Posted in: Disc Reviews by David Annandale on March 19th, 2004
Not that there was anything wrong with the picture and sound of the previous Superbit release. But now Panic Room returns in a package that truly contains every imaginable extra, and then some.
Synopsis
The set-up is elegant and simple. Jodie Foster and daughter Kristen Stewart move into their new home in New York. The previous owner built an impregnable panic room in the upper floor. During Foster and Stewart’s first night, three criminals (Forest Whitaker, Dwight Yoakam and Jared L...
Posted in: Disc Reviews by David Annandale on March 15th, 2004
Synopsis
Henry Fonda is Tom Joad, returning home after serving four years in prison for killing aman. He arrives to find the farms of Oklahoma devastated by drought, and all the familiesdispossessed of their land. He and his family become part of the great migration from the DustBowl to the Eden of California. There they face exploitation, persecution and misery, andFonda’s rage at the injustice grows.
John Steinbeck’s enormous novel found a stunning screen incarnation in th...
Posted in: Disc Reviews by David Annandale on March 2nd, 2004
Synopsis
A hectoring principal tells his audience of concerned parents the story, in flashback, of thetragedy that befalls Bill and Mary. The All-American couple is destroyed through the actions ofa drug ring that seduces high school kids with the Devil’s Weed. Marijuana, as portrayed here,works like a combination of LSD, crack and Spanish Fly. When tragedy strikes, and Bill isbrought up on murder charges, the drug ring goes into hiding, but their own addictions threatento break the...
Posted in: Disc Reviews by David Annandale on February 27th, 2004
Synopsis
Two young women, each with their own problems. Marilu is a con artist, currently involvedwith selling fake Mayan art. She has to deal with the Mexican police, and one officer inparticular, who has carnal designs on her. Aurelia is coming to the end of her maternity leave,and is facing going back to work at a sweatshop. Said sweathshop is in an area where some 250women have already been killed by a serial killer. Aurelia steals her drug-dealer boyfriend’s stashand money, and...
Posted in: Disc Reviews by David Annandale on February 26th, 2004
Synopsis
We are in a magnificent art deco hotel in Berlin. Here we come to know a disparate groupof characters: the world-weary ballerina (Garbo), the gentleman thief (John Barrymore), thedying man on a last spending binge (Lionel Barrymore), the scheming stenographer (JoanCrawford), and the unsavoury tycoon (Wallace Beery). These characters’ lives intersect andcollide over the course of a momentous night.
This is not the best-written Hollywood production. The plot is implau...
Posted in: Disc Reviews by David Annandale on February 23rd, 2004
Synopsis
After the mayor of a tiny hamlet is decapitated by an irate populace, the Powers That Be(mindful of an upcoming election) decide to appoint a total moron as temporary mayor. Thetheory is that an idiot won't get himself into trouble. The idiot they find is Juan Vargas (DamiánAlcázar), who arrives with his wife and a head filled with plans to do good things for thecommunity. We all know what is paved with good intentions, though, and confronted with acomplete lack of funds, o...
Posted in: Disc Reviews by David Annandale on February 22nd, 2004
Synopsis
Meg Ryan plays Manhattan English teacher Frankie Avery. When parts of a dismemberedyoung woman are found in her back garden, Ryan is questioned by Detective Mark Ruffalo.Ruffalo asks Ryan out, and before long they’re at it hot and heavy. But the day of the murder,Ryan was in the same bar as the victim, and witnessed, in the shadows, a man being fellated.That man had the same tattoo as Ruffalo, and Ryan begins to fear that her new lover is, at best,a liar. At worst...
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Posted in: Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on February 22nd, 2004
The third and hopefully final entry in the American Pie series, American Wedding keeps with the sweet charms and gross out comedy of the first two movies, but can’t live up to the humor of the original or its sequel. Average Joe Jim, (Jason Biggs) and former band geek Michelle, (Alyson Hannigan) are now engaged to be wed and must decide whether raucous Stifler (Seann William Scott) should be invited to the wedding. Shenanigans ensue involving a night out at a gay club, a bachelor party, pleasing the in-laws, and pubi...
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on February 20th, 2004
I can only imagine what it might have been like to be a child during the heyday of Disney’s live films division. Going to see The Parent Trap or Mary Poppins as a young girl must really have been exciting. Experiencing Pete’s Dragon or Chitty Chitty Bang Bang in the theater must have been a thrill for young lads.
Unfortunately, Disney has not lived up to those high standards in its later days. Part of the wonder of those films was that they were not children’s films, as much as s...
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on February 15th, 2004
A number of great films have come out of Ireland over the past decade (or so). A few titles that come to mind are In the name of the Father (1993), My Left Foot (1989), In America (2002), The Boxer (1997), and definitely The Commitments (1991). The one factor that differentiates The Commitments from the rest of these great films is that it centers around music rather then turmoil (whether it be personal, family, or country turmoil). The Commitments is a great tale t...
