Posted in: Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on February 6th, 2006
Synopsis
For awhile, Jim Carrey looked to be taking the career path that Michael Keaton had previously established. Start off with strong, hilarious comedic performances, attempt to get into dramatic roles with some critical success, and fade into the sunset, with the occasional bad script choice. While Carrey hasn’t dipped into the Jack Frost period yet, with The Truman Show and Man on the Moon, Carrey had established the fact that he could pull off carrying a dramatic movie, and do it...fairly well, with consecutive Golden Globe awards to boot. Then, after playing a cop with multiple personalities (Me, Myself and Irene) and the Grinch and The Majestic came along, and it was hammered; no one went to see it. Enter Tom Shadyac, Carrey’s old reliable, and collaborator on Liar Liar and Ace Ventura: Pet Detective. With Bruce Almighty, Carrey goes back to the goofball comedy well that helped to propel him to the $20 million paychecks you hear about now.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on February 5th, 2006
The concept of the musical biopic is nothing new. We have seen many films come and go, some good and some bad. A majority of these musical biopic films try to tell the rising of a group, whether or not the group is a reality, in a manner that will connect with the audience. Robert Townsend’s The Five Heartbeats is a prime example of a film that connects with its audience by taking this concept of the musical biopic just that one step further than we might expect from a film like this.
The Five Hea...tbeats are a nineteen-sixties Motown type singing group that consists of lead singer Eddie (Michael Wright), songwriter ‘Duck’ Matthews (Robert Townsend), ladies’ man J.T. Matthews (Leon), bassman ‘Dresser’ Williams (Harry J. Lennix), and tenor ‘Choirboy’ Stone (Tico Wells). These guys start out by singing on streets corners. Enter big shot manager (Chuck Patterson). Potter nails them a record deal and gets them to perform everywhere leading to super exposure and stardom. Naturally with stardom, comes the rocky road one travels on. The road consists of internal conflict between the band members and producers, drug addiction, racism, and even a close death. This all occurs before the groups untimely end in the mid nineteen-seventies.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on January 31st, 2006
Yesterday is a powerful tale of the title character’s struggle to survive AIDS long enough to see her young daughter Beauty start school. Yesterday – named by her father because, in his opinion, yesterday was much better than today – lives for her young daughter. Her husband works in the mines of Johannesburg and carries a deadly secret, which, by the start of the film, has already entered his wife’s bloodstream. Through it all, Yesterday keeps bright spirits and a smile across her face. She only loses it when...she has to, and it’s through her powerful attitude the audience connects with the central plight, and pulls for her to in some way find peace out of turmoil.
The story is often heartbreaking, and never focuses too tightly on the behavioral causes of the disease, thus illustrating the horror of what AIDS is in a manner that everyone can connect with and feel sympathy for. The point of Yesterday is to illustrate that a disease with so many heavily attacked stigmas attached to it claims plenty of victims, who are complete Innocents, and should be fought to the fullest extent of our capabilities. It is without doubt a horrible disease and claims as many victims like Yesterday as it does the junkies with their dirty needles or the chronically promiscuous with their alley-cat morality and lack of regard for others’ feelings. It affects flesh-and-blood people of all kinds, and Yesterday personalizes the disease in such a way you have to care, so long as a heart beats in your chest. You can’t look away, and the film is so touching you won’t want to.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on January 30th, 2006
American Women is a difficult film to write about because it evokes such little passion from its viewer. By no standards is it a good film, but pinpointing its frailties becomes quite the daunting task. Set in a small Irish village, the story centers on a group of sexist men, who want to import girls from America because the ones accessible to them do not meet up to the appropriate standards. The plot is farfetched, even as goofball comedies go, and none of the male characters are likeable. Also, with so many ...torylines going at once, the scope of American Women wanders aimlessly, like a small child with ADD roaming about the countryside.
It’s the worst kind of comedy – the kind that, while well-made, never manages a single chuckle from its viewers, and presents us with a cast of characters that have no arc. When the happy endings do come, they do not feel deserved, and the concept of everyone falling in love at once feels too forced, like the filmmakers are trying to resolve as much as possible at one time with no eye for plot or character development. It does not even succeed at being bad, and thus becomes the cinematic equivalent to the buzzing fly that won’t go away, despite its short running time. Though not an incompetent travesty of filmmaking and acting, I can’t help but feel American Women would have been more entertaining if it were.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on January 27th, 2006
Synopsis
Based on the novel by Helen Cross, and adapted for the screen and directed by Pawel Pawlikowski, My Summer of Love is an interesting story about two girls in Ireland (or England) who find friendship in each other’s company among a sea of desolation.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on January 21st, 2006
Hustle & Flow works because of one reason and one reason only. That reason is Terrence Howard.
Howard injects himself into the role of DJay, a Memphis pimp who stumbles across a church choir and then strives to put his daily experiences into rap music, hoping to break out of the lifestyle he has grown to hate.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on January 21st, 2006
If the Lifetime channel was around in the 70's, I would swear that this was an original production. This is a women's liberation film at the height of the movement. Unfortunately, while its heart is probably in the right place, the film is just a big mess. When Martin Scorsese made Alice Doesn't Live Here Anymore, he nailed the feeling and the theme of this movement on the head. This thing, however, is a train wreck. It just tries way too hard. An Unmarried Woman is one of those films that tells the vi...wer what is happening, instead of showing them. One minute, a man and woman hate each other. Moments later, they are madly in love. For a film that deals with relationships, there sure is an awfully lot of talking for so little nuance and emotion.
Audio
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on January 21st, 2006
Hustle & Flow works because of one reason and one reason only. That reason is Terrence Howard.
Howard injects himself into the role of DJay, a Memphis pimp who stumbles across a church choir and then strives to put his daily experiences into rap music, hoping to break out of the lifestyle he has grown to hate.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on January 20th, 2006
Synopsis
One of the memorable events of history that has gone unnoticed was the 1893 World’s Fair, held in Chicago. It was an elaborate event that transformed Chicago into several different metropolises (or is it metropoli?) like Venice, for instance. The result was a lavish, expensive journey that inspired many, among them, architect Frank Lloyd Wright.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on January 20th, 2006
Synopsis
At first glance, the Australian produced film Ferngully appears to be a film that helps to educate and moderately punish the crazy white man for all of the harm and damage that he’s done to Mother Earth, never mind all of the data that seems to refute the selfish thought that our generation would be ultimately responsible for harming the land.
