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Original Sin (Blu-ray)

Posted in Disc Reviews by David Annandale on June 24th, 2011

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The second version of Cornell Woolrich’s novel “Waltz Into Darkness” (previously filmed as François Truffaut’s Mississippi Mermaid), this is a decidedly steamier version, especially here, in its unrated form.

Cuban plantation owner Antonio Banderas advertises for a wife, and the woman who answers his ad is, he believes, plain but pure. Who shows up, however, is the beautiful but duplicitous Angelina Jolie, who has larceny rather than matrimony on her mind. Her scam runs smoothly at first … but she hasn’t counted on the depth of Banderas’ obsession with her.
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Inkheart

Posted in Disc Reviews by William O'Donnell on June 20th, 2011

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Brendan Fraser plays Mo, a man who has the special power of a “silver tongue” which means he has the ability to bring characters and elements from books into the real world by reading their stories out loud. There is a serious catch to this power. Someone from the real world must go into the book in exchange.
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Once Upon a Time in the West (Blu-ray)

Posted in Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on June 8th, 2011

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“People scare better when they’re dyin'”

Mention the name Sergio Leone and you immediately think of Clint Eastwood and their Man With No Name trilogy. The truth is that Leone was the master of the spaghetti western and largely responsible for making Clint what he is today. When the Italian director decided to try his hand at Hollywood, he was welcomed with open arms, except they weren’t interested in anything but an American copy of a spaghetti western.
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Legend of the Fist: The Return of Chen Zhen (Collector’s Edition) (Blu-Ray)

Posted in Disc Reviews by Michael Durr on June 5th, 2011

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Many times when you see a trailer over and over, one has to ask themselves: Do they really want to see the movie or is repetition to the point of acceptance playing its fatal card? In the case of Legend of the Fist: Return of Chen Zhen, I had seen the trailer several times in front of Ip Man and the sequel. I wasn’t sure if I was anxious for the movie, so much that I really wanted to see Donnie Yen go absolutely crazy with his kicks and amazing martial arts.

True Grit (Blu-ray)

Posted in Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on June 2nd, 2011

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“People do not give it credence that a young girl could leave home and go off in the wintertime to avenge her father’s blood. But it did happen.”

Just like the book that both this and the 1969 John Wayne film were taken from, the film opens with the sad story of a young girl who has come to Fort Smith to see that justice is done for her father. The words were written by Charlie Portis, a journalist who went on to write a truly great American novel: True Grit.
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The Hustler (Blu-ray)

Posted in Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on May 25th, 2011

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I’m kicking myself. Martin Scorcese’s The Color of Money has long been a favorite of mine, but for some reason I never knew it was a sequel to The Hustler, a film 25 years older and three times better.

Starring a young Paul Newman (Road to Perdition) in a role that earned him his second Oscar nomination, The Hustler is about a cocky pool player hustling his way to the top. When “Fast Eddie” Felson (Newman) challenges undefeated straight-pool champ Minnesota Fats (Jackie Gleason,…Requiem for a Heavyweight) to a high stakes game,
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The Rite (Blu-ray)

Posted in Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on May 21st, 2011

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“Do you believe in Sin?”

The Exorcist was one of the most chilling films ever made. William Friedkin used subliminal images as well as those quite famous scenes of Linda Blair being taken over by Satan himself. Ever since that time filmmakers have been trying to cash in on the phenomenon. Exorcism movies have become almost a sub-genre in the horror field. There have been everything from no-budget to mega-budget attempts. There have been both sequels and prequels to the original film.
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Brotherhood

Posted in Disc Reviews by Michael Durr on May 19th, 2011

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When I got to college, I had no idea what I wanted to be. I had signed up for computer science so I could go on to be a video game programmer. The truth is, I placed that as my major because I did not know what else to put. As luck would find it, five years later would get me a degree in Finance which I have never used in the professional world. But there was one thing in college I knew for sure. I wanted nothing to do with any fraternity and I am guessing Brotherhood is not going to change this opinion.
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The Fighter

