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Lionsgate / Maple Pictures

Chaos

Posted in Disc Reviews by Michael Durr on March 13th, 2008

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Most people like a good heavy dose of action. Guns a blazing, explosions bursting and people’s dead bodies flying in each and every direction. But most people also want something a little more. Perhaps a little suspense or a little who dun it. Or perhaps they are looking for their favorite actor to make a dramatic on-screen performance that will leave them breathless at the door. This lonely review writer loves action but a good dose of story and a well done gotcha at the end means more than the next building that gets blown up. Chaos would prove to have everything I wanted from an action drama and make me believe that there is at least one semi-original story left in Hollywood today.
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Tyler Perry’s House of Payne

Posted in Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on March 4th, 2008

Tyler Perry has created an empire. Stand-up tours… movie studio… and now he’s thrown his hat into television with the sitcom, House of Payne, on TBS. One can’t deny Perry’s power in Hollywood. His movies are constantly at the top of the box office and his stand-up tours are always sold out.

So can Perry make it in what is perhaps the hardest medium to succeed? The sitcom?

Big personalities and powerful people have entered the realm of the sitcom and promptly had their lunch handed to them. Names like George Foreman and Emeril Lagasse come to mind. Luckily for Perry, he’s just a producer on House of Payne so any potential humiliation from cancellation will not be filmed for all to see. But the fact that the show has two seasons already in the books proves that it’s at least somewhat successful. However, the question remains. Is House of Payne any good?
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Right at Your Door

Posted in Disc Reviews by David Annandale on February 22nd, 2008

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Just another working day in Los Angeles. Lexi (Mary McCormack) heads off for the commute, while hubby Brad (Rory Cochrane) stays home. His morning ablutions are interrupted by the news that a series of dirty bombs have just gone off in the city. Stymied in his attempts to reach his wife, Brad retreats home, where he acts on the instructions to seal up the house, as the bombs have released a deadly toxin. When Lexi does return, Brad cannot let her in, as she is contaminated. How’s that for a strain on a relationship?
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Catacombs

Posted in Disc Reviews by David Annandale on February 16th, 2008

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The neurotic Shannyn Sossamon goes to Paris to visit sister Alecia Moore (aka Pink). The outgoing Moore cajoles her mopey sister to attend a party in the city’s catacombs, where the bones of some six million people are stacked. It doesn’t take long before Sossamon becomes separated from her friends, and is pursued by a maniac through the maze of tunnels.
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Saw IV

Posted in Disc Reviews by David Annandale on January 27th, 2008

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Despite being very thoroughly dead, Jigsaw is up to his old games again. This time, SWAT commander Rigg must race against time to rescue to kidnapped fellow officers. Jigsaw’s messages send him all over town, to one gruesome event after another. Meanwhile, the FBI is also on the case, interrogating the killer’s ex-wife, which means the audience finds out quite a bit more about Jigsaw’s backstory.
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Shattered

Posted in Disc Reviews by David Annandale on January 22nd, 2008

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Shattered, whose original (and more original) title was Butterfly on a Wheel, presents us with the household of Gerard Butler and Maria Bello. Life seems idyllic. They have a nice house, a lovely little girl, and the money is flooding in as Butler rises in his career (though his tactics don’t always seem entirely fair). Into their lives erupts Pierce Brosnan, who kidnaps their daughter, then forces the couple to perform one strange act after another, each event destroying their lives further.
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Boy Eats Girl

Posted in Disc Reviews by David Annandale on January 8th, 2008

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Nathan Maguire (David Leon) is having a very bad day. The boneheaded bully at school has it in for him. Jessica (Samantha Mumba), the girl he loves, doesn’t show up for their meeting where he was finally going to declare his feelings, and then he sees her in the car of one of the local studs. Plus he gets soaked in the rain. And just to cap things off, he is accidentally hanged, and his distraught mother performs a voodoo ritual to bring him back from the dead, only the manual was missing a page and he returns as an infectious zombie. Oops.
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Captivity

Posted in Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on January 8th, 2008

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The big thing that gave Captivity the anticipation leading up to its release was a less than studio endorsed billboard showing its star Elisha Cuthbert (24) being tortured before getting killed. The main thing about the film was that Cuthbert had sunk so far downhill after renouncing her dad Jack Bauer. But holy crap, Roland Joffe directed this film! For those who don’t know, Joffe is a two time Oscar nominated director for The Killing Fields and The Mission. But since then, his success arc seemed to fall off the table completely since the mid ‘80s, with contributions like Super Mario Brothers and The Scarlet Letter, even directing an episode of an MTV sitcom. So I guess it’s only natural that he come into the torture horror genre much too late in the game with Captivity.

