Posted in: Disc Reviews by David Annandale on August 10th, 2003
Synopsis
Barbra Streisand is happily married and raising three children. This isn’t to say that lifedoesn’t have its pressures, of course. (Just try raising three children.) She finds out she ispregnant again, and living in a world which values her husband’s time and accomplishments farabove hers, she begins to engage in a series of elaborate and bizarre fantasies in which, one wayor another, she breaks completely with her current life. (An affair with Fidel Castro a big enoughbreak...
Posted in: Disc Reviews by David Annandale on August 9th, 2003
Synopsis
Dee Wallace is an intrepid TV reporter who tracks down a serial killer, and is almost killedfor her troubles. Traumatized, she withdraws to a rural resort, which at first seems idyllic.Gradually, evidence mounts that she is in fact staying in the middle of a werewolf colony. Stillone of the more satisfying werewolf films yet made (though Ginger Snaps has arguablycaptured the crown for best ever), Joe Dante’s film is a delight not only for the grislytransformations, b...
Posted in: Disc Reviews by David Annandale on August 8th, 2003
Synopsis
There are three movies here: Miranda, The Key and All Ladies Do It(whose Italian title, Cosi Fan Tutti sounds much less awkward). Though taking place indifferent periods (the first two are set in Fascist Italy, while the third is more modern), all threeshare some similarities in terms of plot: a dark haired-beauty has a long series of eroticencounters, but her true love belongs to one man. Handsomely mounted, with nice attention tocolour and costume, the...
Posted in: Disc Reviews by David Annandale on August 5th, 2003
Synopsis
Boris Karloff plays aging horror film star Byron Orlok -- in other words, himself. He feelsthat he has become a joke, that the type of horror movies he stars in can no longer stand up to thereal horrors in the world. He is about to find out just how right he is, as he is on a collisioncourse with an all-American boy (Tim O’Kelly), who is about to embark on a motiveless killingspree as a sniper. Chilling and relevant to this day, Targets is also a dazzlingly cleverexe...
Posted in: Disc Reviews by David Annandale on August 5th, 2003
Synopsis
Audrey Hepburn is recently blind, and still adjusting to her new condition. Unfortunatelyfor her, three criminals are convinced that a load of heroin has been stashed in her apartment,and they want it. Most sinister of the trio is Alan Arkin, playing a complete psychopath. Thetension builds until Hepburn must defend herself against a madman in her darkened apartment.Perfect sweaty-palms material, with a very famous jolt (and believe me, you’ll know it when yousee it).
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Posted in: Disc Reviews by David Annandale on August 2nd, 2003
Synopsis
The scene is New York (though obviously Montreal in reality). Peter Weller is a type Ayuppie, living in a brownstone he has renovated himself. His wife and son leave him for aholiday. His stress load, already increased by a make-or-break assignment at work, shootsthrough the roof when his home is invaded by a rat. The rat is big, but not supernaturally so. It is,however, very, very, very smart, and soon man and animal are engaged in all-out war. Everynightmare you ever had ...
Posted in: Disc Reviews by David Annandale on July 17th, 2003
Synopsis
The time is the summer of 1985, and Richard Ramirez, who became known as theNightstalker, is roaming the streets, randomly entering homes and slaughtering the peopletherein. Rookie cop Roselyn Sanchez becomes involved in the search to find the killer, andstruggles both with inexperience and hostility from her male colleagues. That’s about all thereit to the plot, which is simplified almost to the point of short-hand, and in place of more elaboratedevelopment we get extended...
Posted in: Disc Reviews by David Annandale on July 8th, 2003
Synopsis
Twenty years ago, astronaut Earl Jensen blasts off into space, only to be betrayed Earthsideby the evil Dr. Frubar. Earl loses his fuel and drifts off into space. In the present, he returns, benton revenge, and accompanied by a group of strange and ferocious creatures. Summarized thus,the film sounds nowhere near as bizarre as it actually is. But wait until you see what happenedto Earl while he was in space for 20 years. This you should discover for yourself, but I will say...
Posted in: Disc Reviews by David Annandale on July 2nd, 2003
Like The Brady Bunch Movie, this effort combines several incidents from the TV series and strings them together with a loose central premise, and the result is actually funnier than the first film. This premise is that Tim Matheson shows up pretending to be Carol Brady’s long-lost husband. He is after a priceless horse sculpture in the Bradys’ living room. The innocent/rude tone of the first film is carried through here, and given extra impetus by the addition of an is-it-incest-or-not?
Posted in: Disc Reviews by David Annandale on July 1st, 2003
The plot, such as it is, is a pastiche of several episodes of the TV series, all twisted just enough to send them into a sunny version of the Twilight Zone. So the Bradys are going to lose their house if they don’t raise $20,000.00 by the end of the week, and Marcia’s nose is flattened by a football before the school dance, and Jan is jealous of the attention her big sister receives, and so on. The Brady's are just as oblivious to how the rest of the world perceives themas they are to the (sometimes very funny) innuendos and double-entendres they constantly (and inadvertently) utter.