Posted in Disc Reviews by William O'Donnell on April 25th, 2011

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Dicky Eklund was the pride of Lowell, Massachusetts. While he constantly reminds the neighbourhood of his glorious fight against Sugar Ray Leonard, he has descended into a crack addiction that is breaking his family apart, and hindering the training of his up-and-coming brother, Mickey. As Micky inches closer to big opportunities in the fighting world, he must also battle the demons his family place upon him.
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The Way Back (Blu-ray)

Posted in Disc Reviews by Bob Ross on April 23rd, 2011

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By the early part of World War II, the Soviet Union’s ultra-harsh prison system was already an established key to Josef Stalin’s paranoid dictatorship. Hundreds of concentration camps, called gulags, kept criminals and innocents alike trapped behind barbed wire, without edible food or minimal medical care. The most miserable gulags were the notorious Siberian compounds, stuck in such hostile sub-arctic territory that an attempt to escape was considered just another form of suicide.
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Fiddler on the Roof (Blu-ray)

Posted in Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on April 12th, 2011

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Adapted from the hit stage musical, Norman Jewison’s film version of Fiddler on the Roof has established itself as a classic over and over again since its release in 1971.

“He loves her. Love, it’s a new style… On the other hand, our old ways were once new, weren’t they?” I’ll hardly be the first to write it, but the reason Fiddler on the Roof, a story about Jewish people and their culture, is so popular, is that its themes have universal appeal.
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Tron: Legacy / Tron: The Original Classic (Five-Disc Combo)(Blu-ray)(Blu-ray 3D)

Posted in Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on April 6th, 2011

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If you are old enough to have seen the original Tron back in 1982, you know how much things have changed in the digital world since then. The block graphics of the film and subsequent game might have been state-of-the-art at the time, but it looks like something very primitive to the younger generation. Like all good science fiction, many of the incredible elements of the film have become quite commonplace. The idea that a person can be scanned by a laser and transported into a virtual world
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The Resident (Blu-ray)

Posted in Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on April 6th, 2011

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Hammer has risen from the grave. A group of investors have resurrected the film brand and intend to honor the tradition of the once-defunct horror giant. President Simon Oakes is a self-proclaimed fan since he was a kid. He has no interest in trying to fit Hammer into the new mold of torture porn or slashers. He acknowledges that there is plenty of room for those kinds of films in the horror genre. He hopes to bring back more than just the Hammer name. He intends to bring back the gothic spirit that was Hammer Films
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A Kiss of Chaos

Posted in Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on March 30th, 2011

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Phoenix is having a rough night. Her scumbag ex boyfriend has just shown up in her apartment with a gunshot wound and a sack of stolen cocaine and her psychotic HIV positive prostitute sister has also shown up, having just shot a john in the face. Plus there are gangsters after the cocaine who will stop at nothing to get it back. Plus there’s her lesbian friend downstairs whose brother is involved on multiple levels and wants to drag her into a plot to steal and sell the cocaine. Plus it’s her birthday.
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BMX Bandits

Posted in Disc Reviews by David Annandale on March 23rd, 2011

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The more famous a star, the more curious their early, pre-icon efforts become. Thus, we watch agog as Humphrey Bogart plays a murderous, blood-thirsty zombie in The Return of Doctor X (1939). And here, a 16-year-old Nicole Kidman makes her debut as a BMX-obsessed teen who runs afoul of a group of not-very-competent gangsters. Once again, one watches agog.
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The Man from Nowhere (Blu-ray)

Posted in Disc Reviews by Bob Ross on March 17th, 2011

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Connections between Eastern and Western cinema aren’t new, but they do seem to be proliferating. Back in 1964, Italian maestro Sergio Leone borrowed from Japanese genius Akira Kurosawa, turning Yojimbo into A Fistful of Dollars. Just last year, Korean writer-director Lee Jeong-Beom looked to the West for multiple influences, and the result is The Man From Nowhere, a psychological action-thriller that alternately engages, confuses and kicks major butt.
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The American

