2.35:1 Widescreen

Matador, The

Posted in Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on June 28th, 2006

Synopsis

The ironically named Julian Noble (Pierce Brosnan) is a hitman whose lifestyle of promiscuous sex, exotic locales and contract killings is catching up with him. As he approaches meltdown, he runs into Danny Wright (Greg Kinnear), a businessman who has had a long run of bad luck. The two strike up a friendship in Mexico city, and toward the end of their stay there, something happens. Six months later, Noble, on the verge of a nervous breakdown, turns uup on Wright’s doorstep.

If Bro…
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Little Manhattan

Posted in Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on June 26th, 2006

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Once in awhile, a film comes along that really catches you by surprise. Little Manhattan is one of those films. At first glance, it appears to be an updated take on a coming of age film that warms the cockles of your heart and leaves you smiling, but it’s actually a bit of a romantic comedy that is timeless and memorable.

Written by Jennifer Flackett and directed by Mark Levin, who are a married writing team whose most notable work was Wimbledon, the focus of Little Manhattan is Gabe (Josh Hutcherson, Kicking and Screaming), who also narrates the film.
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About a Boy

Posted in Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on June 25th, 2006

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For better or worse, Hugh Grant has carved out a niche in Hollywood as the nervous, awkward, charming, British romantic leading man. He’s tried doing other things, paired with Gene Hackman as the protagonist in the thriller Extreme Measures. But attempts such as these are few and far between, and haven’t seemed to work. For better or worse, he’ll always be the stodgy British guy trying to bed an American chick over the objection of her parents, or some other convoluted romantic comedy plot. To his credit, he has been playing against that stereotype lately, to a lesser degree in Bridget Jones’s Diary, but to a larger scale in About a Boy, recently nominated for a Golden Globe in Comedy.
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End of the Spear

Posted in Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on June 23rd, 2006

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Synopsis

The Waodani tribe of the Amazon is, we are told, so violent that they have almost hunted each other to extinction. Oops. Anyway, in 1956 a group of missionaries and their families arrive to live with the Waodani and do the missionary thing. A misunderstanding leads to the missionaries being slaughtered, but their wives decide to stay. The film follows the journey of the son of one of the five men, and the whole thing is all about forgiveness.

See, the title is “End” not “Tip” of th…
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Syriana (HD DVD)

Posted in Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on June 21st, 2006

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The world of politically charged films has certainly grown in the past few years. Films like Farhenheit 911 have seen big success, while other films like Rupert Murdoch’s OutFoxed have seen more of a critical success. Both of these films had extreme media attention, one obviously more than the other, prior and after their releases. Both asked questions and demanded answers to topics and issues we, as people, wondered about but never really asked about as a simple person can’t really enact a high success…
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V For Vendetta

Posted in Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on June 15th, 2006

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When the film V For Vendetta was announced, my interest immediate peaked as I found out the Wachowski Brothers would be writing the film. Unlike a majority of fans, I didn’t completely dislike The Matrix Trilogy; in fact, I thought they were a ton of fun. With this new film, the brothers attack the theme of a society where the government has the only voice, similar to the novel 1984. Add in actors Natalie Portman and Hugo Weaving, and you have me at the word go.

The year is 2020. A vir…
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Kiss Kiss Bang Bang

Posted in Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on June 14th, 2006

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I like to call movies like this “exception films”. They are the exception to the rule. Those odd little films that show up every once in a great while that really have no right to be good. You hear the plot, you see the trailer, and you know that this film is mere days away from losing vast sums of money for someone on the left coast. Then the movie comes out and it is… inexplicably entertaining and fantastic.

Kiss Kiss Bang Bang has carved out a surprisingly strong cult following for itself since it…
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Rundown, The (HD DVD)

Posted in Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on June 14th, 2006

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For Director Peter Berg, the film The Rundown was an interesting note for him. Before his ultimately better film Friday Night Lights, The Rundown marked the first time Berg directed a film that went on to become a big success. Before The Rundown, Berg had films like Very Bad Things which was just that and The Last Seduction which was excellent. The Rundown also marked the first main feature film (main staring role) for wrestler turned actor Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson. N…
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U-571 (HD DVD)

Posted in Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on June 9th, 2006

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Director Jonathan Mostow is an interesting director to say the least. He directed Kurt Russell is the great Breakdown where a man must fight to save his wife. He director Arnold Schwarzenegger in the third Terminator film where a machine must fight another machine to help save the human race; but before he made Terminator 3, he directed Matthew McConaughey and Bill Paxton in a film where men must fight against their wits to save themselves. Two of the three films are great and are a joy to watch,…
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Murder, Inc.

