Posted in: Disc Reviews by David Annandale on October 15th, 2004
Synopsis
Shawn and Marlon Wayans are two FBI agents. After screwing up royally (busting an ice-cream salesman instead of a drug dealer), they are anxious to redeem themselves. Charged withescorting the heiress Wilson sisters (read: Hilton) to the Hamptons where they will be bait fora socialite kidnapper, they mar the sisters’ faces, and so go themselves, made-up as the WhiteChicks of the title. Misunderstandings, racial and sexual, ensue.
I’ll grant the brothers this: there ...
Posted in: Disc Reviews by David Annandale on October 4th, 2004
Synopsis
Psychiatrist Lee J. Cobb is visited by Joanne Woodward and husband David Wayne. She ishaving spells during which she cannot remember what she gets up to. It turns out that she has amultiple personality disorder, and when repressed, demure housewife Eve White fades out ofthe picture, teasing minx Eve Black steps out. Hubby, who is neither the most sympathetic northe smartest cookie going, cannot understand what’s going on, but Cobb does his best to help.Woodward’s wife spira...
Posted in: Disc Reviews by David Annandale on September 30th, 2004
Synopsis
Dumped on the night he was to announce his engagement, Jamie Foxx turns his pain into abestselling breakup manual. When his cousin, Morris Chestnut, thinks his girlfriend GabrielleUnion is going to break up with him, Foxx is enlisted to help, which leads to a massive chainreaction of mistaken identities and misunderstandings.
The structure is clearly and consciously that of a classical farce. Though the film neverachieves the proper frenzy requires of a farc...
Posted in: Disc Reviews by David Annandale on September 21st, 2004
Synopsis
The peasant father of Tess (Nastassja Kinski) discovers that their family is of noble descent,and, hoping to improve their fortunes, he sends Tess to work for a well-to-do family. Shebecomes a victim of the rakish son of the household. Abandoned, she eventually falls in lovewith parson’s son Peter Firth, but her past catches up with her.
As is typical of Thomas Hardy novels, the story is about a slow decline into misery anddeath. The intensity one associates with Po...
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on September 20th, 2004
With the success of Star Trek as both a television and film franchise, it made perfect sense to eventually pass the baton from the Kirk era to the Next Generation. Generations had promise, but could and should have been a far better film. The f/x were for the most part inferior to previous Trek films. The destruction of the Enterprise D is the notable exception. Perhaps it was unwise to attempt to blend the established film environment with the too recently completed television series.
The film might have ...
Posted in: Disc Reviews by David Annandale on September 18th, 2004
Synopsis
Put-upon high-school student Arnie Cunningham (Keith Gordon) buys a decrepit 1957Plymouth Fury named Christine, and sets about restoring her. He does a remarkable job, and asChristine becomes shiny and new again, so Arnie loses his geek image. He goes beyond beingself-confident, however, becoming more and more unpleasant as Christine exerts her hold onhim. She is a jealous lover, and will kill anyone who interferes with her and Arnie.
When you think about, it’s surp...
Posted in: Disc Reviews by David Annandale on September 17th, 2004
Synopsis
Mario Van Peebles plays his father Melvin, and the film charts the making of Melvin VanPeebles’ landmark 1971 film Sweet Sweetback’s Baadasssss Song. Obsessed withmaking a film by and about his community, and expressing all the built-up anger of his peopleand his time, Melvin will stop at nothing in the fulfilment of his dream. The economic, personaland health costs are very high.
Sweet Sweetback’s Baadasssss Song is arguably where Black cinema begins,...
Posted in: Disc Reviews by David Annandale on September 14th, 2004
Synopsis
Lola (Anna Ammirati) delights in turning heads in her village, engaging in such antics as riding her bike with her skirt billowing up behind her. The men all think she's great, while the women aren't so fond of her (though the woman working on her wedding dress would clearly like to get to know her better, if you catch my drift). Her main problem is her fiance, who, much to her frustration, refuses to have sex before their marriage. Then there's her stepfather, who seems more than appro...
Posted in: Disc Reviews by David Annandale on September 13th, 2004
Synopsis
Welcome to Austin, Texas. Here, in a series of short, interconnected vignettes, we will meeta huge diversity of characters, who are variously eccentric, insane, disaffected, apathetic,coasting, and so on. Director/writer/producer Richard Linklater’s approach is not unlike RobertAltman taken to the next level. Plot, as such, finally disappears completely. Instead, the camerafollows one character (or set of characters) for a minute or two, then leaves them to trail someonewho...
Posted in: Disc Reviews by David Annandale on September 3rd, 2004
Synopsis
After a catastrophic flight, during which his rear end is stuck on the toilet and his dog issucked into an engine, Kevin Hart sues the airline and wins a hundred-million dollar settlement.With this windfall, he establishes a new airline: NWA. The film then follows the maiden voyageof NWA’s purple pimpmobile plane, complete with every hip-hop video stereotypeimaginable.
Clearly aspiring to be an urban Airplane!, this dog rarely rises above the level of thewo...