Posted in Disc Reviews by David Annandale on March 14th, 2011

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The cover of this DVD is, depending on which signals you pick up on, either misleading or perfectly accurate. If all you see is George Clooney running with a gun, and you therefore come to the conclusion that this is going to be some action-packed thriller, and that is what you’re hoping for, then you’re going to be disappointed. If, on the other hand, the orange colour and the rather retro look to Cloney’s image, not to mention the rather uninformative title, makes you think of the 1970s, then you’re on the right track.
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The Storm Warriors

Posted in Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on March 9th, 2011

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I must admit, I came at The Storm Warriors with very little knowledge of its creators, the Pang brothers, but as someone who appreciates Asian cinema, I felt that I had the sensibilities to enjoy the film.
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Due Date (Blu-ray)

Posted in Disc Reviews by Bob Ross on March 5th, 2011

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There are two ways to address a familiar film plot. The easy route, of course, is to dismiss it as recycled fluff, reciting the similarities to its predecessors. The more discerning course is to give the newcomer a chance to prove itself as a creative variation on the theme. That’s how you can give Due Date its due. In the first few minutes, you’ll notice the script verges on carbon-copying Trains, Planes and Automobiles, the 1987 John Hughes hit
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WUSA

Posted in Disc Reviews by David Annandale on March 3rd, 2011

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Cynical, alcoholic ex-musician Paul Newman arrives in New Orleans with barely a cent to his name. Following a tip from scam-artist preacher Laurence Harvey, Newman lands a job as a DJ for WUSA, an extreme right wing/white power propaganda radio station. Newman has no patience for his employers’ message, but he’s happy to take the money and drink himself into an apathetic stupor.
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Unstoppable (Blu-ray)

Posted in Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on February 23rd, 2011

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“In training they give you an F. Out here you get killed.”

When was the last time you saw a good train movie? There have been a few classics. Most of the best merely happened on a train with the drama having to do with what was happening on the train. I can’t really remember when I saw a good train film where a train itself was the source of the tension. Yes, there have been several films where terrorists hijack a train and threaten something bad if their demands weren’t met. But in Unstoppable, the threat really is just the train.
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The Last Lovecraft: Relic of Cthulhu

Posted in Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on February 23rd, 2011

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“My money is on you being brutally killed within two days, but what choice do we have?”

The works of H.P. Lovecraft have a reputation for being imaginative and utterly horrifying. The same can be said for the many attempts to bring this work to the screen. Most of these have been horrifying, but for the wrong reason. With the very notable exception of the Re-Animator films, which owe a great deal to the portrayal of West by Jeffrey Combs, the Lovecraft films usually miss their mark by a mile.
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The Brazen Bull

Posted in Disc Reviews by William O'Donnell on February 23rd, 2011

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A young couple are drawn into a deadly game of cat and mouse when they investigate a piece of real estate and a psychopath starts to trail them. Brazen Bull is the title of the film and the killer’s mantra, which means he acts as if he has nothing to lose, when in fact he’s already lost everything.
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Thelma & Louise (20th Anniversary) (Blu-ray)

Posted in Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on February 16th, 2011

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“I’ve always believed that, done properly, armed robbery doesn’t have to be a totally unpleasant experience.”

You would think that Thelma And Louise would have been a blockbuster film. It’s certainly become entrenched in our pop culture. The famous ending has been spoofed to death in other films and television shows, including the latest Star Trek, if you can believe that. You would think, but you’d be completely wrong. This was one of the movies that got a ton of critical attention and even some Academy Award attention.
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I Spit on Your Grave (2010) (Blu-ray)

Posted in Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on February 16th, 2011

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“This despicable remake of the despicable 1978 film, I Spit On Your Grave adds yet another offense: a phony moral equivalency.”

Roger Ebert is at it again. Over thirty years ago he pretty much hated the original film, but he didn’t stop there. He extended his hatred to the fellow movie-goers he encountered as well. The 2010 remake appears to retain his disgust, and couldn’t be prouder of the slight. Go figure.
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