Skinwalkers

Posted in Disc Reviews by David Annandale on November 24th, 2007

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In the vein of Underworld, here is another tale of warring supernatural societies. In this case, both sides are werewolves (the “skinwalkers” of the title). The good guys seek to protect a 13-year-old boy who represents a cure for lycanthropy. The bad guys, who like turning into monsters, want to kill him to protect themselves. The weapons of choice in this battle? Fangs, you guess. Nuh-uh. Guns.
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Cutting Class (Unrated Version)

Posted in Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on November 9th, 2007

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It’s probably a pretty bad sign when a film’s star makes a public apology to his fans for doing the film just when it is getting released on DVD. Brad Pitt did just that, and you know what? He should be sorry. This film is an absolute mess all the way around. I think it’s supposed to be a slasher film, but there are never any good 1980’s slasher moments to be found. It’s true that at this point in his career Pitt wasn’t exactly being offered the cream of the crop. He wasn’t paling around with George Clooney and friends just yet. So perhaps it’s not Pitt but the folks who made this film who should be apologizing.
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Slow Burn

Posted in Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on October 20th, 2007

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Slow Burn delivers exactly what the title suggests. A whole lotta slow and a little burn. District Attorney Ford Cole (Liotta) is running for Mayor. He’s got a no nonsense reputation for fighting crime. He’s been locked in a near mortal struggle with crime lord Danny Luden, an elusive criminal who has more than once humiliated Cole in the past. His ace assistant, Nora Timmer (Blalock) has just shot a man she claims attempted to rape her. The story begins to unravel when Luther Pinks (LL Cool J) arrives with an alternate story that paints Timmer in a very bad light. The two tales are told through flashbacks and narrative, and it’s left to the audience to come up with the truth. The only problem is the pacing is erratic and often confusing. After an hour and a half of clichés and snail’s pace plot movement, you find yourself too fatigued to give a crap who is playing who anymore.
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Bug

Posted in Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on October 17th, 2007

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Director Peter Bogdanovich has a theory that you can make almost any movie better by cutting the first 20-minutes off of it. Exposition is intended to set-up the background of the characters for the audience, but it usually just ends up slowing things down until the conflict eventually arises. After watching Bug, I would be willing to accept Bogdanovich’s argument, and double it.

Bug is the story of a down-on-her-luck waitress (Ashley Judd, doing her best impression of Charlize Theron from Monster) who lives in a cheap motel and works as a waitress in a honky tonk bar in Oklahoma.
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White Boyz in the Hood

Posted in Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on August 27th, 2007

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Over the course of all of the reality shows out there, someone decided to want to do one with the goal of finding the next big stand up comedian of North America. But with every comic remotely worth something having done at least a stand up special for a television show of some sort, the search to find a decent stand up was a long one, to say the least. And after several “winners”, are any one of them really top shelf material? Of course not.

The Monster Squad (Two-Disc 20th Anniversary Edition)

Posted in Disc Reviews by David Annandale on August 3rd, 2007

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One hundred years after Abraham Van Helsing and allies fail to annihilate Dracula, the vampire arrives in a small American town looking for an amulet that, if destroyed at the prescribed moment, will usher in a reign of darkness. Recruited to aid in this project are versions of the Wolfman, the Frankenstein Monster, the Mummy and the Creature from the Black Lagoon. Opposing Dracula is the titular Monster Squad, a group of monster-crazy boys and one very little (and very adorable) sister, who befriends the Monster.
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Daddy’s Little Girls (Blu-ray)

Posted in Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on August 3rd, 2007

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Monty (Idris Elba, 28 Weeks Later) is a father struggling for custody of his three children. This has become of utmost importance to him especially since his ex wife is involved with a local drug dealer. He enlists the help of attorney Julia (Gabriel Union, Bad Boys 2) to get his children back. Of course sparks begin to fly between the two, and the children seem to take the backseat. Iâ€™ve seen this type of movie way too many times before, and I would be completely content if I didnâ€™t have to again.
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The Dead Zone – The Complete Fifth Season

Posted in Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on August 2nd, 2007

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Having never seen or heard of this program, I had to do a bit of research into the history of this show. Iâ€™ll share my findings with you in case you are new to the series as well. Johnny Smith (Anthony Michael Hall, The Breakfast Club) was involved in a car accident that left him comatose for six years. Upon waking up he has a special gift, when he touches people or things he can see into the future, and sometimes prevent awful things from happening.
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Surf School (Unrated)

Posted in Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on August 1st, 2007

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I can just feel already, what an epic teen comedy Surf School is going to be, much pun intended of course. But appearance isnâ€™t everything and I hope that this film can somehow surprise, as much as I doubt it.

