Posted in: Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on April 13th, 2006
Hawaii 5-0 was one of CBS’s most successful shows of the 1970’s. A great deal of money had been spent creating facilities to take advantage of the Island’s unique setting. When the show had finally run its course, executives with the network were not keen to give up the production resources, so they simply created a new show to fill the same time slot and utilize the Hawaiian settings. Instead of a cop, this new show would center around Thomas Magnum (Selleck). Magnum was a former Naval Intelligence operative from ...he Vietnam War. He worked for an unseen wealthy boss ala Charlie’s Angels. His intermediary was Higgins (Hillerman). The show might even be considered a spinoff of Hawaii 5-0, as there are times Magnum mentions McGarrett from the previous show. A great deal of the show’s charm was created in the relationship between the proper English gentleman of Higgins and the devil-may-care free spirit of Magnum. Detective shows of the era also featured cool cars. Rockford had his Firebird, Starsky had his stripped Tomato Torino, Crockett had his Ferrari. Magnum drove a flashy red Ferrari actually owned by his boss. Helping in the adventures was Island chopper pilot TC (Mosley) and Casablanca knockoff nightclub owner Rick (Mannetti).
The Fourth Season of Magnum begins with one of the series’ more unique episodes. In “Home From The Sea” you won’t find the normal antics and car chases that made the show famous. Instead, Magnum is adrift at sea treading water. The episode provides a wonderful opportunity for some insight into Magnum’s childhood through flashbacks. The rest of the season is pretty much more of the same from the first three years. Bad guys and friends in trouble dominate the collection of episodes.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on April 7th, 2006
The Motorcycle Diaries tells the story of an 8,000 mile trip by either motorcycle (hence the name of the film), raft, truck or foot from Argentina to Peru in the year of 1952. Friends Ernesto Guevara de la Serna and Alberto Granado take this journey to travel across the continent. It’s important to note that Ernesto eventually became “Che” Guevara, a man who was involved in the political world. According to wikipedia, “Che” is mostly referred to as a Fidel Castro type figure, which is interesting especially co...sidering Castro was his friend. “Che”, like Castro, claimed to fight for his people, yet never truly did much for them. But this is an extreme side-note as the film focuses on when “Che” was younger.
The two friends climb on their trusty motorcycle and speed away to a world full of adventure and excitement. Sounds like a type of action film right? Well, The Motorcycle Diaries is far from an action film. The film is more an adventure type film that looks very deep into the lives of these two during this time period. Guevara is a medical student while Alberto is a biochemist. Both have a few years left in their education path. During their journey, they make many stops, some of which have deep meaning (One key moment is explained later). The first stop on their adventure is to visit Guevara’s girlfriend whose father disapproves of Guevara. Chichina, Guevara’s girlfriend, loves him so dearly that she’ll apparently wait for him to finish.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on April 4th, 2006
Synopsis
I have to write an open letter to those who are (deep breath) fans of teen idol used-to-bes Scott Baio and Willie Aames. What the hell is wrong with you people? Did the online petition have THAT many signatures that it had to be recognized and acted upon? Did you really need to have the theme song to Charles in Charge on DVD? I admit, it’s a little bit catchy, but if you watch all 22 episodes in one setting, you need to up your lithium dosage. I know and understand that Universal is catering...to the VH-1 “I Love the ‘80s” crowd by releasing shows like this onto disc, but let’s exercise some sort of restraint, huh?
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on March 29th, 2006
John Carpenter can be hit or miss on some of the things he’s done in his career. Vampires may be a good case in point. In his version of The Thing, remade from Howard Hawks’ 1950’s classic, he doesn’t focus on the creature as much as the relationship between the men in the camp, and how the paranoia starts to creep in the group, as they try to figure out who may or may not be infected by the creature. I might have jumped ahead of some people who haven’t seen it, but just to briefly recap for those few w...o have missed this:
An American crew working in the Arctic circle encounter a Norwegian crew who are frantically shooting at a dog that is running to the camp. The Americans defends themselves as soon as one of the men is hit, and the Norwegians are killed. The Americans take the dog in, but they also go out to the Norwegian camp to find out just what exactly spooked them so much. They find a camp littered with bodies, along with something that was thawed out by the group before they were brutally killed. From that point, various members of the group get infected and plucked off one at a time. But what made this one maybe a bit scarier than most was Carpenter’s ability to create enough of a dynamic between the men, and that most of them were fleshed out enough to the point where you understand how they work together. And the cast is very able, from older members Blair and Copper (Wilford Brimley and Richard Dysart, respectively), to younger members Childs (Keith David, Armageddon) and Palmer (David Clennon, From the Earth to the Moon), all held together by the film’s star (and frequent Carpenter leading man) Kurt Russell (Dark Blue), who plays MacReady.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on March 28th, 2006
Brokeback Mountain tells the story of star-crossed lovers Ennis Del Mar (Heath Ledger) and Jack Twist (Jake Gyllenhaal). Both are young men, not even twenty, working in the year of 1963. They meet and fall in love on a sheep-herding job in Signal, Wyoming. The film chronicles the next 20 years of their lives from Ennis marrying Alma Beers (Michelle Williams) to Jack marrying Laureen Newsome (Anne Hathaway). The 20 years that the film takes place over show Ennis and Jack trying to lead a normal life without see...ng each other, but shortly before realizing that they both have a deep connection to one another.
