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Comedy

In Good Company

Posted in Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on May 14th, 2005

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In Good Company is a “feel good” movie about the ruthless corporate world. Now, is such a thing possible? Writer/Director Paul Weitz almost pulls it off. The movie stars Dennis Quaid as Dan Foreman, the head of advertising sales for a sports magazine. All goes down the toilet for Dan when the sports magazine is swallowed up my a major media conglomerate. Enter Carter Duryea, played by Topher Grace. Carter is brought in as the new “boss”, but he’s young and in way over his head. Carter decides to keep Dan…
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Spaceballs

Posted in Disc Reviews by David Annandale on May 10th, 2005

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Synopsis

The evil Spaceballs, led by Dark Helmet (Rick Moranis) plan to steal the atmosphere of thepeaceful planet Druidia. Daphne Zuniga, as the Leia-like princess of Druidia, accompanied byher faithful robot Dot Matrix (voice of Joan Rivers) teams up with the vaguely Han Solo-ish BillPullman and his dog/man/Wookie parody Barf (John Candy) to defeat the evil.

I think, maybe, if you’re eleven, this might be hilarious. But I have my doubts. As ever withMel Brooks, the humour …
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Last Shot, The

Posted in Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on May 8th, 2005

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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…
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Bill Maher – Be More Cynical

Posted in Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on May 7th, 2005

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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…
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Are We There Yet?

Posted in Disc Reviews by David Annandale on May 5th, 2005

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Synopsis

Nia Long is the sexy single mother of two vile little monsters who do everything short oftorturing and killing would-be suitors in the illusory hope that their father will return to thefold one day. Ice Cube plays a fellow who doesn’t like kids (and with these two case studies, whocan blame him?). He falls for Long, and foolishly volunteers to carry her two spawn cross-country for New Year’s Eve. Cue no end of trouble. You got it, it’s Planes, Trains andAutomobiles m…
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Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou, The

Posted in Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on May 4th, 2005

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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,…
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Spanglish

Posted in Disc Reviews by David Annandale on April 25th, 2005

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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.

I have maintained before that a comedy nee…
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She Hate Me

Posted in Disc Reviews by David Annandale on April 10th, 2005

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Synopsis

Anthony Mackie, VP of a biotech company, learns the hard way that no good deed goesunpunished. When he blows the whistle on the corporation’s misdeeds, he is the one who windsup losing his job and being investigated. Given his desperate straits, he agrees to impregnate, fora price, his ex-girlfriend and her girlfriend. So begins a new business for our hero: stud-for-hireto well-heeled lesbians. The two tales intertwine, and sex and capitalism/corruption collide whenMackie i…
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In The Weeds

Posted in Disc Reviews by David Annandale on March 29th, 2005

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Synopsis

Welcome to an eventful night in a posh New York restaurant. The joint is ruled over by thetyrannical Eric Bogosian, and the staff is the expected group of would-be actor (self-obsessed),writer (morose), cynical old hand (Molly Ringwald), newbie, effeminate manager, and so on.Also familiar are the tensions, loves, hatreds and other crises that afflict our characters. Whilenone of this is particularly groundbreaking, it is nonetheless delivered with both conviction andan agre…
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Something Short of Paradise

Posted in Disc Reviews by David Annandale on March 29th, 2005

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Synopsis

“They keep falling in and out of love,” reads the tagline, and that quite nicely sums up thefilm. David Steinberg is the neurotic manager of an art-house cinema, and Susan Sarandon hascome to NYC to become a journalist. They are different, but there’s chemistry, BUT sometimesthe chemistry is of the wrong kind, and the movie charts the ups and downs of their relationship.“In the tradition of Annie Hall” the case boasts, and the case could be made that it is alittle to…
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Rushmore

Posted in Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on March 28th, 2005

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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…
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Stella Street

Posted in Disc Reviews by David Annandale on March 22nd, 2005

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Synopsis

Stella Street is a quiet, residential street in suburban England, which becomes a haven forcelebrities seeking refuge from fame. It has been so since the 60s, when the Beatles and RichardBurton roomed here. Long-term resident Michael Caine is our guide through the community,where a flood of new arrivals (Al Pacino, Jack Nicholson, David Bowie, Madonna, Mick Jagger,and so forth) arrive. They think they’ve found their utopia, but their simple lives will soon bedisrupted.

Bright Young Things

Posted in Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on March 15th, 2005

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Bright Young Things is a sumptuous adapation of Evelyn Waugh’s novel “Vile Bodies”. The book is a cutting satire of British cafe society of the 1930’s. The director and adapter, Stephen Fry, retains much of the novels comic edge. I would expect nothing less from Fry, the noted British humorist and living embodiment of Oscar Wilde.

The movie is mostly about the posh lifestyle of novelist Adam Fenwick-Symes (played by Stephen Campbell Moore)and his lover Nina (played by Emily Mortimer). The circle …
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Bustin’ Loose

Posted in Disc Reviews by David Annandale on March 12th, 2005

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Synopsis

Incorrigible and not altogether competent small-time crook Richard Pryor has pulled one fastone too many. His exasperated parole officer threatens him with a long jail term unless he agreesto drive a group of special education students in a rickety bus from Philadelphia to Seattle, wherethey will find a new home. All sorts of misadventures await along the road trip.

There’s a vaguely gritty atmosphere, which helps defuse some of the sentimentality, and thekids are h…
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Get Shorty

Posted in Disc Reviews by David Annandale on March 8th, 2005

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Synopsis

Chili Palmer (John Travolta) is a loan shark, but his heart isn’t in it anymore. His boss hasdied, and the deeply obnoxious Dennis Farina has taken over. Sent to LA to collect on some baddebts, movie buff Chili finds himself right at home in the Hollywood scene, and decides to getinvolved in the business. The other major figures include Gene Hackman as a low-end producer,Rene Russo as the world-weary B actress, and Danny De Vito as the high-profile actor.

