Posted in: Disc Reviews by David Annandale on February 27th, 2004
Synopsis
Posted in: Disc Reviews by David Annandale on February 27th, 2004
Synopsis
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on February 27th, 2004
Star Trek Voyager was the third spin-off from the original Star Trek following the Superior Next Generation and the inferior Deep Space Nine. While the idea was quite an original premise, the cast never seemed to gel. The obvious attempt at political correctness gives us the most diverse cast yet on Star Trek, including the first female captain. Kate Mulgrew is the weakest captain to date on Star Trek. (I know I’ll catch heat for this.) The reason is not her gender but such a lack of strength. She never walks but see...s to glide across the bridge when she moves. The strongest characters come in Tom Paris, the Federation inmate, and Torres, the half klingon half human hybrid. There is real passion in those characters that keep the cast interesting enough. The combination of Federation and Marquis (a rebel Federation group) members was a great setup that too quickly gets tossed aside in later years. There’s plenty of Star Trek eye candy and a whole new quadrant of aliens to meet here. It had been quite some time for me since I had seen Voyager. It was refreshing to watch this first season, perhaps the best before the late addition of 7 of 9.
Synopsis
Posted in: Disc Reviews by David Annandale on February 27th, 2004
Synopsis
Posted in: Disc Reviews by David Annandale on February 27th, 2004
Synopsis
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on February 27th, 2004
If you’re passing through the video store and see a movie on a shelf that looks like the cover of Motley Crue’s album “Too Fast for Love”…you’ll be disappointed…or relieved (depending on how you feel about the Crue). The movie is James Cox’s Wonderland. Wonderland is a film about the porn star John C. Holmes (Val Kilmer) at the end of his tether. Towards the end of his life, Holmes, famously, got involved in a series of crimes known as the Wonderland Murders, which are dramatized in this movie. I wo...’t spoil how it turns out. But the movie is part love story, part biography, and part murder mystery. Sounds like there’s a lot of meat here (pardon the pun), but that’s what’s most problematic about the film. It tries to be too many things, and like Holmes’ life, spins out of control.
The director James Cox throws a lot of “style” into the soup. We got your split screens, freeze frames, fast motion, long takes, jump cuts, animation, and even a little bit of Steadicam tracking. Pretty much all the “modern” innovations in shot technique are tossed in here. Is it all for show? I don’t really think so. In a way…all the pizzazz puts the audience in the mind of the strung out John C. Holmes. Cox does a commendable job of juggling a lot of balls in air (no pun intended)…but has trouble maintaining focus.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by David Annandale on February 26th, 2004
Synopsis
Detective Chief Inspector Jane Tennison (Helen Mirren) is on the job again with anotherpolitically charged case. In this instance, a skeleton is dug up that might be that of a young blackwoman. Her disappearance six years ago was badly handled by the police, to the point thatcharges might be laid. The investigation is not only explosive racially, but the way it plays outcould help or destroy careers, Tennison's among others.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by David Annandale on February 26th, 2004
Synopsis
Posted in: Disc Reviews by David Annandale on February 26th, 2004
Synopsis
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on February 26th, 2004
For years different TV shows and movies have speculated not as too whether there is life on other planets but, what are they doing on earth. Some shows like the X-files play out that the powers that be have sold us down the river to ensure their survival with a hostile alien race, or like in ID-4 and the Alien series are here to kill everyone and use the planet for their own will.
Director Steven Spielberg has looked at aliens and their involvement with the human race in a number of his films and with the...help of 1 writer and 10 directors brings us Taken. We follow 3 different families through three generations as they search for the existence of alien life on earth or try to understand why they are being abducted. The story is told through 10 different 80-90 minute episodes the best of which is “Acid Tests”. To give away much more of the story line then this would be an injustice, I recommend that you owe it to yourself to see this.
