Posted in: Disc Reviews by David Annandale on April 6th, 2005
Synopsis
In 1943, medical student Aňa Geislerová is living the sophisticated life in Prague, carryingon with a doctor. She’s also working for the Czech resistance, and when her lover decamps andshe is betrayed, she is forced to seek refuge in the country. She poses as the wife of GyörgyCserhalmi, whose life she saved with a blood donation when he was in the hospital. At firstdismayed by her new surroundings, she gradually comes to love both the countryside and herersatz husband...
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on April 4th, 2005
The Woodsman is not a story for the faint of heart. The content is disturbing to say the least… it is a story of a convicted pedophile that has a “thing” for young girls. The story is actually much more then that… it has a strong focus on the inner demons that the pedophile faces in attempt to clean up his life.
After being released from a 12-year prison sentence, Walter Rossworth (Kevin Bacon) tries to re-enter society by getting a job at a lumberyard, and moving into his own apartment (coincident...
Posted in: Disc Reviews by David Annandale on March 31st, 2005
Synopsis
In the present, in a nursing home, we meet two residents: James Garner and Gena Rowlands.She is afflicted with Alzheimer’s, and cannot remember her past. He reads to her from anotebook, telling the tale (which is their story) of two young people (Ryan Gosling and RacelMcAdams) who meet, fall in love, but are driven apart by class prejudice (she’s upper class, he’sworking class). He never gives up on her, and the story charts more heartbreaking reunions andtravails.
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Posted in: Disc Reviews by David Annandale on March 30th, 2005
Synopsis
Don Cheadle plays Paul Rusesabagina, house manager of the luxury Hotel Mille-Collinesin Kigali. He does business with everybody, and strokes the egos of the powerful, and doesn’treally believe the anti-Tutsi sentiment being built up will really amount to anything. He is wrong,he discovers, when the genocide is unleashed. He gathers some 1200 refugees in the hotel, and,deprived of any help from the outside, must use all his wits to keep these people, along withhimself and hi...
Posted in: Disc Reviews by David Annandale on March 19th, 2005
Synopsis
All three of thiese films have previous been seen release on DVD (one quite some time ago,from the look of things), and they are of varying importance to Streisand’s career.
The most notable of the bunch is The Way We Were (1973). Directed by SydneyPollack, this charts the relationship of Streisand (fiery activist) and Robert Redford (writer in theF. Scott Fitzgerald mould) from their college days in the 1930s to their inevitable breakup in1950s Hollywood. Th...
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on March 8th, 2005
Jeremyis an early 70's film that put Robby Benson on the map (for what that's worth). Benson was nominated for a Golden Globe for his tender performance as the title character. This is quite an intimate little perforance. Glynnis O'Connor plays Jeremy's love interest, Susan. O'Connor matches Benson's truthful performance. The film centers around Susan and Jeremy's awkward, but authentic, teenage romance.
The film moves along at a snail's pace. But that's part of the point. There are no major Romeo...
Posted in: Disc Reviews by David Annandale on March 5th, 2005
Synopsis
Jon Voight plays Eddie, known as “Eddie Maintenance,” who keeps things running at an amusement park. When a faulty ride clobbers him, he winds up in Heaven, where he meets, as the title suggests, five people from his past, in five different kinds of Heaven, at each stage learning truths about his life, and how much it mattered, for better or for worse. There are many flashbacks to his early years when he showed promise as a gifted engineer, but was held back by a drunken lout of...
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on February 25th, 2005
I’m always a sucker for con men movies, movies about the grift, or general films about robbers who are smart and get money from dumb people. If they’re too stupid to know what to do with the cash, send it over here, Daddy needs it. Sometimes there are new and interesting wrinkles that usually crash and burn, but sometimes work out quite well in the end.
Matchstick Men tells the story of Roy (Nicolas Cage, Adaptation) and Frank (Sam Rockwell, Confessions of a Dangerous Mind), two men wh...
Posted in: Disc Reviews by David Annandale on February 25th, 2005
Synopsis
The saint of the title (Bradford Dillman) begins as a very secular young man, eager to sign upfor the war in which the Pope is engaged. But it is during this conflict that he receives a visionfrom God, and renounces violence. This is perceived as cowardice by some (such as the father ofhis sweetheart) but as inspiring principle by others (such as said sweetheart, Dolores Hart). Thehumble holy man eventually runs up against politics within the Church.
Michael Curtiz ...
Posted in: Disc Reviews by David Annandale on February 22nd, 2005
Synopsis
Charlton Heston is Michelangelo, busy at work on the monumental sculptures he proposesfor the tomb of Pope Julius II (Rex Harrison). Julius has other ideas, however, and ordersMichelangelo to paint the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel, which is the last thing the sculptor wantsto do. The film then follows his struggles with the monumental task, as well as the clash ofpersonalities.
There’s more than a whiff of Heston as Michelangelo as Moses, and Harrison as Julius as...
