Posted in: Disc Reviews by William O'Donnell on July 20th, 2009
Unless you were around for Iron Butterfly's big boom in 1968, you might remember this band best as the composers of that song the organ player plays for 17 minutes in that episode of The Simpsons in which Bart sells his soul. Yes, this is how I knew them for much of my youth, and I thought of them best then too.
This DVD documents a 1997 concert of Iron Butterfly, and it did little to sway my fond memories of what was a very good Simpsons episode that was. My apologies...I shall leave that Fox program (not to be mentioned again) and focus on the band that is most famous for the 17 minute plus psychedelic adventure that is In A Gadda Da Vida.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on July 17th, 2009
The List is adapted from a novel of the same name written by Robert Whitlow. After returning home from his father’s funeral, Renny Jacobsen (Chuck Carrington) discovers he is the inheritor of his family’s seat in a secret society founded during the civil war. However, Renny suspects the society’s activities are more troubling than they lead on and decides to examine them more closely. When his inquiries are uncovered by the group’s leader (Malcolm McDowell) Renny becomes targeted by a mysterious force that has the power to destroy him and the people he holds close.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on July 10th, 2009
“It’s like one of those fatal attraction things, like they show on the Donahue Show, you know?”
It might not have exactly been “fatal”, but the attraction that Jack Lemmon and Walter Matthau had for each other, and we still have for them, is on perfect display in Grumpy Old Men. Then again… it might just as well have been fatal, if not fate. The two men died just months from each other. Matthau left us in July of 2000, and just under a year later in June of 2001 we lost Jack Lemmon. Chris Lemmon, Jack’s son, doesn’t think it’s entirely a coincidence. He told me in a recent interview that the men loved each other. He joked that “if Walter had played golf, he’d have married him.” Whether it was the chemistry these guys had off screen or just their natural abilities, might be hard to pin down. Whatever the reason, there have been few Hollywood duos that put out as impressive a body of work. With Lemmon, it was the fact that he was always rather a dramatic actor who found himself in hilarious roles. With Matthau, he was always the lovable buffoon whose characters almost always got in their own way. They appeared in about a dozen films together, from the enigmatic Oliver Stone JFK to The Odd Couple, perhaps their most renowned comedy. Like all of their films the main attraction, fatal or otherwise, is watching these two buddies work together. Grumpy Old Men might not be anything like their best work, but I’d take these guys on an average day over most duos on their very best.
Posted in: No Huddle Reviews by Gino Sassani on July 10th, 2009
Jamie (George) has just been in a violent car accident that was really not an accident at all. She awakes to find herself prisoner in a dirty warehouse room. She discovers that she and her young son have been kidnapped, but her captors are not looking for ransom. Her husband has been secretly working for some pretty bad dudes, and he has squirreled away 44 million dollars of the bad guys’ money. Now they want it back. Jamie is given boxes of audio recordings that were made at her home and asked to break a code her hubby was using that might help identify where the money is. The promise is that she and her son will go free if the money is recovered. Unfortunately there is a deadline. Someone named Falco (Krige) is coming soon and will kill all of them if the money is not recovered.
The film is quite claustrophobic. It pretty much all takes place in the same small room. The entire film depends too much on the performances of the two leads. Melissa George does about as much as she can with the role. Her movements and range of emotions is pretty limited. Oded Fehr plays the kidnapper who interacts the most with Jamie. For some reason he does not list the credit on his official resume. It is also not included on his IMDB profile. I’m not sure if he was unhappy with the finished result or if it is merely an oversight. He does a pretty good job here, but half the time his face is covered, giving him even less to work with than George has. There are some good tension moments, to be sure. Still, I found the film didn’t move fast enough or supply enough stimulation to keep it from getting very tedious. It was a brave choice, to be sure, but never carried off as effectively as was needed to keep the film engaging.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by David Annandale on July 9th, 2009
In a mythical world, a series of apocalyptic prophecies are coming true. These events presage the awakening of a world-devouring dragon. Dragon hunters are needed more than ever, but all of the knights of yore are dead or insane. The only game in town is a couple of misfits: Lian-Chu, who still bears the trauma of the night his village was destroyed by the dragon, and his friend Gwizdo, a two-bit con artist. They are accompanied by Hector, a strange little scene-stealer who might be a rabbit or a dog. Zoe, the excitable niece of the decrepit and blind king, recruits the motley crew to defeat the evil, and off they go, journeying to the end of the world to face terrible danger.
