Posted in: Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on July 1st, 2007
Synopsis
Timothy Dalton might have endured a bit of grief for his short tenure as James Bond, enduring comments equating him to Connery and Moore plagued his two film run, with this one being the last. However, this one was quite the doozy, and almost in the area of “forgotten gem” status.
Written by Richard Maibaum (The Man With the Golden Gun) and producer Michael Wilson, and directed by John Glen (A View to a Kill), Dalton as Bond finds himself as the Best Man to the wedding of lo...
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on June 29th, 2007
As you might imagine, I am often asked for my opinion on the films I see. Inevitably I’m called upon to compare the film with some other work, which is at best quite unfair and at worst simply impossible to do. But I’ve gotten good at the game. So let us play it now. We’ll call Neverwas One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest meets Alice In Wonderland. Unfair, some might say, for they are actually the very same story. When you look at it carefully enough, they really are, although important differences do exist. My point i...
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on June 27th, 2007
Synopsis
In slowly but surely wrapping up my reviews of each and every Ultimate Edition James Bond title on DVD, coming to Thunderball, a sect of people say that this is the quintessential film for the man who quintessentially personified James Bond. So in his fourth outing as the man who likes martinis, cars and women, he encounters a large swath of them all over two hours.
Based on Ian Fleming’s story and directed by Terence Young (From Russia With Love), this installment in the se...
Posted in: Disc Reviews by David Annandale on June 27th, 2007
Synopsis
There isn’t a lot that connects these films, other than the fact that they are all budget-conscious SF and were released in 1958. All are joys for fans of the genre, however.
The Giant Behemoth was director Eugene Lourié’s second giant-dinosaur-on-the-loose film, after The Beast from 20,000 Fathoms (1953) and before Gorgo (1960). It is also the weakest of the three, but not without its charms. Signs of an intensely radioactive being are proliferating on the Eng...
Posted in: Disc Reviews by David Annandale on June 25th, 2007
Synopsis
An undersea earthquake leads to the loss of an undersea lab. There is, however, no sign of the wreckage, and so it is presumed that the lab slid deep into a trench. In the faint hope that there might be survivors, the submersible Neptune descends into the depths, where it encounters all sorts of gigantic sealife.
In my review of Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea, I said it was the most idiotic sub movie out there. I stand by that, but The Neptune Factor keeps the...
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on June 25th, 2007
Yet another Samuel L. Jackson movie containing the word snake in it, but unlike Snakes on a Plane, Black Snake Moan is a dramatic picture delving into dark issues like abuse. I’ll come out by saying that I though this movie was going to be a good laugh, seeing the trailer I though it would be a bearded Sam Jackson shouting out profanities at an unwilling captive in his home. Although this does happen it is a small portion of the movie, and not as comedic as I had supposed.
Black Snake Moan...
Posted in: Disc Reviews by David Annandale on June 21st, 2007
Synopsis
When Admiral Walter Pidgeon’s glass-nosed submarine (?) Seaview surfaces at the North Pole after an extended stay underwater, Pidgeon and crew discover the sky is on fire. It turns out the Van Allen radiation belt has caught fire (?!) and life on Earth will be incinerated once the temperature reaches 175 Farenheit (and not, apparently, a single degree less). Pidgeon and co-hort Peter Lorre come up with a plan to launch a nuclear missile into the belt and use the explosion to blow out ...
Posted in: Disc Reviews by David Annandale on June 20th, 2007
Synopsis
An overheated Cold War plot sees a scientist, crucial to American interests, felled by a blood clot. The only way of saving his life consists in shrinking a submarine and specialist crew to microscopic size and injecting them into the his body. They must make their way up the circulatory system to the brain and there destroy the clot. But on top of all the hazards they encounter in the body, there is also a saboteur aboard.
Who could this saboteur be? No way it’s heroic Stephen Boy...
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on June 20th, 2007
Shooter is closely based on Point of Impact, an excellent novel by thriller writer Stephen Hunter. I read the book in the late 90’s, and enjoyed it. A lot. When I began seeing trailers for this film last year, you can bet I was excited at the prospect of seeing Bob Lee Swagger come to life on the big screen, even if it had to be “Marky” Mark Wahlberg in the role.
The film updates Hunter’s story to present day, shifting Vietnam to Iraq and villains to mercenary pawns of thinly veiled Dubya coho...
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on June 16th, 2007
Watching the trailers for Black Snake Moan, I recall thinking it was going to drum up some outrageous controversy. I mean, the only thing we really knew about the film was that a big, scary black man chains up a half-dressed white girl in his home. Not exactly a wholesome image.
It’s a southern gothic parable, starring Samuel L. Jackson (Shaft) as Lazarus, a God-fearing man whose wife just left him for his own brother, and Christina Ricci (Sleepy Hollow) as Rae, a broken young woman wh...
![Black Snake Moan [HD DVD] dvd cover art](https://upcomingdiscs.com/ecs_covers/black-snake-moan-hd-dvd-large.jpg)
