Posted in: Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on April 10th, 2006
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.
Four Brothers brings this theme full circle. Again, we have a non-traditional urban family. Again, we are given access to the first good look at a rap artist with real acting chops in Andre Benjamin from Outkast. Instead of focusing around gangs, however, this is a film that explores just how far children will go for the mother that they so dearly love. When it comes to the love of a family, there are no good people and bad people, there are just families.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on April 10th, 2006
The original 1959 version of The Shaggy Dog is notable for two reasons. First, it is the first live action film that Disney ever produced. They had created some animated features, of course, but this was the company's first real foray into the live action market. Secondly, the film marks the screen debut of Annette Funicello, a name certain to be familiar to fans of later Disney films. Later known as “America's Sweetheart”, Annette became a staple of the popular teenage beach movies of the 60's.
This ...VD release is notable for a couple of reasons as well, though they are not nearly as positive. The box states that this disc contains the original theatrical release, but it then goes on to say that the cut includes 10 additional minutes of footage. How can the same cut include both the original theatrical version and 10 minutes of additional footage? The disc also contains a second, colorized version of the film. Any true cinephile will tell you that colorization is a horrendous practice that completely changes the original vision of the filmmaker. So what consumers are left with is two versions of The Shaggy Dog, neither of which is the original. Clearly, this disc was released solely as an additional money making scheme to tie-in with the theatrical release of the remake, but at the very least I was expecting to find the film in its original format. That's just common courtesy. This is just the kind of horrible decision making that has plagued Disney over the past several years. Walt Disney would never have let such poor decision making go unchecked.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on April 10th, 2006
When MTV picked up The Tom Green Show, they opened the floodgates to a whole new (and bizarre) genre of television; reality pranks. "But what about Candid Camera?", you might ask. That show was close to this genre, but not quite the same. This new breed of prank show takes much more from reality shows such as The Osbourne's than their earlier counterparts. In these new shows, the prank is not really a one-time event as much as it is a lifestyle. The main target of Bam Margera's pranks are his loving and amazingly understanding parents. Viva La Bam is much less physically harmful than Jackass... and much more entertaining. Part of what made The Osbourne's so addicting was the fact that for as odd as the family was, it was clear that they still genuinely loved each other. There is something of that spirit here as well.
So the show is entertaining enough. However, there are only 6 episodes on this disc. It is as if the producers of the disk know that they are offering a poor product to the consumer, as a note on the back of the package clearly states, "This is not the complete first season and contains no bonus features." If that's not the studio's way of saying "this is a poor product", then I don't know what is.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by David Annandale on April 10th, 2006
Synopsis
Laurel and Hardy’s career highs were all at Hal Roach Studios, and these three films are from their Fox period, in the twilight of their filmography. It is hard to call any of these classics, but there is still some very worthwhile comedy.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on April 7th, 2006
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...sidering Castro was his friend. “Che”, like Castro, claimed to fight for his people, yet never truly did much for them. But this is an extreme side-note as the film focuses on when “Che” was younger.
The two friends climb on their trusty motorcycle and speed away to a world full of adventure and excitement. Sounds like a type of action film right? Well, The Motorcycle Diaries is far from an action film. The film is more an adventure type film that looks very deep into the lives of these two during this time period. Guevara is a medical student while Alberto is a biochemist. Both have a few years left in their education path. During their journey, they make many stops, some of which have deep meaning (One key moment is explained later). The first stop on their adventure is to visit Guevara’s girlfriend whose father disapproves of Guevara. Chichina, Guevara’s girlfriend, loves him so dearly that she’ll apparently wait for him to finish.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on April 6th, 2006
Ever since the original Survivor first became extremely successful, it seemed like every network was trying to get a piece of their own reality television fame. We had FOX give us The Chamber and MTV throw us the Jackass series. One had success while one crashed and burned very quickly. This proved that not every idea would make a successful reality show. Naturally FOX is not one to give up and knew what to do next. Coming off her, probably, un-welcomed fame, Paris Hilton was approached by FOX to...star in a reality series called The Simple Life. The show would team Hilton and her childhood friend Nicole Ritchie together while they live with one family in the middle of nowhere.