There’s a scene in Brokeback Mountain where Ennis tells Jack about something he saw as a boy. Ennis tells Jack that there were two old guys who were shacked up together. The whole town knew of this. Then one day, they were found beaten to death. Ennis’s father made sure Ennis and his brother saw this possibly as an idea that this is what may occur if you chose this type of life. This scene is quite important because it really shapes and defines the kind of character that Ennis is. Ennis is the kind of character that wants to let his emotions for Jack out but we learn that he was taught to hate his own feelings. Years after first meeting Jack, Ennis tells Jack “Why don’t you let me be? It’s because of you, Jack, that I’m like this—nothing, and nobody.” Ennis blames Jack for his problems, but the center of his problem is that Ennis loves Jack but can’t find a way to deal with that fact.
Posted in: 1.85:1 Widescreen, Comedy, Disc Reviews, Dolby Digital 5.1 (English), Dolby Digital 5.1 (French), DVD, Universal by David Annandale on March 8th, 2006
Synopsis
The recently divorced Uma Thurman is seeing therapist Meryl Streep as she tries to put her life back together. She meets Bryan Greenberg, sixteen years her junior, and falls for him. Streep encourages her to go for it, and then discovers that the object of Thurman’s affection is her son, whom she wanted to find a nice Jewish girl. Neither Thruman nor Greenberg know of their connection through Streep and carry on with their relationship, while Streep struggles to carry on with Thurman’s thera...y, forced to hear altogether more than she would like about her son.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by David Annandale on March 7th, 2006
Synopsis
Christmas in Wichita Falls, but there’s not much comfort and joy going around. John Cusack and Billy Bob Thornton have just stolen two million bucks from mob boss Randy Quaid. If they can keep things together for just a few hours, they will be home free and off to warmer climes with their loot. But a huge thug is looking for them, Cusack keeps drawing attention to himself, and then there’s the question of whether these two can really trust each other.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by David Annandale on March 6th, 2006
Synopsis
The Bennet family is not rich, and when Mr. Bennet (Donald Sutherland) dies, the estate will pass out of the family’s hands and into those of a rather pompous little twit of a parson. There are five daughters, and their future can only be achieved through marriage. Elizabeth Bennet (Keira Knightley) is the second daughter (improbably described as plain). Her path repeated crosses that of Mr. Darcy (Matthew Macfadyen), an aloof, brooding gentleman who apparently has little use for her or her ...amily. She doesn’t like him much, either. They are both, of course, in for a surprise.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on March 6th, 2006
Ever since making the Lord of the Rings trilogy, Director Peter Jackson has almost become a household name that seems to always guarantee success. Don’t get me wrong though, Jackson has not always been successful. Before making the Lord of the Rings trilogy, Jackson had the film The Frighteners and a few smaller films where he only produced. The idea of giving this not so successful movie director hundreds of millions of dollars to remake the Lord of the Rings trilogy, made many turn their...heads simply wondering why. But, after the gigantic success of the trilogy, Jackson targeted another remake, a remake to a film he says was the reason he wanted to become a film director. The film in question is the 1933 classic King Kong
When news first arrived of this remake, many fans, including myself, were very excited to see what Jackson could come up with. However, I don’t need to spell out how many remakes, including the recent Pink Panther, are extremely horrid. With the news coming out that Universal wanted Jackson to trim the film down (from the final run time of 182 minutes to 140 for a quicker turn around audience) and that the film’s budget had sky-rocketed forcing Jackson and his partner Fran Walsh to fork over their money, a lot of fans started to worry if Peter Jackson’s King Kong was going to go down in history as simply another poorly made remake. Can a one-time nobody director, now an extremely famous director turn a black and white classic into a modern age epic? Read on to find out.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on March 5th, 2006
Synopsis
Let me tell you a story. Back in 1904, I used to be in the Army. For 3 glorious years, I went to the office every day from 9 to 4:30 (with an hour and a half for lunch), typing up and processing awards and various evaluation reports and generally doing the best job I could. When I had to, I went out for field training and would (for lack of a better phrase) “play Army”, where I would sit in a communications center for 8 hours at a time, checking to see if the radios worked occasionally.
