Posted in: Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on September 3rd, 2006
Synopsis
Protestors and loggers are in conflict over the cutting of trees on an isolated island. Unbeknownst to both groups, the logging company has been experimenting with something dangerous, and when this substance gets into the blood of an injured logger, he becomes a flesh-eating zombie, quickly spreading the virus. The son of the chairman of the board flies in to see why contact has been lost, and is quickly caught up in the desperate battle for survival.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on September 3rd, 2006
The Bone Collector tells the story of a man named Lincoln Rhyme (Denzel Washington) who has been confined to his Manhattan bed after being injured on his job by a falling beam. Lincoln has since become a Quadriplegic who simply wants to kill himself, and his nurse (Queen Latifah) is planning on assisting him in his suicide. As he is planning this, Lincoln learns of a serial killer who has been abducting random people, throwing them in a taxi and proceeding to torture them in extremely gruesome manners. Lincoln...recruits detective Amelia Donaghy (Angelina Jolie), who is one of the first officers on the scene of a horrible murder. The murder scene features a man buried in gravel only showing a hand with each finger showing a different forensic clue. This scene shows that this killer is quite a different type of killer, one who leaves little hints and clues almost painting a canvas with the person he just killed.
The serial killer genre was really brought to a new level via 1991’s The Silence of the Lambs in regards to the power of the story, direction, score, and acting. The Bone Collector doesn’t really bring anything new to the table, which is not necessarily a bad thing. The Bone Collector adopts what is normal about serial killer films, such as standard plot ideas, characters and situations. This does tend to make the film lose a lot of replay value, but The Bone Collector is not as bad as one may think mainly because of the actors involved. For some reason I always find myself enjoying Denzel Washington’s performances, regardless if what he’s performing in is rather weak. He always seems to bring a higher level of skill and quality to his films. Relatively unknown at this point, Angelina Jolie definitely had the makings of a star. Granted since this film she’s had some weaker roles in films like Tomb Radier, but she still manages to do what she can with a film. I found it interesting how Washington, who was a bigger star at this time, spends the entire film kind of on the sidelines with Jolie doing a majority of the acting. I wonder if Director Philip Noyce realized early on that Jolie was going to be a big star eventually. Did he want to showcase something he already knew? Enough on this though.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on September 2nd, 2006
Taylor Hackford’s drama Ray tells the remarkable story of singer Ray Charles’ life – dealing with subjects such as his drug addictions, his blindness and his family. We also get a look into his various recordings, his quick rise to stardom and his impact within the recording industry. More notable then the film itself is the Oscar-winning performance of Jamie Foxx in the lead role. Foxx does a fabulous job in his portrayal of Charles - most deserving of his Best Lead Actor statue.
There are scene... where, according to Director Hackford, Foxx acted so similar to Charles that he couldn’t distinguish between the two. Foxx did an unimaginable amount of work into acting just like Charles – from researching his life, to jamming and meeting with Charles himself, to wearing prosthetics over his eyes making him partially blind. In fact, Foxx is so truly good that you sometimes forget that Foxx is actually acting and wonder sometimes if Charles himself was acting in the film. Yes, Foxx is truly that good in this roll.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on August 29th, 2006
Director Tony Scott’s thriller Spy Game pairs up Robert Redford and Brad Pitt for a second time – Redford previously directed Pitt in A River Runs Through It. Redford plays Nathan Muir, a man who is a on the brink of retirement from the CIA. As he is cleaning out his office, Muir is told that fellow CIA Agent Tom Bishop (Pitt) has broken into a Chinese prison simply to rescue the woman he loves. Doesn’t sound too bad, does it? It turns out that the CIA thinks that the Chinese are going to try to extra...t as much information from Bishop as possible (read information as secrets). Muir has to scramble and see if he can get Bishop out in less than 24 hours before Bishop is scheduled for execution.
Tony Scott, the director of Crimson Tide and Enemy at the State, is just as skillful here as he has been in his past efforts. While the ideas presented in Spy Game are nothing groundbreaking, Scott adds another level of credibility to the film with his interesting twist of direction. Released theatrically in 2001 following a number of box-office disasters (such as Pearl Harbor), Scott’s stylistic thriller was a welcome addition to the November frame. Both lead actors, Redford (who always seem to be on his ‘A’ game no matter what film he stars in) and Pitt (overly-publicized but a great actor despite the hatred some have for him), deliver fine performances.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on August 23rd, 2006
It’s always interesting when works of art (books, plays, films, etc…) are updated from their native settings. Baz Lurhman’s Romeo + Juliet took the Bard’s most famous play and set it in modern day California, making it fresh again. Francis Ford Coppola set Conrad’s Heart of Darkness during the Vietnam War, making Apocalypse Now one of the most revered and realistic films of that era. There are several more examples in this trend that deserve to be mentioned, but I must fast-forward to the film a... hand. That is Brick, a film written and directed by newcomer Rian Johnson. Johnson wisely sets his film noir story in a modern day California high school. The update takes a while to get used to, but after a small buffer period, Brick becomes a fresh spin on the film noir genre, who’s day has come and gone.
