Alliance Films

Serveuses demandées

Posted in Disc Reviews by William O'Donnell on June 8th, 2009

The main plot of the film is that of a young woman from Brazil named Priscilla, whose student Visa expires and is lead into working as an exotic dancer. The title of the film comes from the ad posted by the pimps and promoters of exotic dancers “Waitresses Wanted.” The film is bookended by the profiles of all the dancers featured in the film, all of whom are from a different nation, all beautiful, and all arrived in Canada with different careers in mind than to get involved with Columbian pimps or Russian mob lords.
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Babine

Posted in Disc Reviews by David Annandale on June 4th, 2009

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In a village where there is a great deal of time (there are months whose days are numbered in the 40s), the local witch gives birth to the title character. Twenty years later, Babine is the Village Idiot. Though he is a thoroughly gentle soul, he also becomes the scapegoat for every ill, real or imagined, that befalls the villagers. Fortunately, he has some champions, including Toussaint Brodeur (played by director Luc Picard), the local fly-raiser. But then the church burns down, and terrible trouble looms for Babine in the person of the new, fanatical village priest.
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Strictly Sexual

Posted in Disc Reviews by William O'Donnell on June 1st, 2009

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This film’s plot, on the surface, reads like a letter sent to Penthouse Forum. Strangely, said letter could have been written by either gender. Two out of work slabs of charming beefcake are mistaken for gigolos at a bar by two gorgeous and successful women. The women discover the truth about their one-night-stand partners but soon propose the idea of keeping them in the pool house as ‘cabana boys’ that will be fed beer and satellite TV until they are called inside for sex.
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The Caller

Posted in Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on May 12th, 2009

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The Caller is a film starring Frank Langella and Elliott Gould. It is a tense thriller about corporate foul play and voyeurism, wait, what year is it? With the recent critical acclaim of Langella, it seems only fitting to market his name on a low-budget film. Unfortunately for the film, Langella’s performance is one of the only shining moments. Langella plays an aging VP of an energy company that decides to blow the whistle on the corporate wrong doings that are going on. Understanding that he’s written his own death certificate, Langella hires a private investigator (Gould) to follow him to help catch his eventual killer.
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Marie and Bruce

Posted in Disc Reviews by William O'Donnell on May 11th, 2009

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Based on a play by Wallace Shawn (who also co-wrote the screenplay), this film is a day in the life of an unhappily married couple, played by Juliane Moore and Matthew Broderick, who don’t know what to do about said unhappiness. The story is simple but the paths each character take is not. After a bitter breakfast scene, they separately go about their day before meeting at a party in the evening where Marie may or may not leave Bruce once and for all.
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Last Chance Harvey

Posted in Disc Reviews by David Annandale on May 5th, 2009

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Dustin Hoffman is the titular Harvey, a morose jingle composer who, with his job hanging by a thread, arrives in London for his daughter’s wedding. He is a complete outsider at the rehearsal dinner, and feels even more cut off when his daughter informs him that she wants her stepfather to give her away. Meanwhile, the scarcely more cheerful Emma Thompson spends her time being set up for disastrous blind dates and being constantly harangued on the phone by her mother. These two losers at the game of love meet, and something blossoms between them.
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Nobel Son

Posted in Disc Reviews by David Annandale on April 14th, 2009

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Alan Rickman, in a stunningly unexpected bit of casting, plays an arrogant, womanizing SOB of a chemistry professor who has just been awarded the Nobel Prize. While he and wife Mary Steenburgen jet off to Sweden, their son (Bryan Greenberg) is kidnapped. Before long, the parents receive are sent a severed thumb as proof of the kidnapper’s serious intent. But nothing is quite what it seems.
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Hamlet 2

Posted in Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on April 1st, 2009

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What would you get if you were to cross the films Dangerous Minds and Waiting for Guffman? Well, add a liberal helping of High School Musical and you might end up with Hamlet 2 (though it is difficult to imagine the High School Musical drones belting out songs like “Rock Me Sexy Jesus” and “Raped in the Face” with such gusto).
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Zack and Miri Make a Porno

Posted in Disc Reviews by David Annandale on March 28th, 2009

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Zack (Seth Rogen) and Miri (Elizabeth Banks) have been friends since school, and are now terminally broke roommates. As their utilities are turned off one by one, and they face the prospect of eviction, Zack hits on the idea of shooting a porn flick to get out of debt. They gather together a motley collection of actors and crew, and, letting no setback stand in their way, start making their movie. But the real question is not whether they will succeed, but whether they will come to terms with their feeling for each other.
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Halloween 3-Disc Unrated Collector’s Edition

Posted in Disc Reviews by David Annandale on November 9th, 2008

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Rob Zombie’s enthusiastic but terminally misguided remake scores yet another DVD release. This one is identical to the previous unrated edition, apart from the fact that there’s an extra disc. More on that later. But in the meantime, as everything else is the same, that will also be true for this review. What follows is what I said about the last version.
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The Stone Angel

