Posted in: Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on May 28th, 2006
The 2005 Version of Assault on Precinct 13 is an obvious remake of John Carpenter’s 1976 classic. Precinct, for Carpenter, was one of his first films made before his ultra famous Halloween. But if anyone has seen the 1976 version, you can easily know what will come from the 2005 version. Instead of making a possible change to the 2005 version, Director Jean-Francois Richet decided to use the similar theme of a police station being abandoned that Carpenter did. Instead though, Richet focuses on the corru...t possibilities of the police. What Richet brings to the table is a few impressive action scenes, a lot of gorgeous snow (especially so in HD), and a few great actors. All this is very impressive considering the low $20 million dollar budget the film had.
In this version of Precinct, the jail is scheduled to close forever at midnight. Burnt-out desk sergeant Jake Fornick (Training Day’s Ethan Hawke) still traumatized by the death of two partners, is on the graveyard shift with old-timer Jasper O'Shea (TV’s The West Wing) announces he will soon retire. Jake just tends to sit around popping bottles of pills trying to overcome his this pain in his life. That is until some terror arrives. Bishop (The Matrix Trilogy’s Laurence Fishburne) has been arrested and is being transported along with Beck (Empire’s John Leguizamo) and a few others including a character played by rapper Ja Rule. Everything seems to be going fine until a big accident blocks the highway to the jail. So, to get these criminals off their backs, the guards decide to dump Bishop and the select others off at Precinct 13. Unfortunately, the guards didn’t know that Bishop’s men are determined to set him free.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on May 23rd, 2006
The basic plot to The Bourne Supremacy is very similar to The Bourne Identity in that Jason Bourne is still trying to evade any and all forces that seemingly will stop at nothing to kill this man. Naturally though, Bourne can’t just evade these forces in a normal manner, but he has to evade these forces using his explosive martial arts and wit. As we learned in Identity, Bourne had his memory wiped. To escape people, Bourne has traveled halfway across the world living on the beach of Goa in south...rn India. Everything is going fine for Bourne and his new girlfriend Marie until Bourne, who seems to notice every little detail, recognizes something he has never seen before driving a car he has never seen before turning up in all the wrong places at the wrong times. This prompts Bourne to realize that someone is after him again, which turns out to be definitely true.
As the movie continues onward, Bourne discovers that he is being pursued by new people named Pamela Landy (Joan Allen) and her boss Ward Abbott (Brian Cox). Both found Bourne’s fingerprints at the scene of a murder in Berlin involving a CIA agent and his high-level criminal contact. The only issue with this is that Bourne was in Goa at the time sitting on the beach. So the big question here who is trying to frame Bourne and, more importantly, why is someone trying to frame Bourne. This simple question leads Bourne through many locales while he tries to figure every little clue out.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on May 20th, 2006
One of the things that Ron Howard ( Beautiful Mind) mentioned during various little interviews and press junkets for Apollo 13 was that he was surprised that up until this film everyone seemed to forget about story. He could not have picked a better cast to boot, with recognizable names as Tom Hanks (who was coming off his back to back Oscar wins with Forrest Gump and Philadelphia), Bill Paxton (Twister) and Kevin Bacon (Where The Truth Lies), along with Oscar nominees Kathleen Quinlan (A Civil Action) and Ed Harris (A History of Violence).
Based on the book by Apollo 13 commander Jim Lovell (played by Hanks) and adapted to film by William Broyles (Unfaithful), the film chronicles the story of the dramatic flight. To sum it up for those of you who haven;t contributed to it;s $350 million worldwide box office take, allow me to do so now; Lovell, Fred Haise (Paxton) and Ken Mattingly (Gary Sinise, Ransom) are due to take off in Apollo 13. Unfortunately a member of the backup crew had the measles, and Mattingly was scrubbed and replaced by Jack Swigert (Bacon). The relatively young crew tests and retests for the big flight, and it goes off without a hitch.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on May 17th, 2006
The Producers has taken an almost cinematic storyline of its own. In 1967 Mel Brooks filmed this tale with one of his mainstays, Gene Wilder. The film was a modest success. It was as a Broadway production that this material reached a wide audience. The play has been a hit for decades now. It only seems inevitable that a new film would surface. This 2005 version of the story is closer to the stage production than the original film. There are quite a few more musical numbers, and that’s essentially where this film goes wrong. What works as a stage production will not necessarily work as a feature film. Everything about this movie is over the top except its heart. Nathan Lane and Matthew Broderick reprise their stage roles of Bialystock and Bloom with different results. Broderick appears to have gotten so comfortable with the role that he seems to be sleepwalking through it for the film. Lane, on the other hand, carries the film on his very broad shoulders. His mannerisms recall Lou Costello. His voice is actually quite remarkable and is the highlight of any of the numbers he’s in. The addition of Uma Thurman as a Swedish bombshell feels forced on so many levels, from her horrible accent to her mismatched chemistry with Broderick’s Bloom.