This computer-animated effort is French, but only the English language track has been provided, and I can't help but wonder if something was lost in the translation. Forest Whitaker is top-billed as Lian-Chu, but the character has very few lines, and even less expression. Zoe and Gwizdo have the lion's share of the dialogue, and these two are overly familiar figures. The dialogue moves the story along, but doesn't particularly sparkle. What does shine, however, is the look of the film. The world is a stunningly beautiful universe of floating platforms, and the detail work is tremendous. If the story isn't anything to write home about, the eye candy most certainly is.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on July 9th, 2009
Guns is a Canadian TV mini-series that came to fruition in late 2008. The premise of the series is slightly convoluted. Paul Duguid (Colm Feore) is a legitimate arms dealer that sells to governments around the world. However, Duguid also sells illegal weapons to gangs around Toronto as well. Duguid comes under police scrutiny when his son Bobby (Gregory Smith) goes to a street level gun dealer’s house that is under police surveillance. Bobby also becomes implicated in the murder of the father of a U.S. Senator. During all of these events, Bobby’s girlfriend Frances (Elisha Cuthbert) volunteers to smuggle guns across the border. The multiple storylines on display here work well in a TV mini series. However, when shown in 180 minutes on a DVD, they are difficult to appreciate.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on July 7th, 2009
I tend to wince a bit when I see these films that star wrestling names and are produced in conjunction with one of the WW A-Z’s. I’ve come to believe that WW means “Won’t Wow”. Along comes John Cena and this latest cooperative film, 12 Rounds. I have to say I was somewhat surprised to find that it was a pretty good action thriller, if a bit implausible. I’m willing to overlook certain aspects of inplauability, if you take me on a thrilling enough ride and try not to totally insult my intelligence. For the most part I found that to be the case here. Cena doesn’t feel the need to work in impractical wrestling moves on his opponents. In fact most of the action is not the hand to hand tripe these movies tend to lean toward. You’ll find plenty of action sequences. There’s a pretty cool runaway rail car, plenty of car chases with the expected carnage that follows, and enough gun play to drive home the point. Renny Harlin, the director, worked on the second Die Hard film, so you know he has a good eye for this kind of action. And while no one will confuse him with John Woo, I think you’ll get enough of an adrenaline hit here to make the 2 hours worthwhile… until we get to the end. More on that later.
A sting to bring down a dangerous terrorist goes horribly awry when the fed’s informant has a sudden change of heart. The result is a lot of shooting, chasing, and dead guys on both sides of the law. Patrol officer Danny Fisher (Cena) is one of the cops drawn into the chase and eventual takedown of the chief terrorist, Miles Jackson (Gillen). In the mayhem that follows, Jackson’s wife is killed. Jackson blames Fisher for the death and vows his revenge.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on July 7th, 2009
“Believe me, that weren’t no shark.”
Sea Beast began life with the title Troglodyte, but I’m not sure what that had to do with anything on this movie. Perhaps someone just thought it was a clever name, but realizing they didn’t have a clever film to go with it, they decided on the more mundane Sea Beast. Whatever the reason and whatever the title, nothing can change the fact that this is one really bad horror film.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on July 6th, 2009
“If you look closely, you’ll find that everything has a weak spot, where it can break….”
The same can be said for Fracture. There are plenty of flaws, and if you look hard enough you can find a lot of problems with everything from the story to the performances. Thankfully these flaws are quite minor and require the kind of scrutiny that would likely ruin almost any movie experience. I taught law for about 7 years and make it a bit of a (bad?) habit to look for the errors in court and legal procedures. I found plenty here, but they aren’t all that obvious or that detrimental to the plot. You’ll find errors in such trifles as chain of custody for evidence and the admissibility of certain types of testimony. If you’re a student of the law you’ll take note, as I did, and then hopefully move on. There’s too much compelling stuff here to allow yourself to miss out because of some rather common legal mistakes.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by David Annandale on July 6th, 2009
When Terence Malick's latest effort hit the theatres, he had trimmed it down to 135 minutes. Early critics had seen a version running 150 minutes. This version is longer yet, clocking it at 172 minutes. Most of what I said about the previous DVD release holds, and so I'm reproducing it here, with additional comments as necessary.
Virginia, 1607. English ships arrive and a colony is set up, but with considerable difficulty. Famine and disease take their toll. Captain John Smith (Colin Farrell) heads off to seek help from the Powhatan. He is captured, sentenced to death, but waved by Pocahontas (Q'orianka Kilcher, whose character is never actually given that name). So begins a fateful relationship.
![Grumpy Old Men [Blu-ray] dvd cover art](https://upcomingdiscs.com/ecs_covers/grumpy-old-men-blu-ray-large.jpg)
![12 Rounds (+ Digital Copy) [Blu-ray] dvd cover art](https://upcomingdiscs.com/ecs_covers/12-rounds-digital-copy-blu-ray-large.jpg)
![Fracture [Blu-ray] dvd cover art](https://upcomingdiscs.com/ecs_covers/fracture-blu-ray-large.jpg)
