Posted in: No Huddle Reviews by Michael Durr on October 12th, 2009
The people at Warner Bros recently decided to adopt a new strategy when dealing with some of their back catalog. They would propose a printing on demand option or what they would dub the “Archive Collection”. This would allow collectors to own classics of long forgotten films and keep costs at a minimal to Warner Bros. One such movie was named Lightning Strikes Twice which came out in 1951 with Ruth Roman. Hopefully this one was a gem and not something that should be long forgotten back in the vault.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by David Annandale on August 21st, 2009
Shortly before World War II, British officer Alan Thorndike (Walter Pidgeon), vacationing in Bavaria, puts his sterling hunting skills to use by framing Adolf Hitler in his gun sights. He pulls the trigger on an empty barrel, not really planning to perform an assassination. Then, after a moment's hesitation, he loads the gun, but is captured before anything history-changing occurs. The Gestapo leader Major Quive-Smith (George Sanders) wants him to confess to being an assassin working for the British government. Thondike refuses. He manages to escape, and Quive-Smith's forces (including the always sinister John Carradine) pursue Thorndike to England, where he falls in with innocent Cockney lass Jerry (Joan Bennett).
Posted in: No Huddle Reviews by Archive Authors on July 22nd, 2009
In the 1970’s, Ted Bundy murdered over 30 women across several states. He was jailed only to escape two times, and was finally captured and languished on death row until 1989, when he was put to death in the electric chair.
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.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on June 15th, 2009
“One night stands can be murder.”
That’s the tagline for 1987’s Fatal Attraction. Perhaps it’s no coincidence that both Fatal Attraction and the later Indecent Proposal were both directed by Adrian Lyne. Both were quite controversial upon their release. Both dealt in a kind of “what if” scenario that got people talking around their water coolers and watering hole gatherings. While the latter was pretty much a morality or ethics drama, the former was a gut wrenching morality tale with a Grimm’s Fairy Tale twist.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on May 12th, 2009
The Caller is a film starring Frank Langella and Elliott Gould. It is a tense thriller about corporate foul play and voyeurism, wait, what year is it? With the recent critical acclaim of Langella, it seems only fitting to market his name on a low-budget film. Unfortunately for the film, Langella’s performance is one of the only shining moments. Langella plays an aging VP of an energy company that decides to blow the whistle on the corporate wrong doings that are going on. Understanding that he’s written his own death certificate, Langella hires a private investigator (Gould) to follow him to help catch his eventual killer.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by David Annandale on May 4th, 2009
Jean-Louis Trintignant (here dubbed into Italian) is a hard-boiled actor (!). Arriving at a night club to meet the proprietor, he instead finds the man dead, and the luscious Ewa Aulin standing over the corpse, protesting her innocence. Trintingnant believes her, and decides to help her out. The quest for the truth leads them though a series of encounters with various aspects of London nightlife and lowlife, 1967 vintage.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Michael Durr on May 1st, 2009
Citing personal history, I don’t do really well with horror films. As mentioned in other reviews, my parents let me see scary movies such as Exorcist & Poltergeist (as well as R-rated action films) when I was no more than ten years old. While, Poltergeist sits proudly in my DVD collection, I still have trouble to this day with Exorcist. Yes, I can be a scaredy cat at times. To be also perfectly honest, I was a bit worried when I received The Uninvited in the mail to review. After all, it proclaims proudly on the cover that it is made by the producers of the Ring(which I absolutely hated) & Disturbia. By the end of the movie, I was very pleasantly surprised.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by David Annandale on April 14th, 2009
Alan Rickman, in a stunningly unexpected bit of casting, plays an arrogant, womanizing SOB of a chemistry professor who has just been awarded the Nobel Prize. While he and wife Mary Steenburgen jet off to Sweden, their son (Bryan Greenberg) is kidnapped. Before long, the parents receive are sent a severed thumb as proof of the kidnapper's serious intent. But nothing is quite what it seems.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by David Annandale on March 27th, 2009
Frankly, if you need any information beyond the title of this release, then it probably isn't for you. It's The Sinful Dwarf, man! But if you really must know more, be it on your head. Mind-bogglingly stupid and broke newlyweds Mary and Peter (Anne Sparrow and Tony Eades, actors of an ineptitude that passeth all understanding) check in to the boarding house of retired (and scarred) burlesque performer Lila Lash (Clara Keller) her son Olaf (children's show host Torben Bille), the titular sinful dwarf. Mary hears noises in the attic, but Peter won't listen to her. He should, as Lila and Olaf keep a harem of women up there as prostitutes, ensuring their submission through forced injections of heroin. Now they have their sights set on Mary...