The 40 year old story still has potential that falls short in this film. Bialystock and Bloom are attempting to produce a Broadway flop. Why? Because if you can pull in enough investor cash and close after one day, you can walk away with millions of dollars. They set out to find the worst play and hire the bottom of the heap. What can go wrong? How can a pro-Nazi production called “Springtime For Hitler” not crash and burn on opening day? If it’s a Mel Brooks written plot, you can count on everything going wrong, and of course, the play becomes a hit. The film picks up a bit when the “Springtime For Hitler” show is finally underway. Still, the film is overlong at 2 hours and 15 minutes. Some of the numbers drag on pointlessly. The film was intended to bring the Broadway experience to the film’s audience, but it fails at almost every turn.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on May 16th, 2006
Are we that jaded a country when a movie like Cinderella Man can be somewhat ignored during its theatrical run, and yet when it still garners the occasional award nomination as it did last winter, people snort, "Well, it's just your usual manipulative dramatic crap". Yeah? So what? For god's sake, take a look at what plays during the summer. Did we honestly need a remake of When a Stranger Calls?
Written by Akiva Goldsman and directed by Ron Howard (both from A Beautiful Mind), Cinderella Man tells the story of James J. Braddock (Russell Crowe, also from A Beautiful Mind, heavyweight champion in the '20s and '30s. He was on top of the world, married to a beautiful wife (Renee Zellweger, Chicago), and had two kids, and lived in a nice house in New Jersey. Then the Depression hit, and it hit everyone hard. Braddock and his family were forced out of their home and lived in poverty. Braddock still fought occasionally through the years, but began to break down physically, and it got to a point where his skills had deteriorated so much, that his boxing license was taken away. He was left without the basic means to support his family, so he went to the docks to look for work. A proud man, he never asked for money or for public assistance. When he did, it's viscerally heartbreaking to see such a stoic man break down and ask for a hand.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on May 2nd, 2006
I will be honest and inform you that I have yet to like a video game based film since 1995’s Mortal Kombat. It seems that no matter how closely they try to follow the story based on the game, the director always fails. One of the more famous director’s in the video-game to movie based series is director Uwe Boll, who has brought us The House of the Dead and the recent Bloodrayne, These movies, as the popular consensus agrees, were extremely awful. They lacked anything redeeming, despite the orig...nal source material being pretty good. When I heard of a film being made on the game series Doom, I began to worry as I figured it would follow the typical trend of terrible video-game based movies. Can Doom reverse the horrible trend of terrible video-game based movies? Read on to find out
Doom begins with a fly in shot over the red planet Mars. We move in more and see the Olduvai Research Station, which is a remote scientific facility on Mars. And that is the last scene we see of the planet Mars. For a movie based on a game that takes place on the red planet Mars, we never fully see the planet except for the opening scene. Maybe this is me wanting what I saw in the game series. But every film director has to take a few creative liberties right? Well, I am very disappointed to report to that director Andrzej Bartkowiak and Universal seem to have taken a few too many creative liberties when making this film as the film is nothing like the game at all.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on April 29th, 2006
In the era we live in, the eventuality of a movie about war was going to come, whether or not we wanted to see the film. Since the war in Iraq is such a hot button topic with a majority of people, regardless if you were for the war or against the war, Universal thought this would be the perfect moment to capture our interest in war. Enter director Sam Mendes (American Beauty) and stars Jake Gyllenhaal (Brokeback Mountain) and Academy-Award winning Actor Jamie Foxx (Ray) and you know you have a m...vie that will pique the average person’s curiousity. But was Jarhead made too soon? Would people really want to see what our soliders are going through? Let’s find out shall we?
