Posted in: Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on March 25th, 2009
This is not your Friendly Neighborhood Spider-Man. If you’re at all like me, you grew up on the 1960’s cartoon series and, of course, the Marvel comic. A lot has changed since those early days of the web slinger. There’s been a not too successful television live action attempt. The comics themselves have changed significantly. You can’t discount the enormously profitable Sam Raimi films, that have given new legs to an old superhero. It stands to reason that a new cartoon series was in order. Enter The Spectacular Spider-Man, the 10th series based on the Marvel character. This recent cartoon series updates the world of Spidey. The shows take from both the original comics and the film series to create a new fusion of the hero. Like in the comics, Parker is the loner high school kid teased constantly by bullies like Flash Thompson. He has a few girls on his radar like Gwen Stacey and Mary Jane Watson. He still lives with his kind old Aunt May. Unlike the film, Spider-Man was not endowed with his web slinging ability by the radioactive spider. He developed the shooters and the chemical mixture that makes them work. That means he can run out of fluid and lose his ability to shoot webs. The Osborne relationship from the movies exists here. It’s also likely no coincidence that the villains featured in the film have prominence here. Doc Ock, Sand Man, The Goblin, and even Venom are hinted at in the last episode of this collection.
These cartoons are actually pretty good. The animation is pretty solid. Some of the characters look rather strange. Aunt May looks like she’s a 20 year old with white hair. Character jaw lines have a distinctive angular style that makes everyone look like they’re posing for some tough guy magazine cover. MJ looks like a matchstick and says “tiger” way too often. They are not really standalone episodes. Unlike the 1960’s series there is a story arc that connects the episodes into a longer form. The character’s mythology is also played with quite a bit. The cartoons work in a few origin stories and connect them together as a master plan plot devised by OsCorp and spearheaded by Dr. Octavius. The only real complaint I have is that each disc, sold separately, contains a mere 3 episodes. While this is great for bit rate and picture quality, it’s not much of a bargain material wise. The total running time for each disc is just 69 minutes. (That’s about 23 minutes an episode.) Because the stories are continuous, you never really reach the end of the plot. I think Sony would have done much better to wait and release season sets of the cartoon. I wouldn’t be surprised if that comes, making these discs unnecessary in the long run, except to add more money in the Sony cash registers.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on March 25th, 2009
This is one of those direct to video sequels I never saw coming. It’s not like anyone was exactly breaking down the box office doors to see the first Happily N’Ever After film when it debuted in January of 2007. Universally panned by the critics and audiences alike, it disappeared rather quickly from the scene and was, or so we thought, destined to become a distant memory, a legend used from time to time to scare little children into behaving for their parents. “Clean up your room now, or I’ll force you to watch Happily N’Ever After again”. Most of us where never really sure it existed at all. A quick expedition to the local theater revealed the name on a marquee, but did we ever see anyone actually enter the theater to watch the film? There was one scientist in Austria who claimed to have seen a couple enter the theater, but the snapshot he took was fuzzy and it was just not possible to confirm the siting. HBO did one of their expose stories on the existence of an audience for the film, but again no hard evidence was ever presented. It is said that stars like Freddie Prinze, Jr., Sarah Michelle Gellar, Sigourney Weaver, and even George Carlin provided voices for the film, but in interviews none of the alleged voice cast was willing to confirm they even worked on the film. Rumor has it that Carlin was presented with absolute proof of his participation just before he died. Of course, such rumors are rampant in Hollywood and should be discounted as unsubstantiated gossip.
Whether or not there ever was an actual audience for the first film, someone at Lionsgate decided that the film demanded a follow up. This former Lionsgate employee could not be reached for comment at Joe’s Car Wash, where he currently claims to be “cleaning up in the auto industry”. For some inexplicable reason the original voice cast decided not to be involved in the sequel. In fact the IMDB does not even list a voice cast at all on the film’s entry. It’s pretty bad when even industry nobodies want to distance themselves so badly from a project. If I had anything to do with this film, I’d sue to have my name removed from the credits.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by William O'Donnell on March 25th, 2009
This set contains all of the episodes from the first season (or “series” as it is termed in the UK). The show follows a standard teen drama format of a group of high school friends, this time from Bristol. Each token stereotype is covered in the main characters (the quirky girl, the party animal, the dweeb, the cool guy & girl, the ethnic guy & girl, the gay guy) and each receives their own episode to focus on them, with a few ongoing romantic plots stringing all of their stories together. Each of said episodes ends with the focus character coming to some sort of new advancement or revelation in their lives (Example: the character with an eating disorder bites into a burger).
