Posted in: Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on June 24th, 2006
At the end of the day, The Cavern is an old-school monster movie (of sorts) with some really annoying habits. The shaky camera technique can only take one so far. When a filmmaker tries to use it in place of suspense, it grows old very fast. And when this crew of cave divers enter the mysterious crawlspace of the film's title, writer-director Olatunde Osunsanmi goes hog wild with every gimmick angle he can think of. The result of such activity is the remnant of a good horror film, which builds mood nicely with...some gritty settings, but quickly descends into shoddiness rather than terror. The plot centers on a cave in the deserts of Central Asia, where a team of explorers coping with a tragedy have reunited to explore a neglected passage deep in the earth's crust. Little do they know, someone - or something - has beaten them to the site, and is now intent on keeping the finding for itself in any violent way possible.
Some of the best films are spawned from the simplest of ideas. And The Cavern has a cast, which does its best to capitalize on such simplicity. Despite the film's budget and obscurity, these performers give it their all, and have nothing to be ashamed of; because, for all the film's failures, they keep it from turning into a laughable college film class production from some obscure midwestern university. They do so by actually knowing how to act, and taking the content seriously... even if it doesn't return the favor. Osunsanmi is the real blame for this missed opportunity. He tries so hard to flex his directorial muscles the entire 81 minutes comes across as numbing and disorienting. And while 81 minutes isn't very long in normal film terms, it seems like a lifetime when you are using every moment to try and figure out what the heck is going on.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on June 22nd, 2006
Synopsis
Daniel Auteuil, host of a literary TV talk show, and his wife Juliette Binoche begin receiving strange videotapes. These are hours-long recordings of the front of their house. Nothing else. No explanations. Then child-like but disturbing drawings start to accompany the tapes, and the recordings begin to be of other locations, suggesting that all of this has something to do with Auteuil’s distant past.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on June 9th, 2006
Synopsis
Not having seen the first season, I confess as to floundering somewhat in my encounter with the second. In the interest of keeping things simple and comprehensible, I thus present the synopsis provided by the box itself. The second season “finds Tommy Gavin (Denis Leary) away from his former crew . . . and working in a Staten Island firehouse. He must come to terms with the havoc his drinking has caused and realizes it’s time to get his problems under control. His comrades back at 62 Truck a...en’t faring much better. Chief Reilly struggles with the recent Alzheimer’s diagnosis of his wife and her deteriorating condition. Franco juggles the responsibilities of raising his daughter while trying to return to work. Lt. Shea discovers just how lonely the single life can be and Laura complicates house relations by getting involved with a colleague.”
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on June 6th, 2006
It's hard to tell what Ronnie Warner and Kent George were trying to accomplish when they perpetrated Puff, Puff, Pass on the video rental public, but hopefully, they will discover it takes a little more work to write a funny script than cobbling together every stupid pot joke and lame religious blasphemy they can think of into a coherent script. Think "lame sitcom trying to be edgy for 95 minutes," and you'll have exactly what this film turns out to be. Featuring six stars from various TV shows - with Mekhi Ph...fer being the only one around with impressive film credits - this film applies the old adage, "You get what you pay for," in more ways than one.
The story centers on two stoners with a desire to go into business for themselves. However, they have no jobs and no ambition to help them along in the quest. They're always late on rent payments. One of the stoners even unknowingly has sex with the other's transvestite cousin. They fall for every huckster's grand "paid programming" scheme in the book, and finally check into rehab for access to cable television. All this sounds very funny, and I'm sure it was in the other films, which did a better job depicting this sort of behavior. All in all, it's a film that has very little going for it, except for an unusual affinity towards The Shawshank Redemption - but you'd have to be an idiot not to see the value in that film. While Puff, Puff, Pass may not be "an idiot," in that regard, it barely rises above said mark.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on May 31st, 2006
You won’t ever know the excitement I felt when I heard a sequel was being made to the film Underworld. While I didn’t see the big to due about the first film, I was actually hoping that the film would take the route some sequels have taken by making the film far superior to its predecessor. I guess Director Len Wiseman was trying to go out and make the sequel to Underworld even worse than its predecessor as he has completely succeeded in doing so.
