Video

Love at the Top

Posted in Disc Reviews by David Annandale on February 24th, 2004

Synopsis

Jean-Louis Trintignant is Nicolas, a quiet, put-upon bank teller. On impulse one day, he seesa pretty young woman (Jane Birkin) and puts a very unsubtle move on her. It works. Thistransforms Trintignant’s life, especially once he confides to his crippled writer friend (Jean-Pierre Cassel). The latter begins to live vicariously through Trintignant, directing his every move.Our hero is soon sleeping with one woman after another, and through them making theconnections that see…
Read More

Sightings – Heartland Ghost

Posted in Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on February 23rd, 2004

Buy at Amazon.com

Sightings: Heartland Ghost is based, apparently, on a true story. One is reminded of that other “true story” haunted house movie, The Amityville Horror. But both films have the same hokey quality in common. (no blood in the toilet in Sightings, however). Sightings starts with the “new couple moving to the neighborhood”. They slowly learn that there is something “not quite right” about their new house. Enter paranormal debunker (Beau Bridges) and his T.V crew. Bridges’ character host…
Read More

Asylum, The

Posted in Disc Reviews by David Annandale on February 23rd, 2004

Buy at Amazon.com

Synopsis

Jenny (Steffanie Pitt) is tormented by dreams where she sees herself, as a young child,murdering her mother. Her psychiatrist father (Patrick Mower) is of no help, and so she sneaksout of her home one night to return to the asylum where her family once lived, and where hermother died. Three other people – a mad priest, a phony medium (Ingrid Pitt) and a drug addict– are also drawn to this location by forces they do not comprehend. It turns out that they are alltormented by…
Read More

Herod’s Law (La Ley De Herodes)

Posted in Disc Reviews by David Annandale on February 23rd, 2004

Buy at Amazon.com

Synopsis

After the mayor of a tiny hamlet is decapitated by an irate populace, the Powers That Be(mindful of an upcoming election) decide to appoint a total moron as temporary mayor. Thetheory is that an idiot won’t get himself into trouble. The idiot they find is Juan Vargas (DamiánAlcázar), who arrives with his wife and a head filled with plans to do good things for thecommunity. We all know what is paved with good intentions, though, and confronted with acomplete lack of funds, o…
Read More

In the Cut

Posted in Disc Reviews by David Annandale on February 22nd, 2004

Buy at Amazon.com

Synopsis

Meg Ryan plays Manhattan English teacher Frankie Avery. When parts of a dismemberedyoung woman are found in her back garden, Ryan is questioned by Detective Mark Ruffalo.Ruffalo asks Ryan out, and before long they’re at it hot and heavy. But the day of the murder,Ryan was in the same bar as the victim, and witnessed, in the shadows, a man being fellated.That man had the same tattoo as Ruffalo, and Ryan begins to fear that her new lover is, at best,a liar. At worst…

Pentagon Papers, The

Posted in Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on February 22nd, 2004

Buy at Amazon.com

In 1967, a top secret document was commissioned by the government, tracing the United States’ history with the Vietnam war. This history went as far back as the 1940’s. The result was a 7,000 page document. In 1971, a defense department official and former Rand corporation employee, Daniel Ellsberg, secretly photocopied these “Pentagon Papers” and released them to the New York Times. Then President, Richard Nixon, called Ellsberg’s act “treasonable”. FX and Paramount’s television production of The Pentagon Pa…
Read More

South Park – The Complete Third Season

Posted in Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on February 22nd, 2004

Buy at Amazon.com

The third season of South Park was a bittersweet one. It seemed that season 2 had floundered just a little. Most of us wondered if the talents of Stone and Parker had already run out of gas. Season 3 turned out to be one of the funniest yet. This was also the year that Mary Kay Bergman committed suicide. Mary Kay had provided ALL of the female voices for the show. This left the crew in a scramble to deliver episodes before they could find a replacement. This unfortunate turn did produce some memorable episodes, howev…
Read More

Cracker – Series Two

Posted in Disc Reviews by David Annandale on February 22nd, 2004

Buy at Amazon.com

Synopsis

Here are three more cases involving the gambling-addicted, cantankerous, infuriating yet stilloddly likeable criminal psychologist Fitz (Robbie Coltrane). “To Be a Somebody” has him upagainst a dangerous skinhead (Robert Carlyle). In “The Big Crunch,” the menace is a dangerousreligious cult. And “Men Should Weep” has a serial rapist who graduates to murder, indirectlybecause of Coltrane.

Of course, the actual murder investigations are only part of the story here, an…
Read More

Stupids, The

Posted in Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on February 22nd, 2004

Buy at Amazon.com

The Stupids are a family with, as you can guess, a below-average intelligence. I think this might be due to inbreeding. The plot is fairly simple, more a series of vignettes: the family gets into some mess because of a mistake they make, and then get out of it in some silly manner. It sort of comes together in the end, but that’s how the whole movie goes.