Joseph Gordon-Levitt plays Brenden, a high school student who watches as his ex-girlfriend, Emily (Lost’s Emile de Ravin), falls into the wrong crowd and winds up dead. After Brenden receives a panicked call for help shortly before her death, he dives into the drug-dealing underworld inhabiting his school to find out who done Emily wrong. As with most film noir films, Brenden discovers that the truth behind Emily’s death is not simply a black and white issue. Brenden is also aided by a femme fatal in Laura (Nora Zehetner), who may or may not be on his side.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on August 8th, 2006
Synopsis
A group of masked criminals, led by Clive Owen, take over a Manhattan bank and hold everyone there hostage. Denzel Washington arrives on the scene as police negotiator, and he rapidly finds that his opponent is extremely clever, and appears to know every move the police will make even before they do. Complicating matters further is the arrival of Jodie Foster, an ice-cold fix-it woman hired by bank-owner Christopher Plummer to protect his interests: there is a safety deposit box he desperate...y wants to avoid having opened.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on August 2nd, 2006
Kathy Bates and the late Jessica Tandy star in Fried Green Tomatoes, a wonderfully surprising film about four strong women finding friendship, loyalty, and strength in each other. Sounds boring, right? I thought so, too, until I actually sat down and gave the extended anniversary edition a chance. The film, based on Fannie Flagg's novel Fried Green Tomatoes at the Whistle Stop Cafe, is really two stories in one. Bates plays an unhappy Southern woman stuck in a marriage routine, which doesn't favor her n...eds at all. She is underappreciated, despite her calm, sweet demeanor, and routinely thrown out of her husband's aunt's room at the nursing home. It's during one of these rejections that she meets Nanny Threadgoode (Tandy), a positive old woman determined to get her house back, and eager for the chance to talk about her past.
But it isn't her own life that Nanny wants to tell her new friend about - it's the friendship of two women, Idgie (Mary Stuart Masterson) and Ruth (Mary-Louise Parker), whom Nanny used to know, that gets the old woman talking. Be forewarned. There are some hanky moments, but they're all handled with great care. Also, the racial elements of the backstory and an intriguing murder mystery amp up the drama to a reasonably tense and captivating level. Director Jon Avnet keeps the film from ever getting too hoky or melodramatic, though I will say it can't escape predictability. There are some pseudo-surprises you should see coming from a mile away, and even a touch of morbidity toward the film's conclusion. But it all works, thanks in large part to great source material, a strongly adapted script, and the amazing performances of all four women.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on July 25th, 2006
Stan Lee and Jack Kirby have created some of the most iconic superheroes of our time. Marvel Comics brought us such great names like Spiderman, X-Men, Iron Man, and of course, The Incredible Hulk. Now, television has had a jaded history with comic superheroes as series material. A bad Spiderman and Captain America set of episodes are good examples. The Incredible Hulk is one of the exceptions. Why? Mostly because the series was less about super heroics and more about human drama. The Fugitive style set-up gives the writers the entire country to play with. Instead of superhuman villains, Banner is really his own worst villain. The very human McGee, who haunts Banner, is an aggressive writer out to expose The Hulk. This grounds the entire show in reality as much as is possible. Enter Kenneth Johnson, also known for the Alien Nation series, and you know that quality isn’t going to be compromised. Insurance is obtained through the extremely likable Bill Bixby as the Dr. Jekyll to Lou Ferrigno’s Mr. Hyde as manifested by The Hulk. His ability to pump up the action is rivaled by his surprising ability to convey emotion with his eyes. This Hulk appropriately doesn’t speak.
The series started with two tele-films, both included in this set. While the stories and cinematography seriously date this material, the themes resonate on into the 21st Century. Far better than the 200 million dollar film, this series is quite a catch on DVD. The episode 747 features Brandon Cruz who starred with Bixby as Eddie in The Courtship Of Eddie’s Father, another fond memory from my childhood. A nitpick Hulk fans still rage about is the name change from Bruce, in the comics, to David. As a homage to these fans, we are shown his middle name is Bruce. Johnson has addressed these “problems,” and I understand his wanting to create a very different character here. Comics and television are very different media. We would have been quickly bored watching a grunting, wise-cracking crime fighter after too long.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on July 24th, 2006
Synopsis
In 1985, Steven Spielberg backed this TV anthology series. It took its name from the very first SF magazine (which was briefly revived to coincide with the TV show), but have very little in common with that mag. It was almost purely fantasy-oriented, and its real model was the likes of The Twilight Zone (which itself was revived for TV the same year). Spielberg himself directed the pilot, and plenty of other big names singed on as well. So Harvey Keitel stars in an episode directed by...Clint Eastwood, for instance. Other directors of note include Joe Dante and Martin Scorsese.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on July 15th, 2006
Frank (Peter Mullan, Braveheart) has been designing and building ships in a British shipyard for 36 years. Suddenly and very cruelly, Frank is let go without any pension or prospects, and is left wondering what to do. An attempt at job searching finds him virtually at the feet of his sister-in-law, so he is basically left to walk around this nameless London suburb stunned and unsure of what to do with himself. His friends Eddie (Sean McGinley, Gangs of New York), Norman (Ron Cook, Quills) and Danny Boyd (yes, that's Pippin from the Lord of the Rings films, a.k.a. Billy Boyd) all try to help him out however they can. Frank's wife Joan (Brenda Blethyn, Secrets & Lies) is unsure about how Frank is holding up, so she decides to try out for a bus driver's license. Frank's son Rob (Jamies Sives, Mean Machine) is a stay at home Dad, but feels Frank has been resentful of that in some large way because Rob's brother (and Frank's son) died in a tragic drowning accident almost 30 years ago.
Written by first-time screenwriter Alex Rose and directed by Gaby Dellal (Football), the focus of On a Clear Day is undoubtedly Frank, the stoic patriarch who suddenly finds joy in life again with swimming. He notices a boy in the pool who is barely able to swim one length of the pool while Frank can do armloads. At the end of each length the boy rejoices. He perhaps finds these qualities in his lost son, but he is so introverted that he hardly indicates this. And it's that that becomes the inspiration for Frank's quest, which is to swim the English Channel.
![Spy Game [HD DVD] dvd cover art](https://upcomingdiscs.com/ecs_covers/spy-game-hd-dvd-large.jpg)
