Posted in: Disc Reviews by David Annandale on November 22nd, 2009
Some thirty years after seeing his father killed by a car bomb, Samir Horn (Don Cheadle) is a dealer in explosives. When he is imprisoned in Yemen along with members of a militant group he was about to make a sale to, he is drawn in and becomes an integral part of the group's terrorist activities. But wait – is he in fact an intelligence agent who has infiltrated the group in order to bring down their leader? Meanwhile, FBI agent Guy Pearce is hot on Samir's trail, but if he catches up, will that be a good thing or a bad one?
Posted in: Disc Reviews by William O'Donnell on November 17th, 2009
This is the comedic tale of a grocery store's young assistant manager (Seann William Scott) who believes he is the prime candidate to take over the soon-to-be built addition to the chain. This leads him to buying a house before the job is secured and lo and behold a hotshot Canadian (John C. Reilly) shows up in town from their sister company and begins campaigning for the job himself.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on September 1st, 2009
Already languishing in the $6.99 bin at my local Blockbuster, and with dismal reviews on its release, my hopes for The Haunting of Molly Hartley were not high. However, after viewing the DVD I can safely report that the movie falls firmly into the ‘not anywhere as awful as I thought it was going to be’ category.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by David Annandale on July 6th, 2009
When Terence Malick's latest effort hit the theatres, he had trimmed it down to 135 minutes. Early critics had seen a version running 150 minutes. This version is longer yet, clocking it at 172 minutes. Most of what I said about the previous DVD release holds, and so I'm reproducing it here, with additional comments as necessary.
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.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by David Annandale on June 4th, 2009
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.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by William O'Donnell on June 1st, 2009
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.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on May 12th, 2009
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.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by William O'Donnell on May 11th, 2009
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.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by David Annandale on May 5th, 2009
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.
