Posted in: Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on June 20th, 2003
Steven Seagal is certainly showing his age in Half Past Dead. To ardent fans of his tough-guy act, this might be a bad thing. To those of us just looking for a good film, I think it’s actually a good thing. With Seagal’s ass-kicking held more in check there appears more room for a story to grow. This one is above average. Seagal’s age also means a stronger supporting cast and this one has a nice one. Mia Peoples is stunning as one of the main villains. Ja Rule and Kurupt add the necessary urban reality and some comedy relief when called for.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on June 20th, 2003
Synopsis
The Legend of the gunfighter who wears the red scorpion jacket has come to South Beach in Miami. When the parking valet at a local strip club gets pulled into the legend he hinds himself the target of a mob hit and running for his life. Throw a sociopathic blonde into the mix and he might as well finish himself off before someone does it for him.
Audio
This film has a number of gunfights and I expected the audio to be above average but, instead it is somewhat belo...
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on June 20th, 2003
Writer Norman Mailer and director Lawrence Schiller can’t get enough of the nation’s most intriguing criminals. Best known for the critically acclaimed Executioner’s Song, the duo are at it again with this CBS mini-series spruced up to an R rating for DVD.
To anyone who has seen the 60 Minutes piece or kept up with the story in their local paper, the story is familiar enough. Robert Hanssen spied for the Soviet Union for 22 years while a top level FBI agent. William Hurt delivers a rather deadpan performance as Hanssen, a man rife with contradictions.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on June 20th, 2003
In 1962 Ed Sabol purchased the rights to film the NFL and history was made. NFL films came to pioneer so many styles of filming that are still in use today like slow motion and the tight spiral football shot. The footage contained in these discs have never been seen before, it is old archived footage that was never used and it is amazing. The three discs are as follows…
Disc 1 – The Creation (1962-1965): This film looks at the beginning of what would become NFL Films. Watch as Ed Sabol and his ...
Posted in: Disc Reviews by David Annandale on June 18th, 2003
Fred Ward is a tough, no-nonsense cop. One night (when for some reason he has no partner),he is the victim of an attack, and wakes up with a different face and a new identity. He has been recruited by a shadowy government organization (currently made up of three other people). He is trained by Korean master Chiun (Cabaret MC Joel Grey under lots of makeup) to become a fighting machine. Meanwhile, future starship captain Kate Mulgrew is an army major investigating an industrialist who seems to be fleecing the US military for billions of dollars. All paths will soon merge.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on June 15th, 2003
This disc is a compilation of the 5 highest rated episodes of the Steve Harvey Show. This TV series ran from 1996-2002 on the WB network and features Steve Harvey (The Original King’s of Comedy) as Steve Hightower ex-1970’s R&B star turned music teacher and assistant principal and Cedric “The Entertainer” (Barbershop) as coach Cedric Wilson and Steve’s best friend and roommate. It also featured your usual high school sitcom cast of characters. The five episodes presented here are:
Posted in: Disc Reviews by David Annandale on June 13th, 2003
Essentially, this is standard Hulk stuff: Bruce Banner wants to stop his horrible transformation, General Ross wants to kill the Hulk, Betty Ross wants to save the man she loves,and all sorts of villains get into the mix. There is a bit more continuity than in some other TV cartoon fare (though not on the level of, say, Gargoyles). The animation is standard TV stuff.Keeping the commercial breaks in so obviously wasn’t necessary, I have to say.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on June 12th, 2003
20 Million Miles To Earth has always been one of my favorite films. It was from this classic monster fest that I developed my long standing respect for stop motion pioneer Ray Harryhausen. In 1998, I got to meet Ray for the first time as his assistant for a horror convention (unfortunately run by a megalomaniac). It was there that I developed enough of a relationship with him and his lovely wife Diane that I was able to interview him at the 2003 Wonderfest in Louisville. Ray’s time was extremely limited, so I ...
Posted in: Disc Reviews by David Annandale on June 11th, 2003
Synopsis
This is essentially Twilight Zone or Outer Limits with a rock angle. There are four stories,each a mild horror tale. The format might be rather limiting, though there are some clever ideas.“Disco Inferno,” for instance, posits what hell would be like for headbangers. That’s a cutenotion, but is hard to sustain, even over 22 minutes.
Audio
No surprise that the music dominates the soundtrack, though even then it isn’t quite aspowerful as one might thi...
Posted in: Disc Reviews by David Annandale on June 11th, 2003
Synopsis
Topper tells the tale of Cosmo Topper (Roland Young), a repressed, middle-aged banker,and his liberating encounter with the ghosts of Cary Grant and Constance Bennett. Grant andBennett, irresponsible socialites, die in a car accident without ever having done a good deed.They must make up for this before they can move on, and their good deed is to shake upTopper’s life. This is a gentle comedy, with fabulous character work from Young (who richlydeserved his Oscar nomination)...
