Posted in: Disc Reviews by David Annandale on October 15th, 2004
Synopsis
Shawn and Marlon Wayans are two FBI agents. After screwing up royally (busting an ice-cream salesman instead of a drug dealer), they are anxious to redeem themselves. Charged withescorting the heiress Wilson sisters (read: Hilton) to the Hamptons where they will be bait fora socialite kidnapper, they mar the sisters’ faces, and so go themselves, made-up as the WhiteChicks of the title. Misunderstandings, racial and sexual, ensue.
I’ll grant the brothers this: there ...
Posted in: Disc Reviews by David Annandale on October 15th, 2004
Synopsis
Apparently in answer to a mystic's prophecy, Godzilla returns to wreak havoc. But he doesn'tsound like himself, and battles long-time friend Anguirus. When the real Godzilla turns up, madas hell, the imposter is revealed as the cyborg Mechagodzilla, controlled by aliens from "the thirdblack hole in space." The first fight ends in a draw, and while the robot is being repaired, ourhuman characters race to summon another monster, King Caesar, who, it is hoped, will help fightt...
Posted in: Disc Reviews by David Annandale on September 30th, 2004
Synopsis
Dumped on the night he was to announce his engagement, Jamie Foxx turns his pain into abestselling breakup manual. When his cousin, Morris Chestnut, thinks his girlfriend GabrielleUnion is going to break up with him, Foxx is enlisted to help, which leads to a massive chainreaction of mistaken identities and misunderstandings.
The structure is clearly and consciously that of a classical farce. Though the film neverachieves the proper frenzy requires of a farc...
Posted in: Disc Reviews by David Annandale on September 27th, 2004
Synopsis
Ewan McGregor and Peter Mullan are barge workers, and one morning they fish the corpseof a young woman out of the river Clyde. McGregor tries to put the body out of his mind byseducing Mullan’s wife, Tilda Swinton. We soon learn, however, that McGregor knows moreabout the body than he lets on: the dead woman’s name is Cathy, and she is an old girlfriend ofhis. In fact, he knows how she died, and he is even more disturbed when a man he knows to beinnocent is charged with mur...
Posted in: Disc Reviews by David Annandale on September 21st, 2004
Synopsis
The peasant father of Tess (Nastassja Kinski) discovers that their family is of noble descent,and, hoping to improve their fortunes, he sends Tess to work for a well-to-do family. Shebecomes a victim of the rakish son of the household. Abandoned, she eventually falls in lovewith parson’s son Peter Firth, but her past catches up with her.
As is typical of Thomas Hardy novels, the story is about a slow decline into misery anddeath. The intensity one associates with Po...
Posted in: Disc Reviews by David Annandale on September 20th, 2004
Synopsis
The scene is a middle-class apartment building in Washington, DC. Our characters are Mary(Marla Gibbs), hard-nosed mother; her best friend and gossip-buddy Rose (Alaina Reed); big-time flirt Sandra (Jackée Harry) and the relevant husbands and offspring. It’s the expectedcollection of wisecracks and Issues Moments in an utterly typical, and I would have thoughcompletely forgotten, sitcom.
Audio
The 2.0 sound may be stereo, but it has no surround pres...
Posted in: Disc Reviews by David Annandale on September 20th, 2004
Synopsis
Diane Lane’s jerk of a husband, always imitating his best friend, buys her a gun she does notwant. Bizarre neighbour James LeGros asks to borrow the gun. Lane turns down the request, butLeGros helps himself anyway, and a chain of events as bizarre as it is low key is sent inmotion.
Owing some of its dry, absurd humour to David Lynch, My New Gun is also morefirmly grounded in a recognizable world than is Lynch’s work. The pace might be a tad too muchon the l...
Posted in: Disc Reviews by David Annandale on September 19th, 2004
Synopsis
James Bishop arrives at S. Andrew’s Asylum for the Criminally Insane to be a new intern.He suspects things are not as they should be. His clues include obviously mistreated patients,and an asylum director who is exaggeratedly uncaring and speaks with a sinister Britishaccent.
Meanwhile, in the audience, we’re waiting for old James to catch up, as the movie showed usa satanic cult at work in the hospital in the opening five minutes, complete with an extremelycheesy...
Posted in: Disc Reviews by David Annandale on September 19th, 2004
Synopsis
Here we go: it’s the senior year for Dawson, Joen, Pacey, Jen and Jack. Joey and Pacey haveto deal with how their new romance (which concluded the last season) is going to affect theirrelationship with Dawson. As before, we follow dreams crash or flower, and the same withrelationships. The writing is stronger than on many dramas, but sometimes is a little too pleasedwith itself -- Pacey’s crack in the opening episode about “the land of poorly written melodrama”which also fo...
Posted in: Disc Reviews by David Annandale on September 18th, 2004
Synopsis
Put-upon high-school student Arnie Cunningham (Keith Gordon) buys a decrepit 1957Plymouth Fury named Christine, and sets about restoring her. He does a remarkable job, and asChristine becomes shiny and new again, so Arnie loses his geek image. He goes beyond beingself-confident, however, becoming more and more unpleasant as Christine exerts her hold onhim. She is a jealous lover, and will kill anyone who interferes with her and Arnie.
When you think about, it’s surp...
