Posted in: Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on April 3rd, 2004
I am often fooled into watching a bad film because the box looked good. I can’t tell you how many times I have been in the video store and uttered the phrase “this looks good”, only to get home and be reminded that looks can be deceiving. Rare have been the times when I found a good film packaged in a bad box. It happens, but not that often. Lucky for me, this is one of those times.
Now, there’s really nothing special about this movie, mind you. The film is just a rehash of the plethora of teen slasher flic...s that came along in the late nineties. Films involving a group of teens, a mysterious killer on the loose, and some seriously goofy comedy. Sometimes, however, following the rules is not entirely a bad thing. This particular script involves a dorky kid’s crush on a popular cheerleader, a magic wish-granting totem, and a killer on the loose. What we are looking at is part Jawbreakers, part Scream, and part Final Destination. This is not a movie that surpasses its peers, but it certainly reaches their level.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on April 1st, 2004
Oh, where to begin? I guess I should start with the directors. That’s right, DIRECTORS. Plural. There are three of them. Apparently, the first two didn’t suck enough, so they had to bring in a third to fill out the talentless triumvirate. Any film directed by three people who are not related should make moviegoers instantly suspicious.
You know what else makes me suspicious? Any movie that stars both Meadow Soprano and Buster Poindexter. My suspicions grew when I realized that they were only in a small port...on of the film. If these are your biggest actors, and you can only afford them for a few days of shooting, it is possible that something may be amiss with your production.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on March 29th, 2004
The 100 Mile Rule, as a corny salesman puts it, means that when you are more than 100 miles from your wife, cheating doesn’t count. It is some kind of moral loophole used by salesmen who travel frequently, allowing them to be unfaithful to their wives. While the phrase is quite original, the film is made up of parts belonging to other movies, a kind of Frankenstein if you will. Not to say that 100 Mile Rule resembles that monster, because it is actually quite enjoyable. However, you will need to get past the m...ny references and duplications of other movies to enjoy it.
Bobby (Jake Weber) is a married salesman who is attending a sales convention in Los Angeles with colleagues Jerry (David Thornton) and Howard (Michael McKean). Jerry and Howard are oversexed and desperate older men while Bobby loves his wife and kids and misses them while he is away. However, when Monica (Maria Bello), a beautiful cocktail waitress and struggling actress starts pursuing him, Bobby can’t fight the attraction. After a one night stand, Bobby finds himself in a blackmail plot, needing to come up with 60,000 dollars to prevent a tape of the affair from being sent home to his wife.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on March 29th, 2004
Following closely on the heels of Doug Liman’s swift and engaging Go, of which director Mazzei must be a huge fan, Devious Beings follows Jackson (Andre B. Blake), Arrow (Patrick Van Horn), and Casey (Kevin Connolly), three childhood friends who push X for their supplier, Leo (Joseph Sicari). When their buyer, Tiny (Andre Rosey Brown) unexpectedly dies, they make off with the money and the product. However, dealer Damone (Robert Gossett), who was expecting to get the drugs in the deal, decides to get ev...n with the three friends when he learns that he has been cheated. Throw in a rogue cop (Jerry Doyle) who is blackmailing Jackson by threatening to send his junkie mother to jail if he’s not included in the action, and you have one convoluted plot where tension is always at a high.
Devious Beings has some things working for it. Mazzei seems to have modeled his cast around that of Go, and several actors here will remind you of those from Liman’s film. Andre Blake is strong in the lead, resembling Taye Diggs, while Patrick Van Horn from Swingers (another Liman film) acts and looks like Timothy Olyphant. While the actors may not play characters that mirror those from Go, you will definitely find the cast oddly similar. The same can be said about the writing, which has the action take place at Christmastime, just like Go! Scenes with violence and tragedy are played for humor, and most of the time they work, especially in one particular scene that had me doubling over in laughter. Of all the scenes in this film, this one works to the point of black humor perfection. It is worth the price of rental alone.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on March 26th, 2004
It’s funny how little film subgenres evolve over time. For instance, slasher flicks have become a specific part of the realm of horror films. Likewise, teen gross-out movies have evolved within the comedy genre. In the case of Lady Jayne - Killer, the subgenre is the fraternity favorite, girls with guns.
