Posted in: Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on July 4th, 2006
Fox has done a really great thing with their Fox Film Noir line. There are tons of great film noirs from the 40's and 50's, and Fox has done an excellent job of grabbing those classic films and presenting them in great new affordable editions for modern viewers to experience for the first time. I Wake Up Screaming is one of 18 films currently in the series, and I am sure that number will only continue to grow over time.
Betty Grable shows up here in a starring role that is a departure from her u...
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on June 27th, 2006
Synopsis
Private Kang (Jan Dong-kun) is a coast guard – i.e. a soldier tasked with watching the South Korean coast for spies from North Korea. He is obsessed with shooting one, even though it is extremely unlikely that he will encounter any. One night, he sees movement and opens fire, killing not a spy, but a teenager having a tryst with his girlfriend. The boy isn’t just shot – he’s riddled with bullets and then blown to pieces with a grenade. No surprise, then, that the girl is traumatized to the p...
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on June 26th, 2006
Let’s face it. Movies released in January usually aren’t very good. Yes, some of these movies are Oscar hopefuls that are released nation-wide, but only after being released in selected cities to quality for those Oscars. No, we’re talking about stinking piles of crap like Uwe Boll’s Bloodrayne here. Being that January is Hollywood’s cinematic dumping ground, it comes as no surprise that Tristan & Isolde was released during this very same month in 2006.
Delayed for nearly a year, Tristan & ...
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on June 26th, 2006
Let’s face it. Movies released in January usually aren’t very good. Yes, some of these movies are Oscar hopefuls that are released nation-wide, but only after being released in selected cities to quality for those Oscars. No, we’re talking about stinking piles of crap like Uwe Boll’s Bloodrayne here. Being that January is Hollywood’s cinematic dumping ground, it comes as no surprise that Tristan & Isolde was released during this very same month in 2006.
Delayed for nearly a year, Tristan & ...
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on June 23rd, 2006
Synopsis
The Waodani tribe of the Amazon is, we are told, so violent that they have almost hunted each other to extinction. Oops. Anyway, in 1956 a group of missionaries and their families arrive to live with the Waodani and do the missionary thing. A misunderstanding leads to the missionaries being slaughtered, but their wives decide to stay. The film follows the journey of the son of one of the five men, and the whole thing is all about forgiveness.
See, the title is “End” not “Tip” of th...
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on June 21st, 2006
The world of politically charged films has certainly grown in the past few years. Films like Farhenheit 911 have seen big success, while other films like Rupert Murdoch’s OutFoxed have seen more of a critical success. Both of these films had extreme media attention, one obviously more than the other, prior and after their releases. Both asked questions and demanded answers to topics and issues we, as people, wondered about but never really asked about as a simple person can’t really enact a high success...
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on June 20th, 2006
I've seen people quote this film from time to time, and I never understood the attraction because I saw it once and forgot about it. After a bit of intrigue, I finally got my hands on a copy of the US version of this 2 disc set (though the UK version, with the orange cover and silhoulette image of Ewan McGregor on the cover looks much cooler) and gave it a spin, lo and behold, I discovered a pretty good movie.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on June 9th, 2006
Limitations of budget and social conventions of the time prevent Murder, Inc. from being all it can be - still, the performances, and the captivating dynamic between hero (Stuart Whitman) and villain (Peter Falk) result in entertaining fare, so long as this film is allowed to be a movie and not a documentary. Whitman leads a fine cast as the mob lackey, who is constantly manipulated by a tough-talking contract killer. Part of the real life syndicate of hit-men "Murder, Inc.," Falk's baddie steals every ...
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on June 9th, 2006
Synopsis
Jeremiah is taken at the age of five from his loving foster parents and turned over to the tender mercies of his white-trash mother, Sarah (Asia Argento, in an absolutely monstrous role). He is dragged down into the abusive nightmare of her life, being raped by her male partners when he is being beaten by them. There is an interlude where he is taken under the care of his fundamentalist grandparents (whicih is a nightmare in itself), but mother reclaims him, ultimately making him up as a gir...
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on June 6th, 2006
Synopsis
Tómas Lemarquis plays Nói, a 17-year-old living in a tiny, frigid, massively isolated town in Iceland. He is brilliant, but refuses to be so, and many people in the town think he isn’t all there. He sleeps through school (when he bothers to show up), deals with his useless alcoholic father, and dreams of being somewhere else. When he meets a young woman who turns out to be a kindred spirit, his desire to escape is further enflamed. The odds, however, are stacked against him.
Quirky...