
Synopsis
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on November 5th, 2003
DC Talk made the jump from playing small churches and clubs to playing arenas following their Dove and Grammy award winning album, “Free At Last”. Though some of the songs sound a bit cheesy and dated now, they were right on target when released in the mid nineties, as evidenced by the packed arenas shown during the performances on this disc. The band was getting so big, in fact, that they decided to release a concert video/documentary to major movie houses nationwide. The footage was shot, the project was edited, t...ailers were assembled and sent out to the marketplace, and… nothing happened. For reasons not fully examined on this set, the artists, labels and studios never saw eye-to-eye, and the project was shelved in its nearly-complete form.
On the 10 year anniversary of this groundbreaking project, ForeFront Records returned to their archives, re-mastering and re-releasing the album and dusting off the old film project for new life on DVD. This two-disc set contains both the re-mastered CD and its DVD film counterpart. For better or for worse, the film is Free at Last.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on November 5th, 2003
“All I Want” is a decent film that could have been great. Elijah Wood plays Jones Dylan (a quintessential Hollywood character name), a seventeen-year-old college freshman that decides that life has more to offer than formal education. Dropping out of college without attending a single class, he rents a nearby apartment and begins to get to know his neighbors. Before long, the underage Jones in enraptured in a tangled romance with two of his fellow boarders.
The plot of this film is interesting, but unfort...nately, the actors are not. Mandy Moore does a bit of overacting in her role as a… well… as an actress. Co-star Franka Potente gives a mediocre performance as a modern-day Ally Sheedy. Sadly, the constantly wonderful Elizabeth Perkins is not enough to save the overall poor acting in this film.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on November 5th, 2003
TBS Superstation presents…
When it comes to DVD, these are frightening words. They conjure up images of bad acting, bad sets, and terrible scripts. Unfortunately, all of this proves true in the “action” film “Counterstrike”, staring Rob Estes (Silk Stalkings) and Joe Lando (Dr. Quinn, Medicine Woman). The plot is tired and familiar; two bothers are the only ones that can stop terrorists from holding the President of the United States hostage, and stealing China’s nuclear codes. Ho-Hum.< ...p>
Posted in: Disc Reviews by David Annandale on November 4th, 2003
Synopsis
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on November 4th, 2003
Synopsis
Nicolas Cage is a fantastic actor. I will be the first to admit that he has had some mistakes (“Face/Off” and “Snake Eyes”, to name a few), but for the most part, his performances are gutsy and honest, with just a hint of cool 60’s Rat Pack style smoldering underneath the surface. My favorite Cage performance came in the fantastic film “Leaving Las Vegas”, where he brought the struggles of a dying alcoholic to life in beautiful and tragic detail.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by David Annandale on November 3rd, 2003
Synopsis
In a cellar (all that remains of a great mansion) lurks a demonic bed. Anyone who lies on it will be eaten (and being eaten involves being surrounded by yellow foam and dragged down into yellow liquid limbo and dissolved). Trapped behind his own painting is the ghost of artist Aubrey Beardsley. He witnesses the bed's depredations (and his narration explains the plot to us), but there is nothing he can do to stop the evil. That, more or less, is the plot. The 80 minutes meander along, and the...story is padded out with lots of scenes (some quite humorous) of one victim after another being devoured. Made for next-to-nothing, and looking it, Death Bed nonetheless benefits from some interesting camera movement and startling production design (especially of the bed itself). There is almost no direct sound, and with the majority of the story explained to us in voice-over, there is a distinct resemblance to the films of Doris Wishman (see A Night to Dismember). However, the off-kilter fairy tale qualities of the story, and some very striking imagery (especially at the end) raise Death Bed well above Wishman's so-bad-it's-great level. Fans of really obscure horror should check this out.
