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Drama

Munich

Posted in Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on April 24th, 2006

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Steven Spielberg has always been a surefire type of director to go to if you want a high quality film. I was first introduced to Spielberg’s work via his groundbreaking film Jaws. Since then, Spielberg has continued to churn out hit after hit from 1993’s Schindler’s List which was awarded a Best Picture Oscar to his most recent film 2005’s Munich. Both of these particular films have gained numerous political and critical praise for the messages and raw power they both contained via the film’s int…
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Dirty

Posted in Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on April 17th, 2006

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Can good acting make a film? Quite often it can. Dirty is a prime example of a film ending up better than it deserves to be by the powerful performance of a few good actors. Amando Sancho (Collins, Jr.) is an ex-gang kid from the mean streets of L.A. He thinks his street smarts and credibility can be an asset on the police force. Unfortunately we will never know, because he is partnered with corrupt cop Salim Adel (Gooding, Jr.). Both appear to require abject lessons in morality and loyalty, lessons that come too…
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Ten Commandments, The

Posted in Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on April 12th, 2006

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Cecil B. DeMille’s The Ten Commandments hits store shelves in a new three-disc special edition, just in time for the release of the new made-for-TV mini-series. While the film classic is no stranger to DVD, it has yet to be released with this kind of gusto. At over three-and-a-half hours long, the film is simply too much for one disc to hold. The first disc contains the first 140 minutes, while disc two finishes up with the last 80. Plus, as a bonus, we get the original 136-minute silent version (also a DeMill…
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Passenger, The

Posted in Disc Reviews by David Annandale on April 11th, 2006

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Synopsis

Jack Nicholson is a journalist in Africa, fed up with his job and his life. When an acquaintance in an adjoining hotel room dies, Nicholson, struck by the other man’s physical resemblance to himself, switches identities, allowing everyone to believe that he is the one dead. But his new self doesn’t turn out quite to be the escape he had hoped for, as the man he has now become turns out to be an arms dealer.

Though that kind of a set-up is pure thriller, in the hands of Michelangelo…
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Four Brothers

Posted in Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on April 10th, 2006

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John Singleton burst on to the scene in 1991 with the gritty urban drama Boyz N Tha Hood. While this excellent film brought him critical acclaim, I think it also brought some misconceptions about who he is as a filmmaker. While he certainly has an urban element to his films, he is not content to keep re-making urban films throughout his career. What made Boyz N The Hood so good was not the fact that it was an urban drama, but that it was a genuine story about the love that a parent has for a child.
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Motorcycle Diaries, The

Posted in Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on April 7th, 2006

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The Motorcycle Diaries tells the story of an 8,000 mile trip by either motorcycle (hence the name of the film), raft, truck or foot from Argentina to Peru in the year of 1952. Friends Ernesto Guevara de la Serna and Alberto Granado take this journey to travel across the continent. It’s important to note that Ernesto eventually became “Che” Guevara, a man who was involved in the political world. According to wikipedia, “Che” is mostly referred to as a Fidel Castro type figure, which is interesting especially co…
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G

Posted in Disc Reviews by David Annandale on April 2nd, 2006

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Synopsis

Music journalist Tre (Andre Royo) arrives at the Hamptons home of his cousin Sky (Chenoa Maxwell) and her cad of a husband (Blair Underwood). Tre is here to interview Summer G (Richard T. Jones), megastar rapper, who has just bought a home in the area. Sky and G have past, and old embers flare to life when they see each other.

If any of this sounds familiar, it should. As O was to Othello, G is to The Great Gatsby. The transposition comes off as rather a…
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Lie With Me

Posted in Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on March 31st, 2006

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Synopsis

Lie With Me is proclaimed in its trailer to be a film in the tradition of Y Tu Mama Tambien and Sex, Lies and Videotape. But at its core, it’s more along the lines of another one of director Clement Virgo’s film influences, Bertolucci’s Last Tango in Paris. The characters in Lie With Me experience each other rather provocatively at the start of their relationship, and work their way outwards.

