Posted in: Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on July 9th, 2005
Synopsis
I didn’t know what quite to expect from watching D.E.B.S. for the first time. So, it looks like a group of college girls who double as CIA assassins, right? OK, I can buy that, I mean, I’m a fan of Alias, so I can dig it. You’ve got Amy (Sara Foster, The Big Bounce), D.E.B. Academy’s top notch student with her pick of anywhere she wants to go; her friend, the tough and ambitious Max (Meagan Good, The Cookout), along with the younger Janet (Jill Ritchie, Herbie Fully L...aded) and the very French Dominique (Devon Aoki, Sin Cit).
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on July 9th, 2005
Synopsis
One could make an attempt at witty prose by comparing Jackass to the works of Kubrick, Cassavettes, Scorsese, or what have you. But look, it’s a bunch of guys, some of whom have reputations in other circles, such as skateboarder Bam Margera and acclaimed director Spike Jonze, doing stunts that you may not have thought, dared or remotely considered doing, and keeping parts of the general public off guard. The gang made a huge splash on MTV, and scores of crazed teens wanted to try what these guys we...e doing, and maybe appear on the show. I think the quote from Millhouse on the Simpsons says it best: "All those warnings on TV make me want to do it more". The kids would get burned, broken, what have you, and parents who couldn’t crack the whip hard enough at home decided to sue anyone under the sun, despite the profuse warnings on each show, as well as a timeslot shift early on in the series’ life. So Johnny Knoxville became this decade’s Beavis, which I guess makes Steve-O Butthead. So, after judging (perhaps correctly) there wasn’t anything really left to do on TV, they decided to step things up and do a movie, and a $5 million budget led to a gross of over $60 million. Do they have enough for a sequel with those kinds of numbers behind them? I shudder to think what a sequel could bring.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by David Annandale on July 8th, 2005
After a wild night with a man she just met, Yumi Takigawa enters the convent of St. Clore as an apprentice nun. She hasn’t joined out of religious conviction. Her mother was a nun here, and died under mysterious circumstances when Takigawa was born, and she has come here to find out what really happened. She encounters all the necessary ingredients of a nunsploitation movie: lesbians, a lustful priest, plenty of whippings, lashings of torture, and tons o’ blasphemy
Watching this 1974 film (based on a comic series) is to realize that the terms “over the top”, “blasphemous”, “delirious” and “outrageous” are sorely inadequate. Most films of this kind promise much, but are hopelessly ham-handed in their execution. This is energetically shot, the colours are eye-poppingly sumptuous, the climactic torture sequence (involving our heroine bound naked by thorny vines and whipped with roses) is a jaw-dropper, and there’s even a touch of the supernatural. So is the merciless attack on religion, of a ferocity that one cannot imagine a Western filmmaker getting away with, especially in this day and age. Screen this at a Republican Party convention, and watch half the audience drop dead of a stroke. For connoisseurs of sleaze, you are about to encounter a masterpiece.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on July 7th, 2005
Here's a blast from the 80's past, remember the Garbage Pail Kids? Remember those cards and stickers? Those gross out cartoon characters? Well...a parental protest put them out of circulation. But here's the movie, called...well...The Garbage Pail Kids Movie. The barebones plot involves a human kid, played by Mackenzie Astin, who works in an antique shop owned by Cap'n Mancini (Anthony Newley). Stay away from the garbage pail, but no. The garbage can spills and enter...the Garbage Pail Kids. These kids...are large headed, filthy moppets. And, like the cards, each of them has a disgusting habit (can you guess what Valerie Vomit does). Needless to say, this movie is a disaster. And one wonders why celluloid was wasted on this movie. Children are starving.
Audio
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on July 4th, 2005
Synopsis
Teenage rites of passage during the summer vacation at the beach. The protagonist is a quiet, decent sort, but his close friend is a domineering alpha male who bullies everyone around him into doing whatever he wants. He is clearly pulling his companions toward serious trouble. The story builds to one night when the boys use each other’s homes as alibies: they are supposed to be having a sleepover, but in fact are out looking for girls. Things go wrong.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on July 4th, 2005
Synopsis
The thing that surprised me about this animated version of Spider-Man was not that it ran for over 60 episodes during afternoons in the early ‘90s, but that there was a decent level of voice talent on the show. Ed Asner (Elf) is the voice of J. Jonah Jameson, Roscoe Lee Browne (King) does Kingpin, and the voice of the Venom character is done by Hank Azaria (The Simpsons). And they put together a fairly decent storyline also.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on July 4th, 2005
Synopsis
Among the more unjustly ignored performances was Jack Nicholson’s turn as Union boss Jimmy Hoffa in Hoffa. Fox finally decided to put out the Danny DeVito directed, David Mamet written film on DVD. Mamet’s script seems to romanticize Hoffa, portraying him as more of a Union man, as one who was forced to make deals that could compromise his integrity, but he overlooks his integrity in order to help benefit the American working man. The story is told in the point of view of Hoffa aide Bobby Ci...ro (DeVito), a fictitious character whose flashbacks are used to help us see how Hoffa perhaps should be viewed, as opposed to the punchline in some jokes we may make now.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on July 3rd, 2005
Synopsis
A silent pimp (the only words he speaks – a couple of brief sentences late in the film – are also the last words spoken in the film) sees a young college girl and instantly falls obsessively in love. When she humiliates him after rejecting his crude advances, he arranges events to drive her into debt and legal problems, and from there into prostitution. He watches her in the brothel every night through a two-way mirror, as she descends further and further into the degradation of this world.< ...p>
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on July 3rd, 2005
Synopsis
For several years, unbeknownst to a lot of people, Kevin Spacey (American Beauty) was a fan of Bobby Darin and had a film project in the works about the singer’s life. One of the reasons why the project took so long is that even with someone of Spacey’s caliber, the toughest part is always the financing. Spacey’s project was definitely a labor of love, as he wrote and directed the film, and even sung such Darin standards as “Splish Splash”, “Dreamlover” and of course, the hit that shares the...movie’s title.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on July 3rd, 2005
Synopsis
I’m a very white guy. But in growing up, one of my first music gods was Jimi Hendrix. Then, one day I saw Bustin’ Loose with Richard Pryor and Cicely Tyson (a.k.a., Miles Davis’ punching bag) when I was 10, so I wanted to see any comedy Richard Pryor had made. And I did, from Car Wash to Uptown Saturday Night. These were my first real lessons or experiences, watching a cast (or film) with African Americans in it. It wasn’t Star Wars or anything, it was memorable for its ...wn reasons.
