Posted in: Disc Reviews by David Annandale on August 11th, 2002
Synopsis
Two brothers survive a plane crash (a crash in which their father dies, but they don't seem too broken up about the sad event), and find themselves washed up on the island of Dinotopia. As the name implies, this is a land where humans and dinosaurs co-exist. We explore this island with the brothers, and get caught up in their quest to help save this world in its hour of peril. The characters here are a long way from believable, and so the main draw is the special effects, which are, by telev...
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on August 7th, 2002
The Show
I cannot say enough about how great this series is. Not only is it extremely entertaining, but the DVD is of remarkable quality. If you have not had the pleasure to see an episode of The Sopranos, here is a synopsis of season three for you:
“Some suburban households have two cars. Some have two houses. But Tony Sopranos has two families.
This could be why the FBI is going to such lengths to wiretap his home. Why is the son of his dear late friend Jackie Ap...
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on July 22nd, 2002
”Movin’ on up". The Jeffersons did just that… all the way up to become one of the highest rated and longest running sitcoms in television history. There have been many memorable African-American television characters… but who could forget George and Weezy Jefferson? These characters will live on forever, and this set helps to continue there legacy.
Audio
In 1975, when this series began it illustrious run, surround sound was not even an after-thought. That being said, it is very u...
Posted in: Disc Reviews by David Annandale on July 15th, 2002
Synopsis
Herbert's novel is very complex, and one attempts a synopsis at one's own risk (this is part of the problem with Lynch's film). At its most basic, it is about power struggles in a galactic empire, power struggles centred on the planet Arrakis, or Dune, home of the spice, the most vital element in the empire. Paul Atreides, newly arrived on Arrakis, turns out to be the long-prophesied messiah. This is an incredibly ambitious project for a telefilm, and though some of the budgetary limitations...
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on July 11th, 2002
Synopsis
Jennifer Saunders and Joanna Lumley star as Edina and Patsy, terminal fashion victims and loathsome relics from the sixties. Edina is a psychopathically narcissistic motormouth (conveniently, writer Saunders gives herself the lion's share of lines), and Patsy is a vaguely sinister man-eater. She spends most of the time lurking about on the edges while Edina makes life miserable for her long-suffering daughter. The sum total of the series' humour is graspable within five minutes, but that did...
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on July 6th, 2002
Film
Walking With Dinosaurs plays out like a National Geographic special, tracking dinosaurs and their kin in the field. Wonderful CGI recreations of some of the more obscure beasts set this special apart from all other dinodocumentaries.
Synopsis
The vast worlds of prehistoric times are brought to life in a series of documentaries starting with the beginning of life in the seas and ending with the death of the final land giants. There are 6 segments: "New Blood", "Time Of ...
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on June 27th, 2002
Synopsis
The second season still shows a strong connection to the Robert Altman film, with the movie's closing credits narration, for instance, still being used, and the first episode still finding it necessary to let us know who the characters are. At the same time, while still following traditional sitcom patterns, the series is also clearly pushing against that envelope.
Audio
The soundtrack is the original mono. The sound reproduction is clear and unmuddied, and th...
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...
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...
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...