Based on a book by Tamara Berger, the film tells a story of Le…
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Get Rich or Die Tryin’

Posted in Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on March 29th, 2006

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Synopsis

Growing up as the oldest son in an upper-middle class neighborhood outside of Washington, DC, I am familiar with rap as much as, or even more than, KRS One, Grandmaster Flash and the Furious Five, Public Enemy or NWA. I come from dem hard streets, where I can kill a muhvuggah! Well, maybe not exactly, and in the age where lame musicians become lame actors (or vice versa in the case of Jennifer Lopez), anyone who tries to be the entertainment “double threat” deserves to be subjected to any and all s…
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Controversial Classics Volume Two – The Power of Media

Posted in Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on March 29th, 2006

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With the original Controversial Classics Collection from Warner Brothers, the studio pulled seven films from their classic film archive that were controversial in their day. Topics included government corruption, racism, troubled youth and the wrongfully accused. Instead of following that set with more classic films based on the same themes, Warner Brothers has done something interesting and varied the focus of their theme. The films this time around, as the title suggests, deal with the role of the news media…
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Brokeback Mountain

Posted in Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on March 28th, 2006

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Brokeback Mountain tells the story of star-crossed lovers Ennis Del Mar (Heath Ledger) and Jack Twist (Jake Gyllenhaal). Both are young men, not even twenty, working in the year of 1963. They meet and fall in love on a sheep-herding job in Signal, Wyoming. The film chronicles the next 20 years of their lives from Ennis marrying Alma Beers (Michelle Williams) to Jack marrying Laureen Newsome (Anne Hathaway). The 20 years that the film takes place over show Ennis and Jack trying to lead a normal life without see…
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A History of Violence

Posted in Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on March 22nd, 2006

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As I see more and more film’s from 2005, I realize that a majority of the best films are those that aren’t huge financial successes. Films like Capote, Munich and now David Cronenberg’s latest film A History of Violence weren’t huge successes but have earned praise due to the themes and stories they present. Containing a well crafted story, with interesting characters, A History of Violence is one of those rare films that you see that has a latest impact on you.

As the film
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White Horse Is Dead, The

Posted in Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on March 16th, 2006

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Director Pete Red Sky conducts a small, but capable cast in the psychodrama The White Horse Is Dead. Some bits of dialogue hit sour notes, but the cast, which consists of Resmine Atis, Andrew Welsh, and Irina Stemer, hold their own through the rough parts and truly elevate this flawed rendering of an otherwise intriguing – and sordid – tale. Atis plays Naya, daughter to Giselle (a domineering and beautiful hypochondriac), and at the film’s opening, we see she’s the kind of girl, who would do most anything to p…
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Capote

Posted in Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on March 16th, 2006

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Biographies are nothing brand new. Hollywood has been making these types of films for quite sometime. Some of the more famous biographies are about people like George S. Patton and political leader Ghandi. Most recently, audiences were invited into the world of Truman Capote. The two aforementioned biographies tended to cast actors that seemed not to necessarily play the person, but more so become the character almost channeling him. Phillip Seymour Hoffman, like George C. Scott and Ben Kingsley, channels Capote in a…
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Making Love

Posted in Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on March 9th, 2006

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Michael Ontkean and Kate Jackson play a married couple dealing with the ramifications of the husband’s newly discovered homosexual behavior. Right off, I’ll say these two seem too happy from the beginning to make the sudden turn believable. Also, the ending [SPOILER ALERT, kind of] is too predictable and cliche to be the least little bit effective. The “I’m okay/You’re okay” resolution, where everyone moves on and everyone’s okay with who they are, and the world is once more a wonderful place, is pure Grade-A drivel …
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Bettie Page: Dark Angel

Posted in Disc Reviews by David Annandale on March 9th, 2006

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Synopsis

As one of the discs in this set is exactly the same as the previous release, my review is the same too:

This is an episodic biopic about Bettie Page, moving from her glory days as a model for the pin-up photographer Bunny Yeager and fetish actress for Irving Klaw, maker of B&D shorts. All is well until a Senate investigation into obscenity, and Bettie herself pines for more mainstream, respectable roles. A fair bit of running time consists of B&W recreations of lost Klaw films, wit…
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Pride & Prejudice