Posted in Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on June 9th, 2006

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Limitations of budget and social conventions of the time prevent Murder, Inc. from being all it can be – still, the performances, and the captivating dynamic between hero (Stuart Whitman) and villain (Peter Falk) result in entertaining fare, so long as this film is allowed to be a movie and not a documentary. Whitman leads a fine cast as the mob lackey, who is constantly manipulated by a tough-talking contract killer. Part of the real life syndicate of hit-men “Murder, Inc.,” Falk’s baddie steals every …
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New Police Story

Posted in Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on June 7th, 2006

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You might not know this, but there are two Jackie Chans. The original Chan was an intense martial artist. His films were quite serious and action packed. While humor was always an element to his style, these early films did not really capitalize on that element. The Asian productions were nearly a genre unto themselves. Still, international stardom was elusive to this talented actor.

The second Jackie Chan is the man most Americans are familiar with. Still a talented martial artist, these films show a lighter side to the actor.
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16 Blocks

Posted in Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on June 7th, 2006

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In 16 Blocks, Bruce Willis plays Jack Mosley, a NYPD detective who seems to be annoyed and tired of he job. He looks lethargic 90% of the time never wanting to really do his job. Jack is told that his boss wants him for another job; which is the last possible thing Jack wants right now. Jack has been told to transport a key witness 16 Blocks to a grand jury hearing. The witness must arrive in two hours before the grand jury’s term expires. The witness is Eddie Bunker (Mos Def), who seems to have more lines tha…
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Running Scared

Posted in Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on June 4th, 2006

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In Wayne Kramer’s latest film, Paul Walker stars as Joey Gazelle, a man who seems to be a part of the mob and has a ten year old son named Nick. The film then zooms back to 18 hrs earlier where Joey and his Perello boys are ambushed and are nearly killed. Turns out these men who they just killed are big time cops. Joey is told to get rid of the murder weapons, which seems to be his main goal in this mob group. Instead, as we soon learn, Joey never does this instead he hides the weapons. Unfortunately for Joey, Nick a…
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Erosion

Posted in Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on June 2nd, 2006

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Synopsis

Emmanuel Xuereb plays Gabe, a man whose dying wife has left him for his best friend. (The psychiatric term for this situation is “bummer.”) His mourning takes the form of attempting to seduce women he doesn’t know, and he beings a relationship with Irene (Charis Michelsen), married but bored with her unimaginative husband. Irene is initially thrown when it turns out that Gabe is breaking into the homes where their encounters occur, but soon she is a willing participant in this game.

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Compulsion

Posted in Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on June 1st, 2006

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This film’s slogan was “Sometimes murder is just a way to pass the time.” A better way to fill up those empty minutes would be to watch this film. The film is based on a highly publicized real life case out of Chicago. A play was produced in the 1920’s. A book would also be written by Meyer Levin, which is the source material for this film. The story would not end there. It would be made at least twice more, including Hitchcock’s first color film, Rope. The case was perhaps made famous as much for the presence of Clarence Darrow as the defense attorney than for the senseless act of violence it represented.
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Chronicles of Riddick, The (HD DVD)

Posted in Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on June 1st, 2006

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The Chronicles of Riddick takes place about five years after the events of Pitch Black. Richard B. Riddick (Vin Diesel) continues to fight for his life on Crematoria (what a name), a planet whose sun, apparently, is so blazingly hot that every 15 minutes it blankets everything beneath it basically vaporizing it. But that doesn’t really matter all that much now does it. For Riddick, who is one of the few surviving members of the Furions, has been captured by the Necromongers and now must find a way to po…
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Underworld Evolution

Posted in Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on May 31st, 2006

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You won’t ever know the excitement I felt when I heard a sequel was being made to the film Underworld. While I didn’t see the big to due about the first film, I was actually hoping that the film would take the route some sequels have taken by making the film far superior to its predecessor. I guess Director Len Wiseman was trying to go out and make the sequel to Underworld even worse than its predecessor as he has completely succeeded in doing so.

