Posted in: Disc Reviews by David Annandale on July 31st, 2004
Synopsis
Desmond Harrington plays Kenneth, a terminally shy, socially inept technical writer. Lonelybeyond words and attracted to temp Lisa (Melissa Sagemiller) but unable even to speak to her, heorders a $10,000.00 love doll. After some initial awkwardness, he develops a full-fledgedrelationship with doll Nikki, one that gives him more confidence at work and with Lisa. But evenas he begins a real-life relationship, things begin to fall apart, as he senses that the doll isbecoming j...
Posted in: Disc Reviews by David Annandale on July 29th, 2004
Synopsis
Real political figures and fictional characters rub shoulders in this tale of a Washington-based political consulting office. James Carville and Mary Matalin play themselves (as doHoward Dean and others). The consulting firm runs into a crisis when some Saudi clients turnout to (perhaps) have terrorist links.
The concept is pretty much the last word in torn-from-the-headlines fiction. This is a seriesthat is almost concurrent with the headlines. The illusion of real...
Posted in: Disc Reviews by David Annandale on July 13th, 2004
Synopsis
Dafna is a midwife, overworked and underpaid, who lost her husband nine months ago andis only barely functional. She dumps most of the familial responsibilities on her eldest daughter,Maya, and doesn’t notice the price that Maya is paying in having to give up her hopes andaspirations. Eldest son Yair has reacted to the death of his father by adopting a despairingphilosophy and dropping out of school. Younger brother Ido is tormented by bullies and wetshis bed. And youngest ...
Posted in: Disc Reviews by David Annandale on July 5th, 2004
Synopsis
Mousy scienties Rosetta Stone (Tilda Swinton) creates three Self Replecating Automatons(SRAs): the glamorous Ruby, Marinne and Olive (all played by Swinton). The SRAs need themale Y chromosome to survive, so Ruby ventures forth from their home periodically for someanonymous sex. She saves the condoms, which are subsequently used as tea bags. The SRAs pinefor independent life, and Ruby oversteps her bounds, thus risking discovery for them all.
Though some of the elements mig...
Posted in: Disc Reviews by David Annandale on June 30th, 2004
Synopsis
Meryl Streep is Nora Ephron and Jack Nicholson is Carl Bernstein. Well, the names aredifferent, but Ephron’s script is based on her novel, which in turn is based on her fractiousmarriage to the Watergate journalist. He is the inveterate womanizer, while she is one of thosefemale protagonists so beloved of romantic comedies that are supposed, I think, to be“charmingly insecure” but read instead as “high-maintenance neurotic.” They get married, andvery swiftly things begin to...
Posted in: Disc Reviews by David Annandale on June 28th, 2004
Synopsis
Tormented by the tyranny of SAT scores, which will determine university acceptance andfuture opportunities, six high school students band together to steal the answers to the dreadedtest. Personalities clash, but their common need unites the unlikely band (mixing basketball star,cynical rich girl, class brain, stoner, and so on). The night comes for the big heist, and by the nextmorning, everyone will have learned Valuable Life Lessons.
The Perfect Score trip...
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on June 20th, 2004
It is nearly impossible to escape the common comparisons between Monk and Columbo. But don’t get this show expecting it to be at all like the well-loved bumbling detective played for decades by Peter Falk. The two characters are nothing alike. The comparisons are made because we haven’t had a detective show since Columbo where the quirks and personality of the character himself were more important than the cases he solved.
Tony Shalhoub’s Adrian Monk suffers from a long list of phobias from germs to drink...
Posted in: Disc Reviews by David Annandale on June 8th, 2004
Synopsis
Dylan Walsh and Julian McMahon are Sean McNamara and Christian Troy, plastic surgeons.Sean is the suave ladies’ man, who has ethics only when convenient and/or profitable. Christianis the better surgeon and the (by no means perfect) family man. Neither man is a prize (they areplastic surgeons, after all), but Christian at least tries to be better than he is. Models, gangsters,porn stars, and transsexuals are but a few of the characters whose live intersect with thesurgeons.
...
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on June 8th, 2004
Summer School is one of those films that I really enjoyed as a boy growing up in the 80’s. It had crazy characters, pretty girls, funny one-liners and cool people, like Mark Harmon. Watching the film today, I can honestly say that it is as good now as it was then. The only problem is, I have matured as a person and as a movie viewer. The characters are still crazy, but they are also largely annoying. The girls are still pretty, and the foreign exchange student is the same woman who played Allota Fagina in A...
Posted in: Disc Reviews by David Annandale on June 2nd, 2004
Synopsis
Tupac Shakur narrates his own life (almost, it would seem, from beyond the grave), taking usfrom his birth (and even before -- he discusses his gestation inside his imprisoned activistmother) to his childhood, and then through the ups and downs (emotional, legal and otherwise)of his career. Personal beliefs, politics, and the whole nine yards are laid out for us.
The editing is very clever, and one notes this particularly in the opening. Immediately afterthe sound o...
