Posted in: Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on January 16th, 2004
If your only contact with the original series Lost In Space is the episodes available in syndication ala the Sci-Fi channel then you really don’t know Lost In Space. The first season was a lot different than the final two. The most noticeable difference is that the first season is in black and white. The stories are much less schlock and camp. More Star Trek than SpaceBalls. The cheesy rubber monsters are there, but the characters have a harsher edge to them.
As the season progressed through 29 episodes (Can you imagine having a 29 episode season!) the tone of the later series begins to come through.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by David Annandale on January 15th, 2004
Synopsis
Evan Rachel Wood plays Tracy. As our tale begins, the 13-year-old is still on good terms with her mum (Holly Hunter), and is very much one of the nice girls in junior high. In that environment, you get devoured, and it isn’t long before she resorts to theft to befriend the popular Evie (co-writer Nikki Reed). Cue the rapid descent into crime, sex and drugs.
These are the teen years as chronicled from the lower circles of Hell. The handheld camera matches the high energy...
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on January 13th, 2004
If you are a fan of space flight, this DVD is your holy grail.
While the Spacecraft Films series of releases is full of high-quality products covering the history of space flight, Apollo 11 – Men on the Moon pushes their usual high standards to the outer reaches. The few frustrations that I had with their previous titles have all been remedied here, and the result is an absolutely fantastic DVD set covering every aspect of NASA's famed Apollo 11 mission.
The amount of footage and informatio...
Posted in: Disc Reviews by David Annandale on January 10th, 2004
Synopsis
Cecilia Roth’s husband disappears at the airport. Shortly thereafter, she receives messagesfrom his kidnappers, demanded payment of 20 million pesos. Roth is hugely surprised todiscover that there is that huge sum of money in her husband’s safety deposit box. As the mysterydeepens, she forms fast friendships with an elderly neighbour from downstairs (Carlos AlvarezNovoa) and the young man from upstairs (Kuno Becker).
For the first half-hour, the film shows every pro...
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on January 10th, 2004
Apollo 8 – Leaving the Cradle continues the high standard that Spacecraft Films have set for themselves with their previous NASA-themed releases. While earlier titles examined the early role that rockets played in the ultimate goal of manned space flight, Apollo 8 sees that dream come to fruition.
This three-disc set is an amazing record of that famed mission, and literally all of the footage available in the NASA archives is included here, much of it coming complete with bonus audio. The foot...
Posted in: Disc Reviews by David Annandale on January 3rd, 2004
Synopsis
Loretta Young plays, from all available evidence, a high-class call girl. When her son isknocked down by a truck driven by milk industry tycoon Cary Grant (hardly the “dairy farmer”the blurb says he is), Young tries to extort a huge settlement from the company. The schemebackfires, and she loses custody of her son to Grant and his wife. But Young hasn’t given upyet...
A wildly improbable melodrama, which contorts itself with all kinds of dubious pretzel logic...
Posted in: Disc Reviews by David Annandale on December 30th, 2003
Synopsis
The story begins in occupied Germany, immediately after the end of WWII. American WACAnn Sheridan and French officer Cary Grant are sent on a mission together. They have workedtogether before, and are extremely prickly with each other. Naturally, we know this meansthey are going to fall in love. But Grant, who has already suffered one humiliation after anotherduring the mission, has more to face, this time in the form or US Armed Forces bureaucracy: ifhe wants to tra...
Posted in: Disc Reviews by David Annandale on December 30th, 2003
Synopsis
Cary Grant plays Noah Praetorius, a doctor so deeply humane he puts us all to shame. Hugelypopular at the University where he teaches, he inspires the jealousy of the petty Hume Cronyn,who launches an investigation into his past, hoping to bring Grant down. At the same time, Grantfalls in love with a pregnant, unmarried woman. Her condition is a big deal in 1951 -- hersituation is such that early in the film she tries to kill herself.
Attempted suicide, McCar...
Posted in: Disc Reviews by David Annandale on December 29th, 2003
Synopsis
Andy Crewson (Cary Grant) seems to live for nothing by parties and women. He’s certainlyhad his fill of the horrors of war. Finagling a four-day pass, he and his friends hit San Francisco.There the officer who is charged with keeping track of these hellraisers (Werner Klemperer, laterto be Colonel Klink in Hogan’s Heroes and cutting a odd figure as an American officerwith a noticeable German accent) tries to get the trio to be anti-absenteeism spokesmen for ai...
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on December 20th, 2003
Well, this movie was a let down, and the DVD release is nothing special. Not one of Fox’s better efforts.
The Plot: The Order, disappointingly, turned out to be not much more than a Heath Ledger vehicle, apparently targeted at Goth teenage girls with vaguely Euro pretensions. Without letting out any spoilers, trust me when I say that you’ll be disappointed if you expect anything like what the trailer portrays. The trailer says implies that the Vatican is “..using a killer with supernatural powers to ...
