Posted in: Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on February 23rd, 2004
Sightings: Heartland Ghost is based, apparently, on a true story. One is reminded of that other “true story” haunted house movie, The Amityville Horror. But both films have the same hokey quality in common. (no blood in the toilet in Sightings, however). Sightings starts with the “new couple moving to the neighborhood”. They slowly learn that there is something “not quite right” about their new house. Enter paranormal debunker (Beau Bridges) and his T.V crew. Bridges’ character host...
Posted in: Disc Reviews by David Annandale on February 23rd, 2004
Synopsis
After the mayor of a tiny hamlet is decapitated by an irate populace, the Powers That Be(mindful of an upcoming election) decide to appoint a total moron as temporary mayor. Thetheory is that an idiot won't get himself into trouble. The idiot they find is Juan Vargas (DamiánAlcázar), who arrives with his wife and a head filled with plans to do good things for thecommunity. We all know what is paved with good intentions, though, and confronted with acomplete lack of funds, o...
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on February 22nd, 2004
What happens when a maladroit lackey, an entrepreneur and his wife, a polymath, a store clerk from Kansas, a motion picture starlet, and a ship captain get stranded on a desert island? The next edition of Survivor, right. Okay…I didn’t fool you. It’s Gilligan’s Island. And the first season is on DVD, all 36 episodes (including the infamous pilot)! Is this cause for celebration? Perhaps for some…
Gilligan’s Island ran for 3 seasons, and close to 100 episodes, on CBS from 1964 to 1967. Th...
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on February 22nd, 2004
The Stupids are a family with, as you can guess, a below-average intelligence. I think this might be due to inbreeding. The plot is fairly simple, more a series of vignettes: the family gets into some mess because of a mistake they make, and then get out of it in some silly manner. It sort of comes together in the end, but that's how the whole movie goes.
The Stupids is a kid's movie, and it was made with that exact audience in mind. It's not really there to entertain adults and...
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on February 22nd, 2004
The third and hopefully final entry in the American Pie series, American Wedding keeps with the sweet charms and gross out comedy of the first two movies, but can’t live up to the humor of the original or its sequel. Average Joe Jim, (Jason Biggs) and former band geek Michelle, (Alyson Hannigan) are now engaged to be wed and must decide whether raucous Stifler (Seann William Scott) should be invited to the wedding. Shenanigans ensue involving a night out at a gay club, a bachelor party, pleasing the in-laws, and pubi...
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on February 22nd, 2004
Season three sees Futurama cooking on gas. This is THE SIMPSONS on some mind-altering substance. For the uninitiated (and if you have never watched the series before - watch seasons 1 and 2 first…duhhh!) pizza delivery boy Fry has awoken from cryogenic suspension and finds himself in the year 3000. Here he teams up with the girl of his dreams, one-eyed space captain Leela, the hard-drinking, wallet-lifting robot Bender (he bends things for a living), the frankly barmy Professor Farnsworth and an assorted bunch of ge...
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on February 22nd, 2004
In 1967, a top secret document was commissioned by the government, tracing the United States’ history with the Vietnam war. This history went as far back as the 1940’s. The result was a 7,000 page document. In 1971, a defense department official and former Rand corporation employee, Daniel Ellsberg, secretly photocopied these “Pentagon Papers” and released them to the New York Times. Then President, Richard Nixon, called Ellsberg’s act “treasonable”. FX and Paramount’s television production of The Pentagon Pa...
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on February 22nd, 2004
The third season of South Park was a bittersweet one. It seemed that season 2 had floundered just a little. Most of us wondered if the talents of Stone and Parker had already run out of gas. Season 3 turned out to be one of the funniest yet. This was also the year that Mary Kay Bergman committed suicide. Mary Kay had provided ALL of the female voices for the show. This left the crew in a scramble to deliver episodes before they could find a replacement. This unfortunate turn did produce some memorable episodes, howev...
Posted in: Disc Reviews by David Annandale on February 22nd, 2004
Synopsis
Meg Ryan plays Manhattan English teacher Frankie Avery. When parts of a dismemberedyoung woman are found in her back garden, Ryan is questioned by Detective Mark Ruffalo.Ruffalo asks Ryan out, and before long they’re at it hot and heavy. But the day of the murder,Ryan was in the same bar as the victim, and witnessed, in the shadows, a man being fellated.That man had the same tattoo as Ruffalo, and Ryan begins to fear that her new lover is, at best,a liar. At worst...
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Posted in: Disc Reviews by David Annandale on February 22nd, 2004
Synopsis
Here are three more cases involving the gambling-addicted, cantankerous, infuriating yet stilloddly likeable criminal psychologist Fitz (Robbie Coltrane). “To Be a Somebody” has him upagainst a dangerous skinhead (Robert Carlyle). In “The Big Crunch,” the menace is a dangerousreligious cult. And “Men Should Weep” has a serial rapist who graduates to murder, indirectlybecause of Coltrane.
Of course, the actual murder investigations are only part of the story here, an...
