Posted in: Disc Reviews by David Annandale on November 13th, 2009
Jeff Daniels plays Arlen Faber, author of the mega-bestselling Me and God, a book of self-help spirituality that comes across as an aphoristic mix of Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance and The Purpose-Driven Life. The book is coming up for its twentieth anniversary, and Arlen hasn't written anything since. He is now a cynical recluse, but begins crawling out of his shell when he encounters a struggling single-mother chiropractor (Lauren Graham) and an alcoholic used bookstore owner (Lou Taylor Pucci). They are looking to him for wisdom, though he doesn't really believe he has any to give. In turn, they are teaching him how to live again.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on November 11th, 2009
“The future is bright at Monsters Incorporated. We power your car. We warm your home. We light your city. Carefuly matching every child to their ideal monster to produce superior scream. Refined into clean, dependable energy. Every time you turn something on, Monsters Incorporated is there. We know the challenge. The window of innocence is shrinking. Human kids are harder to scare. Of course, Monsters Incorporated is prepared for the future. With the top scarers, the best refineries, and research into new energy technologies. We’re working for a better tomorrow, today. We’re Monster’s Incorporated. We scare because we care.”
When you do this job you get asked the same question a lot.You get it from friends, family and people who just met you. They all ask the same thing. “What is your favorite movie of all time?” That’s a hard question, and it’s one that changes from time to time. But if you’re talking animated films, my answer’s been the same for several years now. It’s Monsters, Inc. You hear me gush about Pixar films all of the time here, but with all of their advances on technology, this is still the best film they’ve put out. And that’s saying something.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on November 5th, 2009
“For the Egyptians, life was eternal. They searched the globe for ingredients to preserve their bodies and their immortality. With knowledge gained from centuries of practice, their priests have created the finnest mummies the world has ever known.”
Ever since Howard Carter first entered the tomb of the legendary King Tut, most of the world has had an incredible fascination with the mummies of ancient Egypt. Hollywood has done its best over the ages to create fear by making monsters of these preserved corpses. Universal and Boris Karloff started the ball rolling, and the recent Brandon Frasier films have added a funny/scary bent using the very latest in computer generated magic. From bandages to living sandstorms, we have been exposed to some fantastical mummies. Now IMAX brings us a look at what these wrapped ancients were really all about. Looking beyond the creatures of our nightmares this release captures the mystery of a long lost civilization in Mummies: Secrets Of The Pharaohs. There’s no talk of curses and monsters here. The real curse of these tombs is the litany of looters that have raped these places in the thousands of years since they were buried. Their greed has not only robbed the dead, but future generations from appreciating and learning from what they left behind.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on November 4th, 2009
It sure seems like Pixar has a lock on the computer animated film industry these days. Their films appear to always hit just the right amount of adult and children content to win with both audiences. We may not all be laughing at the same jokes, but we do laugh. When we’re not laughing, we appear to be captivated by endearing characters that immediately feel like we’ve known them our whole lives. We are instantly concerned about the things that happen to them. All of this happens without a single live entertainer on the screen to guide us into these emotions. That’s because Pixar also happens to be the most state of the art studio out there churning out these kinds of films. The technological prowess is amazing. Perhaps the best compliment one can pay to a Pixar film is that all of these things, and much more, are true … and we never really notice it at all. We buy into whatever world they are offering without question and never realizing that we’ve done it. That’s not just good filmmaking. That’s magic. There’s a lot of heart in these zeros and ones.
Of course, magic is business as usual at Walt Disney Studios. Magic was Uncle Walt’s stock and trade, and so isn’t it just natural that Pixar would eventually find their home as part of the Disney family? For a while it seemed the two were about to part ways. At that time Disney was merely the animation studio’s distribution partner. A rift had developed when Disney was about to assert their contractual rights to make sequels from the Pixar properties they distributed, most particularly at the time, Toy Story. So, Pixar announced they were looking for a new partner in protest. A few deals were talked about, but in the end it could have been written as a Pixar film before it was over. Finding family is a common theme in the Pixar films. Eventually Disney and Pixar found each other again, this time cementing the deal when the Mouse House bought the animation pioneers. And all the while the continuing stream of classics hasn’t missed a beat. Okay. Let’s just forget about that Rat film.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on November 3rd, 2009
“A changing of the seasons brings wonder to the world. For ages has the magic of the fairies been unfurled. But nature’s greatest changes come beneath the Autumn sky and mysteries reveal themselves as harvest time draws nigh. This year a shimmering blue moon will rise before the frost. Perhaps its rays can light the way to find what has been lost.”
