Posted in: Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on December 11th, 2005
Synopsis
G.W. McLintock (John Wayne, True Grit, Rooster Cogburn) made most of his money by being a cattle baron. He made so much money in fact, the film’s fictional town was named after him. How cool is that? But all is not milk and honey in McLintock’s life. He has an estranged wife who does not live with him (Quiet Man co star Maureen O’Hara), and now wants a divorce.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on December 10th, 2005
Every now and then, a film comes along that I really think is something special, but for whatever reason, the movie-going public doesn't agree. For me, The Truman Show is one of those films. Maybe it was because this was Jim Carrey's first serious role. Maybe it was because it felt too gimmicky with the popularity of The Real World at the time, and being released around the same time as the similarly-themed film EdTV. Maybe it was because the premise was just a little too far outside of the norma... summer box office fare.
The fact is, the reasons that I like this movie are pretty similar to the reasons that others may not have. Jim Carrey was simply fantastic in this film, and his bold performance proved my theory that it is much more difficult to be a great comedic actor than most people believe. Carrey was handed the unenviable task of being made to carry a film that was about a lot of things at once. This is a film about big government. About secrets and lies, what it means to love someone and discovering who we are as humans. This is a film about limits, about control, and about the media. It's about knowing what to believe, what not to believe, and how to tell the two apart. It is about the importance of being the same person at work, in the home and everywhere in between.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on December 7th, 2005
Written by Clayton Self
Legends of the Fall is one of those movies that sets its own standards for greatness and actually achieves them. That is very rare in cinema. Legends has a great Director, Edward Zwick, who brought the recent hit The Last Samurai. The performances are amazing, and the cinematography superb. This is a movie that has aged very well since its release in December of 1994. So, here we are eleven years later, with a movie that still captures the heart.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on December 5th, 2005
Synopsis
Robert Redford narrates, but his on-screen avatar is Craig Sheffer. He and Brad Pitt are the sons of Presbyterian minister Tom Skerritt. The sons react to their stern father’s teachings in different ways. Sheffer is the good boy who becomes the scholar, while Pitt is the hell-raising journalist with the bad gambling debts. But both brothers do inherit their father’s love of fly fishing, and that is the act that bonds the three men together.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on December 5th, 2005
Missouri Breaks starring Marlon Brando and Jack Nicholson is an overlooked, under-appreciated western, which succeeds where most films fail -- as first a character study, and last an action piece. Set in Montana, Missouri Breaks tells the story of a fun-loving outlaw (Nicholson) and his comrades (including a much younger Randy Quaid and good old Harry Dean Stanton), who set out on a crime spree as a means of payback against an evil land baron responsible for the death of one of their friends.
eadly revenge is not their first intention, but the stakes are raised when the land baron hires "regulator" Lee Clayton (another reveling work in villainy by Marlon Brando) to teach the boys a lesson. Though Brando does have a tendency to steal every scene he's in, I found it a huge joy watching Nicholson remind me he is capable of more than just O.C.D. eccentricity. His role in the film fits with the snugness and perfection of a glove, to the point that I wish his resume included more westerns than it does.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on December 5th, 2005
Happy Endings is one of those films that makes you rethink being a DVD reviewer. I sat through this excursion into pretentious observations about the way the world is, and the way "average people" are, and thought, "Yeah, sure, this is a slice-of-life. I bet." Oh, I don't mean to say the characters' lives are way too screwed up to be believable. Lord knows, under every ordinary average guy... or gal... there lurks a whole slew of skeletons banging their bony fists against the inside of the closet door. But the extent to which these screwed-up folks bang into one another like aimless bumper cars at a county fair makes one say, "Enough already."
Lisa Kudrow heads a weak cast, despite name recognition and the merits I'm sure each of the performers possess. With other capable stars such as Laura Dern, Maggie Gyllenhall, Tom Arnold, and Jason Ritter attached, one would think acting is the least of the film's worries. The problem with that? Everyone gets so caught up in the hipness of it all they come across with obnoxious self-indulgence smeared over their faces like the feces permanently plastered to the walls of my old college dorm's public restroom. And it's as if writer-director Don Roos wants to remove it from that wall, but he feels too intimidated to cross the ex-Phoebe Buffay and Mr. Roseanne Barr.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on December 5th, 2005
Titus De Voogdt, Delfine Bafort, and Johan Heldenbergh head a mostly forgettable cast, which tends to fall so far into the background, you'll often forget more than just three actors are in Steve + Sky... and for what it's worth, I believe this stems more from the supporting cast's lack of charisma than it does from any real star power the three headliners bring to the table. The film is more of an inciting situation which throws Steve and Sky together, followed by randomly pointless character bits, which stil... could have worked had either star been in the least bit interesting. De Voogdt does the best he can with the main role, but unfortunately, his Steve acts with little-to-no rhyme or reason, and ends up condemning the film's status as a mindless romp through the lives of two deadbeat characters.
I don't have to like characters to enjoy a film, but I must feel drawn in to their plight, if for nothing more than to see them get their just desserts. With Steve + Sky, the film plods along in an effort to achieve "character piece" status, but all that's really accomplished is they simply "do stuff" for an overly long 100 minutes, when writer-director Felix Van Groeningen finally -- and mercifully -- calls an end to the proceedings. At the end of this ride, I honestly wondered what point the film had just made that hadn't already been made far better by many a crappy film. Hopefully, Van Groeningen's next effort will focus more on storytelling aspects in addition to his characters, and less on the aimless A.D.D. brain droppings that too often pass for good cinema, both here and abroad.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on December 5th, 2005
Posted by Kim Lee
This unauthorized biography by New Line Home Entertainment covers the life of Curtis “50 Cent” Jackson. The documentary describes 50 Cent’s expedition of dealing drugs at the corner of Jamaica and Queens, to boxing, to becoming a gangster rapper, and in the end a music industry icon.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on December 5th, 2005
Greg Marcks directorial debut 11:14 is a tricky little puzzle of a film. Amazingly enough, the pieces do all fit together, despite Marcks' (who also wrote the screenplay) bewildering youth. What significance (if any) 11:14 has over other times on the clock, I don't know. In fact, why the five stories play out as they do, I wasn't sure until the final segment, which neatly ties all parts together. While it may not be the type of film that's as much fun to watch the second time around, you'll have a ball the first.
Of course, as Rachel Leigh Cook's wannabe love slave (sorry wife), I have to say the last segment is my favorite. In addition to this portion's role as crazy glue for the rest of the film, we get to see Ms. Cook's Cheri at her devilish best, and it's superb at just how naughty she can be. The joyride segment is also a winner, thanks in part to the three hot-rodders' just comeuppance, even though I did get a kick out of their antics. They're definitely the types of kids you'd wish a deadly one-car accident on during a traffic-laden Saturday night, but in the confines of this film, these characters are much more amusing than any real-life counterpart could ever be.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on December 4th, 2005
Synopsis
On its surface, Almost You is potentially interesting. Considering the mid-‘80s production, you have Griffin Dunne, about to appear in Scorsese’s After Hours, but had already appeared in An American Werewolf in London. In this film, he is married to Brooke Adams, a.k.a. Mrs. Tony Shalhoub (Monk), but before that, had appeared in Terrence Malick’s Days of Heaven, and had her own experiences in horror, appearing in The Dead Zone. As husband and wife, Dunne’s ...haracter Alex feels rapidly disenchanted with their marriage, and says so just before they are about to leave on a trip to Erica’s (Adams) parents.
