Posted in: Disc Reviews by David Annandale on March 14th, 2006
Synopsis
In his film debut, Sidney Poitier is a newly minted doctor at a downtown hospital. Two patients arrive in the prison ward, shot in the leg by police. One is Richard Widmark, frothing racist. The other is his brother, who dies under Poitier’s care, not from the wound, but from a terminal brain tumour. Widmark blames Poitier, and sets about inflaming racial hatred in his quest to destroy Poitier.
This is far from being your typical Joseph L. Mankiewicz film – we’re a long way from th...
Posted in: Disc Reviews by David Annandale on March 14th, 2006
Synopsis
Nigel has fled England and is living a loser existence in Copenhagen with a junkie girlfriend he doesn’t love anymore. Desperate for money, he takes on a job from a gangster known as the President. All he has to do is stash some stolen goods until they can be moved. But he begins an affair with Tanya, a prostitute also in the grip of the President, and, in true film noir fashion, he makes some stupid decisions and events spiral violently out of control.
Unless my ears deceived me d...
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on March 14th, 2006
Take every Catholic movie cliché you can find, wrap them up in a weak and predictable murder-mystery, throw in Christian Slater and Stephen Rea as they struggle for some semblance of the glory their careers once held, release direct-to-DVD, and you have The Confessor. Slater plays a priest struggling with his own faith, to the point he hasn’t prayed in years. His primary purpose to the Catholic Church is as a fundraiser for whatever causes they deem necessary to support. Of course, all of his higher-ups are st...
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on March 14th, 2006
In the first few years of the nineties, hip-hop singer/movie actress Queen Latifah headlined her own comedy show called Living Single. The show went on to last for five seasons. Although it never won much acclaim or any big awards, the show still had viewers. The basic premise for the show saw the day to day life of four twenty-something year old girlfriends and their two male neighbors.
In each episode, the cast sorted out its various issues with life. They also found time to find problems with eve...
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on March 13th, 2006
Most of the time, I’m a pretty big fan of HBO’s documentaries, so you can imagine my disappointment when I had to sit through the overly long 76 minutes of Naked World, which follows attention-hungry tit-bag Spencer Tunick, as he embarks on a world tour to find idiots wanting to pose for him. They all have their reasons why they’re baring all for the handful of people, who watch this documentary, but the underlying reason is – much like that of Tunick himself – attention. These lunatics may have even convinced...
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on March 12th, 2006
Sigh..Death Tunnel is another low-budget horror flick that is just so dull and mundane that it hurts to sit through the whole film. The film is over-directed, which some may think could be a good trait, but not in this case. Death Tunnel is about five college girls who all agree to spend a night in a horrific old asylum as part of a co-ed type event. Enter a few snickering boys trying to scare them and you have a horror film. Excuse me while I try to regain my thoughts as the film was a big yawn fest. < ...
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on March 11th, 2006
Synopsis
First off, I never would have thought that a Comedy Central TV show featuring animated eight-year olds who curse like I used to (I still do, who am I kidding?), is transformed into a 94 minute movie with abundant musical numbers and (gasp!) an Oscar-nominated song performed by Robin Williams at said awards ceremony. Creators Trey Parker and Matt Stone created a dazzling, hilarious, and unpredictable movie, filled with musical numbers, and vocal cameos from George Clooney, Dave Foley and Eric Idle, ...
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on March 11th, 2006
Synopsis
The first time I became acquainted with the work of documentarian James Miller and reporter Saira Shah was when I first saw the documentary Beneath the Veil some years back, shortly after the September 11th attacks. It was an unnerving and powerful look at life in the Taliban-led area of Afghanistan, where women were brutalized and humiliated beyond comprehension.
Miller had done some work in other countries with similar dangerous environments, and in 2003 with Shah’s help, he unde...
Posted in: Disc Reviews by David Annandale on March 10th, 2006
Synopsis
Three directors, three doses of uncompromising Asian horror. The first, and nastiest, is “Dumplings” (directed by Fruit Chan), which tells the story of a woman who purchases some very expensive dumplings said to restored youth. What is the secret ingredient? The worst thing you can think of, trust me. And the film leaves nothing to the imagination. Where others would imply the horror and let your imagination do the rest of the work, “Dumplings” gets your imagination working, and then tops it...
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on March 10th, 2006
Newsradio ran for five seasons. Four seasons gave us some of the best work of excellent comedic legend Phil Hartman, but the beginning of the fifth season marked a sadness period from which the show was never able to recover, as Hartman was shot to death by his wife, who committed suicide immediately following. It was the kind of tragedy you still can’t believe – even today – if you knew Hartman or his work. Luckily, season three offers some of his best moments, as well as the comic genius of the undera...
