Posted in: Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on November 30th, 2005
Mad Hot Ballroom is the sort of live action family entertainment with which I can get on board. Too often, the desire for a good family film is quickly hampered by third-rate idiocy that only appeals to the youngest in the family. We the adults plod dutifully along for the good of the kids, hoping and praying it will all be over soon. And even though running times on family films are often shorter than a standard feature, it still seems like you've watched twice the length of that standard feature by the time ...he credits roll.
But not with Mad Hot Ballroom. First and foremost, I've never been a dancer nor considered myself interested in it, but with this piece from Paramount and Nickelodeon Films, that doesn't matter. Just like a love for boxing is not essential to adore the first Rocky film, Mad Hot Ballroom will thouroughly involve you in its story and characters and make its major platform of ballroom dancing seem incidental compared to the immersing quality of its narrative.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on November 30th, 2005
Stargate Atlantis took a little getting used to. I wasn’t sure the characters had enough chemistry or were even dynamic enough to carry the high expectations for a Stargate series. When the show was first introduced it was likely that Atlantis would soon take over for the original series. Anderson had wanted to leave for years and it seemed the end was near for SG-1. Since that time SG-1 is about to enter a tenth season and the new format is working quite well. Now I can view Atlantis more as the companion show it really excels at being. Atlantis maintains all of the tight writing and production values that made SG-1 such a great show. I am a little weary of The Wraith already. For some reason they just don’t work for me. The Ori, SG-1’s new baddies, are far more interesting. The Wraith are just sinister. We haven’t had a chance to view them as a society yet. There were high hopes when Teyla began to connect with them, but that has become a dead end. I think Atlantis has some real growing to do, or it risks falling into the “Deep Space Nine” wormhole.
Synopsis
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on November 28th, 2005
"If you don't take risks, you'll have a wasted soul." - Drew Barrymore. Ever since the second grade when he first saw her in E.T. The Extraterrestrial, Brian Herzlinger has had a crush on Drew Barrymore. Now, 20 years later and much wiser, he has one goal in mind. He hates to get a date, somehow, with Drew Barrymore. There's one small problem: She's Drew Barrymore and he's, well, Brian Herzlinger, a broke 27-year-old aspiring filmmaker from New Jersey. However, this doesn't stop Mr. Herzlinger and his friends from tr...ing his best all while documenting his quest along the way.
Armed with a video camera they must return to Circuit City in 30 days, Herzlinger and his friends set out to complete his quest. To succeed, they'll need to negotiate an army of publicists, agents, producers and assistants who surround the star so Brian can pop the question. My Date With Drew has won numerous awards from many critics. The film is also an often hilarious look at how far some people will go to fulfill their dream.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on November 28th, 2005
Synopsis
Amalia, the teenaged daughter of a hotel owner, is the victim of a creepy pass in a busy street. The creep in question is Doctor Janos, who is staying at the hotel, and he doesn’t know whom he has just molested. Very much in the grip of a new religious fervour, Amalia feels she has a calling from God to save Janos from himself.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on November 28th, 2005
Baseball, basketball, football... boat racing. While it’s not one of the premiere sports in America, the people of Madison, Indiana sure loved boat racing during the summer of 1971. As the town of Madison was dealing with layoffs and closures, the people looked to Jim McCormick (Jim Caviezel) and their boat, the Miss Madison, to be their saving grace.
Although it’s framed as a coming of age story, seen through the eyes of McCormick’s son, Mike (Jake Lloyd), Madison is a sports film through and throu...h. While it doesn’t come close to reaching the level of greatness that true story sports films like Eight Men Out, Hoosiers, and Rudy reached - Madison does occasionally score a moment or two of success, especially during the final race scene. Plus, the actors are professional, for the most part, and Bindley doesn’t get too fancy with the racing scenes.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on November 28th, 2005
Synopsis
The film begins with the gunfight at the OK corral, making this something of a sequel to director John Sturges’ earlier film that ended with that famous battle. Here we see the aftermath, as the vengeful Ike Clanton (Robert Ryan, doing the Robert Ryan Villain thing) arranges for the shooting of the brothers of Wyatt Earp (James Garner). When legal means of redress prove fruitless, Earp progressively becomes more and more of a vigilante in his quest for vengeance, just as his best friend and ...oted gunslinger Doc Holliday (Jason Robards) becomes more concerned with the law.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on November 26th, 2005
Synopsis
The small Brazilian film City of God is a very powerful film that few have seen, but it made such an impression on critics that it was nominated for 4 Academy Awards, and with just cause, as this film makes for one of the better cinematic experiences in several years.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on November 26th, 2005
Synopsis
Satisfaction is a transitional project in so many ways. This was one of the first American films of Liam Neeson, who would go on to mildly excite the world as Henry Ducard in Batman Begins. Before Mystic Pizza came out, the world was exposed to Julia Roberts as Daryle.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on November 25th, 2005
Synopsis
Dana Andrews is the tough cop who takes too much pleasure in roughing up the bad guys. When he hits a suspect too hard, he accidentally kills him. He covers up his crime and carries on the investigation into the murder the man was suspected of. But as if his life weren’t complicated enough, he starts to fall for his victim’s ex-wife, and then her father looks like he’s going to hang for Andrews’ crime.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on November 24th, 2005
John and Jane Smith are a seemingly happy couple. They live a pretty normal but almost mundane existence of shared meals, kissed farewells and chats about the color of their curtains. They even go to therapy together, purportedly to iron out their differences. It turns out, however, that they have a lot more in common than they both realize. You see, they both have secret lives—they are both assassins. We're not talking some street-punks you might hire in a bar, or leather coat wearing mafia hit-men, they are the bes... at their game. Armed to the teeth with the latest military equipment, they swoop into high risk situations, execute their targets with professionalism and glide out using gadgets that would make Bond jealous. Of course they don't know what each other truly do for a living, lying and pretending on a daily basis and always staying one step ahead of being caught until one day they meet on an operation and suddenly—understandably—everything changes. Cue lots of matrimonial gunplay, fisticuffs and general banter as the fight their way to a stalemate before deciding what they are going to do from then on. Needless to say the respective agencies that employ them are none too happy about the situation that they are in and require each one to kill the other. Will they be able to survive and—more importantly—save their marriage?
Mr. and Mrs. Smith is a romantic comedy action vehicle which weighs heavily on the final element to keep audiences gripped. Many of movies over the years have adopted a similarly strange mix to lighten an otherwise potentially serious subject and make the proceedings more appealing for a wider audience, but with debatable results. The trouble is, if you go for a Last Action Hero-style near-spoof, you risk losing all sense of dramatic tension and potentially all interest that the audiences might have in the film.