As Underworld Evolution opens up, we g...t a small prologue that flashes us back to 1202 AD. The prologue tells us of the war between the vampires and the Lycans. We learn how the war began with two brothers, both the immortal sons of Alexander Corvinus. The first brother, Markus, was bitten by a bat and hence became the blood leader of the vampies. The second brother, Willian, was bitten by a wolf and hence became the first and most powerful Lycan. Sounds like a nice family feud huh? After this prologue, we pick up right where Underworld left off as Selene (Kate Beckinsale) and her super boyfriend have finally extinguished any and all foes and finally seem like they may have some time for themselves. Oh lord, there is another foe to fight? Turns out that Markus has been woken up by some force or person and isn’t all too excited to see that his family is completely dead.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on May 26th, 2006
Synopsis
Syd (Chris Evans) is still mourning his break-up with London (Jessica Biel), drowning his sorrow in booze and cocaine. When he hears that she is leaving New York, and there’s a going-away party for her, he decides to crash the scene, dragging along Bateman (Jason Stratham), a businessman from whom he has just scored more coke. Arriving at the party before the guest of honour (and just about everybody else), the two men retreat to the spacious bathroom where they will spend much of the film, ...nhaling vast quantities of drugs and opining about everything under the sun.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on May 25th, 2006
Synopsis
Years after the disastrous end of Kevin Bacon’s experiment with invisibility, the process has been revived with intent to create a super-soldier. Christan Slater (as Michael Griffin, the last name being a nod to the original Invisible Man) is the soldier experimented on, but he’s an uncontrollable killing machine. Denied the “buffer” – the injection that will prevent the lethal side effects of the invisibility formula, he tracks down the one person who knows how to create it: biologist Laura...Regan. Soon she and Peter Facinelli as the cop determined to protect her are on the run from both the invisible psychopath and the equally dangerous and amoral authorities.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on May 24th, 2006
There really was (and still is) no justice in the world when a show like NewsRadio was perennially ignored so often during the mid and late '90s. I mean seriously, get a comic mind from Canada's The Kids in the Hall (Dave Foley), another from the States Saturday Night Live (Phil Hartman), and yet another from the dark comedy Ben Stiller Show (Andy Dick) and give them some sitcom material to work with, and the result can be nothing but laughs.
And that's what NewsRadio was about. But it didn't go for cheap laughs where the cast would either yell their lines or make exaggerated reaction shots for the folks in the crowd. There was layer upon layer of laughs. Aside from the stories, there were small character quirks that fans of the show will always remember. Lisa (Maura Tierney, ER) has a somewhat veiled propensity to get drunk and (surprise!) has a criminal background. And speaking of mysterious backgrounds, there's the station owner Jimmy James (Stephen Root, Office Space), a fairly goofy billionaire who is on an eternal "wife search" while sometimes hinting that yes, he may in fact be Deep Throat from the Watergate scandal.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on May 17th, 2006
One reviewer accurately described The White Countess as having "echoes of Casablanca." More than that, this last production from Merchant-Ivory seems like it lifted its premise entirely from the classic Bogart film. But at the same time, there is enough different about this colorful and mesmerizing piece to distinguish it as something original - or original enough. With murmurings about that Hollywood may one day remake Casablanca (as it seems they have everything else), I hope and pray the gods ...f better judgment will win out, and let Countess stand as the sole benefactor of such a superior motion picture. At its core, this Ralph Fiennes vehicle is about two people, fallen from glory, who realize the only chance they have in a world quickly going to Hell is the love and respect they share for each other. The film keeps such potentially boring material - and for those that scoff at such an idea, let it be known Merchant-Ivory didn't always knock their films out of the park - fresh and interesting through deep characterization and beautiful imagery. The world the production designers and director of photography Christopher Doyle create is enchanting beyond belief. Once you start watching, it's nearly impossible to remove your eyes from it. In short, these folks make Director James Ivory's job too easy; but it's the audience that reaps the benefits.
Of course, whether the production crew does their job or not, Fiennes always gives a performance worthy of an Oscar - and is subsequently always shunned for his contributions. I would be amiss if I didn't point out just how much his presence adds to the enjoyability - and the credibility - of the film as a whole. He is one of few actors today with that old-time Hollywood quality represented in actors such as Jimmy Stewart or Cary Grant. Let me just say I realize those two men have a world of difference between them, but their best qualities speak much on the kind of incredible actor Fiennes is. Whether he's playing tyrannical Nazi (Schindler's List), vengeful husband (The Constant Gardener), hopeless junkie (Strange Days), or meek blind hero with a sacrificial heart (The White Countess), he always turns in performances worthy of Oscar gold. As you can guess, his rendering of Countess's Todd Jackson is nothing short of amazing. He idolizes, looks out for, and loves the Countess Sofia (Natasha Richardson, with her usual solid performance), and seeks to pick her up from her fallen status in 1930's Shanghai. Pursuing his dreams, he starts a nightclub (shades of Casablanca), where Sofia takes center stage as the object of the club's affections - as well as his own. As the final act begins with the Japanese invasion of Shanghai, we see more shades of Bogart's film in the sacrifices Jackson makes to insure the well-being of the woman he has grown to love. He is content to die, so long as he knows he's done all he could for Sofia and her child (who reminds him of his own daughter, now deceased from the same bombing which claimed his eyesight). But The White Countess is a more optimistic picture than its subject matter will lead many to believe, and it manages to leave viewers with a few surprises and a bit more warmth than they may have expected going in. This film should have been Oscar material, at least for the acting and production value; it is, in my opinion, the fourth best film of 2005.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on May 15th, 2006
Synopsis
Her hands covered in blood, a distraught-beyond-coherence Julianne Moore wanders into a hospital with a story of being carjacked in a predominantly black housing project area. Detective Samuel L. Jackson, assigned to the case, learns from her that her young son is apparently still in the car. Given that her brother is a cop in the adjoining white area, all hell breaks loose and racial tensions threaten to send an explosive situation into terminal meltdown. But the question is whether there i... more to Moore’s story than there at first seems.
