Posted in: Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on December 4th, 2006
When I sat down to watch The Devil Wears Prada with my wife, who was excited to see it, I was braced for a complete chick flick. I figured it was another one of those �ugly� duckling turns beautiful to conquer her situation movies, and that prospect didn�t exactly have me jazzed up.
Well, that�s not quite how it goes, and I was surprised to find that I enjoyed the film. The story centres around Andrea (Anne Hathaway), an aspiring journalist who�s getting nowhere, who takes a job as second assistant to Miranda Priestly (Meryl Streep), the frightening editor-in-chief of a leading fashion magazine.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by David Annandale on November 28th, 2006
Four young women (including Lina Romay in her Candy Coster persona) arrive at beach resort. They plan to pick up plenty of men for sex, but if none are available, as they're in a Jess Franco film, they'll make do with each other. They see no one else around, except for the odd manager (Robert Foster) and the even more bizarre gardener. At first they think nothing of the town's deserted nature, but gradually they realize something is wrong, and it has to do with the nearby monastery, where undead Cathars vent their frustration with their cursed state by raping and killing our heroines.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by David Annandale on November 27th, 2006
Alice (Lina Romay under her blonde pseudonym "Candy Coster") is haunted by erotic nightmares involving the Princess Obongo (the Amazonian Ajita Wilson). She therefore has her misgivings when she is ordered by her boss to travel to a remote island and sell some real estate to that very person. Doubts notwithstanding, off she goes (got up in an outfit I've never seen a real estate agent wear before) to play Jonathan Harker to Obongo's Dracula. On the island, she falls under the Obongo's spell, and becomes emmeshed in a web of sex, rituals and magic.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on November 25th, 2006
Synopsis
With Casino Royale now out in theaters and being shown to a mostly positive audience, let’s all take a step back and remember that James Bond just celebrated an anniversary in 2002 with the release of Die Another Day. The film was the twentieth in the Bond legacy, and Brosnan’s fifth (and last) in the role. How does it stack up?
Directed by Lee Tamahori (Once Were Warriors), the film puts Bond in North Korea, attempting to procure some diamonds from a young Korean Col...
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on November 25th, 2006
(Portions of this review have been pulled from the original one-disc version of Ronin, which can also be found in the reviews portion of the site)Synopsis
I think the only thing I remember about Ronin initially was that Robert DeNiro (Heat) was involved in some scandal involving a French "house of ill-repute" or something along those lines. But when Ronin was released, people quickly forgot about that mess, as what came from it was an action film that put a little more e...
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on November 24th, 2006
No monster movie is bigger than King Kong. AFI members recently considered King Kong to be the most influential film ever. The original King Kong has inspired more filmmakers, actors, and technicians than any film in Hollywood’s history. The score is considered the first modern film score. For the first time the music is timed to accent certain aspects of the action. Willis O’Brien practically invented movie special f/x with his revolutionary stop motion technique seen earlier on The Lost World. One of those filmma...
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on November 23rd, 2006
Synopsis
Michael Caine is a down-on-his-luck PI in LA. He’s hired to find the long-lost daughter of a man who is now wealthy, though being hunted by goons. Caine heads off to house of the presumed daughter’s adoptive parents. There are two women the right age here. Which one is he looking for? Could it be Natalie Wood?
And the questions keep coming, such as who thought Wood would be perfectly cast as a femme fatale? Questions unlikely to be answered. The script is full of would-be witty ban...
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on November 22nd, 2006
Few science fiction films of the 1950’s left as much of an impact as Forbidden Planet. Gene Roddenberry often cited the film as the birth of Star Trek. It is in this film that he took away the interactions of an interstellar craft’s bridge crew. Even the United Planets organization in Forbidden Planet heralds Trek’s United Federation of Planets. Robby the Robot would become a science fiction icon and lead to a great number of copycats, most notably the Lost In Space robot. Robby even made a cameo on that show. MGM ...
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on November 15th, 2006
Ever since making the Lord of the Rings trilogy, Director Peter Jackson has almost become a household name that seems to always guarantee success. Don’t get me wrong though, Jackson has not always been successful. Before making the Lord of the Rings trilogy, Jackson had the film The Frighteners and a few smaller films where he only produced. The idea of giving this not so successful movie director hundreds of millions of dollars to remake the Lord of the Rings trilogy, made many turn their...
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on November 13th, 2006
Synopsis
Gregory Peck is a Nobel-laureate scientist sent to China to try to recover a new enzyme that allows one to grow any crop in any climate. The operation is being conducted jointly by the Americans, the British and the Russians (!). Peck has a transmitter implanted in his head that relays his physiological conditions and his every word back to base. What he doesn’t know is that the implant is also explosive, and trigger-happy general Arthur Hill might well blow Peck’s top, as it were.
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