Posted in: Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on July 6th, 2003
I could sit here and type away for hours, deconstructing the finer points (using the term loosely) of the latest Ice Cube project, All About the Benjamins, were I so inclined. I could tell you about Bucum the bounty hunter (Cube), his target-turned-partner Reggie (Mike Epps, otherwise known as “Hey, that isn’t Chris Tucker!”) losing a sixty million-dollar lottery ticket and accidentally learning about a diamond heist while being relentlessly pursued. I could tell you about Bucum’s complicated motivation for ...
Posted in: Disc Reviews by David Annandale on July 4th, 2003
Synopsis
Drugged-out, hyper-aggressive street punk Nikita (Anne Parillaud) is recruited (whether shelikes it or not) by a top-secret government agency. The first act of the film sees her rebelliousnature gradually being channelled by Tcheky Karyo, and Nikita becomes a glamorous assassin.The action scenes are terrific (so much so that John Badham replicated them shot-for-shot in theremake Point of No Return), and the flick, as with all Besson pictures, has style to burn. I’venever be...
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on July 4th, 2003
Synopsis
We are in the last five days before the Rodney King verdict will set LA on fire. Movingthrough the mean streets is one mean cop -- Eldon Perry (Kurt Russell). Perry is very much avintage Ellroy character: hard, mean, utterly corrupt, but still possessing the glimmerings of asoul. He is contrasted by his younger partner Scott Peedman, who still has ideals and wants tobe a good cop, and his boss Brendan Gleeson, who is a complete monster in the Dudley Smithmould. Investigatin...
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on July 3rd, 2003
Synopsis
Nick Tellis (Jason Patrick) is an undercover narcotics officer who is placed on suspension after a shootout with a dealer gone very wrong. He is brought back to active duty to shadow another officer who might have had something to do with the death of his partner.
Henry Oak (Ray Liotta) is a short tempered renegade cop intent to find out who killed his partner. AS they start to dig deeper into the life of Oak’s partner we find that things are not as they may seem. We see some intere...
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on July 2nd, 2003
Film
To film fans, the clause “Directed by Alfred Hitchcock” has almost become an adjective in and of itself. It has come to mean suspense created by using the viewer’s imagination and mind as a part of the film, first and foremost. These films didn’t have the freedom of CG, and consequently had to invent ways to achieve visual effects (Watch the documentary on Birds or Rear Window for example). Besides the lack of freedom of creation that digital filmmaking now provides, the filmmak...
Posted in: Disc Reviews by David Annandale on July 2nd, 2003
Like The Brady Bunch Movie, this effort combines several incidents from the TV series and strings them together with a loose central premise, and the result is actually funnier than the first film. This premise is that Tim Matheson shows up pretending to be Carol Brady’s long-lost husband. He is after a priceless horse sculpture in the Bradys’ living room. The innocent/rude tone of the first film is carried through here, and given extra impetus by the addition of an is-it-incest-or-not?
Posted in: Disc Reviews by David Annandale on July 1st, 2003
The plot, such as it is, is a pastiche of several episodes of the TV series, all twisted just enough to send them into a sunny version of the Twilight Zone. So the Bradys are going to lose their house if they don’t raise $20,000.00 by the end of the week, and Marcia’s nose is flattened by a football before the school dance, and Jan is jealous of the attention her big sister receives, and so on. The Brady's are just as oblivious to how the rest of the world perceives themas they are to the (sometimes very funny) innuendos and double-entendres they constantly (and inadvertently) utter.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on July 1st, 2003
Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas can be and has been described in many ways, but one of the things that this movie isn't is a Cheech and Chong road movie about a couple of whacky buddies on a drug binge in the city of sin. There’s no going to strip clubs, no hilarious misunderstandings that make one of them have to dress in drag and be involved in a stage show, in fact, there isn’t even any gambling. This movie is more accurately described as a scalding epitaph to the counterculture of the sixties, a re...
Posted in: Disc Reviews by David Annandale on June 30th, 2003
After the death of his estranged wife, Cary Grant swoops back into his children’s lives,determined to be a proper father. He’s a bit rusty, and his kids aren’t exactly ecstatic about living with him. In over his head, he searches for a maid, and into their lives comes Sophia Loren, who is actually the daughter of a famous Italian conductor. They wind up living on a rickety houseboat, and romantic heat is gradually generated between Grant and Loren while Loren brings father and kids closer together.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by David Annandale on June 30th, 2003
Brad Johnson plays Jake Grafton, one of the top A-6 Intruder pilots, stationed on an aircraft carrier off the coast of Vietnam in 1972. He is frustrated by the useless missions he is constantly sent on, fruitlessly bombing trees. His frustration turns to rage when his bombardier is killed during one of these missions. He is subsequently paired up with borderline rogue bombardier Willem Dafoe, and before long these two cowboys decide to perform their own unilateral mission into the heart of Hanoi, whatever their commanding officer (Danny Glover) might think.
