Posted in: Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on September 20th, 2006
Synopsis
Anthony “Treach” Criss of Naughty By Nature plays the title character, a one-man army as part of a vaguely defined intelligence agency. He is the midst of rescuing the President’s wife from a hostage situation when bungling by the Secret Service results in an explosion that blinds him. Three years later, his old boss lures him back to the field with the promise of regained sight. This he gets, but now he can see in the dark. The plan is apparently to steal a satellite component in order to p...
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on September 20th, 2006
Synopsis
1968. In a Northern California town, teenagers parking at night are being killed. The police do their best to sell the first attack as a botched robbery, but then another murder happens, and the killer, dubbing himself the Zodiac, turns out to be very media-savvy. Charged with tracking him down is Justin Chambers, and his frustration with the case spills into his home life, straining his relationship with his wife (Robin Tunney) and worshipful son (Rory Culkin).
The murders are for...
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on September 20th, 2006
Rap movies have com a long way. They have begun to evolve, from glorified music videos, to black cinema (which has come a long way in its own right), on up to a new level of art. Hustle and Flow brought the new style of black film into the limelight, and ATL follows right behind. I was really surprised how much I liked this film. In my line of work, you see a lot of bad films, and you can usually spot them from a mile away. I admit that I was fooled by this one. I was expecting to find another tired tale of a young hustla' making it big in the hood, but instead I found a genuinely touching film about what happens to four friends when High School is over and the next stage of life has not yet begun.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on September 20th, 2006
After Heather (Agnes Bruckner) sets her parent’s tree on fire out of boredom, she is shipped off to a strange boarding school run by Ms. Traverse (Patricia Clarkson), where the woods surrounding the school seem to be slowly devouring the building itself. There’s also the standard issue legend surrounding the history of the school that involves a coven of witches who murdered the school’s head-mistress years before.
Does any of this result in an interesting film? Let’s take a step back before we delve into ...
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on September 19th, 2006
The Sci-Fi Channel has certainly gotten its considerable amount of money’s worth from Ronald D. Moore’s reincarnation of Battlestar Galactica. The trouble, at least for me, is that it is still very hard for me to consider this Galactica at all. It might have been better if, as Jack Webb used to say, the names had been changed to protect the innocent. There isn’t much doubt that this version of Galactica is innovative science fiction in its own right. The cinematography is often mind-boggling, if a bit too dark. T...
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on September 19th, 2006
With the possible exception of the Vulcans no race has been given a richer history in Star Trek than the Klingons. We need to forget the drastic change in how these bad guys to allies look. In Enterprise this change is finally explained as a genetic experiment gone bad in an episode conspicuously missing from the set. I’m not sure I can criticize the episode selection, as they were voted on at Startrek.com. Still. I don’t like the over usage of repeats these collection sets are plagued with. It’s not like there are...
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on September 19th, 2006
Tom Hanks is sometimes called this generation's Jimmy Stewart. In an odd sort of way, that is sort of a compliment to both men. Both are extraordinary actors who have secured a place in film history as the best of their time at playing the everyman. While such a role would doom other actors to being typecast as the all-time greatest supporting actor, both Hanks and Stewart have been able to pull off the role with amazing versatility.
Clearly, this is not the definitive set of Stewart's work as an actor. For t...
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on September 16th, 2006
Synopsis
Marilyn Burns, Paul Partain, Allen Danziger, Teri McMinn, William Vail and Gunnar Hansen individually may not be that well known. Collectively, many people might confuse them with some group of lawyers or something. But film history has afforded them a higher place in memory past their initial endeavors. You see, back during the middle of a particularly oppressive heat wave in 1973 Texas, this group, directed by a then-fledging auteur in Tobe Hooper, combined to make what is widely regarded as one...
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on September 14th, 2006
Synopsis
I was never that much of a Nintendo kid growing up. I went from the Sega Genesis to the Playstation, then the PS2, before recently landing on the Xbox. I was never that accustomed to the world of Double Dragon, however I’d like to think that I was the bomb at Contra. And the only video game movie I can recall seeing when I was growing up was a film called Joysticks, which was a crude version of Animal House and Hardbodies, with Pac Man, Galaga and the like.
The Wiz...
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on September 14th, 2006
Synopsis
While Some Kind of Wonderful may not feature the same kind of young spirit that Pretty in Pink may have had or the kind of older type of intelligence that Say Anything might have had, it’s still a cute, charming little romantic comedy with some recognizable faces penned by ‘80s icon John Hughes, responsible for such teen films as The Breakfast Club and Weird Science, to name a paltry few.
Keith (Eric Stoltz, Mask) is a bit of an underachiever, who...
