Posted in: Disc Reviews by David Annandale on April 4th, 2005
Synopsis
The Amityville Horror (1979) remains one of the most successful haunted house movies ever. Based on a supposedly true story (emphasis on “supposedly”), the film sees George and Kathy Lutz (James Brolin and Margot Kidder) buy their dream home, only to be driven out by supernatural events (little girl makes friends with demonic piggie, blood runs from the walls, and so on). In scenes that have so little to do with the rest of the action they might almost belong to a separate movie, Rod ...
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on April 4th, 2005
The Woodsman is not a story for the faint of heart. The content is disturbing to say the least… it is a story of a convicted pedophile that has a “thing” for young girls. The story is actually much more then that… it has a strong focus on the inner demons that the pedophile faces in attempt to clean up his life.
After being released from a 12-year prison sentence, Walter Rossworth (Kevin Bacon) tries to re-enter society by getting a job at a lumberyard, and moving into his own apartment (coincident...
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on April 4th, 2005
I’ll start this review with a disclaimer about my Astro Boy knowledge level – for those Astro Boy fans reading this, I’m not an Astro Boy die-hard, and while I have some hazy recollections from my youth, until a few days ago, that’s about where my AB knowledge ended.
Astro Boy Backgrounder
The box set reviewed here contains 50 new episodes, released on television in their entirety overseas in, and in part in North America, in 2003. This is in fact the third incarnation of Astro Boy:
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Posted in: Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on April 3rd, 2005
If you’re not the type who enjoys watching complete seasons of your favorite show on DVD, this set was made for you. Mad About You has already had its complete first and second seasons released on DVD, but this collection takes the best episodes from the show entire run, and slams them out in this “Best of” collection.
I for one, as a completist, prefer complete seasons over these best-of collections. I find the flow very disjointed, with each episode having very little to do with each other.
...
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on April 3rd, 2005
This is a difficult review to write. The problem is approaching this miniseries and the subsequent new Sci-Fi Channel series without personal prejudice. I am a huge fan of the original Battlestar Galactica. While this incarnation has many redeeming qualities, I find it hard to consider it the same animal. The f/x are unquestionably some of the best yet seen on television. The action is ramped up many degrees from the original. The stories are, for the most part, more complex. So why do I hesitate in declaring this “reimagined” edition as superior?
Posted in: Disc Reviews by David Annandale on April 2nd, 2005
Synopsis
A monk is found walled up alive in an eccentric monastery, and Inspector Niemans (JeanReno) is on the case. Murders multiply around the country, connecting the cases worked on byNiemans and a young hotshot (Benoit Magimel, whose role is very similar to the one played byVincent Cassell in the original). The victims are all deeply religious, were all disciples of asurvivor who bears a more-than-passing resemblance to Jesus, and have the names andprofessions of the Disciples. They mur...
Posted in: Disc Reviews by David Annandale on March 31st, 2005
Synopsis
In the present, in a nursing home, we meet two residents: James Garner and Gena Rowlands.She is afflicted with Alzheimer’s, and cannot remember her past. He reads to her from anotebook, telling the tale (which is their story) of two young people (Ryan Gosling and RacelMcAdams) who meet, fall in love, but are driven apart by class prejudice (she’s upper class, he’sworking class). He never gives up on her, and the story charts more heartbreaking reunions andtravails.
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Posted in: Disc Reviews by David Annandale on March 30th, 2005
Synopsis
Don Cheadle plays Paul Rusesabagina, house manager of the luxury Hotel Mille-Collinesin Kigali. He does business with everybody, and strokes the egos of the powerful, and doesn’treally believe the anti-Tutsi sentiment being built up will really amount to anything. He is wrong,he discovers, when the genocide is unleashed. He gathers some 1200 refugees in the hotel, and,deprived of any help from the outside, must use all his wits to keep these people, along withhimself and hi...
Posted in: Disc Reviews by David Annandale on March 29th, 2005
Synopsis
Welcome to an eventful night in a posh New York restaurant. The joint is ruled over by thetyrannical Eric Bogosian, and the staff is the expected group of would-be actor (self-obsessed),writer (morose), cynical old hand (Molly Ringwald), newbie, effeminate manager, and so on.Also familiar are the tensions, loves, hatreds and other crises that afflict our characters. Whilenone of this is particularly groundbreaking, it is nonetheless delivered with both conviction andan agre...
Posted in: Disc Reviews by David Annandale on March 29th, 2005
Synopsis
“They keep falling in and out of love,” reads the tagline, and that quite nicely sums up thefilm. David Steinberg is the neurotic manager of an art-house cinema, and Susan Sarandon hascome to NYC to become a journalist. They are different, but there’s chemistry, BUT sometimesthe chemistry is of the wrong kind, and the movie charts the ups and downs of their relationship.“In the tradition of Annie Hall” the case boasts, and the case could be made that it is alittle to...
