Posted in: Disc Reviews by David Annandale on February 8th, 2005
Synopsis
In the years leading up to the 1924 Paris Olympics, Ben Cross is Harold Abrahams, who useshis speed as a runner to fight back against the quiet but persistent anti-Semitism of Britishsociety. Ian Charleson is Eric Liddell, the profoundly religious Scot who runs for God. Wefollow their lives and training, along with those of Abrahams’ college friends, up to theOlympics, with a few smallish tribulations along the way.
And that’s about it, really. There are plenty of s...
Posted in: Disc Reviews by David Annandale on February 7th, 2005
Synopsis
Denzel Washington plays Malcolm X, the black leader white folks DIDN’T feel comfortableabout. Beginning in the 1940s, when Malcolm is a zoot-suited cool cat with best friend Shorty(Spike Lee), the film then flashes back to just before his birth, and proceeds in properly epicfashion to trace the life of the charismatic, and extremely controversial, leader.
Questions can, and have, been asked about some aspects of the film. Time Out, for instance,raises the issue of t...
Posted in: Disc Reviews by David Annandale on February 1st, 2005
Synopsis
Coalwood, West Virgina, is a typical mining company town in 1957. For most of the malepopulation, the only future is a descent into the mines, with all the hardships and early death thatentails. Jake Gyllenhaal hopes for better, and he is inspired by the launch of Sputnik to build hisown rocket, a project which involves three of his friends, and is encouraged by teacher LauraDern. Against Gyllenhaal are the skepticism of the town, the difficulties of the project, and thetro...
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on January 30th, 2005
Predator vs. Alien was not as successful at the box office as was hoped. It seems that this 2-disc edition of Predator 2 might be intended to build interest for the troubled fusion of the two popular space creatures.
This film has had its share of detractors since its release in 1990. I, for one, find it to be as good as, if not better than, the original film. Watching the two governors Arnold and Jesse take on the Predator in the Columbian jungles was certainly a hoot. Let’s be honest...
Posted in: Disc Reviews by David Annandale on January 22nd, 2005
Synopsis
Charlize Theron doesn’t play Aileen Wuornos, she incarnates her. At the end of hertether, highway prostitute Aileen meets 18-year-old Selby (Christina Ricci) when she accidentlywalks into a lesbian bar. They click, and suddenly, Aileen has a reason to live. She tries to turnher life around, but with the implacability of Greek tragedy, her attempts end in failure and shereturns to turning tricks. One date goes turns ghastly, and she kills the brutal john in self-defense...
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on January 20th, 2005
What a find! Film footage from a landmark 1970 concert sat in a producer’s garage for almost 3 decades. So finally, after all the music rights and remastering were taken care of, we have a landmark rockumentary. Thank the maker. Festival Express is a rock concert movie about a 3 city train tour, with stops in Toronto, Winnipeg, and Calgary (not to mention a stop in Saskatoon for booze). The performers included The Grateful Dead, The Band, Buddy Guy, and Janis Joplin (among many, many others).
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Posted in: Disc Reviews by David Annandale on January 12th, 2005
Synopsis
Molly (Millie Perkins) is seriously disconnected from reality. She tells her two nephewswonderful tales about their grandfather, whom she declares a saint, even though we see (indisturbing flashbacks), that he repeatedly raped her. She also enjoys ogling well-built men andfantasizing about their violent deaths. But she doesn’t stop at fantasizing...
Well! Here she is, Anne Frank herself (from the 1959 film) all grown up and castrating menwith safety razors. This is ...
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on January 11th, 2005
De-Lovely is a musical bio-pic based on the life of Cole Porter. Now, Porter was an American genius, responsible for writing such song classics as “Love for Sale” and “Anything Goes”. Porter’s personal life was also legendary. He had a wife, but also had affairs with men. Porter also suffered a horse riding accident in the late 1930’s that debilitated him for the rest of his life (to his death in 1964). Sounds like the great makings of a movie, right? Well….
Kevin Kline plays Cole Porter, and h...
Posted in: Disc Reviews by David Annandale on December 31st, 2004
Synopsis
Riding Giants is both a history of big-wave surfing (and, to a degree, of surfinggenerally) and a profile of the big names in the sport over the generations, specifically Greg Noll,Jeff Clark and Laird Hamilton (who, as executive producer, also gets the lion’s share of thecoverage). Spectacular footage is mixed with vintage home movies, and the result is quitecompelling. The film does devolve into hero-worship, however, and when a drowned surfer isreferred to as a fa...
Posted in: Disc Reviews by David Annandale on December 23rd, 2004
Synopsis
Apocalypse picks up where the first Resident Evil left off. The sinisterUmbrella Corporation re-opens its underground lab, and in so doing unleashes the T-Virus onRacoon City. The metropolis is cordoned off to contain the infection, and there are only a handfulof survivors left who, led by the now superhuman Alice (Mila Jovovich), must escape the citybefore it is sanitized (i.e.nuked).
The scale is far more grandiose than the first film, and there is m...
