Posted in: Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on November 2nd, 2010
Written by Diane Tillis
As the title suggests, Attack on Darfur depicts the genocide occurring in Darfur, and it doesn’t get more real than this.
Posted in: No Huddle Reviews by Michael Durr on October 24th, 2010
Sometimes when you have two reviewers in the family, you have to save your better half from a movie they simply don't understand. I found myself in that situation when my wife took on the daunting task of trying to review The Haunting from the Fright Fest collection. She couldn't put together the various religion themes into a compelling review, so I decided to help her out since she's done the same for me many times over. So did I understand the goings on? Well kinda.
In the first scene, we are treated to news from No-Do, people who bring us the truth in Spanish government and holy news. The movie moves to Blanca (played by Maria Alfonsa Rosso )who has woken up after 60 years of sleeping. She is the last patient of her kind and is left to fend for herself since the hospital is closing down. Miguel (played by Hector Colome)asks her if she has anywhere to go and Blanca nods her head. She confuses the priest with the late Bishop who apparently passed away a month ago.
Posted in: No Huddle Reviews by Archive Authors on October 20th, 2010
*Walks slowly through Raven Hill Cemetery* Oh! Well hello there! I didn't know I would have company way out here. Hmm? Oh that's Abercrombie, he is just a hermit who hangs out here. He is mostly harmless. Here, have a seat, and have some Zombie Juice. Well, since you are here, I suppose I can share this movie review with you tonight. Fresh from the crypt we have a movie called Fragile. How fitting is it that we are in a graveyard full of skeletons when this movie stars Calista Flockhart? Har har. Bad joke? Who said I was joking? There she is hanging out by that tomb... -Calista waves- Huddle up by this fire here, and I will spin my tale. Ghoul Ribs anyone?
Welcome to Mercy Falls Children's Hospital. Meet Susan (Susie Trayling), a night nurse at the hospital. She is listening to the TV talk about a bad train wreck, while she appears to be packing up some boxes. When she turns around, there is Maggie (Yasmin Murphy) standing there and she looks quite frightened. Maggie tells her that "she" is coming, and that she can feel her coming. Susan tells her that they won't be talking about that anymore and sends her back to bed. Maggie reluctantly goes back to bed, in a room with other kids. A glass on her night stand starts to shake and a boy in the next bed wakes up screaming. Next you see Susan and Robert (Richard Roxburgh) rushing the boy on a stretcher to an X-Ray room. Robert asks the boy what happened, and he says he doesn't know. They take one X-Ray, and there is a bad fracture to his leg. Robert and Susan discuss what happened, and Susan doesn't know either. They go to take a second X-Ray, and just as they hit the button, the boy turns and screams. A second fracture appears.
Posted in: No Huddle Reviews by Archive Authors on October 17th, 2010
Hellllllllllo there kiddies. It is I, Mistress Noms, here yet again on this very dark and dreary night to bring you yet another scary movie review. Hopefully we can do better than the Blair Witch Project this time, hmm? Let us see shall we? Oh Corpsemuncher?! Would you be a nice little gremlin and bring me a DVD from the pile? Ahhh, thank you deary, here is your snack, now run along before I take that rat off of you and use him for my potions. What do we have here... The Tomb! -plays a sound bit of a woman screaming- Okay, well, what is this? Ahhh screener copies, how I loathe thee! But not as much as I loathe making my captive audience wait! On with the show! -hands out popcorn balls and lollipops-
A little girl comes running into a castle only to watch the last minute of her mother's life, where she is told that a disease will kill her as a result of a gift she has. Her mother hands her a necklace, and she dies. But wha... what is that? That is the little girl watching as a mist come out of her mother, and leaves out the window. FAST FORWARD! Meet Jonathan (Wes Bentley) who is giving a lecture at a university. After he calls an end to it, Len (Cary-Hiroyuki Tagawa) approaches him to talk. But Johnny boy here is too fascinated by this dark haired chick that he keeps seeing in his lectures (She would definitely distract me). They talk for a moment, and Jonathan finds out that her name is Ligeia (Sofya Skya) and that she is a grad. They leave, and Jonathan runs to catch up with Ligeia, where she hits on him in a VERY obvious kinda way even though he tells her he is engaged, and gives him her business card.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by William O'Donnell on August 25th, 2010
Pauly Shore seems to be trying to steer his career from being a washed up b-lister to being a self-aware washed up b-lister. Pauly Shore is Dead was his first dabbling into mockumentaries about himself, and now he has followed it up with Adopted. This yarn is about Shore, following the trend set by Angelina Jolie and Madonna, of flying to Africa (and later Cambodia) to adopt a child, with the hopes that being a father would fill a void in his shallow Hollywood hills life.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by David Annandale on August 10th, 2010
Jody Balaban (Leelee Sobieski) is a newly minted film school grad who, heady with the success her student film has brought her (an award presented by Garry Marshall!), heads off to Hollywood to find fame and fortune. Instead, she finds doors shut to the newcomer, the closest she can get to a major studio job being a stint directing traffic. But then she is offered a job as an editor. The only problem is, the studio in question is a porn outfit. Her dismay is all the greater since she has been put off sex due to the enormous childhood traumas of having been spanked for asking what a blow job was, and not being able to kiss the boy she had a crush on while playing Spin the Bottle. She takes the job, though, her plan being to shoot her own dream film, a romantic comedy called “On the Virge” (ouch!) on the sly, using the company's resources at night. Romance, meanwhile, might bloom in her real life, as she finds herself working with porn-director-who-once-aspired-to-something-more-and-is-devastatingly-handsome Jeff Drake (Matt Davis).
