Posted in: Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on June 25th, 2006
I watched Ryna while my wife watched Shopgirl on the TV. And aside from watching Ryna because I thought it was going to be a film about a DVD reviewer whose name is misspelled, there were a lot more differences between the two films. As far as I could tell, Shopirl appeared to be about a girl with Down�s Syndrome who falls in love with her Dad but reconsiders at the end (whoops, my wife tells me that I�ve got it wrong), Ryna is about a girl who tries to rise above being repressed because of her gender.
Ryna is the title character of a 16 year old girl (played by Doroteea Petre) who lives with her parents in a small Romanian town. Her father Biri (Valentin Popescu) has raised her as a boy with short hair, because he's disappointed that his only child was not born a male. Together they run an auto repair service that does price gouge foreign travelers from time to time. When a French anthropologist comes into town, he tells her about the world outside of her small town, and she wants to break out and enjoy life, despite her father's wishes.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on June 24th, 2006
The sad thing about building a strong acting career is one usually has to take on roles better forgotten to get to the pinnacle of success. I'm sure Johnny Depp still has the occasional nightmare of being associated with Private Resort (on an artistic level anyway); and he is about to be reminded of this forgotten-with-good-reason teen sex comedy as Sony debuts it in the digital format just in time for summer. The release Sony offers bills Depp as the main star, and while his role is substantial, the film is m...re of a vehicle for Rob Morrow, and a paycheck for Hector Elizondo. You even get to see a pre-"Diceman" Andrew Clay playing his typical Brooklyn street tough self. I will say this: next time you feel the need to attack abysmal teen sex comedies of today, take this as Exhibit A that these foul, odorous wastes of celluloid are actually getting better... even at their worst.
Private Resort takes place in Florida during Spring Break. There are enough misunderstandings and ambiguous hijinx to fuel an entire season of Three's Company, but none are as well executed in the environment of this film. Depp and Morrow are "two sex-starved teens" spending their spring break at a posh Florida resort, where there is but one order of business... getting laid. Unfortunately (for them and us), they must contend with a ruthless jewel thief (Elizondo), an eccentric barber, a villainous security guard, and a stereotypically obnoxious jock before that can happen. Will they or won't they? It doesn't matter. I guarantee you it will not be a concern as this 82-minute crap fest drones on. Follow Depp's career post-superstardom. This work from his early days has nothing to offer in comparison.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on June 20th, 2006
I've seen people quote this film from time to time, and I never understood the attraction because I saw it once and forgot about it. After a bit of intrigue, I finally got my hands on a copy of the US version of this 2 disc set (though the UK version, with the orange cover and silhoulette image of Ewan McGregor on the cover looks much cooler) and gave it a spin, lo and behold, I discovered a pretty good movie.
It's been talked about a lot for awhile I guess, but to sum up, McGregor plays Benton, a heroin addict in Scotland, who spends his days getting high and hanging around with his mates. Spud (Ewen Bremner, Black Hawk Down) wears Nancy Reagan-like glasses from time to time, and seems to be the closest one Renton relates to; Sick Boy (Jonny Lee Miller, Hackers) is the one that tries to make himself superior to the group, when he's not off spouting weird theories about movies that Sean Connery has starred in; Tommy (Kevin McKidd, Topsy Turvy) is against his buddies using but is curious about it, and then there's Bigbie (Robert Carlyle, The Full Monty), a beer-drinking Scot with an offensive mustache and a penchant for getting into brawls.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on June 13th, 2006
Utter the words ‘Dave Chappelle’ or ‘The Chappelle Show’ to any person and odds are they will think of the ‘Lil’ Jon’ skit or the ultra famous “I’m Rick James, bitch”. While this one joke doesn’t even come close to the charm and humor that Dave Chappelle had on his once popular ‘Chappelle Show’ on Comedy Central, it still has become the most popular joke. But enough about that and more about the actual film at hand.
Dave Chappelle’s Block Party takes place around September of 2004, which was before ...happelle walked off of the third season of his show, but after the famous $50 Million Dollar deal that Comedy Central offered him. Chappelle has decided to have a block party on the 18th of September. He has invited many big artists to perform at the block party including Kanye West, Mos Def, Common and the Fugees to name a few.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on June 12th, 2006
In Failure to Launch, Trip (Matthew McConaughey) is a 35-year-old man who still lives with his parents. His parents simply want him out of the house, which doesn’t seem so harsh considering his age. So what do they do? Why, they simply decide to hire a woman named Paula (Sarah Jessica Parker) to assist them. Paula, you see, is a specialist in helping grown men move out of their parents’ homes. I didn’t even think such a job existed. Well, Paula, we soon learn, has a very simple method that usually guarantees h...r success. First, she looks nice, then she finds out what they like and she pretends to like it too. What a complex job. Paula calls this system “Failure to Launch”.
Trip’s parents, Sue and Al (played by Kathy Bates and Terry Bradshaw) live in a naturally beautiful home that Trip loves to pass off as his own. You see, Trip dates a girl, begins to like her, continues to date her, and then when he gets “the look”, he takes her home passing the home off as his own. It usually isn’t until Al comes into his room that he reveals to the girl that the home is actually his parent’s home. Sue tells Paula this is Trip’s method of breaking up with people. I find it hilarious that Sue takes the amount of care that she does of Trip for a man at his age. She cooks him a big breakfast, packs his launch, does his laundry, etc. I know the whole motherly-love thing is always around, but what kind of mother does this for her 35-year-old son?
