Posted in: Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on April 26th, 2007
Synopsis
Well, time may not have been too kind to George Lazenby since he assumed the tailored suits of James Bond for On Her Majesty’s Secret Service, but considering how well Daniel Craig did in Casino Royale, and the basic storyline is the same for both films, why do people still want to bash Lazenby now? Is it because he wasn’t a carbon copy of his predecessor, Sean Connery? Who knows?
Posted in: Disc Reviews by David Annandale on April 24th, 2007
Synopsis
Robert Francis is a wet-behind-the-ears naval officer whose first posting is aboard the Caine, a ramshackle minesweeper. He is dismayed by the rough-looking crew and captain, and when that captain is replaced by Bogart, a by-the-book commander, Francis is initially relieved. But Bogart’s fixations on minutiae are tyrannical and obsessive, his refusal to admit error dangerous, and his behaviour increasingly erratic and paranoid. Francis and fellow officers Fred MacMurray and Van Johnson reali...e that Bogart is unfit for command, and one stormy night, Johnson (the first mate) is forced to take action. The consequences are serious.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by David Annandale on April 18th, 2007
Synopsis
Anna Karenina (Vivien Leigh) is married to a rigid and boring politician (Ralph Richardson). Despite herself, she falls in love with the dashing young Kieron Moore. Richardson retaliates by cutting her off from her son. And though having an affair is tolerated by upper class Russian society, the couple wind up challenging convention too far, and Anna finds herself completely ostracized.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by David Annandale on April 16th, 2007
Synopsis
A young Jane Eyre thinks she is escaping Hell when she is sent from the home of her unloving aunt to a boarding school, but she has simply traded one Hell for another. Despite the attempts of sadistic Henry Daniell, she survives her years at the school with her spirit intact, and, now a grown woman (Joan Fontaine), she goes to work as a governess at the gothic home of Edward Rochester (Orson Welles). She perceives something good behind his forbidding extrior, and finds herself falling in lov... with her haunted employer. But what is the secret in the locked tower?
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Michael Durr on April 14th, 2007
Synopsis
Baseball films always hold a place near and dear to me. I would go see them with my dad when I was a kid and enjoy the plight of a team or an individual with a desire to win and overcome the odds. Sometimes it would be funny (Bull Durham), sometimes it would be sad (Eight Men Out), sometimes it would be uplifting (Field of Dreams). However, all of the above movies would have never been as successful without one movie in particular. That movie is The Natural . The Natura... (starring Robert Redford & Glenn Close and so many other great actors & actresses) is the story of a fairy tale; one where Roy Hobbs (Redford) grows up with a great gift. The gift to play baseball better than anybody who has ever played the game. However, fate deals him a cruel hand as he encounters a mysterious woman (played by Barbara Hershey) who guns him down with a silver bullet. This ends his career for the next sixteen years until he battles back to find a spot on the Knights, a last place professional team in search of a hero. From here, this is where the story begins of a man battling his health and his demons to capture the pennant and to have his name remembered for ever.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on April 13th, 2007
Synopsis
Ian Fleming’s The Man With the Golden Gun was the only posthumous release for the established actor, and the book was such a success that producers Albert Broccoli and Harry Saltzman decided to try and recruit Roger Moore for the role immediately after You Only Live Twice to capitalize on the success of Fleming’s book. However, it wasn’t meant to be, and the film’s production was delayed several years while the George Lazenby era came and went, not to mention the Sean Connery era leav...ng and returning, only to leave again. When Moore came on, Live and Let Die was the first book they adapted, and The Man With the Golden Gun finally came to fruition in 1974.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by David Annandale on April 12th, 2007
Synopsis
Lloyd Nolan stars in this quartet of films about Michael Shayne. Less hard-boiled than he was in other media, here he’s an inveterate wisecracker and the films are sometimes more comedies than thrillers. Our boy takes his first bow in <>i>Michael Shayne, Private Detective (1941), where he’s hired to keep an heiress (Marjorie Weaver) out of trouble. But when one of the dubious people she’s been hanging out with turns up killed, apparently by Shayne’s gun, the detective must stay one step ...head of the police while he works to solve the crime. Good thing there’s an eccentric, mystery-loving aunt about. Shayne is such a joker and so unflappable that there is no real suspense here, but the entertainment level is high. The box copy implying that these films are noirs is clearly shown up for a lie here.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on April 12th, 2007
After watching a bloated Tom Sizemore run around tunnels being chased by a man in a rubber suit while making bad jokes, it’s hard to believe that he used to be in good movies like Heat, Saving Private Ryan, and Black Hawk Down. And that’s probably the biggest impression I got from Bottom Feeder, just another example of the latest “anyone can make a direct-to-video horror movie” trend. My, how far Sizemore has fallen.
The plot is minimal, which is par for the course in most horror films... A burn-scarred millionaire seeks a serum that will regenerate his flesh, so naturally, he tests the serum on the scientist to make sure it works. However, the serum only works properly if it's taken with another anecdote. If not, it will turn you into a monster. And just think, I hate it when medicine makes you groggy. Don't you hate when that happens?
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on April 6th, 2007
Dances With Wolves has always been a bit of a conundrum for me. The story is simply a beautiful one. The cinematography is often nothing short of breathtaking. What causes my trouble is when we get down to its star. Kevin Costner is horrible in this film. I’m not a Costner hater. Untouchables and JFK are two of his best films, and in each he delivered exactly what was required. I’m beginning to think, however, that the G-Man persona is all he is capable of delivering with any consistency. What exactly is my problem... I’m glad someone asked. Dunbar needs to be a very complex character. We find him at first a very loyal American soldier dedicated to his duty. His transformation under the Indian influence should be a dramatic one and pivotal to the essence of this tale. Costner doesn’t show us this change. The writers do in his words and actions, but Costner hasn’t changed the very soul of his character. Example: In the Godfather Al Pacino plays Michael, who is the son of a crime lord. He despises what his father stands for and has vowed never to be involved. When Michael makes the decision to lash out at his father’s attackers, you can see the change before he speaks a word. Pacino played a different man then. It’s obvious he understood this man was different not because of how he was now behaving, but rather that he had changed somewhere in the core of his being. His voice and speech changed as did even the way he walked across a room. Where is the change Dunbar undergoes inside? It’s simply not there. Costner was also the director, and perhaps there lies the true flaw. Maybe if another perspective had been there to better guide the transformation, we might have been given that dramatic metamorphism so desperately required for this film to work. There’s a reason why given the film’s many Oscar wins one was not for Best Actor.
Video
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on April 4th, 2007
To the credit of James Bond film producers Michael G. Wilson and Barbara Broccoli, they realized that recycling a storyline with Russian antagonists or other satellites of communism, was stale even several years after the Berlin Wall fell. But in its place, the big Bond villain was a Serbian national of sorts named Renard, who was shot in the head, and the bullet, still lodged in his brain, made him magically impervious to pain.
When it comes to The World is Not Enough, the ideas and aspirations (the script was written by Neal Purvis and Robert Wade) were fairly lofty, and the directing choice (Michael Apted of Gorky Park fame) was interesting. In this installment, Pierce Brosnan reprises his role as 007, this time following the death of a wealthy English businessman whose daughter (played by Sophie Marceau, Braveheart) was kidnapped and held for ransom. How does Renard play into it? Well, he's holding the daughter for ransom, part of a larger plot to control the world's oil supply.