Writer/director Julie Davis's film is, apparently, rather autobiographical, drawing on her own early experiences in the industry. One hopes that she has maintained a healthy artistic distance from her protagonist, because Jody is hard to like. Her naiveté approaches a diagnosable condition, and it is coupled with a prodigious sense of entitlement, artistic self-regard, and snobbery. Though we see her learn to see the porn stars she works with as people and friends, she is so off-putting that it is hard to care enough to be interested in her emotional education. As well, the film itself presents the porn stars as lovable idiots, and so its own point of view doesn't seem far removed from Jody's. Furthermore, the look of Finding Bliss is simply not that interesting, making it hard to believe that Jody and Jeff are themselves unsung cinematic geniuses. On the other hand, Kristen Johnston as the porn studio's upbeat executive is good fun, and brings some snap to every scene she's in. Overall, though, the piece is simply too smug for its own good.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on July 28th, 2010
Timer is an innovative concept. In the film, people can choose to be fitted with a timer which counts down until that person meets their soul mate. The timer will tell you precisely how long you will have to wait to find true love. Oona (Emma Caulfield) is in the rare situation of having a blank timer. Her soul mate has not had one implanted yet and the suspense is getting to her. Oona decides to go out of her comfort zone and begin dating a considerably younger man named Mikey (John Patrick Amedori). The only problem is that Mikey is not slated to meet his soul mate for another four months.
This film has a strong and imaginative concept. The writer/director Jac Schaeffer takes an ambitious approach at the romantic comedy genre and the result is a muddled film. The performances are mediocre and the characters are not fleshed out enough. I found myself struggling to identify with any of the characters. The concept needed to be further examined with more confrontation and a grittier approach. When attempting to make profound statements about our culture in the happy-go-lucky genre of romantic comedy it becomes difficult. By viewing this film as a critique of the popularization of internet matchmaking and dating, it asks the audience to enjoy more of the present and worry less of the future. The statement is sound, but the vision is never fully realized.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by William O'Donnell on July 2nd, 2010
A young man, who is struggling as both a Tae Kwan Do tournament contestant and University student on a shaky student visa, is house sitting at a mansion as a favour for the friend that helped him obtain said student visa. While staying there, a mysterious young woman seduces him, and turns his life into a literal hell.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by David Annandale on June 28th, 2010
Bob (Bryan Callen) and Cheryl (Alexie Gilmore) are about to be married. Bob already can't win with his in-laws-to-be, and his latest mistake is to forget to arrange for pre-marriage counseling, which must be undergone or the church won't allow the ceremony to take place. There is only one couple available at the last minute, and it turns out to be the massively dysfunctional set of overbearingly enthusiastic Dick (Matt Servitto) and cynical and rapacious Nora (Jane Lynch). The counseling sessions become a series of disasters.
Callen comes across as a poor-man's Ben Stiller, essaying different variations of baffled panic and pained humiliation through events that feel like deleted scenes from Meet the Parents. Jane Lynch turns in yet another of her trademarked hard-boiled characterizations. She's good at this, but she could also do this part in her sleep. The script gives the cast very little to work with, and the direction is utterly flat. Scenes that should be frantic are merely dull, and there's a fight scene between Gilmore and Lynch that is one of the most badly choreographed I have ever seen. Painful stuff all around.
Hmm. I'm looking at the back of the case. What exactly does “16:9 (1.78) Full Screen” mean? Seems to be a rather contradictory set of specs. In fact, what we have is 1.78:1 non-anamorphic. The picture is decent enough, but a bit on the soft side, and the reds are a little strong. Contrasts are okay, but the picture, like the movie itself, lacks energy.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by William O'Donnell on June 27th, 2010
There is a “Convenience Store Killer” running amok in Los Angeles, killing patrons and shop owners and stealing the security camera footage for his own collection. Our heroes are a misfit band of workers who are having a poker night while locked inside their damaged store (the damage being on the door...so they are stuck until morning...see what they did there?) and soon the killer targets them.
