Posted in: Disc Reviews by David Annandale on July 5th, 2004
Synopsis
John Wayne Gacy (Mark Holton) is a typical, if rather slobbish, middle-class family man. Heis the local organizer for the Democrats. He also has a bad stench emanating from the crawlspace beneath his house, and the neighbours keep complaining. Gacy has his work cut out forhim dealing with the stench, since it is caused by the rotting bodies of the young men he hasmurdered.
The lurid qualities of Gacy’s crimes mean that this film could have been an unwatchableexercise in b...
Posted in: Disc Reviews by David Annandale on July 5th, 2004
Synopsis
Megan Gallagher and family move into a new house, and very soon things start to go wrong.It seems that there is a race of little creatures, the “Huldre,” living under the earth, and they playincreasingly nasty pranks. Their central target is Gallagher’s young daughter, who at first isdelighted to befriend the creatures. Malcolm McDowell, slumming for another paycheck, plays apsychiatrist who sees the child’s case as his ticket to glory.
The plotting is sloppy, the character...
Posted in: Disc Reviews by David Annandale on July 2nd, 2004
Synopsis
Dean Cain arrives at a secret base in California to take over as head of security from hisRussian predecessor. (Why is the other guy Russian? Because the movie was shot in EasternEurope.) He arrives in time for a DNA cloning experiment conducted by the chief scientist/chiefweasel (whose accent sounds more like Moscow than the Chicago of which he supposedly anative). The experiment results in the Jurassic Park-style resurrection of a fire-breathingdragon.
What follo...
Posted in: Disc Reviews by David Annandale on June 30th, 2004
Synopsis
Season Three finds our earnest characters dealing with the usual assortment of relationshipand other problems. As the season opens, Dawson and Joey have broken up, and Dawson meets arather sexually forward young woman on a bus. By the end of the season, Joey is involved withPacey. The headline-grabber from these episodes was Jack’s gay kiss.
As I believe I mentioned when reviewing the series finale, I am at a distinct disadvantagewhen it comes to talking about this ...
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on June 18th, 2004
Everyone’s favorite television psychiatrist is back for his third go around. Frasier and his emmy award winning cast return for one of the better seasons that the series produced. The third season sees more wackiness, more Eddie jokes, and more shenanigans at the radio station. The biggest story shift this year is Niles' (David Hyde Pierce) separation from the still unseen Maris, leaving him more free time to moon over Daphne (Jane Leeves). In a half-season arc, Frasier (Kelsey Grammer) finds himself at odds with, an...
Posted in: Disc Reviews by David Annandale on June 16th, 2004
Synopsis
If ever an actor mastered the double-take, it was Cary Grant, and his hilariously flabbergastedlook gets a full workout in My Favorite Wife (1940). Seven years ago, he lost wife IreneDunne in a shipwreck. Now he has just remarried to Gail Patrick, and Dunne, who spent the lastseven years marooned on an island, suddenly shows up again. We follow the comicmisadventures that will lead Grant to reuniting with Dunne and parting with cold-fish Patrick.Grant’s flustered att...
Posted in: Disc Reviews by David Annandale on June 15th, 2004
Synopsis
Tarzan the Ape Man (1932) follows the safari of Jane Parker (Maureen O’Sullivan)and her father into the jungle world of Tarzan (Johnny Weissmuller). Searching for the elephantgraveyard and the wealth of ivory it would contain, the safari meets all sorts of peril and climbs aforbidding escarpment before they encounter Tarzan. He makes off with Jane, who falls in lovewith him before the movie is out. This film had all the elements that would recur in the rest of theser...
Posted in: Disc Reviews by David Annandale on June 14th, 2004
Synopsis
Park Day, the opening narration by Steve (Hill Harper) informs us, is a reunion day for theblack community of New Haven, Missouri. On this particular day, the lives of various charactersreach turning points. The most central player is Steve, who wants to be a writer, but meets withresistance from his father, who is pressuring him to go to college to earn a more practicaleducation. Moving through the events of the day is an old man, who may be a supernaturalbeing.
...
Posted in: Disc Reviews by David Annandale on June 13th, 2004
Synopsis
Just For You is a Technicolor musical with Bing Crosby as a Broadway producer,and Jane Wyman as his leading lady/fiancee. Though a big financial success, Crosby has beenfalling down on the job as a father, neglecting his adolescent children. At best. He comesperilously close to losing all audience sympathy when he tears into his son’s attempts atsongwriting. He determines to turn over a new life, but his parenting skills are really put to thetest when his son falls i...
Posted in: Disc Reviews by David Annandale on June 13th, 2004
Synopsis
Bob Hope plays a hopeless American actor in England during the early 1900s. Lucille Ballis the daughter of a newly rich family, and though she may be dressed in finery, she’s very mucha bull in the china shop of English society. Believing Hope to be a butler, Ball’s mother hireshim to teach Ball some etiquette, and hauls the poor soul back to the American frontier, where allmanner of indignities ensue.
The comedy hasn’t aged particularly well, though some of the sma...