As Underworld Evolution opens up, we g…
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Perfect Storm, The (HD DVD)

Posted in Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on May 30th, 2006

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Wolfgang Petersen is obviously a director who seems to love using boats or making films that have tons of boats. We had his masterpiece Das Boot about submarines, this film, his film Troy about the Trojan War, and his most recent remake Poseidon about another doomed ship. Unlike the most recent two films, The Perfect Storm is a pure sensation rollercoaster ride from beginning to end. The film doesn’t even attempt to tell a long drawn out story, but rather a very simplistic story about the …
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The Hitcher (1986) (Region 2)

Posted in Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on May 30th, 2006

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Sometimes, I get a bit of an impulse buying urge. And a while back, I went and got a spiffy Philips 727 DVD player (which I’ve since replaced with a Toshiba upconverting unit). Sure, it’s not a higher end player or anything, but for $80 and a hack using the remote control, it’s now become a decent multi-region player. So after testing out a friends borrowed Region 2 disc to see if the hack worked, I picked up a couple of movies from eBay and Amazon.UK, so I’ll do the occasional Region 2 review.
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Tora! Tora! Tora! (Cinema Classics Collection)

Posted in Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on May 29th, 2006

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Synopsis

The attack on Pearl Harbor and the days leading up to that fateful event are the subject of the 1970 effort. The narrative jumps back and forth between the Japanese and American perspectives as just enough things go both wrong and right and both sides (the ascendancy of the militant army faction over the reluctant navy in Japan, crucial intelligence always arriving just a bit too late to the right people in States) to make the surprise attack inevitable.

For anyone who has had to e…
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Assault on Precinct 13 (2005) (HD DVD)

Posted in Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on May 28th, 2006

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The 2005 Version of Assault on Precinct 13 is an obvious remake of John Carpenter’s 1976 classic. Precinct, for Carpenter, was one of his first films made before his ultra famous Halloween. But if anyone has seen the 1976 version, you can easily know what will come from the 2005 version. Instead of making a possible change to the 2005 version, Director Jean-Francois Richet decided to use the similar theme of a police station being abandoned that Carpenter did. Instead though, Richet focuses on the corru…
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London

Posted in Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on May 26th, 2006

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Synopsis

Syd (Chris Evans) is still mourning his break-up with London (Jessica Biel), drowning his sorrow in booze and cocaine. When he hears that she is leaving New York, and there’s a going-away party for her, he decides to crash the scene, dragging along Bateman (Jason Stratham), a businessman from whom he has just scored more coke. Arriving at the party before the guest of honour (and just about everybody else), the two men retreat to the spacious bathroom where they will spend much of the film, …
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Hollow Man 2

Posted in Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on May 25th, 2006

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Synopsis

Years after the disastrous end of Kevin Bacon’s experiment with invisibility, the process has been revived with intent to create a super-soldier. Christan Slater (as Michael Griffin, the last name being a nod to the original Invisible Man) is the soldier experimented on, but he’s an uncontrollable killing machine. Denied the “buffer” – the injection that will prevent the lethal side effects of the invisibility formula, he tracks down the one person who knows how to create it: biologist Laura…
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Bourne Supremacy, The (HD DVD)

Posted in Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on May 23rd, 2006

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The basic plot to The Bourne Supremacy is very similar to The Bourne Identity in that Jason Bourne is still trying to evade any and all forces that seemingly will stop at nothing to kill this man. Naturally though, Bourne can’t just evade these forces in a normal manner, but he has to evade these forces using his explosive martial arts and wit. As we learned in Identity, Bourne had his memory wiped. To escape people, Bourne has traveled halfway across the world living on the beach of Goa in south…
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Guns at Batasi

Posted in Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on May 23rd, 2006

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Synopsis

The setting is a recently decolonized Africa in the early 60’s. The British army still has a presence here, but is trying no to interfere with domestic politics. As the unrest reaches the boiling point, however, the army is ordered to turn command over to local commanders. No sooner is this done that a coup turns everything upside down, and the African captain of the local garrison is captured by mutinous troops. He escapes and finds his way to the officers’ mess. There, Regimental Sergeant …
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