Posted in: Disc Reviews by David Annandale on March 30th, 2004
Synopsis
Crime kingpin Christopher Walken is released from prison, and immediately reasserts hiscontrol over the underworld. All sorts of rivals are dispatched messily. He is also at odds withthe police, who are determined to bring him down. Our ganglord isn’t all bad, though: he hasall sorts of impressive community projects in mind.
This last detail is perhaps the most telling point: we are in the realm of full-on fantasy here.Director Abel Ferrara and long-time screenwrite...
Posted in: Disc Reviews by David Annandale on March 22nd, 2004
Synopsis
Though not Blake Edwards’ best films, these are the movies with which he is most stronglyidentified, and the role of Inspector Clouseau was a career-defining move for Peter Sellers. Attheir best, the movies are fine exemplars of inspired slapstick.
The Pink Panther started it all off, and no one knew what a phenomenon Clouseauwas going to turn out to be. Edwards and Sellers (the trivia track informs us) rewrote the partlate in the game to turn the character i...
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on March 22nd, 2004
Brother Bear is the story of a boy who becomes a man by becoming a bear. Kenai (Joaquin Phoenix) is a young man set on revenge against a bear he feels is responsible for his brother’s death. Going up against the beast and winning the battle, the great Spirits who guide Kenai transform him into a bear himself. As Kenai tries to undo the spell placed on him by the spirits, he meets Koda (Jeremy Suarez) a young cub who was separated from his mother. As the story unfolds Kenai becomes more find of Koda and “adopts...
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 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 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 8th, 2004
SynopsisFive films here, making a very coherent package.Persona is probably the most famous of the bunch, and is arguably Bergman’s mosticonic film. The images are among the most famous in cinema, though they are slightly moredifficult to take seriously thanks to SCTV’s parody. The plot concerns Liv Ullmann as an actresswho has suddenly fallen silent, and Bibi Andersson as the nurse hired to look after her. In theface of Ullmann’s silence, Andersson talks and talks ...
Posted in: Disc Reviews by David Annandale on December 23rd, 2003
Synopsis
Brittany Murphy is the orphaned daughter of rock star parents. She has been living a fairy-tale existence in Manhattan, and hasn’t had the slightest need to grow up. When her lawyerabsconds with her 100 million bucks, however, she is forced to find work, and becomes the newnanny for the uptight, precociously mature Dakota Fanning. Murphy will learn to grow up, andFanning will learn to be a kid. There will be a little bit of tragedy tossed in along the way.
Ut...
Posted in: Disc Reviews by David Annandale on December 11th, 2003
Synopsis
Every 23 years, a monster known as the Creeper lives and feeds on humans for 23 days. Weare at the end of the current cycle. After killing a farm boy on day 22, the Creepers spends hislast day disabling a school bus and tormenting the athletes and cheerleaders on board.
That’s about all you’ve got for a plot, but for this kind of horror film, that’s all you reallyneed. Oh sure, there are all sorts of side issues like the racism of the team captain, and theher...
Posted in: Disc Reviews by David Annandale on December 11th, 2003
Synopsis
The story is very simple, which is one of the elements that gives the film its raw power. Agroup of young adults in a VW minivan make the mistake of picking up a demented hitchhiker.They manage to dump him, but he marks their van with his own blood. Shortly, the make themistake of stumbling upon what turns out to be the home of the hitchhiker, Leatherface, and therest of the psychotic brood. Most of the cast is killed off by the halfway mark, at which point thefilms ...