Jarhead is based on the 2003 memoirs of Anthony Swofford who is portrayed by Gyllenhaal. Swofford served in the first Gulf War. The film is obviously about a war, but what makes the film amazing is that it is a war film that rises way, way above the concept of a war to tell an intriguing story of exhaustion, boredom, lonliness, obession and drama.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on April 24th, 2006
Steven Spielberg has always been a surefire type of director to go to if you want a high quality film. I was first introduced to Spielberg’s work via his groundbreaking film Jaws. Since then, Spielberg has continued to churn out hit after hit from 1993’s Schindler’s List which was awarded a Best Picture Oscar to his most recent film 2005’s Munich. Both of these particular films have gained numerous political and critical praise for the messages and raw power they both contained via the film’s int...nse imagery and story. I’ve always viewed Schindler’s List as my favorite film simply because of the impact the film had on me. After watching Spielberg’s latest masterpiece Munich, I can now say that the film is high up on my list nearly dethroning Schindler’s List.
Munich opens with the 1972 events that took place at the Munich Olympics where terrorists took hostages and killed them for the simple goal of wanting peace for their homeland. The event is re-enacted in near heart-stopping moments due the raw silent scenery that Spielberg creates. We then move to a room where we meet Israeli Prime Minister Golda Meir (Lynn Cohen) sitting with her cabinet. She utters the line “Forget peace for now.” We learn that Meir has decided to establish a secret Israeli revenge squad. What’s the goal of this squad? Why simply to kill the men who were responsible for these heinous attacks. The question that was eventually raised, long after the events in the film, was why kill these men? Men who will simply be replaced by more and more powerful and intense men who will want to do even more harm.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on April 22nd, 2006
Synopsis
After hearing a lot of good things about a sleepy film from Denmark called Brothers, I was curious to see what all the fuss was about. After all, we are talking about a country that has produced a visionary director in Lars von Trier (Breaking the Waves), but whose films have been a little bit on the polarizing side.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on April 19th, 2006
The appearance of Mr. T as B.A. Baracus unfortunately overshadows the rest of this show. Why is that unfortunate? Because Mr. T’s appeal mostly comes from his performance as the show-stealing Clubber Lang from Rocky III, and not from any major importance he had on this series. While people certainly tuned in to see Baracus, they were often disappointed by the back seat he would frequently take to the other stars – disappointed because they wanted to see Clubber Lang on the A-Team, and not the back-seat charact...r he plays here. But after watching more of his role as Baracus in The A-Team: The Complete Fourth Season, it becomes obvious why he wasn’t used any more than he was – he really is a one-trick-pony actor. He plays one role – plays it well, in fact – but he simply cannot add anything else to the character. The new quickly wears off, and all you’re left with is a supporting character stealing the spotlight by presence alone over the show’s real star, George Peppard.
Some of the episodes included in this latest release are solid, while others are childish – in fact, most are childish, but I won’t say they’re not all a little fun. It always amazed me how The A-Team’s battles with the bad guys – while often containing the use of machine guns, grenades, assault choppers, and dozens of other deadly militaristic weapons – most always resorted in their victory without the loss of one human life, good or bad. It’s also amusing the government has such difficulty locating them, but any yahoo gas station owner can track them down with ease – a shortfall of the series most loyal fans will overlook. Still, the nostalgia factor is huge with this show – it’s got to be – and it does still manage the occasional episode with deeper value (see the season finale). It’s certainly a stupid show, but don’t let that stop you from enjoying it. There are far worse things on our silver screens today.
![Assault on Precinct 13 [HD DVD] dvd cover art](https://upcomingdiscs.com/ecs_covers/assault-on-precinct-13-hd-dvd-large.jpg)
![The Bourne Supremacy [HD DVD] dvd cover art](https://upcomingdiscs.com/ecs_covers/the-bourne-supremacy-hd-dvd-large.jpg)
![Apollo 13 [HD DVD] dvd cover art](https://upcomingdiscs.com/ecs_covers/apollo-13-hd-dvd-large.jpg)
![Cinderella Man [HD DVD] dvd cover art](https://upcomingdiscs.com/ecs_covers/cinderella-man-hd-dvd-large.jpg)
![Doom [HD DVD] dvd cover art](https://upcomingdiscs.com/ecs_covers/doom-hd-dvd-large.jpg)
![Jarhead [HD DVD] dvd cover art](https://upcomingdiscs.com/ecs_covers/jarhead-hd-dvd-large.jpg)
