Posted in: Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on January 27th, 2006
When news of a sequel to 1998’s The Mask of Zorro was first announced, I was very excited as I really enjoyed The Mask of Zorro. The film had an interesting story and great acting from Banderas and Hopkins. But as I learned more and more about the sequel, I became extremely worried as neither of the two screenwriters (Ted Elliot or Terry Rossio) were returning. Also, we would be introduced to their cute little child (and EVERYONE knows how much adding little children to sequels can do for a film’s likea...
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on January 21st, 2006
Having originally seen Underworld on HBO one summer night, I recall myself finding the film fairly dull and vapid. When I heard of a director’s cut coming out, I thought back to my original viewing of the film Daredevil, which was made that much better via more explanation of plot and the characters. Maybe this could occur for this film. Unfortunately, Underworld is not that much better this time around.
Underworld stars Kate Beckinsale as Death Dealer Selene. We learn, at the be...
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on January 20th, 2006
Al Pacino is one of those actors who always seems to find himself in those type of roles that bring out the absolute best in him. In his last four films (Insomina, People I Know, Angels in America, and The Merchant of Venice) Pacino has brought the needed tension and power to his performances. Add 2005’s Two For The Money to that ever-growing list of excellent performances.
Pacino plays Walter who runs a sports betting hotline. Matthew McConaughey plays Brandon, the Vega...
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on January 18th, 2006
Synopsis
Toni Collette and Cameron Diaz are sisters. Collette is the older, sensible one, who has made a career as a lawyer. Diaz is the hard-drinking, terminally selfish party girl. After a series of disasters, which culminate in Diaz sleeping with Collette’s beau, the sisters have a seemingly irreversible falling out. Collette’s life is in ruins, but the pieces are gradually picked up by a co-worker who has loved for from afar for years. Diaz, meanwhile, discovers that she has a grandmother she nev...
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on January 17th, 2006
Jodie Foster stars in this film as a propulsion engineer named Kyle Pratt who decides to take her six year old daughter Julia on a transatlantic flight aboard a brand new jumbo jet (which she helped design). Aboard the plane, her daughter goes missing. Naturally she has no clue what is going on as the captain (Sean Bean), nor the sky marshal (Peter Sarsgaard) are of any assistance. Foster calmly looks around the plane for her daughter wondering what has happened to her. We learn more and more facts about the daughte...
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on January 14th, 2006
Synopsis
The unfortunate part for me is that movies like this, and before that, Sling Blade, were only in arthouse theaters that are in downtown Washington, DC, and I really have a problem with driving 25-30 miles to pay $10 for 2 hours of joy, and possibly that same amount of time spent in traffic trying to get in and out of DC. If you want to call it laziness, I'll admit to that also, but I think my first excuse holds a lot more weight. It's gotten better lately, but there's still some work to be d...
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on January 9th, 2006
I think that the studio knew they had a problem with Godsend before it was released in theaters. Sometimes a film can look like a great idea on paper, but the final product is just a mess. The thing is, after the studio has invested millions in a bad property, they have to try to recoup the money somehow. In the case of Godsend, the strategy was to put a well made trailer for the property on every Lions Gate DVD product for months and months. In this way, the studio hoped to build up enough word-of-mouth through minimal promotion to have a big opening weekend; big enough to make back some of the film's budget before the word got out about how bad the thing was.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on January 8th, 2006
It seems that every action movie that is being released out of Hollywood nowadays always has to feature out of this world stunts that no real human could ever do. Now this is not necessarily bad if the action is done in correspondence to the film in a skillful manner. When the original Transporter was released onto DVD, it quickly gained a reputation through many action fans that caused the film’s sales to skyrocket. The sales skyrocketed so high that Twentieth Century Fox quickly greenlit the sequel to a film...
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on January 7th, 2006
The Bad Sleep Well reminded me a lot of The Godfather. Both films begin with a large wedding, where the story behind the wedding is more fascinating than the event itself. Both films are also about corruption, what it means to be loyal, and what happens if you do favors for the wrong people. The Bad Sleep Well is particularly meaningful to our modern society, as instead of the subject of the film being gangsters, the focus is on the new heavies on the block... corrupt corporate heads. In the wake of the scandals at Tyco, Worldcom, Enron and others, this 1963 film carries new weight for American audiences.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on January 7th, 2006
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 effort into the characters than other action films. But that’s not to say the action scenes were neglected; the car chase scenes that negotiate through winding French cou...