Posted in Disc Reviews by David Annandale on March 6th, 2006

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Synopsis

The Bennet family is not rich, and when Mr. Bennet (Donald Sutherland) dies, the estate will pass out of the family’s hands and into those of a rather pompous little twit of a parson. There are five daughters, and their future can only be achieved through marriage. Elizabeth Bennet (Keira Knightley) is the second daughter (improbably described as plain). Her path repeated crosses that of Mr. Darcy (Matthew Macfadyen), an aloof, brooding gentleman who apparently has little use for her or her …
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Next Step, The

Posted in Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on March 2nd, 2006

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Originally released in 1997, The Next Step is one of those coming of age dance films that became so popular in the late 90’s. Usually, that alone would be enough to put me off the film, but as I am a reviewer, I was forced to dig deeper. Unfortunately for me, there really isn’t anywhere deeper to go. The genre pretty much dictates the plot.

For those who dare to actually be concerned with said plot, I really can’t say it any better than it is already stated on the back of the box. Specifically, this …
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Unbreakable

Posted in Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on February 25th, 2006

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Synopsis

I think that by revisiting Unbreakable, and looking at it outside of M. Night Shyamalan’s other films (The Sixth Sense and Signs), there’s actually a pretty good movie going on there. I mean, a movie that grossed $95 million domestically can’t be considered a failure, right? It did, however, do amazing overall numbers, the international totals brought the film up to a near $250 million gross. However, I guess when you put them up against Signs ($227 million domestic, $40…
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Blood and Wine

Posted in Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on February 24th, 2006

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This is not one of Jack Nicoholson’s better known roles, but it deserves more attention than it has gotten. Nicholson can always be counted on to deliver a strong performance. It is that skill that turns an average idea into something much more.

Alex Gates (Nicholson) is not a nice man. And let’s face it. Nicholson excels at complicated characters, often with few redeeming qualities. Gates appears to have everything he could want. He’s an apparently successful wine merchant. He has a wife and stepson…
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Lord of War

Posted in Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on February 23rd, 2006

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Synopsis

What distinguishes Nicolas Cage from other more mainstream actors is that his choices of independent films, providing him the opportunity to take on a wide variety of roles that broaden his range, while periodically taking on the occasional Jerry Bruckheimer production to maintain his box office gravitas and make some money to allow him to work the indie films. It’s a circuitous route that helps to benefit the viewer. Sometimes those lower-level films are hits, while others miss.

In Lo…
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Last American Hero, The

Posted in Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on February 23rd, 2006

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The 1970’s was the decade of the muscle car. Films like Smokey and the Bandit and Cannonball Run raced into theatres, riding on the thrills of speed. If you were a young man, then you were right there ridin’ shotgun. Kicking butt and takin’ names. The Last American Hero makes the unfortunate attempt to combine this “need for speed” with a typical “against all odds” story. The result is a dead end street.

Junior Jackson (Bridges) is the son of a bootlegger with a real talent for running roadblocks. Wh…
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Boy in Blue, The

Posted in Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on February 23rd, 2006

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The film’s prologue informs us that the sport of sculling captured the nation’s attention long before baseball or football came along. We’re told that this activity created a national obsession with much the same pitfalls of modern sports. Somehow I can’t imagine, in this age of sports bars and ESPN, that rowing would demand the attention this boast assumes. I don’t remember my grandfather or great grandfather for that matter reminiscing about some great rowing move he witnessed with his dad as a child. The film al…
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Lord of War

Posted in Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on February 20th, 2006

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Each year there are quality films that slip through the cracks for one reason or another. Lord of War is one of those movies. At first look, I would blame this film’s lack of financial success on the marketing department. It was hard to get a feel for the film through the trailers and commercials.

What was it about? A gun salesman? With Nicolas Cage and a bunch of spent bullet casings at the front and center of the ad campaigns, one might think that this was another Jerry Bruckheimer action-fest muc…
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Walk the Line

Posted in Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on February 19th, 2006

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Riding on the coattails of the successful and acclaimed film Ray comes the life story of Johnny Cash. Walk the Line, adapted from the novel The Man in Black, places Joaquin Phoenix in the role of the legendary country singer. Similarly to Ray, Walk the Line has garnished critical acclaim for both the film (which was a surprise omission in the Best Picture category at the Oscars) and the lead roles of Phoenix and Witherspoon (both of whom won best actor/actress and the Golden Globe…
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