Posted in: Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on July 27th, 2007
With a cast that includes several well known actors, I couldn't believe that I hadn't heard of this movie prior to reviewing it. This really didn't worry me however, because in the past I’ve always enjoyed low budget Indy films. So how does Played stack up?
Played dissects the lives of players in the London underground ring of crime, from the hustlers to the crooked cops. After an elaborate heist goes all wrong small time thief Ray Burns takes the fall and is sentenced to eight years in prison. He keeps his mouth shut and does his time with only one thing on his mind, revenge. As he hits the streets he finds out that the scam goes above and beyond what he expected and the true players become revealed. At certain points it seems like everyone is playing everyone and it really keeps you on the edge of your seat.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on July 27th, 2007
The second season of Weeds follows much the same formula as the first, and incase you haven’t seen the first season I suggest you do so beforehand. But for your benefit I’ll quickly run over what you’ve missed. Nancy (Mary Louise Parker) has recently lost her husband and the only way she sees to raise her children in the affluent neighborhood they’ve become accustom too is by dealing weed. Most of her customers are parents, most notably the town councilman Doug Wilson (Kevin Nealon, Saturday Night Live). While dealing with problems at home and on the streets Nancy goes through life the best way she can, which is rather comedic for the rest of us.
Season 2 picks up with Nancy getting in over her head with the narcotics business as she begins growing her own product. But with the help of several members of the community things seem to be playing out rather nicely, even with Nancy dating a DEA agent. Her son’s eventually find out just how their mother keeps paying the bills, and both deal with it in their own ways. But even that’s not the last of Nancy’s problems as Celia heads up an anti drug committee in the community, promising to make Agrestic a drug free community.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on July 17th, 2007
Mars has always held a certain fascination with us mostly earthbound humans. What child has never looked to the heavens at night, mind filled with more questions than they could ever hope to find answers for? If you are one of these star crossed dreamers, Roving Mars be a thrilling journey indeed. I’m sorry to say that I missed the Roving Mars IMAX experience. I’m sure it was available at one of the several IMAX facilities here in Tampa. Life, as usual, is often too busy to get to everything I want to see. As I wat...hed this DVD I found myself wishing I’d taken the time to see it at our local domed IMAX at MOSI.
We begin our exploration in a familiar enough place, here on Earth. The environs, however, are not so commonplace. The people and the facilities at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Lab have a decidedly science fiction appearance to them. Here in clean rooms gather scientists in garb intended to keep them from contaminating the delicate equipment that is assembled here. Here over 4,000 people dream, design, and assemble. The result is a culmination of decades of technological work and over a millennium of imagination. We are treated to an intimate look behind the scenes as these incredible rovers are created. Interviews with crucial team members give us the failures as well as the success stories. Through trial and error every minute facet of this machine had to be built, tested, and more often than not, redesigned. Then the cycle begins anew. The time spent here might test our patience a tad. Still, it is important to understand the rover itself before we can appreciate the mission that we’re waiting to witness.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by David Annandale on July 17th, 2007
Synopsis
Famed for his obsessive love of petroleum jelly as a medium for sculpture, Matthew Barney uses 45 000 pounds of the stuff in the creation of Drawing Restraint 9. This film documents the making of that piece, which is both sculpture and film, done aboard a Japanese whaling vessel. Intimately involved in the production is Barney’s collaborator and partner Björk.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on July 15th, 2007
Synopsis
It’s no big secret that I enjoy Extras, and found my way to it through the first episode of the second season, which included a guest appearance by Orlando Bloom (of Pirates of the Caribbean lore). And now that I’ve seen the first season, and rabidly followed the second season on HBO, while it’s a bummer to see Extras fade away after a dozen episodes, and just like The Office, it’s not going to soon forgotten.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on July 15th, 2007
Synopsis
Try to wrap your mind around this one. Take the guy who was the center of attention and played the role in Being John Malkovich, and have him play a role as a guy who impersonates the film auteur Stanley Kubrick, of 2001 fame in a story that may or may not be true.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by David Annandale on July 6th, 2007
Synopsis
Robin of Locksley returns to England from the Crusades to find the home he had left behind has taken a drastic turn for the worse under the tyrannical Sheriff of Nottingham. He is forced to take up an outlaw life, fighting for justice for the common man. Marian, fending off the advances of Guy of Gisborne, is his mole in the houses of power.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on July 3rd, 2007
Be afraid. Be very afraid, if you are even thinking about picking up this rather lame title. There is absolutely nothing redeeming about this film. The only way that Kill House has any chance of giving you nightmares is by putting you to sleep. If only I had been so lucky. Beth Dewey was the “mastermind” behind the whole thing. She wrote, directed, and acted as the killer in this piece of crap. Dewey ought to be arrested for grand larceny if even one person paid any real money for this picture. I would tell you som...thing about the plot, but there isn’t one. If anyone can tell me what in the heck this film was about, please let me know. Near as I can figure Sunny (Dewey) is some sociopath realtor. There is no rythme or reason for anything that happens anywhere in the film. It almost looks like they were pretty much making it up as they went along. I give Dewey an F as a director, an F as a writer, and an F- as an actress. At least Dewey appears to understand the low budget concept of: if you have nothing of value to say with your film, show lots of boobs and someone will watch it.
