Posted in: Disc Reviews by David Annandale on July 29th, 2008
Severin continues their serious play to be the go-to company for Eurosleaze with this, one of Joe D’Amato’s better efforts. We first meet Papaya (Melissa Chimenti) as she luxuriates on the beach, makes love with a fellow in a cabana – and then orally castrates him, whereupon she walks away as two minions torch the cabana. Fantasy Island, this ain’t. The action then shifts to Sara (Sirpa Lane of The Beast fame), a journalist we first see revelling in a cock fight. She hooks up with Vincent (Maurice Poli), a nuclear power executive with whom she has had a casual fling before. The two of them are drawn into Papaya’s web of sex and blood ritual. She is, in fact, part of a political group fighting back against the power company’s expropriations and pollution by any means necessary.
Obviously, not your usual softcore romp, and a rather more interesting storyline than most of D’Amato’s Black Emanuelle series. The characters are still utterly without affect, which casts a vaguely surreal miasma over the proceedings. The sex scenes are pretty risible, but the film actually becomes quite watchable despite these scenes being its primary reason for being. D’Amato’s heightened interest turns up in the editing, in the careful creation of atmosphere, and most of all in the no-punches-pulled working out of the film’s ideas. Papaya raises, if rather clumsily, some hard questions about the nature of exoticism and the justifications for violence. Believe it or not, this is one to think about and discuss.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on July 23rd, 2008
It should not have come as such a surprise to me what Stop-Loss really is. It presents itself as this generation’s Deer Hunter, but it’s actually just another mindless film that, once stripped down to its essentials, is intended only to further a blatant political agenda. I keep hearing that the film is intended to honor our troops, but it presents all of them as mentally messed up idiots who are a hair away from committing crime sprees akin to Natural Born Killers. The aforementioned Deer Hunter also offered up a bleak image of the mental health of vets returning from war, but centered on a particular case. I have no doubt that war affects everyone who participates, but I’ve known returning soldiers who did manage to cope.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Michael Durr on June 23rd, 2008
Spoof movies have been wearing on me for the last few years. Complete travesties such as Date Movie & Epic Movie have soured my look on a favorite genre of mine. Where were the Mel Brooks classics or the Scary Movie series that I remember so well? Smart comedy and well done jokes about movies we have come to love. So, I'll admit when I saw the Comebacks on DVD, all I could see was red and think the torture that was Epic Movie. I wanted to believe it could be as smart and zany as Blazing Saddles or at least in the same league as Scary Movie 3 or 4. I would hope that director Tom Brady would restore my faith in this once awesome genre.
Freddie Wiseman (played by Carl Weathers) visits the long forgotten Lambeau Fields (played by David Koechner), a coach whose only attribute is losing when it counts. Freddie convinces Lambeau to coach the Heartland State football team. Once Lambeau gets there, he struggles to put together a winning team. The team consists of various characters and stereotypes such as Trotter (played by Jackie Long) the pompous Terrell Owens wannabe, Lance Truman (played by Matthew Lawrence), the baseball pitcher turned quarterback, and Jizminder Featherfoot (played by Noureen DeWulf), the female kicker who should be in Bend It Like Beckham.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on June 17th, 2008
So I find out I’m going to review a film called Meerkat Manor. My research tells me it’s actually a television show on Animal Planet, but I still didn’t know much. Was this some kind of animal version of The Tudors? And what exactly is a meerkat, anyway? The answer to all of these questions arrived one sunny morning via UPS on my front door. I yawned my way to the door and picked up the nondescript package that fell over with a flop as I opened my home to the bright
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on June 10th, 2008
Charlie Sheen is an unlikely actor to star in a television sit-com. Even after watching the show, I’m not sure how anyone came up with the idea in the first place. He has little to no comedic timing and he’s about as funny as a funeral. The thing that works here, however, is that he really doesn’t need to be all that funny to make this show work. Sheen pretty much deadpans his entire performance, which generously enough works rather well teamed with the more manic comedy of Jon Cryer. Throw into the mix a rather extraordinary young child actor in Angus T. Jones, and suddenly a show that looks terrible on paper turns out to be pretty dang funny. We’re not talking Fred Sanford funny, but I caught myself laughing far more often than I expected to. I had only caught the show before in bits and pieces and was never all that fond of what I saw. Watching these DVD episodes from the third season shed some new light on the show for me.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on June 9th, 2008
When the Learners are driving home from their son Josh’s recital, they stop off at a gas station where he is struck and killed by Dwight Arno (Mark Ruffalo) who is heading home from a Boston Red Sox game with his son Lucas. Dwight flees the scene while Ethan (Joaquin Phoenix) and Grace (Jennifer Connelly) mourn the death of their son. In the following weeks, Ethan becomes obsessed with finding the hit and run driver while Dwight deals with his guilt and tries to bond with his son against the backdrop of the 2004 Boston Red Sox historic World Series run.
