Posted in: Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on December 5th, 2008
High art it isn’t, but one thing’s for sure: Dynasty is ass-in-seat television. Launched in 1981, the John Forsythe-Linda Evans-Joan Collins starring vehicle crossed lines and took chances few of its contemporaries were willing to take. For several years Dynasty defied conservative conventions with sordid tales of extramarital affairs, catfights, and the hot-button issue of homosexual parenting. It’s this last issue that is featured so prominently in Dynasty – The Third Season, Volume Two.
Those of you who are uninitiated to the Dynasty saga have nothing to fear, as each script is weighted heavily with expository dialogue sure to catch you up in no time. (“If Blake loves you, Krystle, then why did he humiliate you by castigating you that day we fought in the lily pond” – Alexis Colby) Of course, the show’s quality suffers as a result, offering ridiculous conversations involving participants who should damn well know exactly what just happened to them, especially considering the weight of their experiences, without the need of another character explaining things. In fact, about 40-50% of every conversation is retread from a previous episode. Incidentally, the acting is terrible, but one must wonder if the actors could have done any better with the material they were given. While exposition can certainly be a necessity, especially in an hour-long ongoing series, the convention is best used in very small doses at the beginning of a story, not throughout every segment between the commercial breaks.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on December 5th, 2008
Erle Stanley Gardner wrote crime fiction, and while many of his 100 or so works are unknown to most of us, he created a character that has become as identified with criminal lawyers as any other in fiction. It was in these crime novels that Perry Mason first faced a courtroom. He developed a style where he would investigate these terrible crimes his clients were on trial for. He would find the real killer, and in what has become a
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on December 3rd, 2008
One of the hardest parts of reviewing DVD’s for this site is getting dropped in to the middle of a show I neither followed nor cared to follow and being told to judge fairly and objectively. Getting one’s bearings can be the toughest part of such a task, but this I will attempt to do with Seventh Heaven – The Seventh Season. As if playing catch-up with only one season to go on isn’t enough, the series hurls character after character at the unsuspecting viewer at a furious pace. It’s the type of show one should really get in on at the ground floor to get the most out of it, and I am keeping this in mind as I say most of these characters are profoundly obnoxious.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by David Annandale on November 24th, 2008
Jean Gabin, in his American debut, plays Bobo, a French sailor who has been knocking around the States for quite some time in the company of Tiny (Thomas Mitchell). Their wandering comes to a stop when, the day after a night of drunken excess that he cannot remember, Bobo sees Anna (Ida Lupino) wading into the waves to commit suicide. He rescues her, and before long the two are living together on the bait barge where he is working, and fall in love. Dark clouds are on the horizon, however. A local man was murdered, and Tiny, resentful that his meal ticket has been taken from him, darkly hints to Anna that Bobo might be responsible, even though he doesn't know it himself.
Moontide was originally a Fritz Lang project, and as the accompanying documentary demonstrates, his influence is still felt in the finished project, notably during the climactic stalking sequence. Gabin, though a masterful presence, nonetheless seems almost as much a fish out of water as his character, and it doesn't really come as a surprise that neither he nor Hollywood wound up caring much for the other, and he would return to the greener pastures of France. Claude Rains is on hand as a wisdom-dispensing night watchman – hardly a stretch for him, but it's always a pleasure to hear his mellifluous tones. The real stretch, and indeed revelation here, is Thomas Mitchell – the man whose speciality was the cuddly, avuncular Irishman here becomes a twisted monster of childish, violent rage, giving us a real nail-biter of a denouement.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on November 13th, 2008
Working in
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on November 13th, 2008
If you weren’t around in the 1970’s, you might be surprised to find out that film superstar Michael Douglas was once in a television cop show. It was this influential crime drama that allowed Douglas to show off the acting chops that would earn him a spot in the
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on November 7th, 2008
On the surface it would seem that Linewatch is going to tackle the controversial illegal immigration debate that is going on in the
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on November 5th, 2008
What can I say about Showtime’s huge hit, The L Word? If you don’t already know what this show is about, and I was surprised at the number of people I talked to who didn’t, then I’m pretty sure this isn’t the show for you. Remember the old days when you used to watch
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on November 5th, 2008
After 7 years JAG had pretty much settled in. It’s usually at this time that a show has to shake things up a bit or become somewhat stagnant. I think that JAG took the latter course. I have to believe that much of the creative talent was already working on the NCIS spin-off that was now 2 years away. The characters don’t appear to be taking any risks, and there is a little more of a return to the soap opera elements that began to fade away, making it a better show for some time.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by David Annandale on November 4th, 2008
A combination of controversial subject matter and the physical transformation of Jared Leto garnered this film considerable attention (positive and negative). Leto here morphs into an uncannily accurate physical recreation of Mark David Chapman. The film follows Chapman on his fateful trip to New York City. Over the course of three days, he hangs around outside John Lennon's home, becomes friendly with fellow fan Lindsay Lohan, and endlessly ruminates about how the events in his life are paralleling The Catcher in the Rye, and (rather less explicitly) why he's going to kill Lennon.
Leto is unrecognizable, and disappears completely into the role. But is the film a good one? It is somewhat limited by the fact that nothing much happened during Chapman's stay in NYC prior to the murder, and so nothing much happens here, either, beyond Chapman acting so obviously insane it's a wonder no one had him locked up within minutes of arrival. Does the film give us some insight into the mind of the killer? Only a little. It hints at motivation, but those hints are only really clear if you're already pretty familiar with the case. In other words, the picture doesn't bring anything new to the table. It's a striking work, but not an altogether successful one.