Video
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on June 28th, 2007
I’ll admit it. I was taken in by The Life and Hard Times of Guy Terrifico, for about five minutes. I’m not a follower of the country music scene, so it didn’t really bother me that I had never heard of Guy Terrifico before. The box art explained he came and went in the early 70’s, when I was just a kid myself, so none of this was the least bit suspicious to me at all. The film opens believably enough with Kris Kristofferson on stage dedicating his next song to this Guy Terrifico. When we get to that first interview... however, I was getting mighty suspicious. Now I might not be no Jim Rockford, but I am as Italian as Columbo, so I started to sense that something was not quite right here. I instantly paused the film and began to research Guy Terrifico. You know what I came up with? You guessed it. There never was a Guy Terrifico. I was watching This Is Spinal Tap country style. I guess that just got me off on the wrong start with this film. And I’ll freely admit now I might have enjoyed this a whole lot more if I had known going in what I was watching. That’s why I loved Spinal Tap but have a bit of a cold feeling for Guy. You might consider I just wrecked the film for you, but trust me, I might just have saved you some frustration.
The story of Guy Terrifico is too bizarre to be true, which of course it isn’t. It seems that good ol’ guy was an outlaw and heavy drug addict for most of his short life. His big break came when he hit the Canadian lotto for $8 million Canadian (That’s about $2.36 in American). As his widow tells us: “It took care of our drug problem. Getting drugs just wasn’t any problem at all after that”. Through interviews and “archive” footage we are given the ridicules story of Guy all the way to his mysterious death. But did Guy actually die that night on stage? The film leads us to believe not. Most of the folks being interviewed look like they’re making this stuff up as they go along. Where Spinal Tap looked real enough to work, Guy Terrifico always appears to be just one step beyond the realm of reality. Even such stars as Kristofferson and Merle Haggard couldn’t carry the weight of this farce. While the jokes are long on telling and short on laughs, the film actually does sport a few really good musical performances.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on June 25th, 2007
Perhaps Woodstock is the best known music festival, but only one has kept strong for several decades and still going - Glastonbury. A small town in the southeast of England is the host to a sizeable music festival that spans for several days and attracts in excess of 150,000 people. Like a lot of you I’m sure, I had never heard of this music festival and after watching this once I’ll probably never get wind of it again.
The first disc of Glastonbury is a documentary on the festival it is not in chron...logical order but includes footage from the 60’s all the way through to the latest festival in 2005. It interviews some of the colorful people attending the festival over the years, the staff involved, and of course the bands that play. At first I was interested in this disc thinking I would get the chance to watch these bands play live, but instead I sat through 130 minutes of hippies rolling around naked in mud, with the odd montage of performances. Really I found this to be a weak documentary, I was not interested in the people dancing like fools to bongo drums, holding up lighters and crying, getting naked and just acting totally like a junkie. The people interviewed and shown in the footage in this documentary were just utterly weird, and not interesting. The only somewhat interesting and normal parts of this documentary were the footage of the most recent festival where there was a lack of hippies. Of course I did enjoy the live and uncut performances that were shown, more specifically on disc 2. Although there are some big names and famous songs played in this documentary and subsequent extras disc but I didn’t like enough of the musicians to enjoy this disc myself. If you do however like Radiohead, Paul McCartney, David Bowie, The Killers, Foo Fighters, David Gray, The White Stripes, etc. like I’m sure a load of you do then you might enjoy the odd sequence where you get to see them play.