Reservation Road had a lot going for it on paper. Phoenix, Connelly, and Ruffalo are all talented actors and Terry George (Hotel Rawanda) is an acclaimed up-and-coming director. However, Reservation Road fails to hit the emotional high notes that come with the territory. None of the actors are given much to do with the material, and the film’s pace is drearily slow. Connelly and Mira Sorvino are severely underused while Phoenix and Ruffalo don’t explore the depths of their characters. Everything is paint by numbers and the end result is a film that never lives up to its potential.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on June 6th, 2008
It’s ironic that 28 Days Later and the Dawn of the Dead remake (which was originally a George Romero film), have jump-started Romero’s long-running “Dead” series that started in 1968 with Night of the Living Dead.
Since 28 Days Later and the Dawn remake were released, Romero has released two new installments: Land of the Dead in 2005, and now Diary of the Dead in 2007.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on May 21st, 2008
ABC has made a killing from the bored housewife situation. It shouldn’t come as any surprise that films would attempt to put those kinds of situations into their plots. The film is billed as an erotic thriller; however it’s really two separate films. The first half works the erotic side of things. There’s plenty of nudity and sexual situations, starting with three chicks all over each other for a photo shoot. Here we meet Claire Dennison (Ford). She’s a successful businesswoman, perhaps selling porn to the Japanese. She’s married to Jonathan (MacFadyen), a psychiatrist that she appears to love. The problem is she wants to have a baby and she’s bored with their sex life. She attempts to spice things up through role playing but gets little response from her work-obsessed husband. One night while out of town in a hotel she spots her husband in a bar playing the part of “Roberto” a role she earlier encouraged him to take on. She plays along, and things get pretty hot and steamy for the couple. The rendezvous is repeated on another trip, and she seems ecstatic with the newfound passion her husband has discovered. That is until one morning she gets a call from her husband while he’s still in her bed. It turns out she’s been having an affair with his perfect double. When she discovers her huge mistake, she hustles poor “Roberto” out of bed and out of the door. Unfortunately for her “Roberto”, really Simon, isn’t planning on going away that easily.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on May 20th, 2008
When last I reviewed a season of JAG, a couple of the show’s fans had a few problems which I will attempt to address here. The first was about knocking a show I wasn’t extremely fluent in. Unfortunately, when I’m called upon to review a season of any series there is no time, or money for that matter, to go back and watch several years of the show to get acquainted. Secondly, I believe that a series season needs to be able to stand on its own if I am to recommend it as something you should buy. If you’re already a big fan of the show, who knows all of the story threads, you have likely already decided to buy the set and don’t need my advice at all. While I do feel that the action sequences and courtroom drama are often compelling, I believe much of the personal lives of these characters muddles up the overall show, leaving guys like me feeling a bit left out. The second comment informed me that in later seasons the show spent more and more time in the courtroom and less on the soap opera elements of the show. That may well be true, but I don’t see evidence of it yet in year 6. Also, I am not reviewing those seasons, yet, so can’t really talk to how they will eventually play out. Of course, if you’re a fan, these stories have already run their course and you have, I freely admit, an entirely different perspective on the series as a whole. For those who have not read the season 5 review, I will repeat my unchanged observations of the series in general, followed by some specific season 6 information. Still, keep those comments coming, because agree or disagree, it’s good to hear what you have to say.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Michael Durr on May 19th, 2008
Romantic comedies make most men put their body in the fetal position and pray that the bad people will make it stop until they are shown the newest incantation of a Vin Diesel action flic. This just in, Vin Diesel doesn't really make action films anymore. Crap, how about Mel Gibson, no? Hey, Sly Stallone still does action movies. Yeah, but we are also pretending he's still relevant. Anyhow, most people have negative connotations about romantic comedies. That way too much syrupy dialog mixed in with corny humor about two people on the opposite side of the tracks establishing that common ground and coming together. Dedication, at the core is a story of a children's writer finding love with his new illustrator. However, getting there is one strange animal indeed.
Henry Roth (played by Billy Crudup) is a budding children's storybook author. His newest idea involves Marty the Beaver and receives great press and promise of future books in publication. His illustrator is Rudy Holt (played by Tom Wilkinson). Rudy is the "father" of the group as he often pitches the ideas and serves as a mentor over Henry. However, one day Rudy dies (we guess as a result of too much good deli lunch meat), and the publishing house is left with trying to find a suitable replacement. The problem is that Henry is very much the definition of an obsessive compulsive and any other mental disorder you can think of. He can't keep a relationship, he refuses to travel in a car, and he sleeps with a pile of heavy books on his chest.
