Posted in: Disc Reviews by David Annandale on September 20th, 2003
Synopsis
Catherine Keener and Emily Mortimer are the neurotic daughters inevitably produced bytheir neurotic mother Brenda Blethyn. Keener is trying (unsuccessfully) to sell her art (tiny chairsmade of twigs). Mortimer is a desperately insecure actor. Blethyn is about to undergo liposuction,which isn't going to help with the body image of her young, African-American adopted daughter.All the men these women are involved with are jerks, but Keener's life takes an unexpected turnwhen, ...
Posted in: Disc Reviews by David Annandale on September 16th, 2003
Synopsis
In 1924, a mysterious death occurred on a yacht owned by newspaper tycoon WilliamRandolph Hearst. This story imagines what might have happened amongst the variousHollywood luminaries who were aboard that ship. Along with Hearst and his young lover MarioDavies (Kirsten Dunst) are (among others) Charlie Chaplin (Eddie Izzard), writer Elinor Glyn(Joanna Lumley) and up-and-coming gossip columnist Louella Parsons (Jennifer Tilly). Jealousyand deception are the order of the day a...
Posted in: Disc Reviews by David Annandale on August 12th, 2003
Synopsis
Eighteen duets, many never seen since their original broadcast. Here is Sinatra along withsuch luminaries as Ella Fitzgerald, Peggy Lee, Louis Armstrong, Ethel Merman, Bing Crosby,Dean Martin, Elvis Presley, and so on, and so on. In between each song are laudatory commentsby Sinatra’s children Nancy, Tina and Frank Jr.
Audio
The sound is mono, which is to be expected: these are recordings from the late 50's-early60's. Don’t expect miracles here -- t...
Posted in: Disc Reviews by David Annandale on August 12th, 2003
Synopsis
Michael Kremko plays Adam, dashing young priest. Nadia Mansouri is a young woman whohas a crush on him. Her name is Eve. Get it? If you don’t, Jake Simons as a gay dancechoreographer helpfully points out the symbolism for us. Sure enough, Adam is tempted from thestraight and true path and begins a torrid affair with Eve. The jealous Simons starts underminingthe two characters. The dialogue is banal, even as it has pretensions to deal with Really BigIssues of faith and free ...
Posted in: Disc Reviews by David Annandale on July 7th, 2003
Synopsis
The central premise is that luck is a real force, a gift that people are born with but can betaken away. Deep in the bowels of a mysterious casino (one that sits in the middle of mountainwasteland) lives Max Von Sydow in Howard Hughes-like seclusion. He appears to be the darkgod of luck, capable of stealing any trace of your like by a single touch, and this is precisely whathe does to a protege who wants to strike out on his own. This latter, deprived of his own luck,seeks ...
Posted in: Disc Reviews by David Annandale on June 22nd, 2003
Jared Leto plays Basil, youngest son of the tyrannical Derek Jacobi. Traumatized by the death of his mother when he was young, the exile of his brother (who dallied with a young woman beneath his station), and oppressed by a father for whom class consciousness is the be-all and end-all, Basil is barely equipped to deal with the outside world. He has no friends, and only the most naive notions of romance. Into his life comes Christian Slater, whose worldly ways inspire Leto, and ...
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on June 15th, 2003
Synopsis
A knock on your door in the middle of the night can change your life forever for Kathryn Lyons this knock comes after her husband’s plane crashes off the coast of Ireland. As the investigation starts to piece together that there was an explosion on board and that her husband may have had something to do with it here perfect life starts to unravel. As she starts to look into her husbands life in an attempt to clear his name she starts to discover that she really did not know her husband at al...
Posted in: Disc Reviews by David Annandale on June 4th, 2003
Synopsis
The film is set during American Thanksgiving, and follows the holiday experience of fourseparate families. The effect is not unlike Robert Altman Lite, as all four families live in thesame neighbourhood, and sometimes cross paths, though these interfamily connections remaintangential. This is a vision of melting pot LA, with our families being Latino, Vietnamese,African-American and Jewish, each re-interpreting the WASP holiday through the prism of theirown experiences.
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Posted in: Disc Reviews by David Annandale on June 4th, 2003
Synopsis
It is 1907. Musicology professor Lily Penleric (Janet McTeer), unjustly passed over forpromotion, leaves the city to stay with her schoolteacher sister in the Appalachians. There sheexperiences revelations of various kinds. She discovers traditional Irish and Scottish ballads,altered but recognizable, still living vibrant folk lives. She also finds her superior, urban anduptight attitudes slowly but surely demolished by the people around her. The most importantperson she me...
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on June 1st, 2003
Synopsis
For reasons never properly explained, a prehistoric tiger is cloned and, for reasons that areexplained but are dumb, escapes into the mountains. It is tracked by those responsible for itscreation (John Rhys-Davies and Vanessa Angel) and a big-game hunter (David Keith).Meanwhile, a group of hikers is about to run into trouble. The dialogue is hackneyed when itisn’t dumb, Angel’s accent fluctuates mysteriously, the characters are largely idiots, and themonster is created by b...
