Disc Reviews

“My name is Marty Kaan, and I’m a management consultant. Every week, my team and I go somewhere and talk people into thinking they really, really need us.”

With that kind of opener, I was fully expecting House of Lies to be a darker, edgier, less ethical Leverage.  The sort of show where the main character is a loveable rogue whose failings are excusable because he’s just so gosh-darn charming. That notion was quickly dispelled, however, the minute the pilot opens with Marty (Don Cheadle) waking up in bed with a woman and freaking out about it. We learn the reason for his panic when he tells us (via breaking the fourth wall) the woman is his ex-wife. Marty’s problems only get worse from there. His ten year-old son, Roscoe, is a cross-dresser and wants the role of Sandy in his school’s production of Grease. Marty’s father is constantly telling him how to run his life, and his ex-wife (also a consultant) seems hell-bent on not only stealing Marty’s clients, but their son as well. All of these things would be enough to send anyone screaming to therapy, but Marty internalizes everything and channels it into his work. At work, Marty is ruthless, doing whatever he can to manipulate the client into spending more money on his services. His team, while not as experienced as Marty, is just as ruthless. There’s Jeannie, Marty’s second-in-command, who’s not above using her feminine assets to charm and distract a client. Clyde and Doug are like a crude Abbott and Costello, cracking jokes (usually about women or each other) and spinning numbers and data to their advantage.  They may not have morals, but if you want your business turned around, these are the people to call.

Yes, the found footage technique: the first person narrative technique designed to give the audience the impression of the film being pieced together from a series of video recordings usually left behind by characters now believed dead. The technique existed before but became internationally popular when the film The Blair Witch Project was released. In recent years, the technique has been used more and more with such films Paranormal Activity and Chronicle; these are examples of when the found footage technique works; well, you can add V/H/S to that list.

Split up into six different stories, the film reminded me of summer camp when you sit around the campfire at night and tell ghost stories (these stories have much more blood and gore than the stories my friends used to tell, of course).  Six stories and nine directors (I know it’s a disproportionate amount of directors, but Radio Silence is actually a four-man team), think of it as a video collection of horror tales, and trust me, you will be scared.

“Sometimes it’s better not to touch your dreams, take it from someone who knows.”

What a difference three years makes. That’s right, the beloved series decides to return with a flash forward three years ahead, giving the series a new and fresh outlook with some new faces and a few familiar ones as well. The time may have changed, but thankfully Hank Moody sure hasn’t, still managing to get himself in all kinds of trouble despite his best intentions. This year he must deal with an unstable ex-girlfriend, his daughter’s philandering boyfriend, and keeping his extremely volatile new client from finding about the tryst he had with the client’s girlfriend; it can only happen to Hank Moody.

This short-lived UK television series from 1995 is something I had never heard of, and after watching it, I consider it one of the best horror anthologies produced.  Tales from the Crypt, The Twilight Zone, The Outer Limits all hold their own place in what they brought to the small screen, each with episodes that are given the same reverence we would give a classic film.  What Chiller managed in five episodes left me wanting so much more; five episodes simply was not enough.

Prophecy: When a group of friends get together for some drinks and a séance, you just know things are not going to go as planned.  During the séance a prophecy is given that seems vague and nothing for the friends to worry about, that is until five years later when the friends begin to die off one by one. Though the story seems familiar, it remains fresh by adding a young boy who has a gift/curse where is able to see how people will die.  As the first of the stories, it sets up the tone nicely for the other tales to follow.

Ken Follett has written many historical novels from many periods such as World War II and the Hundred Years War. World Without End is part of the latter. It is a sequel to Pillars of the Earth. Both have been made into mini-series. World Without End takes place 157 years after Pillars and features descendants from the first book. It was broadcast in the USA, UK and Canada and is now available on DVD.

Kingsbridge is the fictional town in England which all the events revolve around. It begins in 1327 after King Edward II loses a brutal civil war to his French wife, Queen Isabella. Isabella crowns her son Edward the new king. There are characters from every level of medieval society and over eight episodes dozens of individuals have a major impact on the story. I will say at the outset that much of the mini-series plays as an old-fashioned soap opera. Heroes and heroines are at odds with some of the blackest and most unsavory of villains. Some of the villains are in sheep's clothing, or in this case, cleric’s robes. Nearly every kind of treachery is displayed from husbands kicking wives down stairs, sister poisoning brother, brother sword-fighting brother, father raping daughter, and, of course, the rich and powerful subjugating the poor into lives of endless suffering. There is the Hundred Years War and then the ultimate plague, The Black Death.

"Everywhere you’ll go you’ll hear that slavery is a thing of the past.  Don’t believe it."

When I got handed this disc to review I didn’t pay it much attention till I noticed it had Michael Caine in it.  Then after a search on IMDB well I started to get more and more excited.  Filling out the rest of cast there’s Peter Ustinov (Spartacus), Omar Sharif (Lawrence of Arabia), and William Holden (The Wild Bunch) all together in an African adventure film directed by Richard Fleischer (Tora! Tora! Tora! and 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea) I couldn’t believe I had never seen, much less even heard of this film.  When we first meet Dr. David Linderby (Caine) and his wife Dr. Anansa Underby (Beverly Johnson) they have just arrived in a tiny African village where they have travelled to inoculate the villagers.  With their work done, David takes in a celebration that the tribe is performing; instead of staying to enjoy the ceremony Anansa (who happens to be a former native to an Ashanti tribe) decides to go for a swim.  It’s this fateful decision that leads to Anansa’s capture by a group of slave traders lead by Suleiman (Ustinov).  The film wastes no time putting Caine in pursuit of the slave traders.