Posted in: Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on August 12th, 2005
This is one of those films that is depressing solely for the sake of being depressing. There was a string of these kinds of films in the 90's, but they have gone out of style as of the past seven years or so. This particular film tells the story of what happens to a dysfunctional family when one of the members commits suicide. Apparently, each member of the family grieves in his or her own way, all of which are wildly dangerous. Sexual promiscuity, substance abuse, lawlessness and despair abound in this tale of miser... and woe. In fact, just when you don't think this film can get any more screwed up, it goes one step further.
The acting is top-notch, but the script is painfully sub-par. Plot twists are easily perceived way in advance, and the inevitable questions that arise after a suicide are addressed in a way that, quite frankly, seems to make the answers a bit to easy. Let's face it, suicide is an extremely heavy subject, and one that is very hard to discuss. This film attempts a monumental task, and gives it an admirable try, but just doesn't quite live up to the goals it sets for itself.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by David Annandale on August 12th, 2005
Synopsis
In the 1930s, the dreaded Axe Gang is taking over all organized crime, terrorizing the city. One of the only places they don’t control is a slum complex ruled by a formidable landlady and her henpecked husband. Into this place come a couple of con artists, who pretend to be members of the Axe Gang. They set in motion an chain of events that leads to one apocalyptic battle after another, with ever more bizarre and powerful Grand Masters of Kung Fu turning to fight either for or against the Ax... Gang.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by David Annandale on August 12th, 2005
Synopsis
Model Jessica Alba heads off to a party in the country with her current boyfriend. The house is owned by the members of a once-popular rock band, and there are creepy dolls and a deaf-mute young woman about. Alba wakes up the next morning abandoned by her boyfriend and imprisoned by the family. The only person who might be able to help her is the obscene caller who’s been causing her so much grief.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on August 12th, 2005
Season Two of Star Trek Enterprise was without a doubt the weakest of the series. It’s no mystery that the show’s demise was already being talked about by the time Year Two was finished. The stories were unoriginal and it appears budgetary concerns often meant unimaginative bottle shows. The words Star Trek were finally added to the title. Rick Berman has always tried to distance himself from Gene Roddenberry. When Enterprise was first released he felt it was time to finally cut the umbilical cord and drop the franchise tag. If that doesn’t tell you something about his level of respect for Star Trek, then the countless instances of disregarding traditional Trek continuity should. The franchise officially jumped the shark with the episode “A Night In Sickbay”. Come on, Berman, that cute puppy in a fight for its life is so... Lassie.
Synopsis
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on August 11th, 2005
Synopsis
Tim Allen was fortunate enough to ride a couple of trends and nurture them into a steady paycheck without really having to do anything. He was a stand-up comic in the mid ‘80s and early ‘90s and was pretty good at it. And like many other stand-ups during the time, he was given a sitcom with which to basically recycle his act onto a smaller stage. And to his benefit, the public enjoyed it, and Allen’s pet project Home Improvement was a smash hit, and would later go on to enjoy eight seasons o... ABC, and included a small unknown actress named Pamela Anderson.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by David Annandale on August 10th, 2005
Synopsis
Evil wizard Basil Rathbone kidnaps a beautiful princess (Anne Helm), and the bland Gary Lockwood, who has loved her from afar, charges to the rescue with his magic horse, armour and sword. Along the way he must confront seven curses set by Rathbone (ogre, burning heat, hideous hag, dragon, and so on), not to mention the treachery of one of his party.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on August 9th, 2005
The term Reivers, it is explained, is a turn of the century word for thieves. From that explanation one might expect an action adventure heist film. What you get instead is a Faulkner coming of age story. While the film has quite a few memorable moments of pure Americana, there seems little point in anything that happens on screen. Even the wonderful acting of Steve McQueen leaves most of the film muddied in a period piece about nothing at all. Burgess Meredith does a fine job of narrating the film from the point of view of an old man recalling a moment in his 11th year. I think I would have rather had Meredith providing a books on tape version of the original Faulkner work. The cinematography appears older than its 1969 production year implies. I don’t feel like I got to know these characters enough to simply want to be with them. The adventure is anything but. There’s a questionable moral character to the entire premise.
Synopsis
Posted in: Disc Reviews by David Annandale on August 9th, 2005
Synopsis
Kelly Lunch plays a young woman who begins the movie by attempting suicide. She is saved, and annoyed by the friends and family who visit her in the hospital, she takes off in her hospital clothes and a coat, hopping on a bus and getting off in the middle of a desert nowhere. One drunken night later, she wakes up in a house married to a stranger. Cue a whole bunch of sex scenes and psychological drama.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by David Annandale on August 8th, 2005
Synopsis
The surviving characters from the cliffhanger ending of Dracula II: Ascension pick up the chase. Pursuing Dracula (or rather, the much-older being who uses that name, and who was said to be Judas in earlier installments, but that doesn’t seem to be the case anymore, either) are Jason Scott Lee as Uffizi, the vampire-killing priest now slowly turning into a vampire himself, and Jason London, whose girlfriend was snatched at the end of the last film. They travel through a Romania beset ...y civil war, where vampires run rampant not only through the countryside, but apparently in the government as well.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on August 7th, 2005
Synopsis
Lately various studios have been releasing films with Gene Hackman onto DVD, films like Scarecrow and Twice in a Lifetime. And after a run in 1983’s Uncommon Valor, he teamed with Matt Dillon (The Flamingo Kid) in 1985’s Target, the proverbial Cold War spy thriller.
