Posted in: Disc Reviews by David Annandale on May 28th, 2012
Steven Spielberg’s very-long-in-gestation adaptation of Hergé’s Tintin finally came into being over Christmas. The story, very much in keeping with the globe-trotting adventures of the comic books (drawing heavily, in fact, upon The Secret of the Unicorn), has Tintin (voiced by Jaime Bell) become embroiled in a treasure quest after buying a model ship that has one third of the secret concealed in its mast. Captured by nefarious evil-doers who will stop at nothing to find the treasure, he encounters Captain Haddock (Andy Serkis), and a legendary friendship is formed.
Spielberg’s affection for the character is present in every frame of the film, and the story hurtles along from location to location, our heroes making one hair’s breadth escape after another. The characters are all very recognizable versions of their 2D comic book incarnations, and the animation is stunning in its meticulous detail.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Michael Durr on May 3rd, 2012
As of late, I have found myself picking up some classic albums by Madonna. Her early stuff mostly, but I have even picked up Truth or Dare on Blu-Ray within the last week or so. Why? I honestly can not explain. Maybe I miss her voice, her sex appeal and the music that has made her a legend. What I did not expect was that I was going to be reviewing a movie directed by her. So let us sit back and see how the movie W./E. plays out.
A faint radio plays out. It talks about the greatest love story of the 20th century or the king who gave up his throne for the woman he loved. Wallis Simpson was her name and she started a constitutional crisis when the King of England, Edward VIII decided to leave the throne to marry this woman. They became the Duke and Duchess of Windsor. The legend lives on today. An answering machine clicks after Walli is told that she is loved but will be alone that night.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by M. W. Phillips on April 23rd, 2012
“Here in Tresock, I believe the old religion of the Celts fits our needs at this time. Isn’t that all you can ask of a religion?”
In 1973 Director Robin Hardy captured lightning in a bottle with the classic The Wicker Man. Based on David Pinner's 1967 novel Ritual and loosely adapted into Anthony Shaffer’s sharp screenplay. Shaffer painstakingly researched paganism giving the film an undeniable authenticity, The Wicker Man became a genre of its own known as Folk Horror. The beauty of the film was the war of counter-religions, Christianity vs. Celtic Paganism. Both religions were well respected and represented, never sinking to the point of parody or cynicism. Of course, the lion’s share of the cultural clash leaned to the side of the pagans, robustly embracing their music and daily rituals. The film served as a horror movie for Christians and a victorious feel-good movie for pagans. Either side found it unforgettable.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by David Annandale on April 21st, 2012
The fourth Mission: Impossible entry exchanges digits for a subtitle, and brings in Brad Bird to direct his first live-action feature. So the man whose The Incredibles made fun of the sort of thing that is the bread-and-butter of the M:I franchise is brought in to revitalize said franchise. Result? Job done.
Gotcha. You thought I was going to say, “Mission accomplished,” didn’t you?
Posted in: Disc Reviews by J C on April 15th, 2012
I was flipping through the latest issue of Sad Trombone magazine the other day, and it contained an article revealing — through entirely unscientific research — that the general consensus appears to be, "People suck." As a result, I was already in the proper mindset when I sat down to watch The Divide, probably the most pessimistic movie of the past year.
After a nuclear attack, a group of nine survivors huddle in the basement of their apartment building. They are initially led by Mickey (Michael Biehn, looking like his Aliens co-star Lance Henriksen these days), the building's profane, racist, anti-social superintendent. With absolutely zero communication with the outside world, the days go by and the secluded group — which is afraid to go outside because of the potential for radiation poisoning — gets hungrier, crankier and more desperate. (Oddly enough, that's exactly how I got the last time I went camping overnight in a tiny tent.)
Posted in: Disc Reviews by David Annandale on April 6th, 2012
Roman Polanski's seminal neo-noir finally makes it to Blu-ray. Gino has already handled the previous DVD release, so I'm going to turn the reins over to him for a while, then jump back in.