Posted in Disc Reviews by David Annandale on October 23rd, 2008

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Hagar Shipley (Ellen Burstyn) is in her twilight years, and her son (Dylan Baker) is trying to get her into a home. Fiercely independent, possessed of a will that has been both a strength and a weakness (making life miserable for herself and all around her), Hagar fights back. She also looks back on her life, and in the flashbacks (where the young Hagar is played by Christine Horne) we see the tragic relationships that have brought us to the fractious family we see now.
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Vince Vaughn’s Wild West Comedy Show

Posted in Disc Reviews by Michael Durr on October 13th, 2008

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Standup comedians live interesting lives. The typical stand-up comic performs for fifteen to thirty minutes, two or three times a week. For many their sole purpose in life is to make people laugh. Many often suffer from depression when their acts bomb or they go through dry spells where they can’t get gigs or write new material. However, the best ones make their own breaks and find their way into their audience’s heart. Sometimes that can be accomplished through a MC. This MC or master of ceremonies can often take a grand event such as a tour that lasts 30 days & 30 nights and turn four men into superstars.
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Finishing The Game

Posted in Disc Reviews by Michael Durr on October 13th, 2008

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The day that Bruce Lee left us was truly a tragedy. The Game of Death was Lee’s pet project, the one where he could truly show off his skills for the world to see. He never finished it. Even though there was ninety minutes of footage, it was never completely restored to make a complete film. Instead, a mere eleven minutes and seven seconds was used in a 1978 movie called Game of Death. The plot was revised and every camera & stand-in trick was used in the book to finish the movie. The rest of the footage was either lost or found its way into the documentary, Bruce Lee: A Warrior’s Journey. One has to often wonder what the casting process behind casting a body double & stand-ins were like for somebody as unique as Bruce Lee. One also has to wonder how easy it would be to make fun of it.
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L’Age des Ténèbres

Posted in Disc Reviews by David Annandale on September 5th, 2008

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Denys Arcand’s conclusion to the loose trilogy whose first two parts were The Decline of the American Empire and The Barbarian Invasions takes place in a near-future Quebec of soulless bureaucracy and nonexistent human relations. Our hero (Marck Labrèche) is a civil servant with a wife whose job leaves no time for him, two iPod-dependent teenage daughters, and a giant suburban house that is not a home. He retreats from his dead-end life into a series of fantasies which see him as hero, shiek, rock star, celebrated novelist, and so on, always with women rushing to have sex with him.
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The Tracey Fragments

Posted in Disc Reviews by David Annandale on August 25th, 2008

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Current indie It-girl Ellen Page stars in this pre-Juno effort as a similarly headstrong teenager but whose life is far, far worse simply being pregnant. Here she comes from a dysfunctional home, her high school would be called a snake pit if that weren’t disrespectful to snakes, and her baby brother has disappeared while she was supposed to be taking care of him. She plunges into the underbelly of Toronto in a quest to find him, and an unending picaresque nightmare ensues.
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Superhero Movie (Extended Edition)

Posted in Disc Reviews by Michael Durr on August 21st, 2008

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In recent years, there has been only one group of parody movies that were considered really good. The Scary Movies. Started off by the Wayans Brothers, the first two movies were very mature but also very funny. The third & fourth films were taken over by David Zucker who did a fine job of making it more family friendly while keeping the zany humor. In September of 07, production started on a spoof movie that went after Superhero movies. David Zucker took on the producer role while Craig Mazin stepped into the writer/director chair. Craig had also worked in the third & fourth installments of Scary Movie and was obviously talented. The question remained. Was this act tired or did it still have some life to produce a quality spoof film?
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Be Kind Rewind

Posted in Disc Reviews by Michael Durr on August 20th, 2008

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My earliest recollection of VCR’s was when I was just a little boy and my parents went down to the local TV shop and purchased a Zenith for about $600. At the time, it was a wondrous machine and I can still remember fondly my copies of Ghostbusters or Die Hard and how many times I would watch them. I didn’t care whether the tapes had a case or which edition of the tape I had. As long as it was the original movie and the tape wasn’t beat to heck I was a happy camper. Times change. I don’t think I own a single VHS tape that isn’t exercise related and my dvds, more than 400 of them are cataloged and cared for to the utmost degree. In truth, I sometimes miss the VHS days when things were simpler & films sold on the film alone, not on how many extras the dvd has or how fantastic the Dolby Digital 5.1 sound is. Be Kind Rewind goes back to that simpler time and gives a movie that is more about substance than the tiny snap case it comes contained in.
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Come Drink With Me

