Posted in: Disc Reviews by David Annandale on September 19th, 2008
Star of song and stage Jeannie Laird (June Haver) returns from a triumphant tour to settle down in her new suburban home. Next door is widowed cartoonist Bill Carter (Dan Dailey), and sparks fly between the glamorous star and the low-key nice guy. The course of true love doesn’t run smoothly, however, due to Bill’s son Joe (Billy Gray, of The Day the Earth Stood Still), who doesn’t take kindly to the new woman in his father’s life.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on September 19th, 2008
The character of Charlie Chan was created by writer Earl Derr Biggers in 1925 in the book A House Without A Key. He based the character on real life
Posted in: Disc Reviews by David Annandale on September 11th, 2008
A mixture of biopic and musical, this vehicle stars Susan Hayward as Jane Froman, an incredibly popular singing star in the 40s who had to battle back from terrible wounds suffered in a plane crash after her first performance for American troops overseas during WWII. The film begins with Froman’s triumphant comeback, and flashes back to the events leading up to this. The pic is efficiently put together, and Hayward’s lip-synching (Froman dubbed in her own singing) is unusually convincing. But the crash itself is disappointingly undramatic.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on July 14th, 2008
It’s not that these fantasy-epic films that feature a young child in the starring roles bore me, it goes to the larger notion that Hollywood will remake every child’s fantasy novel into some sort of cinematic product, so a buck or two can be made. For every Harry Potter, there’s a Golden Compass or even Spiderwick Chronicles. The well is rapidly running dry, and you needn’t look much further than The Seeker: The Dark is Rising, a film about a young lonely boy who finds himself in circumstances and an adventure beyond what he might initially suspect. Wait, doesn’t that sound like EVERY children’s movie lately?
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Michael Durr on July 7th, 2008
If you read my recent review of Bender's Big Score, you'll know I wasn't exactly thrilled by Futurama's first dvd movie. But like many things (such as relationships and less than average presidents), you always want to give it a second chance. Bender, Fry, Leela & others are fantastic characters and perhaps with the first film, they just had a bump in the road. We, as viewers know they can do better. They just have to steer clear of disgusting & annoying villains as well as confusing plots. Let's hope that it holds together for the solid ninety minutes and see what pans out.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Michael Durr on July 6th, 2008
Futurama is one of my favorite cartoon shows. When it was cancelled a few years back, I went ahead and collected the four fine dvd season sets and proceeded to watch them whenever I had time. Truth is, if you are a nerd like me, Futurama is much funnier than the Simpsons and deserved much more than seventy two episodes. Somebody listened. The people at Fox decided there was more life to Futurama and ordered up four straight to dvd movies which will be cut up among sixteen episodes for a fifth season. The first one is titled: Bender's Big Score. Here is hoping that the plot isn't Bender getting involved with a larger female robot (I think he already did that in a previous episode).
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Michael Durr on June 23rd, 2008
Spoof movies have been wearing on me for the last few years. Complete travesties such as Date Movie & Epic Movie have soured my look on a favorite genre of mine. Where were the Mel Brooks classics or the Scary Movie series that I remember so well? Smart comedy and well done jokes about movies we have come to love. So, I'll admit when I saw the Comebacks on DVD, all I could see was red and think the torture that was Epic Movie. I wanted to believe it could be as smart and zany as Blazing Saddles or at least in the same league as Scary Movie 3 or 4. I would hope that director Tom Brady would restore my faith in this once awesome genre.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on June 23rd, 2008
It's not that video game movies are bad because they are based on video games -- things that are usually void of character development and plot in favor of cheap thrills -- it's just that they've mostly been handled by hacks, from the director down to the caterer. This usually makes the movie about as tedious as the filmed vignettes you're forced to watch in between the video game's levels.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on June 19th, 2008
Resurrecting The Champ claims to be “inspired” by a true story written by J.R. Moehringer for the Los Angeles Times Magazine. I’m not very well versed in the original story, so I won’t bore you with any attempt to justify the film against actual events. I only hope that the real Moehringer wasn’t a tenth the idiot that Erik is in this film. Perhaps so close on the heels of the Tomase Spygate fiasco it’s not as hard to believe that a reporter could be this gullible.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on June 14th, 2008
Katherine Heigl gets her Juila Roberts on in the romantic comedy 27 Dresses as Jane, a friendly woman who can't say no to planning weddings for the many people she knows. Ever since she was young she's loved weddings, even though she doesn't seem to have the time to find a future groom of her own. She's in love with her boss, George (Edward Burns), but when Jane's sister Tess (Malin Akerman) drops in for a visit, Tess and George fall in love and before Jane knows it, they're engaged to be married and she's planning their wedding. Let the cliched rom-com hijinks begin!
