Posted in: Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on June 25th, 2002
Aliens was one of those rare sequels that must include T2 where everything gets taken up a notch without spoiling the elements that made the first successful. This is not to say Aliens is better than the original, but very different yet somehow very much the same. Sigourney Weaver acts with a confidence made possible by the first film. It’s hard to believe but Ripley just gets stronger. The story is much more complex but still retains the chilling simplicity of a horrible creature stalking its prey. There are more cr...atures but you still only get enough glimpses to creep you out. The most important difference, however, is James Cameron and his action oriented style. For Aliens Cameron literally brings out the marines.
Synopsis
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on June 24th, 2002
Film
It has been a few years since I last saw Speed... but it is still as enjoyable as ever. Sure, Keanu Reeves is a bland actor, but other then his role in The Matrix… this is some of his best work. The action is hot, and the story is solid. For those who have not seen this film (what rock have you been hidden under?), this synopsis is for you:
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on June 19th, 2002
Film
If one thing can be said about Michael Bay films, it would be that they are beautifully shot. I cannot think of many directors’ that have such a unique cinematographic feel to their films… and Pearl Harbor is no exception. This film contains some of the best fighting sequences ever put onto film. Unfortunately, this fabulous action is tainted by a sub-par love story that is interwoven into the story. With the elimination of this love story, Pearl Harbor would have been an amazing action film...with a reasonable length of 120 minute (rather then its 180+ minute running time). This Director’s cut of Pearl Harbor showcases an extra 1.5 minutes of footage… mostly extra gore and graphic war sequences. If you are looking for a noticeable amount of extra footage, you may be disappointed. Enough for my ramblings… here is a bit about the story:
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on June 19th, 2002
Synopsis
Crowe plays John Nash, schizophrenic genius. The film follows him from his grad student days at Princeton, to his revolutionary formulation of game theory, to his later breakdown, and climaxes in his reception of the Nobel Prize in 1994. Though overlong, often burdened by an excessively emphatic score by James Horner, and following all the usual conventions of Hollywood melodrama, the film also offers stunning cinematography by Roger Deakins, uncharacteristically good dialogue by Akiva Golds...an (can this be the same man who inflicted Batman and Robin and Lost In Space on us?), and excellent performances, especially on the part of Crowe, whose evocation of Nash is spooky.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on June 18th, 2002
“In space no one can hear you scream” was the slogan that drew a conglomerate of horror and science fiction fans to theatres in 1979. Was it horror or sci-fi? Alien turned out to be a rare cross-genre film that managed to satisfy both audiences. Ridley Scott started out by bringing the “space ship” film away from the glamorous bright future and depicted a world startlingly very much like our own. In Scott’s gritty future companies are quasi-government agencies and these astronauts are not explorers out for glory and...heroism. They are strictly blue collar workers trying to make a buck. It’s hard to imagine that most of the cast, including Sigourney Weaver, were relative unknowns at the time. Weaver would create a new model for female leads that would later pave the way for actors like Linda Hamilton.
Synopsis
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on June 16th, 2002
Exceptional! Starship Troopers (Special Edition) is a must have in any movie fanatics collection. Combine a controversial cinematic and special effects masterpiece with a superb DVD release, and Columbia-Tristar has a sure winner in its catalog.
Paul Verhoeven’s (RoboCop, Total Recall, Showgirls, Hollowman) 1997 adaptation of Robert Heinlein’s Starship Troopers is stunning not only for its Academy Award nominated special effects, but also for the volume of controversy that the film elicited amongst c...itics and the public. The movie and its director were widely lambasted for glorifying Nazism, totalitarianism, and fascism, and its not hard to see where these charges come from. Verhoeven’s future Earth is ruled by a single fascist government that has eliminated poverty and disease, and created a uniformly attractive, educated, and affluent populace. Verhoeven’s response to these critics (in the “Death From Above” documentary) makes owning this Special Edition a must for any serious film lover; in the feature Verhoeven and screenwriter Ed Neumeier discuss at length their ironic intent for the movie, talk about how the script and filming were designed to mimic and mock WWII warfare and propaganda, and how ultimately the movie failed to communicate their anti-fascist agenda (“We were warned not to be ironic.”).
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on June 8th, 2002
Synopsis
Tyrone Power is the intensely irritating American flyboy who flies a delivers a bomber to England to earn some money. Once there, he spots old flame Betty Grable, and enlists in the RAF so he can woo her back. Grable is also being courted by Power's commanding officer, who possesses all the decent qualities Power lacks (i.e. just about everything).
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on June 8th, 2002
One … two… Freddy’s coming for you, three… four… better lock the door, five… six… grab your crucifix, seven… eight discs is what you’ll get in this colossal horror collection. Freddy is one of the more memorable monsters from the slasher era that also brought us the Halloween and Jason films. Freddy might have been born in the mind of Wes Craven, but he grew and developed in the knife-wielding hands of Robert Englund. Granted, not all of these films are equal in quality... The first and third are the best story-wise, while the last might be the most unpredictable and original. The fourth and fifth films are a hoot if you don’t look too carefully for a plot. Look to see how many actors you can find that later went on to bigger and better things. There were quite a few, most notably Johnny Depp.
Synopsis
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on June 3rd, 2002
Welcome to Oliver Stone’s history 101, where Vietnam looked a lot like Florida, and JFK was killed by a conspiracy so large it included the mafia, FBI, CIA, the Teamsters, and two bag ladies on Pennsylvania Avenue. Hollywood has always tinkered with history, but Oliver Stone performs reconstructive surgery. Nixon is no exception to this rule. It is much easier to view the film more as a character study than an historical piece. The film has you believe that Nixon used the F word more times than Richard Pryor on a roll, hated most of his advisors, and also had a hand in the JFK ordeal. The film also sports more artsy camera angles than a season of Batman. The true life-blood of the film is without any doubt Anthony Hopkins. Hopkins nailed Nixon like no actor before. From his stooped stance to his shuffled walk, he becomes ol’ Tricky Dick.
This Edition of Nixon includes the Director’s Cut of the film… with 28 minutes of additional footage not seen in the theatrical or original DVD release. If you can handle sitting through this 212 minute version, you will enjoy the extra footage.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on June 2nd, 2002
Fresh off of its multiple nominations at the 2001 Academy Awards, and Academy’s winner of the Best Original Screenplay, comes Gosford Park to DVD. Most who have seen this film have fallen in love with it, I on the other hand, felt the story moved far to slow, and my interest waned as the film progressed. Though I was not captivated by the film itself, the acting was superb, and the premise was solid.
“It is November, 1932. Gosford Park is the magnificent country estate to which Sir William McCo...dle and his wife, Lady Sylvia, gather relations and friends for a shooting party. They have invited an eclectic group including a countess, a World War I hero, the British matinee idol Ivor Novello and an American film producer who makes Charlie Chan movies. As the guests assemble in the gilded drawing rooms above, their personal maids and valets swell the ranks of the house servants in the teeming kitchens and corridors below-stairs.But all is not as it seems: neither amongst the bejewelled guests lunching and dining at their considerable leisure, nor in the attic bedrooms and stark work stations where the servants labor for the comfort of their employers. Part comedy of manners and part mystery, the film is finally a moving portrait of events that bridge generations, class, sex, tragic personal history and culminate in a murder. (Or is it two murders?)Ultimately revealing the intricate relations of the above and below-stairs worlds with great clarity, Gosford Park illuminates a society and way of life quickly coming to an end.” – Universal
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