Posted in: Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on May 3rd, 2006
I have been rambling on and on about the merits of this outstanding series to friends, family and innocent bystanders for years. I will continue to do so until the final disc of the final season has hit Amazon.com; and probably for quite some time after that. It is a show that is important, culturally relevant, and surprisingly political without becoming annoyingly partisan.
Season Six is something of a bounceback season for the show. In Season Five, the show floundered a bit. While it was still easily one of...the best things on television, the ship lots its way. Issues were explored, but no one issue really solidified itself as a strong story point. By the time Season Six came around, the show had a natural theme to run with; re-elections. As Bartlet begins to struggle with complicated issues in the Middle East, Presidential hopefuls emerge in the form of Alan Alda and Jimmy Smits. Instead of winding down and fading away, this show picked up steam as it headed toward the end of its seven season run. I, for one, am enjoying every minute of it.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by David Annandale on April 28th, 2006
Synopsis
Red (as in Riding Hood) visits Granny, only to find the Wolf in disguise. Granny bursts out of the closet, and then the Woodsman crashes through the window, axe upraised. We then cut to the police investigation of this scene, as a frog investigator interviews each of the players in turn. The forest has been terrorized by the Goodie Bandit, who has been stealing recipes, and one of these characters might be the guilty party. What follows is a series of tales in the vein of Rashomon, wh...re we gradually come to understand what is really going on.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on April 27th, 2006
Huff – The Complete First Season, the Emmy Award-winning series from Showtime, comes to DVD from Sony Home Entertainment, and I have to say I couldn’t be more pleased with discovering it. The one thing I miss about premium channels in my cable package is getting to take part in the onslaught of superior original programming channels such as Showtime and HBO have to offer. Needless to say, Huff is a fitting inclusion to my reasons for jealousy towards all you subscribers out there. It follows the life of...Craig Huffstodt (Hank Azaria), a psychiatrist in need of a few answers himself after witnessing the shocking suicide of a young gay patient during a therapy session. The tragedy reminds him to focus more on his own life, and start actually living it – but as the first thirteen episodes of this season attest, Huff has too much “angel of mercy” in him for such a task to be easy. The show, unflinching in its honesty, examines both sides of the “helping others” coin. Often times, one person helped translates to the neglect of several others much closer to the do-gooder. I enjoyed that aspect of the show, as well as its well-drawn characters.
Hour-long dramas such as Huff are free to create more depth and realism to their characters. In this particular case, it’s like watching a great novel set to film. Instead of telling you what to think or believe about a person or situation – as films do - Huff manages to “let it be,” and allows the viewer to draw conclusions on their own. Azaria has a stellar cast to fall back on, too. Blythe Danner (Huff’s mother); Oliver Platt (his oft-unscrupulous attorney); and Paget Brewster (his wife), put everything they have into their characters; and Bob Lowery (writer and series creator) knows how to present them in a lifelike manner. You don’t just get their shining moments of humanity or inhumanity – you also get to observe these men and women, when life throws them a curve, and they’re forced to walk a different path – unnatural to their basic natures, but realistic to the human condition. It’s a warts-and-all series that, like life, manages lighthearted moments of humor one minute, and heartbreaking tragedy the next. Who knows how long it will last? But with this first season, Lowery and company have built a strong foundation deserving of many more to come.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on April 26th, 2006
Manny Coto almost saved Star Trek. After 2 years of Rick Berman’s floundering on Enterprise, Coto came in and gave the show its legs. It was too little too late, of course. The show would be canned when most critics, myself included, thought the show was finally clicking. This near resurrection should come as no surprise to anyone who has seen Odyssey 5. Coto created this Showtime series. Superior f/x and a compelling story arc drove this cable cousin to Stargate SG-1.
