Posted in: Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on December 31st, 2008
Shia LaBeouf and Michelle Monaghan are on the run from a series of carefully orchestrated catastrophes. All are ominously foretold by a rather humorless young lady that may or may not be a robot in the new thriller Eagle Eye, a film that purports to be “from Stephen Spielberg.” Spielberg-lovers, don’t get your hopes up. Authorial rights belong more to director D.J. Caruso and a smorgasbord of writers that include John Glenn, Travis Adam Wright, Hillary Seitz, and Dan McDermott. Oh yeah, and a dozen other tent-pole blockbuster action films. Sound like a hodgepodge Hollywood mess? It is.
Caruso’s direction does its best impersonation of Michael Bay’s, whooshing about from one impossible set-piece to another. His snarky heroes immediately hate each other, even before they have a clear-cut reason. We know this from the snippy dialogue peppered throughout, and their forced reluctance to accept the other’s story. The concept, while not altogether weak, feels like a worn-out retread of Enemy of the State. Sure, the technology is better, and much more precise; but it doesn’t feel as innovative, cutting-edge, or thought-provoking as it did in that first effort.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on December 20th, 2008
Since the dawn of The Animal Planet we’ve seen an entire genre created around using real animal footage and providing a human story to go with it. In Meerkat Manor we are provided with a dramatic narration substituting human motivations for the actual activities captured by the film crew. In other instances voice over techniques are used to make the animals appear to talk. Movies like the Buddies series utilize this technique. With the help of a little CG, the animals appear to be speaking. In the case of Elephant Tales, however, there isn’t any effort to match the dialog to lip movement; in fact, there isn’t any effort to even remotely match the dialog to the animal’s activity at all. So, my first real complaint here is how random the footage appears and how totally unrelated to the dialog it is. The result is something like a Mystery Theater 3000 animal documentary edition. You might as well have provided the words yourself for all the difference it will make. Add to that a script that appears to be adlibbed the entire film, and what remains isn’t very interesting, even to the kids.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on December 18th, 2008
<>An-a-mor-pho-sis n. pl. An image distorted so that it can only be viewed without distortion from a certain angle or using specific instrumentation.
In the case of this direct to video thriller, our serial killer is using the aforementioned technique in his murders. He dismembers bodies and reassembles them so that they appear differently depending on how you view them. Obviously the killer considers himself a kind or artist. He justifies killing by remarking that the sacrifice of a single human life to bring such a work of art to humanity is a reasonable trade-off In this case, however, our killer is targeting an audience of one.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on December 15th, 2008
When I was young I used to love to eat oranges, but it wasn’t only the taste or the benefits of some good old fashioned vitamin C I was necessarily after. I would cut the fruit in half and then carefully peel the rind, attempting to keep the halves in one piece. I’d cut one of those pieces in half again. I would then place them around my mouth and there you’d have it… instant Apes makeup. Then I would twitch my face muscles to imitate Roddy McDowall’s clever facial movements intended to make the foam prosthetic pieces come alive.Talking through those orange rinds, I’d imagine I was one of those intrepid apes from the films or television series and have all sorts of ape adventures. My playtime had the extra unintended benefit of protecting me from colds. Of course, as an adult I have long since abandoned such childish ways and no longer fill my face with orange peels, at least while anyone else is looking. But the Apes films and shows have never lost their -- I guess you could call it appeal, for the 10 year old I still carry around inside. When Tim Burton went to work on his remake of the franchise, a little bit of that kid emerged, and I might have picked up an extra orange or two at the grocery, just in case. Unfortunately, while I am a fan of almost everything
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on December 12th, 2008
Larry Bishop’s Hell Ride plays like a childhood fantasy I might have had in the third grade had I known more about boobies and the joy they bring to my basest male desires. As a film, however, it’s terrible. It’s like Bishop set out to honor the bad movie genre by laying a turd so rancid the qualities of those other films shine brightly alongside it. Sitting down to watch Hell Ride a second time after having seen it in theaters and not really knowing what to think about it then, the benefit of time has taught me how awful this debut truly is.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Michael Durr on December 7th, 2008
Most women would consider Matthew McConaughey a hot guy. Hubba, hubba, the whole nine yards. Typically when he stars in a new motion picture, women flock to see the show for him to walk around for ninety minutes preferably with his shirt taken off and speaking romantic to some leading lady. For those ninety minutes, those women wish that they were in his arms, they were in his touch. But what if Matthew was portraying an out of work treasure hunter, broken down on his luck and owing some guy named Bigg Bunny a whole lot of money? I think this will all depend on whether his shirt is coming off or not.