The Stupids is a kid’s movie, and it was made with that exact audience in mind. It’s not really there to entertain adults and…
Read More

Red Dwarf – Series Three & Four

Posted in Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on February 22nd, 2004

Buy at Amazon.com

The 1980’s saw a second British entertainment invasion reach the shores of America. That’s when the BBC began to unleash its peculiar brand of humor mixed with sci-fi on PBS stations in the US. College campuses all over the land were tuned to the likes of Dr. Who and later Red Dwarf.

There’s no question that this stuff is not for everyone. Red Dwarf brought us the cheesy f/x and dry humor of Tom Baker’s Dr. Who and added a generous helping of Monty Python and Benny Hill. With the third season, however, thi…
Read More

Futurama, Vol. 3

Posted in Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on February 22nd, 2004

Buy at Amazon.com

Season three sees Futurama cooking on gas. This is THE SIMPSONS on some mind-altering substance. For the uninitiated (and if you have never watched the series before – watch seasons 1 and 2 first…duhhh!) pizza delivery boy Fry has awoken from cryogenic suspension and finds himself in the year 3000. Here he teams up with the girl of his dreams, one-eyed space captain Leela, the hard-drinking, wallet-lifting robot Bender (he bends things for a living), the frankly barmy Professor Farnsworth and an assorted bunch of ge…
Read More

Gilligan’s Island – The Complete First Season

Posted in Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on February 22nd, 2004

Buy at Amazon.com

What happens when a maladroit lackey, an entrepreneur and his wife, a polymath, a store clerk from Kansas, a motion picture starlet, and a ship captain get stranded on a desert island? The next edition of Survivor, right. Okay…I didn’t fool you. It’s Gilligan’s Island. And the first season is on DVD, all 36 episodes (including the infamous pilot)! Is this cause for celebration? Perhaps for some…

Gilligan’s Island ran for 3 seasons, and close to 100 episodes, on CBS from 1964 to 1967. Th…
Read More

American Wedding

Posted in Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on February 22nd, 2004

Buy at Amazon.com

The third and hopefully final entry in the American Pie series, American Wedding keeps with the sweet charms and gross out comedy of the first two movies, but can’t live up to the humor of the original or its sequel. Average Joe Jim, (Jason Biggs) and former band geek Michelle, (Alyson Hannigan) are now engaged to be wed and must decide whether raucous Stifler (Seann William Scott) should be invited to the wedding. Shenanigans ensue involving a night out at a gay club, a bachelor party, pleasing the in-laws, and pubi…
Read More

Bang, Bang, You

Posted in Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on February 22nd, 2004

Buy at Amazon.com

Synopsis

On the outside, Rivervale High seems like a typical suburban school, filled with a largely white, middle-class population. New student Jenny Dahlquist (Jane McGregor) quickly discovers the divisive cliques that polarize the campus when she tries to find a seat in the cafeteria. Cheerleaders, jocks, druggies, preppies, skateboarders, nerds—they’ve all staked their territory in the lunchroom, and don’t tolerate outsiders. At an empty table sits Trevor, the ultimate loner/outcast. Dubbed “The M…
Read More

Blow-Up

Posted in Disc Reviews by David Annandale on February 21st, 2004

Buy at Amazon.com

Synopsis

David Hemmings is a jaded photographer plying his trade in Swinging Sixties’ London. Outtaking pictures in a park, he shoots a series of pictures of a couple apparently having anargument. The woman in the pictures (Vanessa Redgrave) subsequently turns up at Hemmings’studio, wanting the pictures back. Even more mysterious is a shot Hemmings took sometimelater, after the argument. Is there a body in the picture? The more he blows up the picture,seeking the answer, the grainie…
Read More

What’s Happening!! – The Complete First Season

Posted in Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on February 21st, 2004

Buy at Amazon.com

I came into this title completely blind. I almost always have some idea what I am going to be watching, but in this case, I truly had none whatsoever. I believe that I might have heard the title of this show before, but that’s about it.

Upon viewing this set, it might be a good thing that I didn’t know what I was getting myself into. Otherwise, I would have never taken this task on. Put simply, this is not a show that has stood the test of time. True laughs are virtually nonexistent, as almost all of…
Read More

Raquel Welch Collection, The

Posted in Disc Reviews by David Annandale on February 20th, 2004

Buy at Amazon.com

Synopsis

A more unapologetic objectification of the female form would be hard to find than thiscollection. The camera all but drools over the form of Raquel Welch. For some, that’s reasonenough to check out these films. Fortunately, they are each worth seeing for other reasons too.(And in one case, worth seeing for all the WRONG reasons.)