Posted in Disc Reviews by David Annandale on August 11th, 2008

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There’s much ado on the case’s copy that this was a major inspiration for Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, and the similarities are hard to miss. Like Ang Lee’s film, this 1966 effort is a lush period piece with gorgeous, rich colours and elaborate wire work. And, as in the later film, the central character is a female warrior, in this case an officer of the law sent to rescue a kidnapped victim from a clan of ruthless (but not always terribly bright) bandits. There’s a male aid here, too, in the form of an apparent drunken bum who is, of course, in reality a martial arts master.
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In Bruges

Posted in Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on July 21st, 2008

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According to Wikipedia, Bruges is the capital of Belgium and home to the college of Europe. Much of the architecture from the 12th and 13th centuries is in good shape and preserved fairly well. The Church of Our Lady is one of the tallest brick buildings in the world. The Basilica of the Holy Blood purports to be a church that houses some blood from Christ. It also serves as the backdrop for a couple of hitmen who have to find comfort in the town for awhile in the film set in Bruges, called In Bruges.

Lust, Caution

Posted in Disc Reviews by David Annandale on June 10th, 2008

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Tang Wei plays a student who is a member of a radical theatre troupe during the Sino-Japanese War. She and her cohorts determine to assassinate a prominent collaborator (Tony Leung). In order to get create the opportunity for the killing, our heroine must infiltrate Leung’s household. She is on the threshold of becoming his mistress when he leaves Hong Kong for Shanghai. Three years later, now backed by the Resistance, she makes a new attempt. But she hasn’t counted on the entanglements of passion in the affair she has embarked on.
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Dedication

Posted in Disc Reviews by Michael Durr on May 19th, 2008

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Romantic comedies make most men put their body in the fetal position and pray that the bad people will make it stop until they are shown the newest incantation of a Vin Diesel action flic. This just in, Vin Diesel doesn’t really make action films anymore. Crap, how about Mel Gibson, no? Hey, Sly Stallone still does action movies. Yeah, but we are also pretending he’s still relevant. Anyhow, most people have negative connotations about romantic comedies. That way too much syrupy dialog mixed in with corny humor about two people on the opposite side of the tracks establishing that common ground and coming together. Dedication, at the core is a story of a children’s writer finding love with his new illustrator. However, getting there is one strange animal indeed.

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Automaton Transfusion

Posted in Disc Reviews by David Annandale on April 25th, 2008

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A government project goes badly awry, as all government projects do, and, just as inevitably, a plague of zombies is loosed upon the local community. A group of high school students are the only ones able to mount any kind of defense against the flesh-eating ghouls. Sounds reasonable to me.
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First Snow

Posted in Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on February 26th, 2008

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Guy Pierce fascinates me. He first broke on the scene in a big way in LA Confidential, which just happens to be one of my favorite films. Instead of taking the path of his co-star Russell Crow and chasing the big Hollywood dollar, however, Pierce chose to explore smaller, more interesting fringe films. Sometimes, this decision pays off for him, as was the case in the amazing Memento, or the recent The Proposition. Other times, however, the gamble falls flat, as was the case with The Hard Word. Pierce is consistently excellent, but the films he picks are hit and miss. That’s the problem with interesting projects, they either turn into surprise hits, or predictable failures. So the big question is, is First Snow a hit or a miss?

Hot Fuzz (3-Disc Collector’s Edition)

Posted in Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on January 18th, 2008

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It’s not often that a review starts with the final score, but I’m going to break that rule. Go out and buy this DVD set. Stop reading this review, leave your residence, and go directly to your nearest DVD retailer for a copy of the 3-disc version of Hot Fuzz. When I first watched Shaun of the Dead, I was absolutely blown away at how deftly creators Simon Pegg and Edgar Wright were able to mix the comedy, spoof and horror genres into one of the most entertaining and original films of the decade. While I had high hopes for the follow up project, deep down I was expecting to find a case of the sophomore slump; a good film that manages to fall short of the success of the debut. Not only was my gut feeling dead wrong, but I am of the opinion that the two have actually been able to surpass their previous success. Shaun of the Dead was not a fluke, but merely a warm-up to the amazing success of Hot Fuzz.

Rush Hour 3 (Platinum Series)

Posted in Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on January 16th, 2008

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What we’ve got here is a nasty case of the Sequels. Rush Hour, the original Jackie Chan/Chris Tucker vehicle, was a fun action-comedy with an amusing twist on the buddy-cop genre. Rush Hour 2 was a re-hash, bigger but not better, but still worth a rent. Six years later, Rush Hour 3 proves the third time is definitely not the charm, with 121 minutes of recycled gags, bad acting and uninspiring action.

This two-disc release may be a top-notch DVD, but I certainly hope you don’t get suckered by a nice transfer, good audio and a whole whack of extras. No matter how well you dress it up, this film’s a walking, talking turd.

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