Posted in: Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on January 27th, 2006
Synopsis
Based on the novel by Helen Cross, and adapted for the screen and directed by Pawel Pawlikowski, My Summer of Love is an interesting story about two girls in Ireland (or England) who find friendship in each other’s company among a sea of desolation.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on January 25th, 2006
No single television show defined the 1980’s as did Miami Vice. Did Vice influence the 80’s culture, or did the 80’s culture create Miami Vice? The line appears blurred. This much is unmistakable. Miami Vice dominated the pop culture of the time. The biggest names in music, from Joe Walsh to Phil Collins, have lent their music and (sometimes pitiful) acting skills. It was suddenly cool to walk around in pastel longboats. Don’t even get me started on the car. Were Ferraris ever not cool? Don Johnson was an overnight heartthrob to millions of teen girls across the nation. The show depicted a highly stylized Miami that is not quite recognizable to those of us who really live in Florida. At least the locations were often more real than in the current CSI: Miami, which uses only establishing shots of the Beach Metropolis.
Of course, buried somewhere in all of this style and sex appeal there was a fair share of crime fighting. Crocket and Tubbs were an 80’s retread of Starsky and Hutch. While the show sported far more action than the 70’s counterpart, the partner interaction was often amazingly familiar.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on January 20th, 2006
Al Pacino is one of those actors who always seems to find himself in those type of roles that bring out the absolute best in him. In his last four films (Insomina, People I Know, Angels in America, and The Merchant of Venice) Pacino has brought the needed tension and power to his performances. Add 2005’s Two For The Money to that ever-growing list of excellent performances.
Pacino plays Walter who runs a sports betting hotline. Matthew McConaughey plays Brandon, the Vega... oddsmakers Walter brings to New York. Walter befriends Brandon and makes him a star by showing him how to act with an unleveled amount of confidence and exuberance. Rene Russo plays Toni, Walter’s wife.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on January 11th, 2006
Tessa Quayle (Rachel Weisz) is not your standard activist. She won’t be satisfied by simply standing on protest lines – she must be where the action is, and for her it’s in disease infested Kenya. When a pharmaceutical company sets up shop there to distribute a prototypical drug to the people, Tessa becomes involved in a conspiracy that will eventually costs her her life.
After Tessa turns up dead – and this is no spoiler – her death is featured in the opening scenes of the film, husband Justin (Ralph Fien...es) delves into her world – a world he has learned to accept as a diplomat – to find the reason behind her death. Upon his discovery he learns that his wife was an entirely different woman than the one he knew, a woman who regularly hid things from him. But why did she keep secrets? Was she having an affair? Was she protecting Justin from a life she knew he would not sympathize with as a government worker?
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on January 3rd, 2006
Synopsis
The Stiffler character from the Amercian Pie movies has, it turns out, a younger brother, who is also a loathsome creep. After sabotaging the high school band’s performance, his punishment is to attend band camp himself. He makes the best of a bad deal, planning to videotape raunchy goings on.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on January 2nd, 2006
Synopsis
Julian Morris is the new guy at an exclusive high school. Exclusive, presumably, because all the students look five to ten years too old to be high school students. At any rate, he falls in with the hip crowd, led by ice queen Lindy Booth, and they decide to play a game with the rest of the student body by sending out a hoax e-mail leading all and sundry to believe that a serial killer is loose on campus. But then it begins to appear that there IS a killer, and that he isn’t too happy about ...he hoax.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on December 26th, 2005
Synopsis
There was a period in Francis Ford Coppola’s (The Godfather, Apocalypse Now) life where he went through a bit of a phase, where he was making films based on relatively obscure material. And he went through another smaller phase in the early ‘80s where he was making films from source material of author S.E. Hinton (The Outsiders). And Rumble Fish was one of those.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on December 26th, 2005
Synopsis
Despite the upside of pro wrestling-being on worldwide TV and having people from ages 6 to 60 buy a shirt with your face on it, and cheer (or boo) you in the ring until they become hoarse, there is still a downside. A wrestler can be on the road for 250 days out of the year. The pay is comfortable, but there is the risk of injury, or worse, addictions to drugs to overcome the pain you can suffer from while on the road. And unlike John Q. Businessman, a lot of the wrestlers out there either don’t ha...e a health or pension plan, or can’t even afford either or both to begin with. Numerous wrestlers over the years have been incapacitated from the life, and at least that many have committed suicide, including several well known (to fans) wrestlers in the recent months. The upside can be great though, and a wrestler’s character can have a lasting impact on the public, long enough to maybe make them lifelong fans. I’m still watching it, off and on for (damn!) 20 years, and Barry Blaustein has the same identification with it, and uses it to help focus on several different people who have, and are, making their livelihood in the business, in Beyond the Mat.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on December 20th, 2005
It was an excitable time for this young 13 year old boy. No matter where you were in the house, the sound came to you. No matter what you were doing, it drew you to the living room television. No matter how bad things were going, that sound brought a smile to your face. Mike Post’s opening theme for The Rockford Files has to be one of the best in television history, and it lingers in my mind as a precious anthem of days gone by.
He was every young boy’s hero. How could you resist James Rockford? He had the toughness of Dirty Harry. Yet, beneath it all, he was terribly flawed and even a little naive. Why is it that after the hundreds of TV detectives that have crossed our paths a small handful endear themselves to the pop culture? The answer is simple. Every once in a while an actor combines with strong writers and creates a character with incredible heart and soul. We can’t imagine anyone else playing the part. Peter Falk accomplished it with Columbo. In recent years Tony Shalhoub has graced us with Monk. You can’t complete such a list without James Garner and his alter ego, Rockford.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on December 18th, 2005
Synopsis
I would hope that with films like The Wedding Date, that the genre of films set around weddings is over and done with. There’s nothing left to mine, the horse is very dead, and in this case, the film is rather predictable. Or to put in another way, my wife said “this film will probably be stupid, but I’ll like it”. And when I was watching parts of the film, the story was so easy to follow that I could go and make a batch of chili, come back, and be caught up to the story.