After giving us Tinker Bell’s origin story in the first film of this franchise, we get a chance to look even more deeply into this wonderland of fairies and magic. Ever wonder where that magical pixie dust comes from that allows fairies to fly? The origin of the substance is explored here. It seems there is a grand tree that produces the dust. Dust keepers care for the tree and cultivate the dust. They distribute it to all of the fairies on a rationing basis. Every 8 years the tree needs to be renewed or it will grow too weak and perish. On the 8th Autumn the fairies put on a revelry to celebrate the season and the new life the tree is about to be given. When the harvest moon rises, its rays will pass through the precious blue moonstone and those rays will create blue pixie dust. It is this snowlike blue dust that revitalizes the tree and the entire existence of Pixie Hollow.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on November 3rd, 2009
Written by Adrienne Ambush
If you were to take the movie Kill Bill, mix it with the Karate Kid, and then put it into animation form, the end result would be Chop Socky Chooks.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by David Annandale on November 1st, 2009
Decades after their moment in the sun in 1984, Canadian heavy metal band Anvil plugs along, playing bars and releasing CDs that barely sell, still hoping for that break that bypassed them while landing on their festival cohorts Whitesnake, Bon Jovi and the Scorpions. The documentary charts their new European tour that starts off promisingly but disintegrates into a disaster of Spinal Tap proportions, their struggle to produce and promote another new album, and a climactic return to the site of their past glory. While the opening minutes might engage laughter as one expects a real-life version of This Is Spinal Tap, the laughter is choked off almost immediately and replace by sympathy and real hope that these guys catch a break. They are not clowns – they have real talent – and the beyond-all-measure optimism of lead singer “Lips” is heartbreaking. A rock documentary to rank with the best of them, and one that proves that the absence of fame can be as compelling as its presence.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on October 28th, 2009
This time it’s a quad of whitewater rafters looking for some high adrenalin action. It doesn’t take long before they’re introduced to our favorite clan of cannibals and their arrows. This one doesn’t waste any time with a setup. You know what that title represents, and the filmmakers decide to give you what you want with no delay. Okay. Actually the raft trip IS the setup here. As the rafters escape into the woods, we just know they’re going to run into those snares and traps. And there you won’t be disappointed. This time a guy gets sectioned into three parts. As Kimberly Caldwell was beside herself in two sections for the second film, I can’t wait to see the setup by the time they get to entries 7 or 8.
The real meat, pun intended, of the film begins in a West Virginia prison compound. There’s about to be a high profile prisoner transferred to another facility. Because they fear his “boys” on the outside, they decide to do the transfer a week early with a U.S. Marshall undercover as one of the moved prisoners. You and I already knew that it’s not the mob guys they needed to concern themselves with. It’s no big spoiler to reveal that the bus doesn’t make it to the next stop. The Clan crashes the bus, and before you can say Deliverance, it’s the cons versus the cannibals with a couple of the good guys in the middle. Sounds like a perfect Wrong Turn sandwich, doesn’t it?
Posted in: Disc Reviews by David Annandale on October 28th, 2009
No one who knows me will find it terribly surprising to hear me admit that I know very little about the fashion industry, nor do I have a particular interest in it. Having said that, I was, to my pleasant surprise, gripped by this documentary. It tracks the final year of legendary designer Valentino's career as he prepares his new line and the big celebration of his 45 years in the business. But there are clouds on the horizon, too. He and his partner Giancarlo Giammetti are no longer the owners of the Valentino company, and the pressures of the new corporate world are bearing down. The films is thus a fascinating look behind the scenes of numerous facets of the Valentino's world: his life, how he works, his explosive temper, and the sad fact that the world of design is changing in ways that are forcing individual creative artists to the margins. Well worth watching.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on October 27th, 2009
“It’s the end of the world. Society is in chaos. Government’s no longer in control. The world has been devastated by a catastrophic disaster, but you’re still alive. Overnight, you’ve been thrown back into the Stone Age. Modern conveniences are a thing of the past. Would you have the guts to survive? Welcome to the Apocalypse. Over the next 5 days contestants will be put to the ultimate test. These 6 contestants have been thrown together in a devastated wasteland with only the clothes on their backs and the will to survive. Rain or shine, in 5 days only one will be alive.”
At least they got the last part right. That’s the premise of the new reality show Ultimate Survivalist. Reality star Kimberly Caldwell is racing to join the cast of the new pilot. She’s complaining to her agent on the cell phone that she’d rather have some better parts. She should know better than to talk and drive. She runs over a pedestrian. As she stops to check on the unfortunate soul, she soon discovers this is no ordinary pedestrian. He’s one of that lovable cannibal clan from the first Wrong Turn film. Before long Kimberly gets her wish. She ends up in two parts, literally. Make that 5 contestants.
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