Posted in: Disc Reviews by David Annandale on April 27th, 2005
Synopsis
Directed by Gordon (Them!) Douglas, these three crime thrillers have Frank Sinatra doing his best hard boiled as he unravels complicated (and not always entirely comprehensible) mysteries.
Tony Rome (1967) has Sinatra in Miami Beach as the titular PI, a former cop who still has plenty of connections. A simple task -- returning a drunk young woman to her rich father -- leads to a web of murder and blackmail as all sorts of interested parties chasing around, beating up ...
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on April 25th, 2005
Blade: Trinity caught a lot of flack from most critics, and even the movie going public as per the box office returns (only grossing $52 million domestically). When I went to see this film in the theatre, half of my party was extremely disappointed with the flick. The other half, including myself, thought the film was quite entertaining. I must admit, this film does not come close to the original Blade, but I did find it a little bit more entertaining the Blade 2.
The biggest change...
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on April 24th, 2005
Elektra was pretty much a failure at the box office, bringing in just over half of its production cost. Add to this the raised expectations of comic characters in the movies and it’s a safe bet Elektra won’t return anytime soon. Although this was not a great film by any standards, it’s a shame it tanked so badly. I missed the film in its theatrical run, and I was actually expecting a far worse film.
Garner is quite good in the role; I thought she brought a ton of emotion to a difficult character.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on April 24th, 2005
Enduring Love claims to be a psychological thriller, but comes across as more of a drama then a thriller. The story moves along quite slowly and the overall tone of the film is somewhat dry. The story does take a few interesting turns, and does keep you guessing at times, the story was not suspenseful enough to keep my eyes peeled to the screen for the span of the film.
One thing I can say about this film is that the story is different than anything that I have seen before. It touches upon some od...
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on April 21st, 2005
The Film
Suspect Zero follows the contradictory teacher/student relationship between serial killer Benjamin O’Ryan (Ben Kingsley) and FBI Agent-in-Pursuit Tom Mackelway (Aaron Eckhart, sporting as much chin as Bruce Campbell). O’Ryan is a tormented refugee of a government program to tap psychic powers for military intelligence, and Mackelway is a borderline-rogue agent, tormented by visions and headaches. Without letting slip any spoilers, the movie sees O’Ryan draw their paths together in pur...
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on April 14th, 2005
Star Trek: First Contact is light-years ahead of any other Next Generation film. There is virtually every characteristic that makes good Star Trek present here. James Cromwell as Cochrane provides the best comedy relief on Star Trek since the tribbles. The Borg infiltration reminds us of the first Alien film with its shadows and cramped airshaft scenes. The action is ramped up several notches from previous films. The basic crew seems to have found its feature legs and is more comfortable as a unit.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on April 13th, 2005
While House of Flying Daggers may be easy to pigeonhole as a movie similar to Zhang Yimou's own Hero or even Ang Lee's Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, the only thing you could say about all three is that they have an impressive level of stuntwork that also, features the acting skills of Zhang Ziyi. But where Lee's work is more story based around three characters' feelings for one another, and Hero had some great stuntwork set against some breathtaking cinematography, House of Flying Dag...
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on April 10th, 2005
The who’s who of Hollywood have assembled once again in this sequel to the highly successful film Ocean’s Eleven. This time around the cast are equally great and extremely entertaining to watch, but the film seems to lack the same strong storyline that it predecessor carried with it.
This time around, the story takes place a few years after the Bellagio heist. A leading European thief known as The Nightfox, consumed with being the best thief in the world, derives a plan to take out Ocean and his te...
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on April 6th, 2005
What kid growing up in the 60’s and 70’s wasn’t totally and completely captivated by the moon landings? We were equally on the edge of our seats when, for a brief moment in time, it appeared we were going to lose our first men in space. Seldom can a film be successful when the audience has most of the story’s details burned into the core of their memory. After all, we know how this one comes out. Still, the film manages to create the intense tension and anticipation as if we were experiencing it all for the first time.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by David Annandale on April 4th, 2005
Synopsis
The Amityville Horror (1979) remains one of the most successful haunted house movies ever. Based on a supposedly true story (emphasis on “supposedly”), the film sees George and Kathy Lutz (James Brolin and Margot Kidder) buy their dream home, only to be driven out by supernatural events (little girl makes friends with demonic piggie, blood runs from the walls, and so on). In scenes that have so little to do with the rest of the action they might almost belong to a separate movie, Rod ...