The astronauts of the Space Shu...tle “Odyssey” encounter one situation the nerds at NASA hadn’t prepared them for: the total destruction of Earth. The five surviving crewmen don’t have time to consider their situation before an alien approaches them with a sad story. It seems that every time he reaches a sentient species, he arrives after they have destroyed themselves. Fortunately for everyone, he has the power to send the crew’s consciousness back to their bodies 5 years in the past. They will relive the last five years, but with the knowledge they already possess in an attempt to uncover the conspiratorial elements that will eventually destroy the world.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on April 26th, 2006
Dr. Dolittle 3 is yet another unnecessary direct-to-DVD sequel of a film, whose glory has long since passed. Young actress Kyla Pratt takes center stage as the next generation of Dolittle to inherit the gift – or curse – of hearing animals speak. At the outset of the film, she is ashamed of her gift, and her lineage. But when she is sent to an old family friend’s ranch for the summer, she begins to see that a talent is what you make of it. Along with telegraphed comedy, lightweight rivalries, and a budding rom...nce with a young ex-bull rider, Kyla’s feature debut is a harmlessly amateur piece of family film fluff, sure to delight the kiddies (but only the very young).
From an adult’s perspective, the film contains a lot of weaknesses – namely stemming from a core plot founded and developed on one cliché after another. The slapstick aspects of the humor have also been done to death – and here, they’re not very effective. The whole “will they or won’t they save the ranch” thing also feels like familiar territory, and tension is absent as a result. It’s been said there’s nothing new under the sun – certainly, this is the case at the Durango Ranch in Dr. Dolittle 3. But sometimes, a film filled with regurgitated plot points matters not when the eyes appealed to are that of a child. Kudos to the animal trainers, though – they do a fabulous job making all the ensuing hijinx feel authentic.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by David Annandale on April 25th, 2006
Synopsis
Judi Dench is the Mrs. Henderson of the title. Newly widowed in 1937, she decides to put her considerable fortune into owning a theatre. She buys a dilapidated building, has it redone, and hires Bob Hoskins to run it. He is just as headstrong as she is, but their memorable clashes work out to the benefit of their musical revue. When the box office begins to flag, Dench suggests having naked women on stage. A phenomenon is born, one that will not close even during the worst of the Blitz.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on April 22nd, 2006
Synopsis
After hearing a lot of good things about a sleepy film from Denmark called Brothers, I was curious to see what all the fuss was about. After all, we are talking about a country that has produced a visionary director in Lars von Trier (Breaking the Waves), but whose films have been a little bit on the polarizing side.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by David Annandale on April 20th, 2006
Synopsis
I’m late coming to this series about a fractious family and the funeral home they run. These are the first episodes I’ve ever seen, so I’m not going to pretend I have the faintest idea what’s going on here. All the various plot lines are clearly working to a conclusion, and for the benefit of those who know these characters, some of the things that are dealt with are James Cromwell’s depression and the difficulty in treating it, and the imminent arrival of a baby (which sets up the final epi...ode’s variation on the opening: instead of starting the show off with a death, it begins with a birth).
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on April 19th, 2006
The only thing worse than films about filmmaking are artsy films about filmmaking. These are hazardous affairs at best. Don’t get me wrong; I thrive on a steady diet of behind the scenes features and film trade magazines. But a film in that vein can’t help but become pretentious. Enter I Love Your Work. It’s very hard to tell when Adam Goldberg is trying to be serious and when he’s aiming for satire. I hope it was mostly the latter.
Just because you’re paranoid doesn’t mean they’re not really out to g...t you. Gray Evans (Ribisi) is one of those quick-rising stars. He’s obviously more in love with himself than his legions of adoring fans. His self-loving world, however, is turned upside down when it appears he is being stalked by a crazy fan. The film allows for the chance this is all in his head, and there’s the fatal flaw. Much of this film appears to occur in Gray’s head, and it’s not a terribly exciting place to hang out. In a predictable spin, the couple he thinks might be stalking him reminds him of an earlier relationship before he was a big star. Now it seems Gray is the real stalker. The film is all style and absolutely no substance. At one point in the film Gray is watching snow on his television. I knew I was in trouble when I started to know exactly how he felt just then. This is also the kind of indy film where many of the actors are the filmmaker’s friends. Goldberg takes some pride in this point. The end result is watching sub par actors pretending to be actors who are pretending to be actors. Make it stop. Cameos by Vince Vaughn and Elvis Costello can’t even save this mess.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by David Annandale on April 12th, 2006
Synopsis
Three friends are driving across Australia. In a particularly desolate national park, their car mysteriously dies, and they accept help from a passing bushman. Big mistake. The bushman (John Jarrat) is a psycho of the first order.