There have been quite a few films that fit into this subgenre (the wonderful La Femme Nikita and the horrid To The Limit, just to name a few), and this film follows in that same shamele...s tradition. The point of these films is to show guys everything they like; scantily-clad women, firepower, hot cars and action. They are mindless on purpose. The storylines are not as important as filling the film with as much violence and as many half-naked women as possible.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by David Annandale on March 23rd, 2004
Synopsis
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on March 22nd, 2004
Deadly Little Secrets has a secret. Shhhhhh. It’s a direct to DVD feature. So the only way you can see it is by renting it. Should you? I dunno. It’s a B movie with a B movie plot, but with pretty good technical components.
The plot starts off with a murder, and the brother (of course) has to get to the bottom of it. Craig Sheffer plays the brother, and he’s bland in a beefcake main character sort of way. There’s a really bad doctor (Dylan Walsh) who is injecting football players with letha... steroid overdoses. Walsh doesn’t really do anything special in the role. The women are the real highlights. Dina Meyer, who is excellent in Starship Troopers (among other things), plays Sheffer’s girlfriend, and Michelle Hicks plays Meyer’s vampish “sister”. The “sisters” like each other a bit too much…if you catch my drift. The relationship seems right out of a Mike Hammer novel. Garry Chalk also comes along for the low budget ride in another cop role.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on March 22nd, 2004
What do a string of prostitute murders, lesbian vigilantes, a sexually confused cop, a senate race, a prominent prosecutor turned law professor, and a law school dropout have in common? After watching Pendulum you will be asking the same questions. Seldom have I seen a more disjointed collection of clichés and bad acting in one film outside of an Ed Wood film festival. Rachel Hunter might have been a gorgeous supermodel but like so many before her she’s just not believable here. Many of the aforementioned sins might ...e forgivable if the ending in some way satisfied. I’m sorry to announce this film ends badly (for the viewers, not the characters).
Audio
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on March 19th, 2004
The biggest compliment that I can pay to this film is that I have seen worse. The acting is bad, but not painful. The plot is sub-par, but not entirely horrible. The dialog is forced, but not filled with bad teenage slang. Yes, this is a horrible film, but I have seen worse.
Truth be told, The Brotherhood III is more like an excruciatingly long short film. The main emotion that I felt as I moved through this disc was… boredom. Huge segments of the film are simply without dialog or action of any kind....The first half-hour of this 83-minute film contains a total of seven minutes of dialog. The remaining 23 minutes are filled with slow motion shots of a single character walking down a hallway. Sometimes, this character is followed by the killer, sometimes they are not.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on March 16th, 2004
The Frightening, as the DVD cover says, is “a new class of horror”. This play on words foreshadows the premise of the movie. There’s a “new kid” at Hallows End High School. His name is Corey (Matt Twining), and he’s having a few problems “adjusting”. Corey has a “past”. But that’s not the “real” problem of this school. Okay…I’ll stop using quotation marks. The major problem at Hallows End High School, nicknamed “Halloween High” (sorry…I couldn’t stop), is that the corpses are piling up. Someone…or som... thing…or some group of things….is killing the students. Who or what is behind these murders? Why are students being killed? It’s just one spoiler note away, or you can just rent the movie.
The Frightening is direct to DVD horror cheese. It’s laughable and not to be taken seriously. The deaths aren’t realistic, as every corpse-to-be (no matter how they die) seems to spurt fake looking blood from their mouths. The acting is mediocre at best, even though Matt Twining has a natural Ryan Phillippe pouty quality. And I guess…a nice bod? This is why (I gather) there are many scenes of Twining, among other male cast members, walking around in nothing else but boxer briefs. The writer, Matthew David Walsh, pulls out elements from a lot of horror movies like The Shining to downright ripping off The Sixth Sense.
