HBO

Big Love – The Complete First Season

Posted in Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on October 30th, 2006

Synopsis

Bill Paxton is a polygamist. He and his three wives (Jeanne Tripplehorn, Chloë Sevigny and Ginnifer Goodwin) and their children live in three adjoined houses, and must constantly be careful not to let the secret of their lifestyle be revealed. That might be stress enough, but Paxton is having trouble keeping up on the sexual front, there is tension and competition between the wives (Tripplehorn is the alpha, Sevigny is manipulative and a shopaholic, Goodwin is insecure), and one of his fathe…
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Boffo! Tinseltown’s Bombs & Blockbusters

Posted in Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on October 22nd, 2006

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Boffo! Tinseltown’s Bombs & Blockbusters is all about the magic of movies. It’s about doing it right and doing it wrong, and how there’s no sure thing. This HBO documentary doesn’t get very technical about making films, but it certainly does get personal with some of Hollywood’s heaviest hitters.

Through a well-crafted collection of interviews and clips from some of the best and worst movies of American cinema, this documentary brings us the perspectives of folks like Steven Spielberg, George Clooney…
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They All Laughed

Posted in Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on October 9th, 2006

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Peter Bogdanovich’s The All Laughed is a classy, bittersweet film. It’s plot is pretty thin, but here’s the gist: a New York City private detective agency is hired to keep tabs on two women suspected of infidelity. Things get interesting when the gumshoes on the trail begin falling for their lovely targets.

The best part of this film is its cast. Audrey Hepburn, Ben Gazzara, John Ritter, Dorothy Stratten, Patti Hansen, Colleen Camp, Blaine Novak and George Morfogen all fit their parts so well, it’s not surprising to learn in the bonus material that Bogdanovich wrote the parts with exactly these actors in mind.
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Cedric the Entertainer – Taking You Higher

Posted in Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on October 8th, 2006

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Cedric the Entertainer – Taking You Higher is Cedric’s first solo HBO Comedy Special. He made his mark in the biz as a top-notch, critically acclaimed stand-up comedian, and has also appeared in a series of lackluster films like Be Cool and Big Momma’s House. I don’t think many would argue against the assertion that Cedric is at his best on stage, doing stand-up.

For proof, look to this hour-long HBO Special. Cedric the Entertainer lives up to his name in this show, which offers up about four parts stand-up, one part song and dance.
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Notorious Bettie Page, The

Posted in Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on September 30th, 2006

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Synopsis

The film opens with the Senate pornography hearings of the 1950s, which cracked down on bondage-movie purveyor Irving Klaw. As Bettie Page (Gretchen Mol) waits to be called to testify, she flashes back to the events that brought her to this point. After an abusive childhood in Tennessee, a failed marriage and a gang rape, she flees to New York, where she becomes first a glamour model, and eventually the most highly sought-after bondage queen.

Director Mary Harron returns to her bel…
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Oz – The Complete Sixth Season

Posted in Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on September 21st, 2006

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Synopsis

This is it. The finale. The many twists and turns and intricate plotlines of the series finally get wrapped up. If you haven’t been watching the series from the start, much resonance will be lost, but the last season is still comprehensible. For those in the know, this is where many of the stories come to some form of end. The battle between Schillinger and Beecher, for instance, has its final act during a performance of Macbeth, and that is precisely the kind of literate, neat, contrived, …
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Love for Rent

Posted in Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on September 14th, 2006

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Synopsis

The best I can gather from watching Love For Rent is that there’s only one recognizable face to speak of. The problem is that the face in question is Saturday Night Live cast member Nora Dunn, who was only moderately funny on the show, but sank her career when she boycotted the appearance of Andrew Dice Clay in the early 1990s. Now that the times have changed, have the sensibilities moved closer to Dunn’s?