"Jake Gittes is a Chandler style detective with all of the trappings. From the office to the secretary and the cop friend, Gittes is a cliché. He appears to specialize in tracking down extramarital affairs. When he’s hired to keep an eye on a rich millionaire, the subject turns up dead, and maybe it wasn’t his wife at all who hired him. Gittes now must investigate to save his own hide. His investigation leads him to a corrupt water department taking advantage of a manufactured drought. His client has a dark secret that only complicates Gittes’ efforts.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by J C on March 31st, 2012
I think most of us can agree that being buried alive would be a horrible way to go. Several movies — Kill Bill: Vol. 2, The Vanishing (not the soft American remake) and, of course, Buried — have exploited that terror to varying degrees of success. Though the action in A Lonely Place to Die centers around a girl found buried in the Scottish Highlands, the camera frequently pulls way back to show us the desolate beauty (and danger) of the mountainous setting. I really wish director Julian Gilbey had kept the action on those mountains.
A group of climbers, led by Melissa George (The Amityville Horror, TV's Alias), discover an Eastern European girl named Anna buried in an underground chamber. Anna is unable to explain what happened because she can't speak English, but the group correctly surmises that the girl was kidnapped and being kept alive by the breathing pipe sticking out of the ground. Eventually, the group has to deal with the vicious pair of kidnappers, as well as the mercenaries hired by the girl's war criminal father to get her back.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by M. W. Phillips on March 22nd, 2012
“Chill out? Am I the only one hearing this? This thing attacks people, Jane, and she wants to go looking for it, because she has deranged fantasies about the unexplained!”
In Splintered a group of teens go seek the truth behind the northern Wales urban legend known as the Beast of Bodmin, a creature who may be responsible for the death of a bunch of livestock and the disappearance of a number of tourists and citizens. Sophie (Holly Weston) lives with unsuppressed childhood memories of being assaulted in her bedroom by some kind of beast man. It drives her to seek out the unknown with a particular obsession with the Beast of Bodmin. Sophie tricks John (Sol Heras) a boy crushing on her, her best friend Jane (Sadie Pickering), Jane’s boyfriend Sam (Sacha Dhawan), as well as Jane’s brother Dean (Jonathan Readwin) into join the hunt without really ever telling them what they were doing. So what should be a weekend romp turns into an investigation of a deadly urban legend. Gee, never heard of that plotline before.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by J C on March 20th, 2012
After watching Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy, my mind wandered over to Inception of all places. Remember how Ellen Page's character pretty much only existed so other people could explain to her — and, by extension, us in the audience — the rules of the movie's universe and what the hell was happening? Well, watching Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy for the first time felt a lot like what I imagine Inception would look like if Page's novice architect hadn't been in the script: words and items have dual meanings, characters have double (and triple) motivations, and good luck figuring out everything that's going on in this complex world!
The plot, however, is deceptively simple: veteran spy George Smiley (Gary Oldman) is called out of retirement to uncover a Soviet agent in the highest ranks of MI-6, the British intelligence service. (I'll refrain from further discussing the plot so that I don't give anything away, but also because there's a decent chance I haven't comprehended everything that happened. That being said, my second viewing of this movie went considerably smoother than the first.)
Posted in: Disc Reviews by J C on March 13th, 2012
I don't think I'm breaking any news when I say that director Paul W.S. Anderson's latest action spectacle, an update of Alexandre Dumas' classic The Three Musketeers, is junk. So far, the director has specialized in taking established properties — including the Resident Evil and Mortal Kombat videogames, as well as the Alien and Predator franchises — and re-working them to fit his own shallow, highly-stylized, quick-cutting sensibilities. The result is basically the cinematic equivalent of junk food: people know those Resident Evil movies are bad, but they just can't stop consuming them.
That's why I was mildly shocked when this latest adaptation turned out to be surprisingly and sneakily faithful...well, except for the part where Da Vinci's Flying War Machine becomes a significant plot point. (This was a guy, after all, who didn't include a single character from the Resident Evil game in the first movie!)
