Posted in: Disc Reviews by David Annandale on January 2nd, 2004
Synopsis
In 1907, Ingrid Bergman arrives at the household of Warren Baxter and Fay Wray to lookafter their four sons. The happiness of the household is disrupted by the death of Wray and astock market crash. Baxter, fallen on hard times, has to let Bergman go, but when his fortunesimprove during WWI, he sends for her once again, even though his sons are now grown up. Oneof them has married Susan Hayward (the Slut to Bergman’s Saint), who proceeds to poison theatmosphere of th...
Posted in: Disc Reviews by David Annandale on January 1st, 2004
Synopsis
In 1955, the town of Northfork is about to be flooded as a hydroelectric dam is completed.Three two-man Evacuation Teams move through the remnants of the town, getting the lastholdouts to move. If they evacuate 65 households, they will be granted 1.5 acres of propertyalong the new lakefront. Among the last of the inhabitants of Northfork is Irwin, a dying orphanabandoned by his adoptive parents and cared for by the local minister (Nick Nolte). But Irwinmight also be ...
Posted in: Disc Reviews by David Annandale on December 31st, 2003
Synopsis
Max (Reg Rogers) is a photographer. After a stunning debut, he finds himself, a year later,suffering the photographer’s equivalent of writer’s block. He’s lost his inspiration, and can nolonger take pictures. He must provide ten for the next day, however, or his career tankspermanently. Hitting a bar, he encounters a strange man who leaves behind a package of fabulouspictures. They could be Max’s salvation. Max is unsure whether or not to claim them as his own,but wh...
Posted in: Disc Reviews by David Annandale on December 31st, 2003
Synopsis
Johnny Hallyday (that most peculiar of oxymorons, the French rock star) plays an aging bankrobber who arrives in a small town to case the bank. He winds up staying with cinema icon JeanRochefort, here playing a retired schoolteacher. One man is taciturn and blunt. The other is chattyand insecure. Each begins to envy the other man his lifestyle. Hallyday plays at being tutorfor a day, while Rochefort tries on Hallyday’s leather jacket and pretends to be tough. This is...
Posted in: Disc Reviews by David Annandale on December 27th, 2003
Synopsis
The film is “based on true events” (an opening announcement the director wasn’t too happyabout) and tells the story of Christian Rayne (Brian White). He dreams of a career in acting, andignores the advice of his best friend, deciding against going to university. He doesn’t want to usehis family connections, however (having a rather conflicted relationship with his father), and thechoices he makes, and the people he meets, set him down a path to drugs and despair.
...
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on December 20th, 2003
Well, this movie was a let down, and the DVD release is nothing special. Not one of Fox’s better efforts.
The Plot: The Order, disappointingly, turned out to be not much more than a Heath Ledger vehicle, apparently targeted at Goth teenage girls with vaguely Euro pretensions. Without letting out any spoilers, trust me when I say that you’ll be disappointed if you expect anything like what the trailer portrays. The trailer says implies that the Vatican is “..using a killer with supernatural powers to ...
Posted in: Disc Reviews by David Annandale on December 9th, 2003
Synopsis
This is a portrait of a family in terminal disfunction. The breadwinner is Janet (played by“Laila Morse,” Gary Oldman’s sister under a pseudonym). Her daughter Valerie (Cannes-winnerKathy Burke) is apathetic, pregnant, and married to the brutal, bullying and self-pitying Ray (RayWinstone). Her son Billy is a heroin addict, and he is thrown out of the house by Ray (who alsoalmost bites his nose off) after smoking some of Ray’s stash.
The worst-case scenarios o...
Posted in: Disc Reviews by David Annandale on December 4th, 2003
Synopsis
Lumi Cavazos had great hopes for her marriage, but now it has gone spectacularly on therocks. Amanda de Cadnet, rather more cynical, is still trying to deal with her husband’s infedility,and one of her responses is to seduce a young student. Ione Skye, meanwhile, is involved withphotographer Steve Jones, whose relationship with his daughter is just a wee bit creepy.
Audio
The sound is 2.0, and barely qualifies as stereo. It is, but only just. T...
Posted in: Disc Reviews by David Annandale on December 4th, 2003
Synopsis
We are at the end of high school. Jason Gedrick is the basketball star. Tracy Pollan is thecheerleader. Kiefer Sutherland is the sensitive loner. We see them all poised on the threshold ofthe next big step. Two years later, Sutherland returns to the home town, now in the company ofwild child Meg Ryan (and for those who keep track of these things, her turn puts the lie to thenotion that the recent In the Cut features her first nude scenes). The usual set of real-...
Posted in: Disc Reviews by David Annandale on November 30th, 2003
Synopsis
Audie England plays Elena Martin (i.e. Anais Nin), an American living in Paris at theoutbreak of World War II. She has a passionate affair with Costas Mandylor (the poor man’sAidan Quinn), but when he is unfaithful, she leaves him. Desperate for money, she undertakes acommission to write erotic stories for an anonymous collector. So begins her sexual and literaryblossoming.
This is all very high-end stuff, with sumptuous cinematography and jazzy editing. King...
