Posted in: Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on May 8th, 2005
Based on real events, The Last Shot is a Hollywood comedy about an FBI sting operation. The joke (and the real life event) is that the sting is a Hollywood production. Get it? The sting operation will employ mob level types, who are toughing there way into the movie industry. Will the FBI catch the bad guys? Will this fictional movie get made? Rent it and find out.
Alec Baldwin and Matthew Broderick are the two stars of the film. Baldwin plays Joe Devine, the FBI agent running the opera...ion from the inside. Broderick plays Steven Schats (yes, the last name does sound like that), an aspiring screenwriter. The Last Shot also sports a great supporting cast: Tony Shalhoub, Toni Collette, Ray Liotta, Buck Henry, Tim Black Nelson, Calista Flockheart, and an always hilarious Joan Cusack. It's a great premise for a film. And I was hoping the "real" screenwriters who got duped would've written the screenplay. Jeff Nathanson, a veteran screenwriter but a newbie director, goes for a Get Shorty style satirical Hollywood stab, but also tries to create a quirky comedy. Both attempts are mildly successful. The strength of the film is Broderick and Baldwin. They create characters that, seemingly, are worlds apart. But really, these two men are looking for the same thing.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on May 7th, 2005
Bill Maher - Be More Cynical is a recording of a 2000 performance in San Fransico. Now, the jokes are a bit dated. Monica Lewinsky and George W. Bush, back then, were still prime fodder (in fact Bush still is, but that's beside the point.) This performance lasts just over and hour and is an excellent introduction to Maher's work. He's one of those "edgy" comedians. He rants a lot about religion, drugs, and sex. But Maher's rants are well phrased and his comic timing is well polished. The guy knows how t... tell a joke. If you're a fan of his work, this DVD is a must pick-up. If you're not...well...I guess you won't watch it.
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Posted in: Disc Reviews by David Annandale on May 5th, 2005
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Posted in: Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on May 4th, 2005
Wes Anderson has been a breath of fresh air since he hit the Hollywood scene in 1996 with his first feature length film Bottle Rocket. Since then, Anderson has continued to stretch the imagination of film-goers with fabulous films such Rushmore (1998), The Royal Tenenbaums (2001), and now with The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou (2004). Anderson’s films are not for every joe-schmo film fan; his work could even be described as an acquired taste. But from a creative and visual perspective,...Wes Anderson’s work stands by itself.
Anderson has a thing for using actors that he is comfortable with, so in The Life Aquatic, we see many return actors from his previous films – Bill Murray, Owen Wilson, & Anjelica Huston. Fresh to this film, and with a good chance of appearing in future Wes Anderson projects, include Cate Blanchett, Willem Dafoe, & Jeff Goldblum. With a cast that reads as a whos-who of Hollywood, how could this film not be entertaining?
Posted in: Disc Reviews by David Annandale on April 25th, 2005
Synopsis
Mexican immigrant Paz Vega comes to work as a maid for the household of Adam Sandler (a chef who is very reluctantly accepting his growing renown) and Téa Leoni (insanely overwrought neurotic interior designer). Vega and her daughter wind up living with this family during a summer, and Vega’s presence is the catalyst for many changes, particularly in the relationship between Sandler and Leoni, which is veering into very treacherous shoals.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by David Annandale on April 10th, 2005
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Posted in: Disc Reviews by David Annandale on March 29th, 2005
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Posted in: Disc Reviews by David Annandale on March 29th, 2005
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Posted in: Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on March 28th, 2005
The sophomore effort of Wes Anderson, Rushmore brings together a 15 year old who flunked out of private school, and a steel tycoon in his 40s, and shows the lengths that people go to sometimes to try and win the heart of the one they love.
That would be too easy an effort, wouldn’t it? Well, Max Fischer (Jason Schwartzman, I Heart Huckabees) is attending Rushmore Academy on scholarship, and he loves Rushmore. So much so, that he creates a club for just about everything that hasn’t had an esta...lished club at Rushmore. Beekeepers’ Society? Check. Model U.N.? Check. He also writes and produces plays at the school. Not your average plays, more along the lines of adaptations. Adaptations which may not be appropriate for younger kids. I mean, why subject an 8 year old to a play that’s adapted from Serpico? The problem with all his extracurriculars is that he neglects his studies, and is threatened with expulsion by the school’s headmaster (Brian Cox, The Rookie). As Max’s father (Seymour Cassel, Stealing Harvard) is only a barber, expulsion would be expulsion, he couldn’t buy his way out of it. Max does find an inspiration, someone that he falls in love with, a 1st grade English teacher named Ms. Cross (Olivia Williams, The Sixth Sense). The problem is that Ms. Cross rejects his flirtations, so he enlists the aid of Herman Blume (Bill Murray, Caddyshack), a self-made tycoon who gains Max’s admiration and respect at a guest speaker engagement at the school, simply telling the poor kids to take the rich kids down. The problem with getting Blume involved is that he eventually falls in love with her also, though he is already unhappily married.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by David Annandale on March 22nd, 2005
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