Posted in: Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on February 20th, 2007
We all know that Daniel Craig helped effectively reboot the James Bond movie franchise in 2006 with the amazing Casino Royale. But let's not forget that Pierce Brosnan was at the helm of the first Bond "rebirth" in Goldeneye. Brosnan was the darling of Bond producer Albert Broccoli in the mid '80s, but was unable to take the role because of his then-current commitment to the television show Remington Steele. Assuming he could have gotten the job back then, he would have followed Roger Moore after A View to a Kill.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Michael Durr on February 18th, 2007
Synopsis
The filming world seems to be full of un-original ideas. Everything from endless sequels to the same types of films repeated and repeated until one falls into a deep dark slumber. The Quiet staring Elisha Cuthbert(24, Girl Next Door) as Nina Deer & Camilla Belle(When A Stranger Calls) as Dot from the cover and box description appears to be another teenage high school drama about some new girl and sexual tension sans Cruel Intentions. How...
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on February 18th, 2007
The day and age were Hollywood remakes coming off as a somewhat passable effort are completely gone. Hollywood continues to feed us drivel that is devoid of anything remotely entertaining or anything that made the original entertaining in its own right. In 2006 Warner Brothers decided to remake the 1973 classic film Wicker Man. Instead of trying to adhere to the original, Warner threw everything that made Robin Hardy's original such a classic and have since replaced it with moments that were meant to scare us but instead come off as almost laughable.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on February 16th, 2007
Before Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring, there was another film full of warriors running through the wilderness, accompanied by a majestic score. That film was The Last of the Mohicans, director Michael Mann's remake of the 1936 film of the same name, which was a remake of the 1920 silent film. And all of these movies were based on the original novel by James Fennimore Cooper, a popular 18th Century American writer.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on February 15th, 2007
Maria Bello gives a wasted performance in the Tim McGraw vehicle Flicka, a by-the-numbers family film that is such a retread of other more competent efforts, one wonders, What is the point? Alison Lohman plays McGraw's teenage daughter and friend-to-Flicka, a role type that was much better utilized in classics, such as Old Yeller, Where the Red Fern Grows, and Summer of the Monkeys. Lohman is the precocious adolescent, who struggles through boarding school, and her relationship with gruf...
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on February 12th, 2007
The Arrangement is a film that I had always heard the name of, but never really heard anything about. It's rare for a film to be directed by the author of the book that it is based on. In fact, I can't recall ever seeing that before. Upon watching the film, it is obvious to me how important it is for a director to have a clear understanding of the story he is trying to tell. Kazan knows this story inside and out, and even the slightest nuance of the least-important scene contributes to the story being told.
The arrangement tells the story of Eddie, a high-powered advertising executive who has a very unexpected midlife crisis within the first few minutes of the film. As viewers, we spend the rest of the movie examining his life, and slowly discovering what led him to this tumultuous point in his life. The film actually reminded me a lot of The Graduate, if Dustin Hoffman had been in this 40's. Here, Kirk Douglas plays the Benjamin Braddock role, with just a bit of Sybil thrown in for good measure.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on February 11th, 2007
Portions of this review were lifted from the previous Criterion Collection edition review. Now on to the review...
After making such internationally renowned samurai period films such as Rashomon and The Seven Samurai, Akira Kurosawa did make another film, Yojimbo, with a decidedly different tone, bordering on dark comedy. The opening shot is of Sanjuro (Toshiro Mifune, Throne of Blood), a samurai without a master, who look at a mountain, and suddenly scratches his head, as if his hair is on too tight.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on February 10th, 2007
Let me get this out of the way right up front; I really enjoyed Memoirs of a Geisha. Now, I am certainly smart enough to understand that the film was not entirely realistic, and there were some plot developments that pushed suspension of disbelief pretty far, but I wound it charming and entertaining. It was so charming, in fact, that it was often times easy to forget that you were essentially watching a movie about whores. You can romance it all you want, but at the end of the day a Geisha is really nothing mo...
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on February 7th, 2007
The prologue to The Covenant tells us of people with supernatural powers. We're told of how these powerful warlocks and witches were hunted throughout Europe and escaped to the New England colonies in the New World. The information is provided with the contradictions of pseudogrunge music and pages of ancient texts. It doesn't take us long to meet young men, descendants from these immigrant families. We discover them flaunting their powers by jumping off a cliff on the way to a teen party.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on February 2nd, 2007
The World Cup is unquestionably the greatest sporting event in the world. No other event, sporting or otherwise, pulls nations together like the World Cup does. Once every four years, the whole of the world (save for the majority of the United States) takes a month off to focus their eyes on the efforts of a group of young men to put a white ball into a white net. This film is the story of the 1996 edition of the famed tournament.
This film does a great job of capturing the story of the tournament, while not ...
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