Well to quote Whitney Houston, “hell to the no”. Dunn plays Helen, wi…
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Curb Your Enthusiasm – The Complete Fifth Season

Posted in Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on September 12th, 2006

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Synopsis

Larry David plays Larry David, so thorough a narcissistic curmudgeon that he would be completely and utterly loathsome were it not for his unerring propensity to bring disaster down upon his head. Once again, we see him grump from episode to episode, never failing to make the worst possible decision at the worst possible moment in every social situation. A case in point: he dings another character’s car, gives the guy money to get the car fixed. Instead, the money goes to the man’s daughter,…
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Mrs. Harris

Posted in Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on September 7th, 2006

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Jean Harris made international headlines in 1980 for killing her on again off again lover and fiancée. Of course, such crimes are rather commonplace and would hardly merit all the attention let alone a feature film. The victim, however, in this case, was the famous Dr. Herman “Hi” Tarnower, better known to you and me as the “Scarsdale Diet Doctor”. The film claims to base its script on actual testimony from the well publicized trial. While this may in principle be true, the tale is obviously intended as a satire. T…
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Rome – The Complete First Season

Posted in Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on September 6th, 2006

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What is it about The Roman Empire that fascinates us so? The answer is far too complicated to address in this forum, if you can pardon the pun. The influences of Rome are all around us. From the very form of government we practice to the grand arenas we watch our ballgames in, Rome can be found literally around every corner. Hollywood has recognized the allure since the early days of filmmaking. Classics like Ben Hur and Spartacus eventually gave way to the more modern epic Gladiator.

It is 52 BC and…
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Elizabeth I

Posted in Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on September 5th, 2006

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Synopsis

Maybe it’s because of their funny accents, or maybe it’s because of the natural desire to see ancient history relived, but the British sure have a knack for their period piece dramas and making everyone want to watch. And when Elizabeth I aired on HBO over a two-part miniseries during the spring of 2006, it won a truckload of Emmy awards, not only for the production, but also for the title character, played by Helen Mirren (Excalibur) and one of the supporting actors (Jeremy Irons,
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Tracey Takes On: The Complete Second Season

Posted in Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on August 15th, 2006

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There is a little more Tracey to go around with Tracey Takes On: The Complete Second Season, so fans of the show shouldn’t be disappointed. However, I find her humor quaint and dry in an inescapably British way. No one can deny her talent. But it’s hard to like a show when none of the laughs are connecting. Of course, humor – like beauty – is certainly in the eye of the beholder. With that said, I am not one of the lucky ones that can look at this raw oyster of a show and see the pearl. This season, Ullman inc…
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Tristram Shandy – A Cock and Bull Story

Posted in Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on August 15th, 2006

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Tristram Shandy is the oddest and most entertaining sort of film. It is a film about the making of the film that you are watching, hosted by the fictional main character. It is sort-of like American Splendor, and sort-of like Spinal Tap. The film is the story of the life of Tristram Shandy, an 18th century Englishman of particularly stately means. The man’s life is of note and worthy of such a film because… well, now that I think of it… I don’t really know. You see, there are so many interruptions and different takes during the film that the actors are trying to make, that the viewer never really learns anything.
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Bill Maher – New Rules

Posted in Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on July 30th, 2006

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This is a really odd idea for a DVD release. In Bill Maher’s HBO television show, Real Time with Bill Maher, he does a short segment called New Rules. This segment is mostly made up of one-liner jokes that take shots at celebrities and the Bush administration. Each segment runs less than a minute, and this disc contains every one of them from the show’s three seasons.

The jokes themselves are funny enough, but my big complaint is that this entire disc just plays like one big overblown special feature.
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Dennis Miller – All In

Posted in Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on July 28th, 2006

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Synopsis

For the longest time, Dennis Miller was known as the guy who could subreference unlike any other comedian, with tactical precision and timing long before anyone had heard of the Gilmore Girls. While some of the material may have been a bit redundant, he certainly put a spin to it unlike any other.

Then the events of September 11 happened, and the predominant opinion is that Miller went for smart comic (and a failed stint on Monday Night Football) to a Fox News loving, Democratic/liberal l…
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Carnivale – The Complete Second Season

Posted in Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on July 26th, 2006

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The truth may never come out as to why HBO cancelled Carnivale after the show’s second season. They claim that it was a combination of decreased ratings and rising production costs equaling $2 million an episode. What doesn’t make sense, however, is that the network also admits that they received as many as 50,000 emails in a single weekend following the cancellation announcement. The facts also show that they followed up this show that was “too expensive to be profitable” with Rome, a show that has been widely recognized as the most expensive television series ever produced.

