Posted in: Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on January 9th, 2006
Synopsis
Tae-suk is a young man who breaks into people's home while they are away. He lives there in their absence, but doesn't steal anything, and fixes odds and ends while he's there. During one such break-in, it turns out that owner's wife is there, and a love affair begins between the two. When the abusive husband returns, Tae-suk winds up killing him with the title instrument, and the lovers flee.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on January 1st, 2006
Synopsis
After an unsuccessful exorcism ends with the death of its subject (Jennifer Carpenter in the title role), priest Tom Wilkinson is charged with negligent homicide. The prosecutor is a devout Christian (Campbell Scott). Wilkinson’s lawyer is the agnostic Laura Linney. As the court battle progresses, we witness Carpenter’s story in flashback, with her possession beginning while she’s away from home in college. Linney, at first dismissive of Wilkinson’s claims, gradually finds her peace of mind ...rumbling as she begins to witness strange events.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on December 31st, 2005
The first Deuce Bigelow film was something of a surprise hit. Rob Schneider's first outing as a leading man was never expected to be as, well... genuinely entertaining as it was. Sure, the movie was a little hokey, but that was to be expected. After all, we're talking about a film that tells the story of a pool boy that becomes a gigolo. What was not expected was that the film would actually have a heart. As would be expected, the film had its fair share of comedy, but the tender love story was unexpected and ...enuine. Could lightning really strike twice?
In a word, “no”. This is the film that audiences were expecting the first time around. It is childish, contrived, and decidedly low-brow, with none of the genuine affecting elements of the first film. This time around, as the title suggests, Deuce spends some time in Europe; Amsterdam to be exact. No longer a gigolo, Deuce is now helping out his old pimp TJ by trying to catch a serial killer of “man whores”. As bad as that plot sounds, trust me... it's worse. So many of the jokes just make no sense. For instance, at one point TJ finds some french fries just lying around, and decides to eat them. He then accidentally drops them into the toilet. Naturally, he then dips them out and eats them. Why would he do that? What's more.. who cares? Certainly not me.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on December 30th, 2005
8MM 2 is a sequel to Schumacher’s 8MM in name only. It tells the story of an aspiring politician and his loving fiancée on a mission of sexual experimentation in Budapest, which quickly turns into a trust-no one game of seduction, blackmail, and murder. The crux of the story is a steamy threesome between the two lovers and a strange dark-haired beauty. The only eight millimeter tie-in is from the film which is shot during the escapade – unbeknownst to the lovers – which is then used to string the politi...ian along in the unknown blackmailer’s deadly game.
As a sequel, this story completely fails to work. Gone is the creepiness of the first’s horrific plot. Now it’s just about sleaze and blackmail, neither of which are executed in very interesting fashion. Lori Heuring and Johnathon Schaech are good-looking enough, but their presence seems better suited to a made-for-Lifetime movie. Their looks are too clean and simply fall short of the sleaze level the film hopes to obtain. While production values are slick, director J.S. Cardone’s ego is dripping from every frame. I’m glad he takes his work so seriously, but when that work is as cheap and trashy as 8MM 2, such behavior is more obnoxious than endearing.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on December 28th, 2005
I must admit feelings of suspicion before popping in the DVD copy of Prozac Nation:. I remember seeing the theatrical trailer years ago. It was not, by any means, poor advertisement. I had taken a liking to the acting of Christina Ricci, and the film looked like a decent outing with a talented supporting cast. So I waited for the film to come out. Then I waited some more. Years passed and the film never popped up at my local multiplex. It is generally not a good sign that a film is shelved for so long, but I s...ill kept an eye out for its theatrical release.
However, Prozac Nation: never did get that theatrical release. Instead Miramax gave it a cable debut on its sister network Starz/Encore, and the film went straight to DVD. Now I have seen awful films that have been delayed for years, and those titles were even given a theatrical release. Since Prozac Nation: was not even given that freedom, I couldn’t help but suspect a terrible film. Just when I had started thinking about the film after seeing an advertisement on Encore, a copy of the film ended up on my doorstep a few days ago for review. Truthfully speaking, I don’t quite see what all the delays were about. This may not be a wonderful picture, but it certainly deserved more respect than some of the other crap that reaches screens across the world.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on December 15th, 2005
Synopsis
During the Cold War, a vaguely defined group breaks into a Romanian church and the cavern beneath it for vaguely defined reasons. They accidentally trigger a landslide, trapping themselves beneath the earth. Jump forward thirty years, and the cavern has been rediscovered. A team of cave divers headed up by Cole Hauser descends into the depths, and soon find themselves up against vicious bat-winged monsters. A parasite enters into Hauser’s blood, and he slowly starts to transform into one the...e beasts himself, raising the question as to whether he will retain his humanity long enough to save the people for whom he is responsible.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on December 13th, 2005
Synopsis
Courtney Cox is a photography instructor struggling to put her life back together. A month earlier, on November 7, her boyfriend (James Le Gros) was gunned down during a convenience store robbery. Cox is unable to move on, and is suffering from crippling headaches. One day, a mysterious slide shows up in her carousel: it is a photograph of the exterior of the store during the actual robbery. Cox brings the picture to the attention of the police, hoping they might track down the photographer....They do. And then...
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on December 11th, 2005
Synopsis
In Antarctica, Godzilla battles the Gohten-go (an earth-drilling/submarine/flying ship familiar from Ataragon), and winds up buried after an earthquake. Flash-forward to the near future after a superb credit sequence by Kyle (Se7en) Cooper, and monsters are suddenly attacking cities all over the world. Humanity is apparently saved by the extraterrestrial Xilians, who zap the monsters away. Of course, it turns out the Xilians are up to no good, and were controlling the monsters ...ll along. When their plan is exposed, and their leadership assumed by a violent hothead, the Xilians unleash the monsters again, and wipe out human civilization. The only hope for the humanity as a species is for the crew of the Gohten-go to awaken Godzilla and hope he defeats all the other monsters.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on December 10th, 2005
Ben Cross (D.L. Hughley) is a former teacher with a dark past and some anger issues. He still sleeps with his ex-wife, but she’d rather be elsewhere. When Ben gets a call from an old colleague who asks him to teach at a juvenile prison facility, Ben figures it’s a good stepping stone to get back into teaching.
After meeting his unruly class, Ben realizes that a good way to get the kids focused is for them to express themselves through rap and poetry. One student named Gabriel (Jose Pablo Cantillo), with who... Ben connects, is good enough to go toe-to-toe with Eminem in 8 Mile.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on December 8th, 2005
Sometime during the 1990’s, big-budget blockbusters stopped getting by on special effects alone. Even though Independence Day, Godzilla, and Armageddon showed us that ground-breaking special effects don’t translate into quality films, Hollywood kept making them -- and people kept spending their hard-earned money to see them.
Stealth is the newest movie in that mold. Heavy on great visuals and special effects, it fails to deliver any character development, emotion or common sense, result...ng in a lop-sided film. Had Stealth been released 10 years ago, it may have been considered ground-breaking and its shortcomings may have been overlooked. Today it feels old, even though most of the visual technology used in the movie is new, which may explain why it was considered a massive flop in theaters.