The packaging has reviewers drawing comparisons between this show and Gossip Girl, as if Skins is the raunchier, overseas equivalent of it. The characters of Skins are at least not the privileged horde that infest North American teen dramas such as The OC or Gossip Girl, thereby making them a touch more relatable. At the same time, the situations and stories do get rather disconnected from reality. The beginning episodes wish to be more about real-life troubles, there's even one about homework (sort-of), but by the time the teens are in an episode where they are being deported from Russia and held at gunpoint, the series loses touch with teen issues and starts to play out like a juvenile Melrose Place.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by David Annandale on March 21st, 2009
Melissa Leo is a hard-working café waitress in Tennessee who regularly sends what little extra cash she has to her adult son who, for reasons never explained, is a drug-addict in Johannesburg. A drug lord (Joey Dedio) kidnaps said son, and demands a ransom that, for Leo, is next to impossible. Nonetheless, a mother's love knows no obstacles, so she scrapes together the money to fly to South Africa. Once there, she connects with Tina (Lisa-Marie Schneider), her son's prostitute girlfriend, and is made to run the gauntlet by Dedio, who shows very little inclination to let his hostage go, no matter what demand is met.
This is an odd fish of a film, being a rather incongruous mix of gender-flipped Taken and gritty realism. Leo is called upon to do the impossible: be the grief-stricken mother and then terrified mother for the first part of the film, but transform by the end to an avenger whose strategy and vocabulary are worthy of Hannibal Lecter. All of her weepy moments are expertly performed, but so frequent they become tiresome. In other words, we have a first-rate actor being sandbagged by a silly script. And silly the whole thing very much is. Despite all kinds of gestures towards the Harsh Realities of Life, it is, in the end, no more a product of the real world than Transformers. What it is, though, is slick, quick and entertaining.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on March 16th, 2009
There’s a lot to want to love about this film. You have the return of the super powered Malone children, and more importantly, the same actors to portray them. Director John Hough returned to direct the sequel. The film also includes Christopher Lee and Bette Davis as the villains. Like I said, a lot to want to like. Something went terribly wrong along the way. Neither Christopher Lee nor Bette Davis take their roles seriously at all. I don’t think I’ve seen either accomplished thespian show so little effort in a performance. It’s very obvious they considered them to be throwaway roles. Davis remarks she did it only because she wanted to be in a film her grandchildren would like. She’s particularly bad in a role that has her so caked in makeup that she could be a Jack Pierce creation from the Universal horror days. What’s worse, the children spend about 80% of the film apart.
It’s three years later, and the children are returning from their home on Witch Mountain for a holiday, of sorts. They’re placed in a cab and sent off on a destination that they never do reach. Instead they play a prank on the cab driver and disable the engine. Believing he has run out of gas, he sets off to get some. In the meantime Tia has another vision of yet another unfortunate accident. For the second time, the children try to save the day only to be exposed to those who would profit from them. Victor (Lee) is a mad scientist who was experimenting with mind control at the time. When he sees Tony hold his subject in mid air to prevent his death from falling off the roof, he decides he wants to control that power. Along with his rich patron, Letha (Davis) they drug Tony and take him away before Tia knows what happened. Now Tia has to find and rescue her brother. Fortunately, Tony has advanced since the first film. He no longer needs the harmonica and he can now communicate with Tia, but the drugs are interfering. Tia encounters the Earthquake gang, a group of young boys who wanna be tough and bad, but aren’t. With their help she has to rescue Tony, who has fallen under Victor and Letha’s control. They use his powers to their own ends, eventually to hold the world hostage at a plutonium plant.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on March 16th, 2009
Walt Disney has always had as a main theme in its movies the idea of empowering children. It didn’t matter what circumstances the children might find themselves in, Disney always found a way to bring them out of their predicaments with an inner strength that they never really knew or believed that they had. It’s likely one of the reasons the studio has been so successful with children’s films over the decades. Escape To Witch Mountain is one such film. It’s certainly not the greatest from the Disney vaults, but you could do a lot worse. The film holds a certain element of charm that I remember from my own childhood, and it appears to still have some miles in it 30 years later.
Tony (Eisenmann) and Tia Malone (Richards) are orphans. They have no memory of their real parents or of anything that happened to them when they were much younger. Now they find themselves, yet again, transferred to a new orphanage, after their latest foster parents were killed. They may not know about their past, but they are aware they have special powers that other kids don’t have. They have the power of telepathy and molecular manipulation. Tia’s powers are a bit stronger. She can put her thoughts in Tony’s mind, and she can use her levitation powers almost limitlessly. Tony must still move his lips to send thoughts to Tia. He also relies on an external force, in this case a harmonica, to focus his powers. They make no secret of these abilities, at least to the other children. Almost at once, Tony uses his abilities to defend himself against the orphanage bully. When the kids are on a field trip, Tia exposes her ability to predict the future when she saves the life of a man about to have a tragic accident. Unfortunately, the man, Lucas Deranian (Pleasence) has been on the lookout for psychic powers. His wealthy employer and benefactor has an obsessive desire for such things. When Aristotle Bolt (Milland) hears of the encounter, he desires to possess the children. Deranian poses as their long lost uncle with forged papers in order to get the children. Once at Bolt’s mansion, they are tempted by a life of luxury and excess. But the men did not anticipate their telepathy skills. When the children learn of their plans for them, they escape with the help of an ornery horse. It appears the children can also communicate with animals telepathically. They are aided, at first unwittingly, in their escape by a kindly, but rather gruff on the outside old loner, Jason O’Day (Albert). The three bond, and eventually they work to unravel the mysteries of the children’s’ true nature, and where home really is. But to get them home, the trio must evade Bolt, Deranian, and the police.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Michael Durr on March 16th, 2009
A “sexy” movie is more than a movie that just has two people performing the horizontal mambo with heavy breathing. There needs to be passion, there needs to be raw emotion and even sometimes there needs to be love. If there are words to be spoken between the two beings, they need to have strength and feeling. For me personally, I also need a good selection of lingerie. Seriously though, I wondered if those elements would be found in A Good Day to be Black & Sexy or if it would just be an excuse to stick a good looking black woman on the cover.
