Posted in: Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on December 3rd, 2005
Phillip Noyce's critically acclaimed Newsfront comes to DVD from Blue Underground in a quite impressive package. While not always exciting, Newsfront does manage to attract attention, and is pieced together very well. It's also a film covering unique material I am not sure has ever been covered in the realm of cinema.
The plot centers around Len, a newsreel photographer, who manages to keep audiences apprised of world events long before the nightly news ever exists. Len shoots films of any newsworthy item his employers at Cinetone can find for him. His footage is then used in theater houses throughout the country in an effort to inform, and sometimes entertain, the public. But heavy competition lurks ahead in the new invention of television. And Len is "a bit old fashioned," as colleague Amy (Wendy Hughes) refers to him, so his survival in this new world could be endangered by the competition, which includes his opportunistic brother Frank (Gerard Kennedy). Frank, also a skilled newsreel photographer, wants to change with the times to insure his survival, so he heads for America, where he finds success in television. He would like to bring his brother along for the ride, but Len is an unchanged man in a quickly changing time. As things go, Len would rather be true to himself and what he's always been, because he believes in it. And if that means he must give way, then so be it. But he's not about to let life run right over him. And he won't go down without a fight.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on November 28th, 2005
Baseball, basketball, football... boat racing. While it’s not one of the premiere sports in America, the people of Madison, Indiana sure loved boat racing during the summer of 1971. As the town of Madison was dealing with layoffs and closures, the people looked to Jim McCormick (Jim Caviezel) and their boat, the Miss Madison, to be their saving grace.
Although it’s framed as a coming of age story, seen through the eyes of McCormick’s son, Mike (Jake Lloyd), Madison is a sports film through and throu...h. While it doesn’t come close to reaching the level of greatness that true story sports films like Eight Men Out, Hoosiers, and Rudy reached - Madison does occasionally score a moment or two of success, especially during the final race scene. Plus, the actors are professional, for the most part, and Bindley doesn’t get too fancy with the racing scenes.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on November 28th, 2005
Synopsis
Amalia, the teenaged daughter of a hotel owner, is the victim of a creepy pass in a busy street. The creep in question is Doctor Janos, who is staying at the hotel, and he doesn’t know whom he has just molested. Very much in the grip of a new religious fervour, Amalia feels she has a calling from God to save Janos from himself.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on November 26th, 2005
Synopsis
The small Brazilian film City of God is a very powerful film that few have seen, but it made such an impression on critics that it was nominated for 4 Academy Awards, and with just cause, as this film makes for one of the better cinematic experiences in several years.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on November 23rd, 2005
Burn! stars Marlon Brando as a British warmonger named William Walker, who’s a master manipulator and politician, as well as an excellent military strategist. While not one of the master’s best films, his presence really elevates the material and carries the other performers. Funny thing about Brando… he could play a Brit, an Irishman, and a mafia godfather and make you believe he was the nationality he was portraying.
Through the controversies of Brando’s later career (in which he also made ...imself scarce in the eyes of the public), it might be easy to forget about him, but all you need to do is revisit a fine performance such as the one in this film, and you’ll quickly remember why he’s one of the greats.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on November 22nd, 2005
Synopsis
According to some reports, Fred Durst almost directed this thing, and if I ever wind up supporting anything Fred Durst does, I’ll kill myself. Having said that, Lords of Dogtown is a fond look back at the California skateboarding explosion in the late ‘70s. Since, like everything else, timing is everything, this film was largely neglected in a lot of circles, because it came out shortly after the outstanding documentary Dogtown and Z-Boys, which was written and directed by Stacy Peral...a, who was one of the members of the legendary Zephyr skating team. Peralta is one of the writers of Lords of Dogtown, which is a more dramatic look at the characters of the era.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on November 21st, 2005
The year is 1976. Buenos Aires, Argentina. A ruthless dictatorship has just begun, where people who speak out against the government are “disappeared.”
One of the “disappeared” is newspaper columnist, Cecilia Rueda (Emma Thompson). Her recent column denounces the government for kidnapping some young men who were in a disagreement over a bus fare. When her husband Carlos (Antonio Banderas) returns home and can’t find her, he goes to the police only to receive little help.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on November 18th, 2005
In the poor area of Richmond, California, Ken Carter takes charge as a basketball coach, and fights his way to transform a team of rowdy boys into a team of accomplished men. Based on a true story.
There are way too many problems with COACH CARTER to call it great, but it certainly has its heart in the right place at the right time. The very first immediate problem is the script of the film. A lot of the dialogue feels like it has been overly simplified for its audience. Almost all of the actors play stock...characters, and that includes Jackson. Carter is extremely “in your face” and actually a bit obnoxious at times with all his yelling and screaming. However, with Jackson’s charisma, Jackson is able to pull it off. Unfortunately, I can’t say the same thing for the other actors. Even though most of them try to act in a respectable manner, I felt like I had met the character already each time another new character was introduced. They are fairly good actors (except for the irritating Ashanti), so that helps the process, but they do not make enough of an effort to make the audience feel for them.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by David Annandale on November 16th, 2005
Viva La Merte (1970) was surrealist playwright and all-around provocateur Fernando Arrabal's feature film debut. Set during the aftermath of the Spanish Civil War, this is the deeply autobiographical (no matter how bizarrely presented) story of the a young boy whose father was betrayed by his mother to the security forces of the Fascist General Franco. Oedipal nightmares, extreme violence and brutal eroticism are present in force.These elements are present in the other two films as well. I Will Walk Like a Crazy Horse (1973) has a man suspected of killing his mother flee into the desert, where he falls in love with a holy man, and when the two return to society, our hero is disgusted by what he finds.
The Guernica Tree (1975) is arguably the most brutal of the three films, which should come as no surprise, given the subject matter. We are back in Spain again, during the Civil War, and the action shifts from a backwards provincial town to the doomed Gernica.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on November 13th, 2005
In the event you had to move under a rock in 1997 and just crawled out from under it last week, James Cameron’s TITANIC – winner of 11 Academy Awards - recounts the tragic sinking of the supposedly indestructible ship seen through the eyes of two young lovers on board. Though the romance is fictional, it serves as a guide that will walk us through one of the most memorable events of the twentieth century.
There isn’t much to be said about this film that hasn’t been said a thousand times over in the ...ast few years. If you’re looking for some master thespians, you won’t find them here although the supporting cast, with the likes of Frances Fisher, Bernard Hill, Jonathan Hyde, Victor Garber and more is quite rich. While Winslet was more than capable as Rose, a young, passionate woman betrothed to a rich asshole (Billy Zane), DiCaprio, in the main role of Jack Dawson, teetered on horrendous at times although in his defense, some of the dialogue he was given was cheese worthy of George Lucas’ best work. Both however, proved more than apt at giving us a fantastic point of view at the very real events depicted in the movie. That realism is precisely what propels Cameron’s film into the stratosphere of “historical epics”. Yes, there may be a few inaccuracies that were modified for dramatic purposes but heck, even documentaries have those. The realism was in the success Cameron had in bringing the ship and the people on it back to life for a few precious hours in order to put their story in perspective. The Kate and Leo show took up most of the screen time but in the end, it paled in comparison to what was happening to the ship itself.
