Posted in: Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on October 9th, 2007
I'm not much of a soccer fan. I played a few years as a kid, for a local community club, but quit well before puberty. I almost never watch it on TV, even when the World Cup bandwagon rolls around. The only players I can name are Pelé, Beckham and Hamm. And Knightley, but I suppose the Bend it Like Beckham star doesn't count.
With my limited knowledge and appreciation of the game, I didn't expect much from this HBO documentary. Sure, I know sports stories can be dramatic and exciting, but the U.S. Women's Soccer Team? Not my first choice of subjects. Imagine my surprise when I became totally engrossed in the inspiring story of these women who gave their all when hardly anyone cared, who fought through all kinds of adversity, who dared to dream.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on October 9th, 2007
Surf's Up is Sony Pictures Animation's second and latest film, and is directed by Toy Story 2 co-director Ash Brannon and Chicken Little's Chris Buck. Although it was considered a box office failure, Surf's Up has since been applauded by critics and fans alike. I have to say, normally I'm a sucker for CGI films but lately there has been a flood of them on the market, and frankly they're starting to decline in quality. But Surf's Up does something different, it's actually a CGI mockumentary on surfing documentaries, and with quite a list of voice actors. The list includes Jeff Bridges, Zooey Deschanel, Jon Heder, Shia LaBeouf, James Woods, Diedrich Bader, and more. So does this film break free from the recent rut the animated film genre seems to have found itself in?
A crew of cameras follows Cody Maverick (Shia LaBeouf, Transformers) around Shiverpool, Antarctica documenting him as he hopes to become the next renowned surfing penguin, after his idol "Big Z" (Jeff Bridges, The Big Lebowski). Eventually a talent scout makes his way to Shiverpool where he recruits Cody to join his team. Here Cody befriends Chicken Joe (Jon Heder, School For Scoundrels) a mellow surfer, and becomes hostile with the buff and jerkish Tank Evans (Diedrich Bader, Napoleon Dynamite). Along the way he also meets a kind and caring lifeguard Lani (Zooey Deschanel, Live Free or Die) whom he instantly falls in love with. After a while Cody's arrogance gets himself injured while having a surf off with Tank, and he ends up being nursed back to health by a hermit named The Geek. Eventually Cody finds out that The Geek is actually "Big Z" and with his help Cody hopes to win the upcoming Big Z competition.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on October 8th, 2007
Some portions of this review regarding general show information are shared with the Season 1 and Season 2 reviews.
After watching the first two seasons of CSI Miami I was pleased with the shows story arc, and although the latter season was starting to get a bit dull with regards to the character development, the case loads were just as engaging and bizarre. As I've said before, I hope that in Season 3 a few of the weaker aspects form the past two season can be rectified like the sometimes endless dialogue.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on October 8th, 2007
Some portions of this review regarding general show information are shared with the Season 1 and Season 3 reviews.
Before I saw Season 1 of CSI Miami I was quite skeptical about the shows ability to live up to the original. After watching the first season I was impressed with most aspects of the show, ranging from character development to entertaining and interesting cases. I don't want to over praise the show though, because it does have its flaws, and can drag on a bit at times, but I'm hoping that Season 2 might just improve on these aspects.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on October 7th, 2007
Some portions of this review regarding general show information are shared with the Season 2 and Season 3 reviews.
When the original CSI was put on the air, I was a huge fan. At the time it was totally unique, entertaining, and to a certain degree educational. Not to say that hasn't changed over the years, but it has certainly lost its uniqueness over the course of two spin-offs. However I won't judge the quality of these spin-offs because I've never actually watched them before, who knows maybe they still have the integrity of the original show. But when you have a show staring David Caruso, it's going to be hard to win me over, so I'm hoping for some developed storylines and engaging character arcs.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on October 5th, 2007
The main quote on this disc's cover reads, "if you liked Bend it Like Beckham, you'll love Gracie." Baloney. OK! Magazine's Karen Berg got me all excited with this raving tidbit, because I did like Bend it. A lot. Unfortunately for me and anyone else who pays attention to such quotes, Bergie either never watched Gracie or just doesn't know movies and why people like them.
