Posted in: Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on February 4th, 2009
Meerkat Manor is back for a fourth season on DVD. You’re invited back into the South African desert with the famous Whiskers Clan. Animal Planet has themselves a relatively big hit here with Meerkat Manor. OK, so, it’s not exactly The Sopranos or The Shield, but it does have a modestly dedicated audience. Seems that folks just can’t get enough of these fur balls.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by David Annandale on February 3rd, 2009
Director Rene Daalder is best known in cult film circles as the man who gave us Massacre at Central High. But now Cult Epics has released a pair of his films (this and Here Is Always Somewhere Else) that seem more in keeping with his real interests. A long and twisting road led to this effort, starting with an abortive collaboration with Russ Meyer and the Sex Pistols, which brought Daalder into the world of punk rock. In that field he met Tomata Du Plenty, vocalist for The Screamers. After funding for their proposed collaboration Mensch collapsed and Du Plenty’s HIV-positive status became apparent, they put together the present film out of a mixture of footage from the abandoned project, plus new elements. The striking result is Du Plenty as the last survivor of nuclear holocaust, holed up in his bunker, declaming/singing poetic rants about the history of the United States, all the while surrounded by a phantasmagoria of bizarre sights. Whether the result is compelling or pretentious (or both) will depend on one’s sympathies with respect to the art scene from which it emerges, but that it is a work that rigorously works out its conceptual and artistic premises all the way to the end cannot be denied.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by David Annandale on February 3rd, 2009
This is another of Cult Epics’ entries in their new Rene Daalder Collection. His most recent film, it’s a documentary about conceptual artist Bas Jan Ader. The brief body of work he left behind is best known for using gravity as a medium (so, for instance, he did a number of filmed pieces of himself or objects falling). He was lost at sea in1975 while attempting to cross the Atlantic in a minuscule boat as part of a piece to called “In Search of the Miraculous.” Daalder’s 68-minute film retraces Ader’s life, but does so in part through the filter of Daalder’s own parallel experiences as an expatriate Dutch artist. The film is very interesting, though I would have like a bit more analysis of Ader’s work, in order to have a better understanding of exactly what it was doing, and Daalder’s speculations about what Ader’s final thoughts might have been are a little too definitive. Still, a strong documentary.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on February 3rd, 2009
“Four cops down: two dead, two likely. An NYPD drug bust has gone horribly wrong.”
That’s how this gripping drama opens. Not since the likes of Al Pacino in Serpico has there been a movie anything at all like Pride And Glory. This film doesn’t pull punches, and it looks about as real as any police drama I’ve seen anywhere before. Filmed entirely on location in the seedy streets of New York City’s Washington Heights district, there is enough gritty realism to go around.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on January 28th, 2009
Mary Poppins was the subject of a series of books by P.L. Travers. Long before Harry Potter came on the scene, Mary was delighting children all over the world with her spectacular magical abilities. At the time Walt Disney was making a name for himself and his studio by bringing many of the children’s classics to the big screen. From fairy tales to Winnie The Pooh, the studio was providing the look and the soundtrack to the imaginative worlds already known and beloved by millions. It was a magnificent strategy, and it would pay off huge for the company.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by David Annandale on January 27th, 2009
So there's this group of flight attendants, and we follow their swinging adventures and affairs on and off planes. One, for instance, hopes to be an actress, and hooks up with an advertising executive. And if you care what the plot of “the first 3D sex film” is, you need your head examined. Much of the what goes on is mind-numbingly banal (SEE Wine being poured SEE Drinks being mixed HEAR Dull conversations ), though the acid trip that leads one woman to make out with a lamp in the form of a greco-roman head is something you don't see every day.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on January 26th, 2009
“This motion picture is principally based upon the book “Wallace” by Marshall Frady and other historical sources. Certain events, characters, and dialog have, nonetheless, been created or altered for dramatic purposes”.
In other words, this should not be taken as an historical record of the controversial George Wallace. If anything, the film attempts to soften his personality some. One of those created characters is Archie, a trustee attending to the needs of the residents at Alabama’s Governor’s Mansion.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on January 21st, 2009
“When one starts to perceive one’s own reflection as a completely separate being, one is suddenly confronted with two entirely separate egos, two entirely separate worlds that can surface at any given moment. A feeling of self hatred usually triggered by a psychological shock can split the personality in two, hence creating two or more personalities with distinct memories and distinct behavior patterns within the same individual. The patient has the false perception of the existence of two distinct worlds, the real world and the world inside the mirror.”
Or maybe not so false, at least according to the 20th Century Fox thriller, Mirrors.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on January 16th, 2009
Supercop is really just the American title for the third entry in Jackie Chan’s very popular Police Story series in Hong Kong. For the first time in the franchise, Chan decided to go with an outside director, and he made a wise choice with newcomer Stanley Tong. Tong might have been a green director, but he had a natural feel for the abilities and strengths of his mega-star. The two would go on to collaborate on several more films after this rather remarkable first time pairing.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on January 15th, 2009
“On 15 December, 1977, after a hiatus of over a year, The Who assembled at Gaumont State Theater in Kilburn, North London, to record a concert for Jeff Stein’s documentary film, The Kids Are Alright. Shot before a select invited audience it would turn out to be Keith Moon’s last, but one live performance. Unusual for live rock at the time, it was shot on 35mm film by six cameras and professionally recorded on a 16 track recorder. Never seen before, the film rested in The Who’s vault for 30 years.”
What young 1970’s pup, learning to play a guitar for the first time, didn’t, at one time or another, attempt to imitate Pete Townsend’s windmill power chord strum?
![Mirrors [Blu-ray] dvd cover art](https://upcomingdiscs.com/ecs_covers/mirrors-blu-ray-large.jpg)
