Posted in: Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on March 2nd, 2007
In the continuing need for media mogul Russell Simmons to produce an HBO show and put the word "Def" in front of it, musician Mos Def approached Simmons with the opportunity to present a weekly show for urban spoken word artists to show off their wares. And surprisingly, not only has the show survived, but has thrived into a fourth season that has come out on DVD, with ten episodes in all, split over two discs.
The layout of the show is pretty straightforward, as Mos Def introduces the beginning and end of the shows and the acts in between.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on February 27th, 2007
If you've seen any of Terry Gilliam's other films, you can probably guess that this one is pretty bizarre. Based on the novel of the same name by Mitch Cullen, Tideland is an eccentric, grotesque and imaginative tale of a child's resilience.
I'm going to say right off the top, I wanted to like Tideland, and for two reasons. One, Gilliam has made some incredible films in his career, from Monty Python and the Holy Grail to Twelve Monkeys and Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by David Annandale on February 27th, 2007
A small town is being terrorized by a gang of thugs who use extortion and violence to buy up all the businesses. The only person who tries to stand up to the gang is the sheriff, but then he meets a violent end. His son (Kevin Sorbo), who, one gathers from vague references, has military training, shucks his apathy, dons his father’s badge, and sets out to clean up the town.
The cover art is hilariously misleading, in that it shows what appears to be Sorbo leading his posse for the titular payback.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on February 27th, 2007
The return of the historical epic hit Hollywood hard in 2005/2006. Troy, Kingdom of Heaven, King Arthur and the two Colin Farrell vehicles, The New World and Alexander, all hit theaters pretty close to each other... and all flopped. The basic complaint was the same about all these films; they were too long, the pace was too slow and they were hard to follow. As much as these huge pictures cost, the studios quickly looked to the DVD cash cow to try to recoup some of the production co...
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on February 26th, 2007
The Prestige surprised me like no other film has since The Usual Suspects. The entire film plays out like a good bit of misdirection, slight of hand and illusion, with some pseudo-science thrown in for good measure.
Robert Angier (Hugh Jackman, X-Men) and Alfred Borden (Christian Bale, Batman Begins) are rival magicians, both inspiring to be the best the world has ever seen. They began as partners, working together as assistants to an established magician, but when a trick goes terribly wrong, their relationship is forever changed.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on February 24th, 2007
As I right this review, the date is February 24th, 2007 one day before the Annual Academy Award Ceremony, which is a show that this film is nominated in the Best Picture category for. Numerous other reviewers, whether they're critical or simply just internet journalists like myself, have labeled this one as this year's Crash. A statement like that made me worry going into this one because simply put Crash isn't Best Picture material nor is it even close to Best Picture material. While I haven't seen every other Best Picture nominee, I wouldn't completely mind if the Academy did award Babel with the Oscar.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on February 23rd, 2007
For the sake of full disclosure, I wrote this review while I was sitting in a meeting. For the sake of having a challenge, I wanted to start every sentence in this review with the name of the movie, for no discernible reason whatsoever. Feel free to call shenanigans on me at any time, as it helped me get through my meeting and to a larger extent, the film.
Crossover is a film that at least as of this writing, has no positive reviews on Rotten Tomatoes for some sort of reason, and I think that's because of the razor sharp casting that was employed.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on February 23rd, 2007
Comments on the supplemental material on this edition have been ported over from Brendan Surpless' excellent (and recent) review of the Blu-Ray disc, which also can be enjoyed on this site.
Now onto the review...
I was listening to a "mini" commentary track from South Park creators Trey Parker and Matt Stone the other day as they were talking about the overall silliness of a film like The Day After Tomorrow and that basically the film was done by a bunch of "hacks".
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on February 23rd, 2007
An epic is defined as an artistic work that celebrates the feats of a legendary figure. The film Cleopatra actually deals with many such figures, the title character being merely one of them. The truth is the film was never really about the Egyptian queen as much as it was about Rome and its relationship with Egypt.. Of course, Elizabeth Taylor's portrayal has achieved something of a classic status that is not completely deserved. Much has been made of the Richard Burton and Elizabeth Taylor pairing in this film.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on February 23rd, 2007
If you'd asked me last year whether I thought Ridley Scott and Russell Crowe should work together again, I would have said "absolutely." No hesitation. We're talking about the director and star of Gladiator, after all, and I'd love to see another epic picture from that team.
What I didn't expect to see was A Good Year, a romantic comedy that wholeheartedly joins the ranks of the "wine is like life" camp. What's with that, anyway? Maybe it's time to move on to another beverage, like coffee. You know, coffee and life have a lot in common - plenty of lessons to be learned there.
![Babel [HD-DVD] dvd cover art](https://upcomingdiscs.com/ecs_covers/babel-hd-dvd-large.jpg)
