Posted in: Disc Reviews by David Annandale on May 23rd, 2005
As is the trend for today, this is the Special Edition re-release of The Day After Tomorrow tagged as the All-Access Collector's Edition. As much of this set is the same as the original release, pieces of this review will be taken from our prior review of The Day After Tomorrow.
Storms both freakish and intense devastate the planet. Climatologist Dennis Quaid realizes that the world is on the brink of a sudden new ice age.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on May 21st, 2005
Pocahontas is Disney’s animated version of the Pocahontas myth. This movie is not history, but a Disney-fied version of it. European settlers came to North America and disrupted the Native American way of life. John Smith (voiced by Mel Gibson) and his British plunderers attempt to rob the “New World” of its riches. Chief Powhatan, and his daughter Pocahontas (voiced by Irene Bedard), might have something to say about this. In the end, in typical Disney fashion, a moral emerges: both cultures have a lot...
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on May 16th, 2005
The Bodyguard is silly. Whitney Houston and Kevin Costner star this decade old thriller/romance. Houston plays Rachel Marron, a pop singer. Not much of stretch back then, these days...not so much. Costner plays Frank Farmer, bodyguard to the stars. It seems as though Marron is receiving death threats. Enter Frank Farmer. A romance eventually develops. This is this the stuff of high camp. Instead, we get low camp. The Bodyguard is not quite bad enough to be Showgirls, and not quite good ...
Posted in: Disc Reviews by David Annandale on May 10th, 2005
Synopsis
The evil Spaceballs, led by Dark Helmet (Rick Moranis) plan to steal the atmosphere of thepeaceful planet Druidia. Daphne Zuniga, as the Leia-like princess of Druidia, accompanied byher faithful robot Dot Matrix (voice of Joan Rivers) teams up with the vaguely Han Solo-ish BillPullman and his dog/man/Wookie parody Barf (John Candy) to defeat the evil.
I think, maybe, if you’re eleven, this might be hilarious. But I have my doubts. As ever withMel Brooks, the humour ...
Posted in: Disc Reviews by David Annandale on May 9th, 2005
Synopsis
This documentary gives us the birth of skateboarding culture as we know it today. In theearly seventies, the Z-Boys of the title, a group of surfing enthusiasts from a hard luckneighbourhood, move from surfing to more and more elaborate skateboarding tricks, worked onin guerilla fashion in the empty swimming pools and the like. Director Stacy Peralta (who alsomade the surfing documentary Riding Giants) was one of those skaters, and so he ispretty damn close to the ma...
Posted in: Disc Reviews by David Annandale on May 6th, 2005
Synopsis
The setting is a top New York publishing house, and our central characters are three womenbeginning their careers at the bottom of the secretarial ladder. Hope Lange is the smart one witha will, who might make a first-class editor. Diane Baker is the naive innocent, doomed to bepreyed on. Suzy Parker wants to dump the office pool for acting, and she begins a difficultrelationship with theatre director Louis Jourdan. Meanwhile, there is tyrannical editor JoanCrawford (whose ...
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on May 4th, 2005
Wes Anderson has been a breath of fresh air since he hit the Hollywood scene in 1996 with his first feature length film Bottle Rocket. Since then, Anderson has continued to stretch the imagination of film-goers with fabulous films such Rushmore (1998), The Royal Tenenbaums (2001), and now with The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou (2004). Anderson’s films are not for every joe-schmo film fan; his work could even be described as an acquired taste. But from a creative and visual perspective,...
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on April 28th, 2005
Sony once again hits us with not only a double dip, but a triple dip release of xXx. What started out as a Special Edition, evolved into a Superbit release, and has now ultimately become the Uncensored Unrated Director’s Cut of the film. What is different this time around you ask… well, you get 8 more minutes of action and skin.
Let me guess… you want more specifics don’t you? Well here is what has been added… The scene with the girl “dancing” in Xander’s room has been extended. The...
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on April 26th, 2005
Synopsis
This is a film that delights in not being what it appears. The opening moments look like a period gangster film. Suddenly, the scene transforms into a musical. Then this turns out to be movie within the movie. And so it goes, as one scene after another turns out not to be what we thought it was. The plot has roguishly charming Jean-Louis Trintignant setting up a kidnapping scheme with two colleagues. I can’t say much more without giving away the whole plot and the strange circuit on which it...
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on April 25th, 2005
Blade: Trinity caught a lot of flack from most critics, and even the movie going public as per the box office returns (only grossing $52 million domestically). When I went to see this film in the theatre, half of my party was extremely disappointed with the flick. The other half, including myself, thought the film was quite entertaining. I must admit, this film does not come close to the original Blade, but I did find it a little bit more entertaining the Blade 2.
The biggest change...