After two successful seasons of The Simple Life where Paris and Nicole stayed with just one family, the creators of the show thought it would be interesting to see how Paris and Nicole would react to staying with multiple different families dealing with multiple jobs.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on April 6th, 2006
Hmm. Another made for television sci-fi series. Most of the recent sci-fi made for television series have been quite disappointing mainly because they usually run too short, are horrible condensed forcing the creators of the show to either A. introduce characters very quickly, B. have extremely poor set design, or C. have another random plot that has been done a million times over. While The Triangle plot is nothing brand new, the director by Craig R. Baxley with production by Bryan Singer (X-Men) and D...an Devlin (Independence Day) help bring a bit of higher quality to the project.
The basic plot to this mini-series is; A team of specialists races to solve the mystery of why an alarming number of cargo ships are disappearing into the Bermuda Triangle. Made by Craig Baxley and genre veterans Dean Devlin and Bryan Singer, we naturally get scenes filled with tons of FX effects. One of the more surprising positives for this series was the cast. Boasting such actors as Sam Neill and Catherine Bell, the acting level is taken to the next level. The direction was quite surprising with a lot of the scenery and acting feeling top notch. The show, if you didn’t know it was a mini TV series, could have easily passed off as a film.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on April 6th, 2006
One of the great things about television today is the trend of extreme diversification. Where there used to be a specialized channel called ESPN, that has now been broken down into ESPN Deportes, ESPN2, ESPNews, ESPN U... the list goes on and on. Whatever your interest, there is a very specialized niche available that it fits into. The nice thing is, all of this specialization has allowed some truly creative (and bizarre) programing to creep out onto the airwaves. Robot Chicken is a great example of this trend... It is a wildly creative stop motion animation show created and produced by Seth Green that parodies pop culture using pre-existing action figures. One episode parodies The Real World by showing what would happen when characters such as Batman, The Incredible Hulk and Wonder Woman are made to live together in a house. Quite literally, if you name the pop culture reference, it is here, from American Idol to Kill Bill to Dawn of the Dead. There's even a Two Guys, A Girl and a Pizza Place reference here... and that's all packed into just the first episode!
I had never even heard of this show before I was sent this DVD set to review, but I am a complete and total convert now. I am sometimes amazed at some of the truly funny stuff that is out there that I have never even heard of. This show deserves to find a wider audience. Hopefully this DVD release will do for this hilarious series what it did for Family Guy and Firefly.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by David Annandale on April 6th, 2006
Synopsis
Roy Scheider is the police helicopter pilot and Vietnam war vet (cue flashbacks) who is tapped to test Blue Thunder, a new helicopter equipped with every conceivable weapon and means of surveillance. He discovers that the machine is at the heart of a conspiracy to undermine all that is good and free, and chief bad guy here is Malcolm McDowell, for whom Scheider has a more than cordial dislike thanks to what happened back in 'Nam. The stage is set for high-tech showdown in the skies over LA..../p>
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on April 5th, 2006
Let me admit straight away, I generally do not watch very many foreign films with subtitles. If a film is not dubbed in English, I generally pass. It’s not for a lack of tolerance. When I watch a film, I immerse myself into what I’m seeing. Films are total escapist fun. I experience a film more than view it. Having to read the dialogue denies me the ability to experience rather than watch the film. I also find that while I am busy reading subs I will tend to miss some of the film’s subtleties, which are quite important to me. In Gamblers, there is the added liability of dual languages. There is a prominent Asian element to this film. It took me too long to realize that more than one language was being spoken and that some of the characters could not understand others. The subs are presented with no distinction as to who is speaking or what language they are speaking. OK. End of disclosure.
As far as I could make out, Gamblers involves a territorial street gang that is somewhere between the mob and the IRA. In typical “Bloods” vs. “Crips” style, there is a reasonable amount of mayhem between two of these street gangs. Unfortunately we are never brought into the workings of either gang, and the violence appears simply as a result of one Asian boy’s love for an Asian girl. To add to the silliness of the whole premise, the violence results simply because Juen is bothering the girl while she is supposed to be working. A series of inexplicable romantic relationships is never fleshed out enough for us to care. Unless something serious was lost in translation, the dialogue is very simple tripe. An entire romantic conversation seems to be about nothing but another man’s penis. Fortunately much of the music is in English.