The movie is a collection of 5 short films (one with two parts) directed by Dennis Dortch. The short films have a range of “sexy” subjects. Reciprocity is the story of Tony (played by Brandon Valley Jones) who goes down on his girl, Jeanette (played by Kathryn Taylor). However, Jeanette does not want to return the favor. The second story is called Her Man. Helena (played by Chonte Harris) and D’Andre (played by Marcuis Harris) have just finished making love and he gets a phone call that he needs to go to work. Helena doesn’t want him to go which leads to a discussion about their “relationship”.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on March 12th, 2009
Finally, this show has really gotten to me. I don’t know what it is about this 8th season, but I was far more interested in the show than I had ever been. Maybe I’ve spent so long with these characters that they started to come alive for me. Maybe I was resistant to a slightly different way of telling stories. Maybe it was that the stories became less about who was with who that I was finally able to enjoy the great courtroom drama and investigation elements of the series. Whatever it was, I am finally a fan.
Most of each episode is dedicated to the investigation of the particular case. For action junkies, this often means flying some sweet high tech aircraft. The show’s primary character, Commander Harmon “Harm” Rabb (Elliott) does a lot of the high flying investigations. He was once an ace pilot who developed night blindness, which essentially grounded him.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on March 10th, 2009
It’s always a danger when you have the same person do too many roles in a film. There have been notable exceptions, but the rule proves true enough to be considered an axiom. In this case we have the duet of Hunter Hill and Perry Moore co-directing and co-writing the script. The problem is that neither of them had done either of those things before. Their inexperience takes its toll on a film that had a lot of potential. Sometimes the best thing you can do for a project is to let it go. Unfortunately these two couldn’t give up even a little of that control. In the end you have a movie with a very powerful cast that can’t seem to salvage anything given them by Hill and Moore.
Billy (Garity) is pretty much a loser. We first find him at the hands of a merciless drug dealer, Red (Matthews). It appears that Billy’s girl, Hope (de Matteo) has stolen a rather large shipment of drugs and run. Red assumes Billy must be in on the theft, so now he’s going to kill him if he can’t turn over the drugs or the money they’re worth. Of course, Billy can’t do either, so his only recourse is to escape and find Hope. He does escape in a manner far too clever for this character to have come up with. He grabs Hope’s young son (Ford) and heads to his old hometown. In Lake City, his mother, Maggie (Spacek) is struggling trying to hang on to her home. There’s a development company that wants the land. She’s a bit shocked when Billy and Clayton, the boy, show up at her house. We’re made to understand that a tragedy involving a younger brother has caused a lifelong tension between the two. Billy’s not here for his mother. He’s trying to track down Hope. Unfortunately, Red and his boys show up first, giving Billy a limited time to make the situation good. Billy is also working on staying sober. He meets up with a woman who we are led to believe might have been a childhood crush. Jennifer (Romijn) is now a cop in the small town. Complications arise as Billy tries to deal with the drug situation and his various emotions elicited by his being home again.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on March 7th, 2009
"There are more fat people in American than there are people." That's the dry wit of Tom Baker, Little Britain USA's narrator, introducing a sketch about "Fat Fighter" Marjorie Dawes. If the series stuck with that brand of humor, I'd have enjoyed it thoroughly. Instead, it goes places so crude I was continually startled by its outrageous comedy. I'm of the opinion that blue humor is a love-it-or-hate-it genre. If you enjoy the nasty stuff, Little Britain USA : the complete first season is definitely up your alley. Mine? Not so much.
The series is yet another British invasion, having begun as a program in the U.K. before crossing over the Atlantic to reach American audiences, like The Office, Life on Mars and many others. Of course, this time it's still helmed and starred in by its original creators, which should alleviate the concerns of fans of the British version. And in this case, I wasn't familiar with the original series, so Little Britain USA was my introduction to the talents of show creators and stars Matt Lucas and David Walliams. They play most, but not all, of the regular sketch characters, which include the above-mentioned Fat Fighter, horny prime minister Sebastian Love, grossly obese seductress Bubbles Devere, over-muscled homoerotic gym buddies Mark and Tom, eighth man on the moon Bing Gordyn and many others. They're joined in the six episodes of this first season by guest stars like Rosie O'Donnell, Paul Rudd, Sting and Vivica A. Fox.