On July 24th, 1715 in celebration of the marriage of King Phillip of Spain, the largest treasure fleet in maritime history set sail from Havana, Cuba. The 500 million dollars worth of gold, silver and jewels came to be known as the Queen's Dowry. Unfortunately, in his eagerness to consummate the marriage, King Philip ordered the fleet to sail at the worst time of the year. And so, the great galleons, heavy with their sparkling cargo, sailed straight into a massive hurricane and were never seen again.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on November 21st, 2008
There have been many films about the Vietnam War. Some have been epic. Some have been emotional. Some have even been very bad, but now comes one that is absolutely funny. Are we ready for this kind of a send up? That might be the overriding question, but I think that we are. Tropic Thunder took the chance that the public was ready to accept such a film and be able to enjoy it. To soften the blow, it was likely a good idea that the film doesn’t address the war in itself. The film takes aim at movies about the war, and in an extension of that theme it pokes a lot of fun at
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on November 18th, 2008
Jack Black stars as a Panda named Po who works in his family’s noodle shop. His dreams, however, aren’t of noodles and broth, but of Kung Fu. He fantasizes of hanging out with the famous furious five, the living legends of Kung Fu. The five are made up of the actual animal poses in Kung Fu. You have Tigress (Jolie), Crane (Cross), Monkey (Chan), Mantis (Rogen), and Viper (Liu). Together they have been training with the Master Shifu (Hoffman). Under the guidance of Grand Master Oogway (Duk Kim) they are preparing for one of them to take on the mantle of Dragon Warrior. Then they will inherit the sacred Dragon Scroll and be the great protector of Peace Valley. When Po learns that the time has come to select the Dragon Warrior, he just can’t miss being witness to such an awesome event. The palace is high on a great mountain, and Po tries all silly means of getting to the event. Finally, strapped to a fireworks propelled chair, he makes a grand entrance and finds himself selected as the Dragon Warrior. Much to the dismay of all gathered, Master Oogway insists that Po will become the great warrior needed to protect the Valley. Shifu must overcome his own doubts and work fast, because the imprisoned Tai Lung (McShane) has escaped from the world’s most secure prison. “One way in. One way out. One thousand guards and just one prisoner”Tai Lung. Tai Lung wants the dragon scroll for himself, and not even the Furious Five are able to stop him. Po must learn the “secret ingredient” that will give him the strength and courage to face up to this most ferocious of enemies.
The CG animation craze has no shortage of lovable and cute animals these days. It seems that the animal kingdom has become the greatest fodder for these family animated blockbuster films. Dreamworks might be in the lead with these kinds of efforts. They’ve given us bears, penguins, and lions among others. Now they deliver perhaps one of their better ideas in a lovable Kung Fu Panda. As much as anything else, you really have to give most of the credit for the film’s success to Jack Black and the wonderful voice cast that support him here. Honestly, the script is pretty simple, and like most children’s films it tends to be oversimplified and rather silly throughout. But give a cast like this an even average script and you can pretty much sit back and watch them go. Okay, maybe sit back and hear them go.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on November 13th, 2008
Casino Royale was the only one of Ian Fleming’s James Bond novels that was not a part of the deal with Ion Productions. It was the only Fleming story that was off limits even though it was the first Bond story written. Until recently it was never filmed as part of the official Bond franchise. However, there was a version made back in 1967 that has been deservedly long forgotten. After 40 years it remains unclear who originally came up with the idea for this farce, and after watching the results, I’m not expecting anybody to stand up and take credit any time soon. This is a James Bond film, but in name only.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by David Annandale on November 9th, 2008
Rob Zombie’s enthusiastic but terminally misguided remake scores yet another DVD release. This one is identical to the previous unrated edition, apart from the fact that there’s an extra disc. More on that later. But in the meantime, as everything else is the same, that will also be true for this review. What follows is what I said about the last version.
“The trailer trash Myers family (inexplicably living in a pretty big house) is a powder keg waiting to go off, what with the rampaging abuse and a young Michael (the admittedly creepy Daeg Faerch) butchering small animals and looking like he’s mad as hell and soon not going to take it anymore. Snap he does, going on a killing spree, before he is captured and locked up for years, while eccetric shrink Dr. Loomis (a shameless Malcolm McDowell) making a career out of trying to learn what makes him tick. Growing to Godzilla proportions, Michael makes his escape, and proceeds to pick up his spree where he left off in his home town of Haddonfield.
![Planet of the Apes [Blu-ray] dvd cover art](https://upcomingdiscs.com/ecs_covers/planet-of-the-apes-blu-ray-large.jpg)