Here's my new quote for the DVD case: "If you still like after-school specials, you'll be delighted with Gracie, a half-baked TV movie in the guise of something more."
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on October 5th, 2007
The CSI phenomenon has been going strong for 8 years now, and CBS has ridden that wave to become the top network these past couple of years. It all started with the original CSI: Crime Scene Investigator. This
Posted in: Disc Reviews by David Annandale on October 4th, 2007
Scientists Edward Pretorious (Ted Sorel) and Crawford Tillinghast (Jeffrey Coombs) successfully construct a machine (dubbed the “Resonator”) that links our world with another, hostile dimension. Pretorious gets his head bitten off by something summoned by the machine, while Tillinghast is incarcerated in an asylum. Psychiatrist Katherine McMichaels (Barbara Crampton) believes Tillinghast’s story when she discovers his pineal gland is growing enormously, and she has him released into her custody to recreate the experiment. Baaad idea.
Director Stuart Gordon’s follow-up to Re-Animator ups the gore and mutated flesh aspect, and in this uncut version, we at last get to see Coombs sucking Carolyn Purdy-Gordon’s brain out of her eye-socket, among other gruesome delights. There are plenty of distorted monstrosities on display, too, and the film certainly benefits from an enthusiastic commitment to its material. But Gordon, despite his great love for Lovecraft’s material, has always struck me as not quite having the right temperament to really capture Lovecraft’s spirit. He comes close in Dagon, but there, as here, he coaches performances that are pitched far too broadly, and gets carried away, not just with the sex and gore (which isn’t necessarily a problem), but with the equally broad humour such that the movie never really captures the true cosmic terror of Lovecraft’s tales. (In the Mouth of Madness is much more successful in this regard.) So, while this film doesn’t quite work, it is still huge fun.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Michael Durr on October 4th, 2007
"Find out what happens when cartoon characters stop being polite...and start making out in hot tubs". The legendary kiss between Clara and Foxxy highlighted Season 1 and with the recent release of Season 2 on dvd, the Drawn Together cast is back for more adult fun. Drawn Together is the cartoon show that parodies reality shows by using parodies of classic cartoon characters. There are characters like Captain Hero who is a parody of Superman and many other super hero types. Or Ling-Ling who is a spoof of Pikachu from Pokemon. But these aren't normal; they are very perverse, stereotypical, and deviant characters. For example; Xandir (a parody of Link from Legend of Zelda) is the very gay and effeminate one while Princess Clara (spoof of various Disney princess characters) has a multi-tentacled monster in place of her...ummm...ho-ho...(I just said ho-ho in the middle of a review; yup my career is over)
The show is flat out hilarious as it sounds. As long as you aren't offended by the explicit nature of what is going on; you will have a good time with the 22 minute episodes. The show's episodes as expected often have a gay or bisexual theme. However, once in a while (okay usually once per episode); they have a tendency of going too far. They make no apologies about crossing ethical or racist lines or even having common sense. It's basically about causing a ruckus for as long as possible and somehow come up with a plausible ending by the 20 minute mark. The cast of voice actors from Tara Strong (Toot Braunstein & Princess Clara) to Adam Carolla (Spanky Ham)to Jess Harnell (Captain Hero) and more represent a very elite group of vocalists.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on October 3rd, 2007
Family Ties is likely remembered most as the series that launched the career of Michael J. Fox. There’s no question that he owes a great debt to Alex Keaton. It’s almost a bit awkward now to watch him as this young, extremely conservative teenager after Fox has spent so much of his life as a liberal poster boy in the last couple of elections. Politics aside, it’s hard not to credit his performances in Family Ties and the Back To The Future films for launching him into a well deserved lucrative career. The Michael J. Fox issue, however, might hide some of the other assets the show had going for it in its time. For one of the first times parents were portrayed as humanly flawed, and families were not the perfectly functional institutions most of these shows described. Up until Family Ties, these households were either perfect little examples of American ideal or they were so dysfunctional that they could hardly be considered families at all. This show obviously went for a bit of realism.