A remake of 1940’s One Million B.C., Hammer Studios’ One Million YearsB.C. (1967) gave the world what is arguably the most iconic b…
Read More

Secondhand Lions

Posted in Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on February 20th, 2004

Buy at Amazon.com

I can only imagine what it might have been like to be a child during the heyday of Disney’s live films division. Going to see The Parent Trap or Mary Poppins as a young girl must really have been exciting. Experiencing Pete’s Dragon or Chitty Chitty Bang Bang in the theater must have been a thrill for young lads.

Unfortunately, Disney has not lived up to those high standards in its later days. Part of the wonder of those films was that they were not children’s films, as much as s…
Read More

Great Ziegfeld, The

Posted in Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on February 20th, 2004

Buy at Amazon.com

MGM keeps rolling out the Best Picture award winners. A few weeks ago it was Mutiny on the Bounty, this time it’s The Great Ziegfeld . I think Ziegfeld belongs in the category of those Best Picture winners that aren’t necessarily the best films for that year (Driving Miss Daisy?? C’mon). I actually prefer Frank Capra’s Mr. Deeds Goes to Town and Gregory La Cava’s seminal screwball comedy My Man Godfrey (starring Ziegfeld’s own William Powell). The Great Ziegfeld al…
Read More

Barbarians (History Channel)

Posted in Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on February 20th, 2004

Buy at Amazon.com

Synopsis

Barbarians is The History Channel’s box set of a series of four interesting documentaries. Each chronicles the rise and fall of one or another of history’s famous “Barbarian” tribes – from their generally agrarian origins, to their bloody warlike height and eventual gradual decline or precipitous fall. Four groups are covered in this box set, on two discs:

The Vikings: Who knew these fierce red-bearded horn-wearing savages ran a sophisticated trade empire extending all of the wa…
Read More

Mrs. Miniver

Posted in Disc Reviews by David Annandale on February 18th, 2004

Buy at Amazon.com

Synopsis

Our story begins in 1939, just before the outbreak of WWII. The Minivers (Greer Garsonand Walter Pidgeon) enjoy an idyllic existence in a charming town where the biggest controversyis over whether the station master Henry Travers should be entering his rose against localaristocrat Dame May Witty’s in the flower competition. But then the war comes, and little bylittle, it reaches into the lives of the townspeople, wreaking ever more havoc. Through it all,Garson remains a tow…
Read More

Wuthering Heights (MTV)

Posted in Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on February 18th, 2004

Buy at Amazon.com

MTV is getting used to productions about provocative love affairs. Just look at Justin Timberlake and Janet Jackson at this year’s MTV produced Super Bowl. So in their production of a modern updating of Emily Bronte’s novel “Wuthering Heights”, MTV throws in everything but the nipple.

“Wuthering Heights” is a benchmark of Gothic Romantic literature. It tells the tale of a doomed and frenzied love between the two protagonists, Heathcliff and Cathy. “Wuthering Heights” has been adapted for film and tel…
Read More

Hope, Gloves and Redemption

Posted in Disc Reviews by David Annandale on February 17th, 2004

Buy at Amazon.com

Synopsis

Mickey and Negra Rosario run an inner city boxing center in New York, helping youngpeople not only to do well in the sport, but also to turn their lives around. We learn about theRosario’s lives and courtship (and about Mickey’s time in a gang), and follow a group of theirproteges as they train for an upcoming amateur tournament.

An interesting piece, with a wide variety of voices and theories about boxing. (I particularlyliked what a ref had to say about the sport …
Read More

Allan Quatermain and the Lost City of Gold

Posted in Disc Reviews by David Annandale on February 17th, 2004

Buy at Amazon.com

Synopsis

Adventurer Allan Quatermain (Richard Chamberlain) learns that his brother has disappearedin the wilderness of eastern Africa, apparently after having found a city of gold. Abandoningplans for a honeymoon trip to the US (much to the displeasure of shrill fiancée Sharon Stone),Quatermain sets off to find this city. Many perils are encountered along the way, and whenQuatermain and his doughty band find the city, they discover that it is in the tyrannical grip ofevil high pries…
Read More

Consequence

Posted in Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on February 17th, 2004

Buy at Amazon.com

Ah….Armand Assante…what happened to your career. You were so brilliant in Sidney Lumet’s Q & A (rent it, people). I guess things happen. You have bills to pay. A family to raise.

Consequence is a made for cable HBO film. The opening voice-over, in classic film noir tradition, sets the table for a lurid crime melodrama. Unfortunately, Assante’s awkward southern accent makes the voice over, like the film itself, a bit off putting. The story involves a dentist (Armand Assante) who decides…
Read More

«< 263 264 265 266 267 >»