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on June 11th, 2006
Synopsis
A group of occultists horsing around with more than they know accidentally open up an evil portal and unleash a terrible force upon the world. Fortunately, there’s an organization of Demon Hunters on the job, determined to send this evil and all if its minions back where they came from.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on June 7th, 2006
The Culpepper Cattle Company was a surprise for me, and one that I looked forward to immensely. I love a good western, and I'm particularly fond of anything post-Leone. A western doesn't have to be spaghetti, however, for me to like it. I just feel that, for all Sergio's overblown proportions, he did instill an accurate degree of nastiness in his films, which I'm sure was prevalent in that time of American history. Once Sergio came, westerns grew up, even if they were playing closer to the American style of fi...mmaking. Gone were the days of the fired gun, the clenched chest, and the instant kill. A similar renaissance affected the war film genre with the arrival of Saving Private Ryan, and I feel the recent war-time efforts have been much the better for it. After the glut of Saturday morning western chicanery found in John Wayne's early films and others of that period, it was a relief to see westerns on the silver screen with the right amount of intensity. But unfortunately, all good things must come to an end. And The Culpepper Cattle Company falls somewhere in that descent.
That doesn't mean the film is without merit. I enjoyed parts of it very much. It is, most of the time, an interesting coming-of-age tale, as it follows a young boy with a dream. That dream? He wants to be a cowboy. But as the film progresses, he gets a bitter taste of what it means to fulfill that dream. The boy (Gary Grimes) tags along with a gang of cut-throat cattlemen on a drive to Colorado. As they trek westward, the harsh realities of the prairie - be it man-against-man, or man-against-nature - start to set in. Unfortunately, it doesn't get any more interesting than that. One event after another occurs and forms an episodic monotony instead of a coherent storyline. Still, things do heat up for an exciting and well-arc'd conclusion. Where the character ends up from where he started out is a noble writing effort; but everything it takes to get him there is the dull part. The strongest aspect of the film is the ensemble of veteran character actors, led by Billy Green Bush and Bo Hopkins. These are cowboys from the days when all cowboys were straight, and any suggestion otherwise would get you punched in the teeth faster than you could say "Brokeback Mountain." While they don't seem like very open-minded chaps, they do represent a rugged nature that would have been essential to their way of life.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on June 6th, 2006
It's hard to tell what Ronnie Warner and Kent George were trying to accomplish when they perpetrated Puff, Puff, Pass on the video rental public, but hopefully, they will discover it takes a little more work to write a funny script than cobbling together every stupid pot joke and lame religious blasphemy they can think of into a coherent script. Think "lame sitcom trying to be edgy for 95 minutes," and you'll have exactly what this film turns out to be. Featuring six stars from various TV shows - with Mekhi Ph...fer being the only one around with impressive film credits - this film applies the old adage, "You get what you pay for," in more ways than one.
The story centers on two stoners with a desire to go into business for themselves. However, they have no jobs and no ambition to help them along in the quest. They're always late on rent payments. One of the stoners even unknowingly has sex with the other's transvestite cousin. They fall for every huckster's grand "paid programming" scheme in the book, and finally check into rehab for access to cable television. All this sounds very funny, and I'm sure it was in the other films, which did a better job depicting this sort of behavior. All in all, it's a film that has very little going for it, except for an unusual affinity towards The Shawshank Redemption - but you'd have to be an idiot not to see the value in that film. While Puff, Puff, Pass may not be "an idiot," in that regard, it barely rises above said mark.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on June 4th, 2006
A long time ago, Sony owned the MGM video library (before Fox picked it up for impending HD-DVD/Blu-Ray Wars) and re-released some films as Special Editions, and combined others as part of convenient two-packs. This is an example of the latter, perhaps as some sort of romantic two-pack that's easy on the wallet but heavy on the heart.
At First Sight is directed by Irwin Winkler (Night and the City) and tells the tale of Virgil Adamson (Val Kilmer, Real Genius) who has been blind all of his life. He is able to get an operation that would restore his eyesight, and at the urging of his girlfriend Amy (Mira Sirvino, The Final Cut), has the operation, before finding out that it's not permanent, so he tries to live his life however he can before he loses his vision.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on June 2nd, 2006
Monte Hellman filmed Back Door To Hell back to back with his better known Flight To Fury. This early Jack Nicholson film plays out very much like the throwaway it seems to have been. It’s certainly a brief affair, clocking in at just 69 minutes. Low budget films can often be impressive masterpieces. I have never seen a war film where that’s been true. After watching Back Door To Hell, nothing’s changed. The location and supporting cast make this at times feel more like Mexico than the Philippines. The settings are strictly back lot looking affairs, even when they are not. Cinematography is very limited and completely unimaginative. There is an odd, cold calmness to everything. Actors deliver their lines mostly in even soft tones. I found these portrayals more than a little unnerving. None of Nicholson’s future brilliance is on display here. I found my attention constantly straying during this film. One thing a war film should never be? Good or bad, it simply can’t afford to be boring.
Video
