Posted in: Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on May 17th, 2006
The Producers has taken an almost cinematic storyline of its own. In 1967 Mel Brooks filmed this tale with one of his mainstays, Gene Wilder. The film was a modest success. It was as a Broadway production that this material reached a wide audience. The play has been a hit for decades now. It only seems inevitable that a new film would surface. This 2005 version of the story is closer to the stage production than the original film. There are quite a few more musical numbers, and that’s essentially where this film goes wrong. What works as a stage production will not necessarily work as a feature film. Everything about this movie is over the top except its heart. Nathan Lane and Matthew Broderick reprise their stage roles of Bialystock and Bloom with different results. Broderick appears to have gotten so comfortable with the role that he seems to be sleepwalking through it for the film. Lane, on the other hand, carries the film on his very broad shoulders. His mannerisms recall Lou Costello. His voice is actually quite remarkable and is the highlight of any of the numbers he’s in. The addition of Uma Thurman as a Swedish bombshell feels forced on so many levels, from her horrible accent to her mismatched chemistry with Broderick’s Bloom.
The 40 year old story still has potential that falls short in this film. Bialystock and Bloom are attempting to produce a Broadway flop. Why? Because if you can pull in enough investor cash and close after one day, you can walk away with millions of dollars. They set out to find the worst play and hire the bottom of the heap. What can go wrong? How can a pro-Nazi production called “Springtime For Hitler” not crash and burn on opening day? If it’s a Mel Brooks written plot, you can count on everything going wrong, and of course, the play becomes a hit. The film picks up a bit when the “Springtime For Hitler” show is finally underway. Still, the film is overlong at 2 hours and 15 minutes. Some of the numbers drag on pointlessly. The film was intended to bring the Broadway experience to the film’s audience, but it fails at almost every turn.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on May 16th, 2006
What's a boy to do when he is called into work and has to work a graveyard shift and is virtually disallowed to access the internet? Why, watch the first and second seasons of Wings of course, and thoroughly enjoy the wild antics of the folks in an airport on Nantucket Island. You have Joe (Tim Daly, Return to Sender), the uptight anal retentive serious one, along with his younger brother (and general goofball) Brian (Steven Weber, At First Sight). Together they own and operate Sandpiper Air, a sleepy small airline with one plane. They have a customer service attendant, the former stewardess Fay (Rebecca Schull, Analyze This). Their mutual friend is a woman named Helen (Crystal Bernard, Young Doctors in Love) who runs a small kitchen, and there's an airport handyman named Lowell (Thomas Haden Church, Sideways). Together, their lives (and the wacky people and occurrences that happen to them) compose the hi-larious situation comedy that was created by those who helped previously shape Cheers and who would later shape the long-running show Frasier.
The first thing that surprised me about the show when I was doing some research on it was that it ran for so long, going from 1990-1997. Seasons One and Two encompass this four disc set, with 7 episodes on each disc. The episodes focus on Joe and Brian's continuous flirtation with Helen, who resists because of a rule she has about not dating pilots, but that rule lasts about a season and a half. Some of the laughs are OK, but the problem with the show living in its era is that some of the jokes are topical references and really show the age of things.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on May 16th, 2006
Perhaps the folks at MTV thought that Wildboyz was doing so well, that they figured that maybe they should fly the boys out to even more remote locations, but that they should include some old Jackass members also. And sure enough, in the second season of Wildboyz, both Wee Man and Johnny Knoxville show up for guest starring roles and accompany the boys as they travel to Indonesia, Africa, Brazil and Costa Rica, to name a few places.
I'm pretty sure I'm not spoiling it for those who haven't seen it, but there's very little surprise involved. You've got Party Boy, Chris Pontius, and Steve O, both travelling to exotic locations to encounter animals, the locals in those areas, and to get drunk off the indigenous moonshine.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on May 16th, 2006
To say that director Danny Boyle has quite an eclectic resume for his directing filmography may be a bit of an understatement. After an impressive first feature in Shallow Grave, he moved on to the cult classic film about heroin addiction called Trainspotting. From there he took an interesting part for a film called A Life Less Ordinary, followed by directing a hot commodity named Leonardo DiCaprio in The Beach. He took on an interesting zombie film called 28 Days Later, and that brings him up to the children's film(?) called Millions.
Written by Frank Cottrell Boyce (Code 46), Millions tells the story of Damian and Anthony, who live with their father Ronnie, who is a recent widower. Damian and Anthony are both kids (7 and 9, respectively), and are even more isolated when Ronnie moves into a new suburb in England. Damian finds solace is his knowledge of saints, specifically their lives and what they did to qualify for sainthood. He takes some of the moving boxes and sets up a makeshift playhouse in the backyard away from the house, near some train tracks.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on May 16th, 2006
Are we that jaded a country when a movie like Cinderella Man can be somewhat ignored during its theatrical run, and yet when it still garners the occasional award nomination as it did last winter, people snort, "Well, it's just your usual manipulative dramatic crap". Yeah? So what? For god's sake, take a look at what plays during the summer. Did we honestly need a remake of When a Stranger Calls?
