Posted in: Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on August 27th, 2006
Synopsis
I wanted to like Annapolis. I really did. I appreciated the intent of the film without having a full awareness of what it was about. I thought it kind of served as a de facto publicity film for the Naval Academy. But as I was watching it, several things started on course for me to dislike the film.
First, the story is tremendously predictable. Huard (James Franco, Spider-Man) is a kid who has been raised on the wrong side of the tracks, and helps to build the ships that the ...
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on August 23rd, 2006
It’s always interesting when works of art (books, plays, films, etc…) are updated from their native settings. Baz Lurhman’s Romeo + Juliet took the Bard’s most famous play and set it in modern day California, making it fresh again. Francis Ford Coppola set Conrad’s Heart of Darkness during the Vietnam War, making Apocalypse Now one of the most revered and realistic films of that era. There are several more examples in this trend that deserve to be mentioned, but I must fast-forward to the film a...
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on August 22nd, 2006
Steve Martin plays a wacky TV weatherman, who develops a close friendship with an electronic freeway sign in the sleeper hit comedy L.A. Story. I found the critically acclaimed film to lack hilarity, but it does get marks for inventiveness. Martin is enjoyable in most anything he's in, even if the material is not-so-great. L.A. Story is one such example of an actor rising above said material. Most of the over-the-top silliness misses the mark, and Marilu Henner has little more to do than play the cliche...
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on August 20th, 2006
Synopsis
A Christmas Story featured a charming, old-fashioned story about Ralphie (Peter Billingsley, Elf), who wanted nothing more in life than to get a Red Ryder BB Gun. His parents (played by Darren McGavin (Raw Deal) and Melinda Dillon (Magnolia)) in the depression era-Midwest kept him in check as he pleaded with them to get it for Xmas.
Now in cinema life, the next summer gave Ralphie the chance to spin tops (and look for the best one possible), while his mother an...
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on August 16th, 2006
Synopsis
Mu-ju is trying to adjust to life again after surviving a terrible accident. Life is still hard, as her eldest daughter suffers from something like autism, and she is having trouble landing a permanent position as a teacher at a music school (plus, a former student has it in for her). The aforementioned eldest daughter becomes obsessed with a cello, and a mute housekeeper moves in, and terrible things begin to happen.
But those terrible things wait far too long to happen. A third o...
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on August 14th, 2006
Today, anyone with a credit card and some free time can make a movie. But that doesn't mean it's always a good thing. Case in point is Kisses and Caroms, which sports a massive hard-on for Kevin Smith’s Clerks (it’s Clerks in a billiards store. Brilliant!), but its characters, dialogue and location fail to be funny or engaging. For one, how many oddball customers can a billiards store receive in one day? In Clerks, it was believable, since people from all walks of life need what is readily...
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on August 14th, 2006
Horror films have transformed over the years. We’ve essentially gone from horror films using religion to frighten (The Exorcist, The Omen) to slashers (just about everything in the 80’s), to nothing (the early 90’s void), to post-modern slashers, (Scream, Urban Legends, I Know What You Did Last Summer) to torture (Hostel, The Hills Have Eyes).
With I”ll Always Know What You Did Last Summer, we take a short trip back into the slasher genre. And surprisingly, it still looks and fe...
Posted in: 1.85:1 Widescreen, Disc Reviews, Dolby Digital Mono (English), DVD, Mature, Severin Films by David Annandale on August 10th, 2006
Felicity (Glory Annen) is reaching sexual maturity, but the outlets for her desires at her convent school are limited and not entirely satisfying. She leaves the school for the big bad world, and winds up travelling to Hong Kong where she has one adventure after another.If the concept of an Asian-set sexual coming-of-age sounds familiar, it should, and the movie is honest enough to wear its influences on its sleeve (Felicity is seen reading Emmanuelle and The Story of O). It is what it is.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on August 2nd, 2006
Kathy Bates and the late Jessica Tandy star in Fried Green Tomatoes, a wonderfully surprising film about four strong women finding friendship, loyalty, and strength in each other. Sounds boring, right? I thought so, too, until I actually sat down and gave the extended anniversary edition a chance. The film, based on Fannie Flagg's novel Fried Green Tomatoes at the Whistle Stop Cafe, is really two stories in one. Bates plays an unhappy Southern woman stuck in a marriage routine, which doesn't favor her n...
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on July 28th, 2006
Synopsis
For the longest time, Dennis Miller was known as the guy who could subreference unlike any other comedian, with tactical precision and timing long before anyone had heard of the Gilmore Girls. While some of the material may have been a bit redundant, he certainly put a spin to it unlike any other.
Then the events of September 11 happened, and the predominant opinion is that Miller went for smart comic (and a failed stint on Monday Night Football) to a Fox News loving, Democratic/liberal l...
