Posted in: Disc Reviews by David Annandale on September 3rd, 2003
Synopsis
Posted in: Disc Reviews by David Annandale on August 27th, 2003
Synopsis
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on July 11th, 2003
Joyously unhinged and very inventive, O Brother Where Art Thou? is the latest film from the imaginative minds of the Coen brothers. Based very roughly (and loosely) on Homer’s “Odyssey”, it’s a Depression-era musical about three convicts who escape from a chain gang to unearth a buried treasure, get one of the men home to be reunited with his wife, become overnight musical sensations as “The Soggy Bottom Boys”, and at the same time, elude a bloodthirsty team of Mississippi lawmen. For those of you who don’t ...uite remember Homer’s tale, it doesn’t really matter too much here. However, for those interested in a quick history lesson, Homer composed “The Odyssey” around 700 B.C. as the epic poem takes place over a decade and focuses on Odysseus (aka Ulysses) and his journey home to his wife Penelope after fighting in the Trojan War.
The main character is a loquacious, debonair fellow named Ulysses Everett McGill (George Clooney) who is part of a Mississippi chain gang during the Depression. When he's not slicking back his locks with Dapper Dan hair pomade, admiring the pencil-line precision of his Smilin' Jack mustache, or squeezing nine-dollar words out of his 50-cent brain, he continually thinks he has it all figured out. Ulysses uses the lure of a bogus hidden treasure to con two of his simple-minded chain-gang buddies into escaping with him. He takes charge of this gang because, as he tells his cohorts, he “has the capacity for abstract thought”. Our other tragic heroes in this tale are Pete Hogwallop (John Turturro) and Delmar O'Donnel (Tim Blake Nelson), who make a getaway that seems far easier than the one Ulysses himself made from the ashes of Troy. Out on the lam, they encounter a series of obstacles and lucky breaks, bizarre characters and aberrations of nature.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by David Annandale on June 21st, 2003
Made for TV (and showing it, what with that jarring fade-to-black exactly 20 minutes in),this film tells the story of a group of men trapped together in a coal mine when they suddenly strike water and their claustrophobic environments floods. We cut back and forth between their struggle to survive, the struggle to reach them, and the experience of their wives and families. At times, what, precisely, is happening in the mine is a bit hard to follow, though the realism is quite strong.
Audio
Posted in: Disc Reviews by David Annandale on June 19th, 2003
Dracula II drops all the characters from Dracula 2000, fudges the ending of that film, but retains the central idea of Dracula in fact being Judas Iscariot, cursed with eternal life. This time around, his sunlight-burned body is recovered by a group of grad students and their crippled professor with the hope of finding a miracle cure from the regenerative qualities of vampire blood. Meanwhile, a vampire-hunting priest named Uffizi (Jason Scott Lee, no more improbable as Italian than he was as Irish in Tale of the Mummy) is on the trail of Dracula (with minor help from Roy Scheider, putting in a few seconds of screen time). Within the limited budget, the story has admirable ambitions, and it skips along at a good pace. Character motivation is a bit hazy at times, however. As well, you’re much better off renting this and Dracula III at the same time,because the story here is very incomplete, leaving viewers hanging in much the same way (all proportions retained) as The Two Towers and The Matrix Reloaded.
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Posted in: Disc Reviews by David Annandale on June 13th, 2003
Essentially, this is standard Hulk stuff: Bruce Banner wants to stop his horrible transformation, General Ross wants to kill the Hulk, Betty Ross wants to save the man she loves,and all sorts of villains get into the mix. There is a bit more continuity than in some other TV cartoon fare (though not on the level of, say, Gargoyles). The animation is standard TV stuff.Keeping the commercial breaks in so obviously wasn’t necessary, I have to say.
Audio
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on June 9th, 2003
Synopsis
The follow-up to Jackie Chan’s Project A, Dragon Mao returns to Hong Kong after defeating Pirate Lo on the high seas. Dragon is assigned to lead the local police force and finds that police corruption is running wild. Framed for a jewelry robbery he must fight for his freedom and his life against a group of spies, pirates and revolutionaries.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on June 1st, 2003
As Al Pacino constantly reminds us in The Recruit, nothing is ever as it seems. This film, while not a great effort, is vintage Pacino. Strong performances are also to be found from Colin Farrell and Bridget Moynahan, but as usual it is Pacino who steals the show. The Recruit is actually two different films in one. The first half is an intruding look at CIA training at the fabled “farm”. Once the training ends, an effective spy/counterspy plot takes over that won’t lose momentum. You’ll find enough surprises to keep even the most irritating “I knew it” viewers quiet for much of the film.
Synopsis
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on May 18th, 2003
Synopsis
In 24 hours Monty Brogan is going to prison for seven years, with his last day of freedom he tries to set his life straight. Once a king of New York with easy access to the best clubs Monty has alienated his friends and family with his lifestyle that he must now say goodbye to. He has dinner with his father and goes out clubbing with his two best friends and his girlfriend Naturelle (who he thinks may have been the one who pinched him). With time running out Monty must do everything he can t... make things right with those closest to him before ho goes away.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on May 13th, 2003
Synopsis
An ancient artifact causes the body of the most popular girl in high school to be switched with that of a low life 30 year old male. She finds that life in a man’s body is not so easy and she needs to convince her friends that it is really her and figure out how to switch her body back. This is probably the best Rob Schneider film to date, full of cameos form the likes of Adam Sandler.
