Posted in: Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on December 17th, 2007
U.S. soldiers return home from war and find it difficult to re-assimilate into everyday American life. We've seen this idea played out dozens of times, mostly with Vietnam as the conflict of choice. In Home of the Brave, writer-director Irwin Winkler (De-Lovely) transplants the story into more modern times with the war in Iraq, without much success. Panned by critics and moviegoers alike, Home of the Brave feels a lot more like a made-for-TV movie than a major theatrical release, despite the presence of perennial Hollywood badass Sam Jackson (Snakes on a Plane).
Posted in: Disc Reviews by David Annandale on December 14th, 2007
Lando Buzzanca plays Senator Puppis, a telegenic young politician on track to become Italy’s next president. He’s been groomed for the part practically from birth by the Vatican, which plans to re-exert social control over the country through its presidential puppet. But plans go badly awry as Puppis suddenly develops an uncontrollable urge to fondle women’s buttocks (Stephen Thrower has aptly described the character as a “repressed heterosexual”). Even as he seeks help for his condition, various parties around him begin to panic, as the police think Puppis is planning a coup without telling them, the military think they are being left out of the loop by the police, and the Vatican, along with its Mafia catspaws, starts whacking everyone in sight in a desperate attempt to keep everything from completely unravelling.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by David Annandale on December 11th, 2007
Belgian filmmaker Olivier Smolders, after a successful run of gorgeous and disturbing shorts, here makes a feature debut that is just as gorgeous and disturbing. Strongly reminiscent of the works of David Lynch, but far darker overall, the film is set at a time when the world is shrouded in the night of a perpetual eclipse. Day only comes for 15 seconds at 12:23 pm each day. Oscar (Fabrice Rodriguez) is a museum entomologist haunted by traumatic dreams involving the death of a sister who might or might not have every existed. He returns home one night to find a dying and pregnant African woman in his bed, a woman who is somehow linked to his father’s colonial past.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on December 10th, 2007
So in a summer where a film directed by Judd Apatow and starring Seth Rogen made a truckload of money, another film released a couple months later where Apatow produced and Rogen co-wrote made almost the same truckload of money, yet both films were funny for different reasons.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on December 10th, 2007
Will Ferrell, arguably the last funny member of Saturday Night Live has picked some strange movies to be in since leaving the sketch comedy show. Appearing first as a co-star in Old School and then later in the kid-friendly (but cute) Elf, Ferrell took his time in getting to what fans wanted, a good PG-13 or better comedy for him to stretch his comedic talent.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Michael Durr on December 5th, 2007
The movie of Hudson Hawk was often panned by critics who thought the movie was the worst thing since George Bush Sr moved into office. Look where that has got us! Remember kids, bad presidents only birth worse presidents. Anyhow, Hudson Hawk which was billed as an action comedy and was thought of by many as sloppy, over-inflated movie making that took the cream of bad movie making. Was it a turd that sank like the Titanic?(both the movie and the ship) Was it a lemon like XXX? (both the movie and the scent of Vin Diesel's Mr. Clean head)
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on December 3rd, 2007
A friend that I work with said that if Hollywood ever ran out of creative and original ideas, and that if a studio managed to make a sequel about pirate zombies that lasted three hours long, it would clean up at the box office. But the fact of the matter is that if we survived a nuclear winter, we would be well prepared about what to do when zombies took over the land, because of the prep we had from guys like George Romero. So even though Danny Boyle’s 28 Days Later might have presumably sealed the deal when it came to this particular interpretation, someone decided to dredge it up for whatever reason.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by David Annandale on November 22nd, 2007
Severin unleashes three more entries from Italy’s long-running sexploitation saga, and the result is another fascinating collection. The quality of the movies themselves up and down, but the good stuff is very good, and the collective result is something that is completely fascinating. Exploitation fans should be over the moon.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on November 21st, 2007
Back in 2001 shortly after the release of the first Shrek I happened to be at a convention with Anne Francis of Forbidden Planet and Honey West fame. She had just taken a young one, I believe it was her nephew, to see the animated blockbuster. To say she was unhappy is an understatement. She was incredibly offended by the toilet humor and had some rather unflattering things to say about pretty much every aspect of the film. Here we are two films later, and I’d have to tell Anne that not much has changed. By my count the film never runs more than 9 minutes without a joke based on feces, farts, or butts.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on November 21st, 2007
Fans of classic Christmas films need not worry that their perennial favorites are about to be displaced by this third entry into the Santa Clause franchise. In fact, throughout most of the 92 minute running time of The Santa Clause 3: The Escape Clause I was looking for my own escape clause out of watching the film. However, in the true spirit of Christmas and with a feeling of total dedication to duty, I remained firmly affixed to my easy chair and watched every second of the film. It was all for you, my gentle reader
![Anchorman: The Legend of Ron Burgundy (Unrated) [HD DVD] dvd cover art](https://upcomingdiscs.com/ecs_covers/anchorman-the-legend-of-ron-burgun-large.jpg)
