Posted in: 1.33:1 Fullscreen, Action, Artisan Entertainment, Disc Reviews, Dolby Digital 2.0 (English), Dolby Digital 5.1 (English), DVD by Archive Authors on July 10th, 2003
Synopsis
Professional hit man Christopher Lambert is given a new contract, but this one doesn’tinvolve killing. He is to travel from Europe to Cape Town (where his parents were killed whenhe was but a wee lad) and protect Dennis Hopper, a businessman with mob ties who is going totestify against psychopathic gangster Christo. Even in jail, Christo’s reach is long and deadly, andLambert has his work cut out for him protecting the very unpleasant Hopper and his daughter.So far, so conventional...
Posted in: Disc Reviews by David Annandale on July 9th, 2003
Synopsis
Sylvester Stallone is Frankie Delano, bodyguard to Anthony Quinn (in his final filmappearance). Quinn, an aging mobster, is tidying up his life, and spending most of his timewatching his daughter (Madeleine Stowe) from a distance. He had to give her up in her infancy,otherwise she would have been killed in a vendetta, and she does not know who her father is.Stallone, natch, has long since fallen in love with Stowe after decades of watching her from afar.When Quinn is murder...
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on July 9th, 2003
FX decided to jump on the cable bandwagon last year and come up with their very own original series, The Shield. The show stars Michael Chiklis, formerly of The Commish, as Vic Mackey, a hard-nosed Los Angeles detective that gives bad cops a good name – but in a bad way.
Mackey is head of a tactical Strike Team that is comprised of plainclothes officers working in one of the most crime-ridden areas of Los Angeles - the Farmingdale District. Mackey’s group shows impressive results however – s...
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on July 9th, 2003
UHF is one of those cult films that has gained quite a following over the years. Fans of the film have been clamoring for a DVD release for many months now and somewhere in the hallowed halls of MGM, someone did something about it. The company is going to release a full-blown DVD of the film on June 4th that will appease the dozens and dozens of “Weird Al” Yankovic fans everywhere.
UHF is total satire and plays almost like the old Landis Kentucky Fried Movie from the 70’s. It’s target...
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on July 6th, 2003
When one thinks of the “Golden Age” of rock, the middle sixties to the middle seventies, a cornucopia of big name, big time acts usually surfaces in discussion. The big three, of course: The Beatles, The Rolling Stones, and Led Zeppelin. Some impressive but undoubtedly second tier acts follow: The Who, Cream, Black Sabbath. Solo acts like Bowie, Elton John, Marvin Gaye and Jimi Hendrix stand out. One musical act that seems to get lost in the glare of these musical supernovas was a pair of soft-spoken, poetic friends ...
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on July 4th, 2003
Synopsis
We are in the last five days before the Rodney King verdict will set LA on fire. Movingthrough the mean streets is one mean cop -- Eldon Perry (Kurt Russell). Perry is very much avintage Ellroy character: hard, mean, utterly corrupt, but still possessing the glimmerings of asoul. He is contrasted by his younger partner Scott Peedman, who still has ideals and wants tobe a good cop, and his boss Brendan Gleeson, who is a complete monster in the Dudley Smithmould. Investigatin...
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on July 2nd, 2003
Film
To film fans, the clause “Directed by Alfred Hitchcock” has almost become an adjective in and of itself. It has come to mean suspense created by using the viewer’s imagination and mind as a part of the film, first and foremost. These films didn’t have the freedom of CG, and consequently had to invent ways to achieve visual effects (Watch the documentary on Birds or Rear Window for example). Besides the lack of freedom of creation that digital filmmaking now provides, the filmmak...
Posted in: Disc Reviews by David Annandale on June 22nd, 2003
Jessica Lange is a top Chicago attorney, who finds herself called on to defend her father when he is accused of having committed war crimes in Second World War Hungary. Convinced of his innocence, she launches herself into the wrenching case, but finds that maintaining her convictions becomes harder as the case moves on. Given his later career (Basic Instinct,Showgirls, etc.), it’s rather surprising in retrospect to find that the script to this intelligent drama is by Joe Esteras. Though sometimes moving a bit too slowly, the film is always interesting, the performances are superb (especially by Lange) and the story builds to a pretty powerful climax.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by David Annandale on June 22nd, 2003
Jared Leto plays Basil, youngest son of the tyrannical Derek Jacobi. Traumatized by the death of his mother when he was young, the exile of his brother (who dallied with a young woman beneath his station), and oppressed by a father for whom class consciousness is the be-all and end-all, Basil is barely equipped to deal with the outside world. He has no friends, and only the most naive notions of romance. Into his life comes Christian Slater, whose worldly ways inspire Leto, and ...
Posted in: Disc Reviews by David Annandale on June 21st, 2003
Made for TV (and showing it, what with that jarring fade-to-black exactly 20 minutes in),this film tells the story of a group of men trapped together in a coal mine when they suddenly strike water and their claustrophobic environments floods. We cut back and forth between their struggle to survive, the struggle to reach them, and the experience of their wives and families. At times, what, precisely, is happening in the mine is a bit hard to follow, though the realism is quite strong.
