Posted in: Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on December 12th, 2007
There is a certain audience that really gets into what I call "mythic combat". Zena and Hercules on TV, and movies like Reign of Fire, Conan and Dragonslayer all fit into this category for me. While I typically don't enjoy this type of faire, I am a sucker for the more popular versions, such as the Lord of the Rings trilogy and 300. After seeing a very promising trailer in the theater, I had high hopes for Pathfinder. Unfortunately, the final film did not live up to the potential of its marketing.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on December 12th, 2007
When Lost began its third season last fall I was beginning to feel a lot like the castaways must have felt; namely I was getting pretty lost watching Lost. There’s been a lot of mostly fair criticism about how ABC has handled the show last year. The first mistake was to air a small portion of episodes in the first couple of months and finish the season after the New Year. While this broken season plan works well for some cable shows like Monk, it does a serious disservice to Lost.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by David Annandale on December 11th, 2007
Belgian filmmaker Olivier Smolders, after a successful run of gorgeous and disturbing shorts, here makes a feature debut that is just as gorgeous and disturbing. Strongly reminiscent of the works of David Lynch, but far darker overall, the film is set at a time when the world is shrouded in the night of a perpetual eclipse. Day only comes for 15 seconds at 12:23 pm each day. Oscar (Fabrice Rodriguez) is a museum entomologist haunted by traumatic dreams involving the death of a sister who might or might not have every existed. He returns home one night to find a dying and pregnant African woman in his bed, a woman who is somehow linked to his father’s colonial past.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on December 10th, 2007
So in a summer where a film directed by Judd Apatow and starring Seth Rogen made a truckload of money, another film released a couple months later where Apatow produced and Rogen co-wrote made almost the same truckload of money, yet both films were funny for different reasons.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on December 10th, 2007
Will Ferrell, arguably the last funny member of Saturday Night Live has picked some strange movies to be in since leaving the sketch comedy show. Appearing first as a co-star in Old School and then later in the kid-friendly (but cute) Elf, Ferrell took his time in getting to what fans wanted, a good PG-13 or better comedy for him to stretch his comedic talent.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on December 9th, 2007
I must be one of the few people who despite hearing positive things, did not see Transformers in the theatre this past summer. The main reason being I’m just not interested in transformers, but then again so were most of the people I know who loved the movie. Regardless, here I find myself holding a copy of this summer blockbuster on HD DVD, I’m sure it’s going to blow me away, but only time will tell.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on December 7th, 2007
Dr. Mark Sloan first appeared in The It Never Entered My Mind episode of Jake And The Fat Man. In that episode Sloan was accused of a murder, and it was up to Jake and Jason to prove his innocence. The character had a certain charm that appeared to carry with audiences, and two years later Sloan had his own show, Diagnosis Murder. Dick Van Dyke did for doctors what his good friend Andy Griffith did for lawyers as Matlock. Both traded on their earlier careers in trademark comedies to reimagine dramatic roles in their twilight years.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by David Annandale on December 7th, 2007
Olivier Smolders is a Belgian filmmaker with a sensibility as distinctive and challenging as his artistry is developed. Cult Epics has done North American audiences a huge service by bringing his films to Region 1 DVD release. This disc has ten short films. Each piece has its own distinct identity, yet they are all very clearly the work of a singular creative talent. The frequently disturbing shorts range from a tale of murder and cannibalism in “Adoration” (previously available on the Cinema of Death collection), to the heartbreaking “Mort à Vignole” (where Smolders narrates a family tragedy filtered through home movies made by his and his wife’s parents, along with his own family footage), to an extended yet elegantly filmed practical joke (“Point de Fuite”) to a most unusual adaptation of Sade with “La Philosophie dans le Boudoir.” The films are invariably gorgeous and clinical in the precision of their observations. The blurbs on the case invoke Lynch, Greenaway and Bergman, and the comparisons are apt, though Smolders is also very much his own man.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by David Annandale on December 6th, 2007
Come with me, gentle viewer, back to the state of horror on TV, Anno Domini 1973. After her long-absent mother dies in mysterious circumstances, Belinda Montgomery attends the funeral where she meets Shelley Winters, an old friend of the family, or so she claims. Winters takes Montgomery into her home, and there our young heroine meets all sorts of strange people, and gradually realizes she is in the clutches of a Satanic cult who believe she is Satan’s daughter.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by David Annandale on December 6th, 2007
Malcolm McDowell’s second collaboration with director Lindsay Anderson, after their triumph with If..., sees McDowell as an enthusiastic new coffee salesmen sent off to make his company’s fortune in an ever widening area of the Britain. In true picaresque style, he has one strange adventure and encounter after another, each more bizarre than the last, and the whole is intercut with studio performances of Alan Price’s songs that comment on the whole enterprise.
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