Posted in: Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on April 11th, 2006
It’s rather stunning to discover that My Neighbor Totoro was made way back in 1988, long before the days of CG and all automatic illustration. And perhaps that animation does detract from the overall experience from the film, but if that’s the only reason that it would be a problem, then people simply need to get their taste in order.
In another film from legendary Japanese film director Hayao Miyazaki (who made the Oscar-winning film Spirited Away), the film follows sisters Mei and Satsuki, w...o move with their father to the countryside, to spend more time with their mother. They do some exploring and encounter Totoro, a mystical being in the woods that can only be seen by children. Totoro helps the children experience a world of wonder that they never would have previously seen.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on April 6th, 2006
Ever since the original Survivor first became extremely successful, it seemed like every network was trying to get a piece of their own reality television fame. We had FOX give us The Chamber and MTV throw us the Jackass series. One had success while one crashed and burned very quickly. This proved that not every idea would make a successful reality show. Naturally FOX is not one to give up and knew what to do next. Coming off her, probably, un-welcomed fame, Paris Hilton was approached by FOX to...star in a reality series called The Simple Life. The show would team Hilton and her childhood friend Nicole Ritchie together while they live with one family in the middle of nowhere.
After two successful seasons of The Simple Life where Paris and Nicole stayed with just one family, the creators of the show thought it would be interesting to see how Paris and Nicole would react to staying with multiple different families dealing with multiple jobs.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on April 6th, 2006
Hmm. Another made for television sci-fi series. Most of the recent sci-fi made for television series have been quite disappointing mainly because they usually run too short, are horrible condensed forcing the creators of the show to either A. introduce characters very quickly, B. have extremely poor set design, or C. have another random plot that has been done a million times over. While The Triangle plot is nothing brand new, the director by Craig R. Baxley with production by Bryan Singer (X-Men) and D...an Devlin (Independence Day) help bring a bit of higher quality to the project.
The basic plot to this mini-series is; A team of specialists races to solve the mystery of why an alarming number of cargo ships are disappearing into the Bermuda Triangle. Made by Craig Baxley and genre veterans Dean Devlin and Bryan Singer, we naturally get scenes filled with tons of FX effects. One of the more surprising positives for this series was the cast. Boasting such actors as Sam Neill and Catherine Bell, the acting level is taken to the next level. The direction was quite surprising with a lot of the scenery and acting feeling top notch. The show, if you didn’t know it was a mini TV series, could have easily passed off as a film.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on April 6th, 2006
One of the great things about television today is the trend of extreme diversification. Where there used to be a specialized channel called ESPN, that has now been broken down into ESPN Deportes, ESPN2, ESPNews, ESPN U... the list goes on and on. Whatever your interest, there is a very specialized niche available that it fits into. The nice thing is, all of this specialization has allowed some truly creative (and bizarre) programing to creep out onto the airwaves. Robot Chicken is a great example of this trend... It is a wildly creative stop motion animation show created and produced by Seth Green that parodies pop culture using pre-existing action figures. One episode parodies The Real World by showing what would happen when characters such as Batman, The Incredible Hulk and Wonder Woman are made to live together in a house. Quite literally, if you name the pop culture reference, it is here, from American Idol to Kill Bill to Dawn of the Dead. There's even a Two Guys, A Girl and a Pizza Place reference here... and that's all packed into just the first episode!
I had never even heard of this show before I was sent this DVD set to review, but I am a complete and total convert now. I am sometimes amazed at some of the truly funny stuff that is out there that I have never even heard of. This show deserves to find a wider audience. Hopefully this DVD release will do for this hilarious series what it did for Family Guy and Firefly.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on March 24th, 2006
After the transformation of the Harry Potter and The Lord of the Rings books into hugely successful films, it was only a matter of time before someone decided to tackle C.S. Lewis’s famous novels The Chronicles of Narnia. Both of the aforementioned books into movies were excellent because, even though they didn’t include every little detail presented in the novels, fans still embraced the films for what they were. They brought a majority of the presented themes and ideas in the books and showed u... them in a live action manner via the film. Similar to the seven part Harry Potter series, would it be possible for the classic seven part Narnia series to have a successful transformation into film?
Both C.S. Lewis, author of the famed Narnia books, and J.R.R. Tolkien, famed author of the Rings books, were said to have been friends who taught at Oxford at exactly the same time. They both enjoyed smoking pipe, drinking in the same pub, taking Christianity seriously, and writing. Lewis loved Tolkein’s style of writing and the universe he created for the Rings books, but Tolkein never seemed to return the same affection to Lewis’s Narnia books. Many say this is because Tolkein actually created a vast universe for his novels, while Lewis just used his native country as the setting.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by David Annandale on March 20th, 2006
Synopsis
Set in an imaginary European country on the verge of war, in a vague time period that is approximately Edwardian, this is the story of Sophie, a young girl who encounters Howl, the handsome wizard who lives in a gigantic, clattering contraption of a mobile castle. The interest Howl has in Sophie arouses the angry jealousy of the Witch of the Waste (voiced by Lauren Bacall in the English dub), who curses Sophie with instant old age. Sophie, no longer recognized by Howl, takes up residence in ...is castle and sets about transforming all within, perhaps ultimately freeing Howl of his own curse.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on March 19th, 2006
Synopsis
The world greatest rock band’s story about the rise to power, born from Satan, and ready to rock the world, may not be as accurate as one would perceive. As Jack Black and Kyle Gass (Jables and KG to those in the know), Tenacious D received a small run of episodes during the HBO series Mr. Show in 1999 that resulted in good word of mouth for the pair. It was only until last year, when the long-awaited first album finally dropped, that the world discovered just how good they were. And the alb...m is a very good indoctrination for new fans, and for longtime fans of the D, some of what they had seen was presented on the album in a surprising, but pleasant arrangement, featuring guest appearances by the Foo Fighters’ Dave Grohl and produced by The Dust Brothers.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by David Annandale on March 10th, 2006
Synopsis
Three directors, three doses of uncompromising Asian horror. The first, and nastiest, is “Dumplings” (directed by Fruit Chan), which tells the story of a woman who purchases some very expensive dumplings said to restored youth. What is the secret ingredient? The worst thing you can think of, trust me. And the film leaves nothing to the imagination. Where others would imply the horror and let your imagination do the rest of the work, “Dumplings” gets your imagination working, and then tops it... Nasty stuff indeed.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by David Annandale on March 9th, 2006
Synopsis
As one of the discs in this set is exactly the same as the previous release, my review is the same too:
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on March 5th, 2006
Synopsis
Well, a Terry Gilliam children’s film might seem like a bit of an oxymoron, however writing a film with fellow Monty Python alum Michael Palin actually resulted in a funny, and even philosophical film, reflecting on themes of good and evil.