Legends in Pinstripes

Posted in Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on June 28th, 2006

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I’m a lucky guy. I was able to witness the game of baseball before we all became so jaded. While I wasn’t born early enough to have enjoyed Mantle, The Babe, or Joltin’ Joe, I was fortunate enough to watch the likes of Mike Schmidt. Mike stayed 18 years with one team. He never held out and was always responsible in his public persona. Oh, and he ended up being considered the best 3rd baseman of all time in nearly every millennium poll conducted. It is this experience growing up with Schmitty and his like that make these stories feel much closer to home than younger kids are likely to feel.
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Thinking XXX

Posted in Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on June 8th, 2006

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Synopsis

Photographer Timothy Greenfield-Sanders decided to do a series of portraits of some 30 porn stars. Two pictures of each, one clothed, one not, the same pose in both pictures. This is his documentary of that shoot. Scenes of the studio process are intercut with interviews with the various stars and talking-head moments from the likes of Karen Finley, Gore Vidal, John Waters and Whitley Streiber (!). We are at the other end of the porn spectrum from Dag Yngvesson’s Rated X – these are t…
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Everybody Loves Raymond – Complete Sixth Season

Posted in Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on May 30th, 2006

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Everybody Loves Raymond – The Complete Sixth Season comes to DVD in an impressive 5-disc edition. As a newbie to this fine series, I was surprised – and thrilled – to see the widescreen presentation. It is a nicety not often given to TV shows, and it looks spectacular, but I’m getting a little ahead of myself here. The show, as a lot of you know, is about sports writer Ray Barone, and his nut-job parents, who live directly across the street. One must either appreciate Ray Romano’s humor, or experience the same…
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Duane Hopwood

Posted in Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on May 20th, 2006

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Synopsis

Duane Hopwood (David Schwimmer) works as a casino pit boss in Atlantic City, and is an alcoholic. His drinking has already cost him his marriage, and now ex-wife Janeane Garofalo is having to face the possibility of curtailing his visitation rights after he drives drunk with his young daughter in the back seat. After he makes a bad call at work, his job is in jeopardy as well. But there is hope for redemption still.

Roger Ebert calls this a “career-transforming performance.” Hardly…
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Six Feet Under – Complete Fifth Season, The

Posted in Disc Reviews by David Annandale on April 20th, 2006

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Synopsis

I’m late coming to this series about a fractious family and the funeral home they run. These are the first episodes I’ve ever seen, so I’m not going to pretend I have the faintest idea what’s going on here. All the various plot lines are clearly working to a conclusion, and for the benefit of those who know these characters, some of the things that are dealt with are James Cromwell’s depression and the difficulty in treating it, and the imminent arrival of a baby (which sets up the final epi…
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David Spade – Take the Hit

Posted in Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on April 13th, 2006

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This was David Spade’s first HBO special from 1998. Following in the footsteps of giants like George Carlin and Rodney Dangerfield, he somewhat misses the mark here. For some reason Spade displays a serious lack of energy. The real hook for this show was his return to the Tempe Improv where he got his start in his home town. This is still your basic stand-up comedy concert. On Spade’s hit list are such topics as: Dating, Hotels, Parents, and Fast Food Workers. It’s not until about the last 12 minutes that some real…
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Naked World

Posted in Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on March 13th, 2006

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Most of the time, I’m a pretty big fan of HBO’s documentaries, so you can imagine my disappointment when I had to sit through the overly long 76 minutes of Naked World, which follows attention-hungry tit-bag Spencer Tunick, as he embarks on a world tour to find idiots wanting to pose for him. They all have their reasons why they’re baring all for the handful of people, who watch this documentary, but the underlying reason is – much like that of Tunick himself – attention. These lunatics may have even convinced…
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Death in Gaza

Posted in Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on March 11th, 2006

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Synopsis

The first time I became acquainted with the work of documentarian James Miller and reporter Saira Shah was when I first saw the documentary Beneath the Veil some years back, shortly after the September 11th attacks. It was an unnerving and powerful look at life in the Taliban-led area of Afghanistan, where women were brutalized and humiliated beyond comprehension.

Miller had done some work in other countries with similar dangerous environments, and in 2003 with Shah’s help, he unde…
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Soldiers in the Army of God

Posted in Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on March 4th, 2006

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Not only is HBO not afraid of controversial programming, they actually embrace it. It is widely believed that the two topics that cause the most tension among people is politics and religion. Maybe that’s why abortion is such a hot-button issue. No other topic simultaneously evokes such strong political and theological views. Solders in the Army of God is an HBO original documentary that takes a close look look at the “Army of God” organization, the most violent anti-abortion group in the United States.

Now, my interest is not to share my personal beliefs on the subject of abortion, or to try to persuade others to share my viewpoints.
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