Written by Akiva Goldsman and directed by Ron Howard (both from A Beautiful Mind), Cinderella Man tells the story of James J. Braddock (Russell Crowe, also from A Beautiful Mind, heavyweight champion in the '20s and '30s. He was on top of the world, married to a beautiful wife (Renee Zellweger, Chicago), and had two kids, and lived in a nice house in New Jersey. Then the Depression hit, and it hit everyone hard. Braddock and his family were forced out of their home and lived in poverty. Braddock still fought occasionally through the years, but began to break down physically, and it got to a point where his skills had deteriorated so much, that his boxing license was taken away. He was left without the basic means to support his family, so he went to the docks to look for work. A proud man, he never asked for money or for public assistance. When he did, it's viscerally heartbreaking to see such a stoic man break down and ask for a hand.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on May 15th, 2006
Jim Henson was a creative genius. Who among us hasn’t grown up with his immortal Sesame Street characters? In the years leading up to his untimely death from pneumonia, The Henson Creature Shoppe had begun to expand out of its Muppet roots. The Dark Crystal was an amazing breakthrough in puppetry technology. One of Henson’s last ideas was about a family of dinosaurs. Sadly, Henson passed before his vision could be fully realized. Fortunately for us his son Brian has continued the Henson tradition, beginning with Dinosaurs.
This was no ordinary sitcom. Each character was a sophisticated animated puppet as well as a suit performer. In all, it took four people to bring each character to life. Combined with the familiar voice talents of the likes of Sally Struthers and Sherman Hemsley, a “man in a suit”, and 2 animatronics puppeteers, these hysteric prehistoric characters were brought remarkably to life. Like The Flintstones, Dinosaurs was modeled after the popular 50’s comedy The Honeymooners. Earl was very much a Jackie Gleason clone from his “king of my castle” attitude to his bulky frame. Like Ralph, Earl had a meek and somewhat simple minded pal. Roy was as much an Art Carney clone as Earl was Ralph Kramden. Even Roy’s voice echoed Norton The show diverged from its Honeymooner roots with the addition of two children. Robbie was very much a rebel against the sins of his society. Charlene was the typical valley girl who cared more about the latest fashions than anything else. Fran, the mother, was a somewhat modern woman who still managed to juggle independence with traditional roles. Finally the best laughs and lines came from newly arrived Baby Sinclair. His “:Not the momma” , “Again!” and “Gotta love me” chants became pop culture mainstays.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on May 15th, 2006
Synopsis
Her hands covered in blood, a distraught-beyond-coherence Julianne Moore wanders into a hospital with a story of being carjacked in a predominantly black housing project area. Detective Samuel L. Jackson, assigned to the case, learns from her that her young son is apparently still in the car. Given that her brother is a cop in the adjoining white area, all hell breaks loose and racial tensions threaten to send an explosive situation into terminal meltdown. But the question is whether there i... more to Moore’s story than there at first seems.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on May 14th, 2006
Here's the dilemma with these kinds of movies; it's hard to successfully fit a hard R story into a PG-13 package. Usher is a big draw in the under-18 market, so the challenge is to take a strong dramatic story and mold it to hit that balance between Hard Eight and Raise Your Voice. However, I have said it before, and here we go yet again... movies that try to appeal to everybody will successfully appeal to nobody. This is a movie that is a bit too racy and violent for your average 12-year-old girl, but way too soft for adults.
The plot is the same kind of thing you have seen time and time again. Usher plays a Hip-Hop DJ trying to break into the music business on a national scale. One night at a party, he saves the life of his friend's father, who is a Mafia boss. As a result of his heroism, he is made to be the bodyguard of the boss' daughter (despite the fact that he has no experience in such a role). Naturally, he soon falls in love with the bosses' daughter, and a conflict of interest ensues.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on May 13th, 2006
When Ridley Scott’s latest epic Kingdom of Heaven was released for common viewing in May 2005 at 145 minutes, critics either really liked the film, or where really dissatisfied with the film. Audiences, it seemed, tended to agree with the latter critics as the film only grossed $47 Million Dollars, which was a dissapointment considering the film had a budget well over $100 Million. Rumors started to fly, as with any big epic, that Scott was forced to slash the film’s running time to not only make audiences ha...py, but more importantly make 20th Century Fox happy. Well, the rumors have been confirmed as we are now being treated to Kingdom of Heaven in Ridley Scott’s complete vision featuring a running time of 191 minutes. Similar to Scott’s other recently released Director’s Cut of his other epic film Gladiator much is added to the film’s story and characters. But just what was added and could this version make a non-believer of the film’s Theatrical 145 minute cut enjoy this new vision? Read on to find out.
Before diving into what was exactly added (if you want to jump just to that section, go down a few paragraphs), I’m going to dive into the actual film a bit. Balian (played by Orlando Bloom) is a village blacksmith in France. He discovers that he is the illegitimate son of Sir Godfrey (played by the always amazing Liam Neeson). Godfrey, you see, is a knight returning from the Middle East. Godfrey, as we learn, feels that Jerusalem is not necessarily a holy war, but a war filled with opportunity for young men. It holds numerous amounts of potential for those who are willing to reach out and grab it.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on May 13th, 2006
Like it or not, you can't talk about this show without talking about the C.S.I. phenomenon. The extreme popularity of that single show has launched an entire genre of hour-long police investigation shows that are showing up on every network, every night. There are now three different C.S.I. programs on the air, as well as military crime programs, FBI profiler programs... even a mathematical approach to crime solving with Numbers.
The latest show in this trend is The Closer, a TNT ...riginal program staring Kyra Sedgewick. The twist on this program is that Sedgewick's character is a sweet southern investigator from Atlanta who becomes the head of the Priority Murder Squad in Los Angeles. As one could discern from the title, her specialty is suspect interrogation. Despised by her colleagues because she is a female southern outsider, she must fight against criminals as well as the members of her own department to solve the crime.
![Cinderella Man [HD DVD] dvd cover art](https://upcomingdiscs.com/ecs_covers/cinderella-man-hd-dvd-large.jpg)