Laguna Beach High School is tough for everyone, especially the outcasts, the non surfers. But when a group of social misfits band together, they decide to beat the schools reigning champions in a surf competition. The group goes to Costa Rica to learn, meeting some interesting people along the way. I bet you can already guess how this one ends, and trust me there are no surprises.
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Daddy’s Little Girls

Posted in Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on August 1st, 2007

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Tyler Perry, best known for Madea’s Family Reunion, is responsible for yet another film in Lionsgate’s line of movies about nice black people. In Daddy’s Little Girls, the writer-director explores the conflict between the ghetto-class African Americans we’ve seen so much of in films and the black middle- and upper-class we haven’t. While this aspect of the conflict is relatively fresh in cinema, what the premise really boils down to isÂ an age-old tale of love between princess and pauper.
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Pride (2007)

Posted in Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on July 24th, 2007

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The latest in Lionsgate’s line of movies about nice black people (see Daddy’s Little Girls and Akeelah and the Bee), Pride presents a well-tread story with a few tweaks.

Its formula is the sports team underdog winning against all odds. The sport is swimming, which I don’t think we’ve seen much of in the past. All of the usual players are here, though: the frustrated coach inspired to lead, the unlikely athletes who are too poor and too black to succeed, the rival team too rich and too white to be beaten, the crusty old guy who helps out and the token love interest for our protagonist coach.
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Lost Room, The (Mini-Series)

Posted in Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on May 1st, 2007

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The Lost Room was a Sci-Fi Channel 3 part mini-series. There are actually 6 separate segments on the DVD. We are quickly introduced to a special old style motel key. Yes, before we all got those slide cards. This key is apparently quite valuable, as it is the subject of an underground meet to purchase it. The deal looks like one of those Hollywood drug buys we’re used to seeing, and like those plays, this one goes horribly awry. Enter Detective Joe Miller (Krause), assigned to deal with the aftermath of this meet. …
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Coming Soon

Posted in Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on April 29th, 2007

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Synopsis

Coming of Age is a film about a girl who goes to private school in New York City, and with the help of her friends, tries to find a way to achieve an orgasm. It sounds eerily family to The OH in Ohio, a more recent Parker Posey film I watched and enjoyed.

The only differences between that film and this one are that Coming Soon was released several years before The OH in Ohio was conceived, but that ironically enough, OH was executed a lot more efficient…
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Gamebox 1.0

Posted in Disc Reviews by Michael Durr on April 28th, 2007

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Synopsis

Video game movies tend to fall into two groups; those that are based on video games (The Tomb Raiders, the Resident Evils) and those that follow video games and usually speaks on how it affects a person, driving their addiction. Often the latter pick it as a device of social commentary. Some do it in humor (Grandma’s Boy) but more often than not they manipulate it as something that will take over your brain and kill you. Enter in Gamebox 1.0. Gamebox 1.0 is the story of a video …
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Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles – Season Four

Posted in Disc Reviews by Michael Durr on April 16th, 2007

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Synopsis

When the original Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles series came out on DVD, they decided to go the 12 episodes on one disk Volume approach. Sure it was only $10, but when you are looking at near 200 episodes and realized that it would 16+ volumes to make it complete, it was a bit overwhelming. Add that to the fact they were only releasing a new volume every 4-6 months, you were looking at well over 5 years to get all of the episodes. Plus some major shelf space. Thank …
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Man About Town

Posted in Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on March 20th, 2007

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Ben Affleck is a good actor. So why does he make so many bad choices? I can understand how mistakes like Pearl Harbor could happen on the front end, but how do you explain the fact that he did wonderful work in Hollywoodland and he shows up in a low-budget film like this one all in the same year? He was wonderful in Good Will Hunting and ate up every scene he was in in Boiler Room. Then he did Gigli. This guy is all over the place.

What’s frustrating is that he’s pretty good…
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The Last Unicorn

Posted in Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on March 16th, 2007

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I can’t say I’m too familiar with The Last Unicorn, I mean overall, animated children’s films were in the midst of a decline in the ’80s. However my wife was more than familiar with it and enjoyed it a lot growing up. And Lion’s Gate has presumably cleaned up the film and thrown some extras on it just in time for the film’s 25th anniversary.

Based on a novel by Peter Beagle and directed by the animation team of Jules Bass and Arthur Rankin (who helped produced such shows as the stop motion of Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer and The Hobbit animated version back in the ’60s and ’70s), the unicorn in question is named, well, Unicorn (voiced by Mia Farrow, The Omen), who walks around rather peacefully in the countryside.
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