The above …
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Orgazmo

Posted in Disc Reviews by David Annandale on March 8th, 2005

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Synopsis

Director Trey Parker plays Joe Young, a Mormon on a rather losing missionary trip toHollywood. A chance encounter lands him (reluctantly) as the lead in Orgazmo, a pornflick about the titular super-hero. The film becomes a runaway success, and Joe finds himself anunwilling porn superstar. Meanwhile, his co-star in the film has developed a real, workingversion of the hero’s Orgazmarator (or something like that), which causes orgasms at a distance.It is only a matter o…
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Sideways

Posted in Disc Reviews by David Annandale on March 8th, 2005

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Paul Giamatti, in typically depressed form, is an aspiring writer (his unpublished manuscript looks twice the size of War and Peace) and wine connoisseur who heads out with best friend Thomas Haden Church for a road trip through wine country before the latter’s wedding.Church is far more interesting in getting laid than in tasting wine, however, while Giamatti is still agonizing over his failed marriage (not to mention his perception of a failed life). He allows himself to be dragged by Church into all sorts of misadventures, but one particular entanglement,with Virginia Madsen, might perhaps turn out to be something special.

American Splendor

Posted in Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on February 27th, 2005

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The movie’s tagline is “Ordinary Life is Pretty Complex Stuff.” And the movie itself, with Paul Giamatti (Sideways) as Harvey Pekar, a file clerk at a Cleveland Veterans’ Hospital, is very good. Harvey creates a comic book based on his life, and he and his book hit a stride of popularity, which includes several appearances on Late Night with David Letterman. Things manage to take a downturn when he is diagnosed with testicular cancer. So he and his wife Joyce (Hope Davis, About Schmidt) decide to…
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Philadelphia Story, The

Posted in Disc Reviews by David Annandale on February 27th, 2005

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Synopsis

Reluctant scandal-mag reporter James Stewart and photographer Ruth Hussey are sent toinfiltrate and report on the upcoming marriage of New England aristocrat Katharine Hepburn.They are brought into the house by Hepburn’s first husband, Cary Grant. Sparks, friendly andnot, fly in all directions, and Hepburn’s relationships with the men in her life becomeincreasingly complex. She is also taught to have, as her father puts it, “an understandingheart.”

There’s an echo…
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Bringing Up Baby

Posted in Disc Reviews by David Annandale on February 26th, 2005

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Synopsis

Cary Grant is a straightlaced paleontologist about to be married to a woman even morestraightlaced than he. His life flies into pieces when he runs into the flighty socialite KatharineHepburn. Falling instantly in love, Hepburn does all she can to keep Grant nearby, no matter theconsequences, and she embroils him in the task of bringing a leopard named Baby to heraunt’s country estate.

What follows is every conceivable (and even some inconceivable) sort of misunders…
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I Heart Huckabees

Posted in Disc Reviews by David Annandale on February 26th, 2005

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Synopsis

Jason Schwartzman is a young man in despair. His brand of environmental activism (whichinvolves reciting a lot of bad poetry and planting trees in the middle of parking lots) isn’t gettinghim far, and then he is on the verge of being ousted from his own organization when Jude Law,executive at the Wal-Mart-like Huckabees, becomes a sponsor and takes the whole thing over.Schwartzman turns for help with his life to existential detectives Dustin Hoffman and LilyTomlin, but he t…
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On a Clear Day You Can See Forever

Posted in Disc Reviews by David Annandale on February 22nd, 2005

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Synopsis

Desperate to quit smoking, kooky (ditzy? annoying?) Barbra Streisand turns for help tohypnotist Yves Montand. She is an extremely receptive subject, as Montand accidentally put herunder when she visited his class. Under hypnosis, Streisand regresses into past lives, andMontand starts to fall in love with the 19th-Century Englishwoman Streisand becomes.

There are some funny elements here (Montand’s reactions to the first past-life regression aremost amusing), but the…
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Anchorman – The Legend Of Ron Burgundy

Posted in Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on February 12th, 2005

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Arguably the last funny member of Saturday Night Live has picked some strange movies to be in since leaving the sketch comedy show. Appearing first as a co-star in Old School and then later in the kid-friendly (but cute) Elf, Will Ferrell took his time in getting to what fans wanted, a good PG-13 or better comedy for him to stretch his comedic talent.

By and large, Anchorman does deliver on that, though occasionally Ferrell himself isn’t the one causing the laughs. As 1970s San …
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New Kind of Love, A

Posted in Disc Reviews by David Annandale on February 10th, 2005

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Synopsis

Paul Newman is a womanizing lout of a journalist. After unknowingly seducing the wife ofhis boss, he is packed off to the Paris bureau of the newspaper (and he reacts as if this is somesort of punishment). Joanne Woodward is a fashion spy for a discount chain. She’s a toughcookie, as you can tell from the fact that her hair is short and she wears sunglasses in dark rooms.She and her boss head to Paris too on a reconnaissance mission. Woodward and Newman collide,hate each ot…
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Without a Paddle

Posted in Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on January 30th, 2005

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Written by Jason Franz

Synopsis

Without a Paddle is the story of three childhood playmates (Seth Green, Matthew Lillard and Dax Shepard), re-united by the death of a close friend. The four young boys dreamed of one day finding the lost fortune of legendary hijacker, D.B. Cooper. After the funeral of their friend, the trio discovers that their departed friend had kept the dream alive and was hot on the trail of Cooper’s treasure before he died.

In memory of their friend, the three continue whe…
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