Posted in: Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on September 10th, 2007
Written by Evan Braun
Unfortunately, one of the best things you could say about the first season of ’Til Death is that it’s consistently inconsistent. It’s sometimes boring, it’s sometimes sentimental. Occasionally it’s angry. From time to time, it’s even funny. That said, I have a hard time believing the back cover’s assertion that this sitcom is a “top rated comedy.”
Here’s the premise, which is hardly new to television. Eddie and Joy Stark (Brad Garrett and Joely Fisher) have been married 24 years and have settled into a period of their lives that could charitably be described as stable, but more honestly as a rut. They love each other, but they take each other for granted. The magic is gone. Unfortunately, there’s no chemistry, either.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on September 7th, 2007
When I first heard the title I was thinking, documentary on celebrities impact on making the planet go green. But now having seen Everyone’s Gone Green I can assure you that’s not the case. Instead this is a low budget Canadian movie about a slacker, which doesn’t leave me with much more expectations than when I thought it was a documentary on global warming. As a Canadian I can admit that besides producing some great actors and actresses and supplying some great filming locations, Canadian cinema is about as entertaining as watching the wind blowing around a plastic bag. This movie doesn't prove to be any different.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on September 7th, 2007
I am a huge John Woo fan, especially his earlier classics like Hard Boiled. I’ll admit it’s been several years since I last seen Face/Off, but I don’t have a reason why, as I remember really liking this movie then. At either rate now I have a copy of the movie to call my own, and a special two disc release at that. Let’s just hope that it is what I remember, but as a big fan of Nick Cage I don’t think I’ll be let down.
In order to catch him, he must become him. I couldn’t put it any better myself, Face/Off tells quite the eccentric story of revenge, devotion, and of course crime.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on September 6th, 2007
This was my first ever exposure to Grey’s Anatomy. Certainly I’ve followed the buzz the show has generated with its multiple awards and the feuding between two of the show’s actors. My first impression was not altogether a very good one. You see, season three begins with the aftermath of an obviously big ending from the previous year. From what I can gather, a character died and it left a void for a couple of the characters. I immediately began to feel like an outsider, a feeling I wasn’t very comfortable with. Fortunately, before I could give up feeling frustrated and hounded by an impending review deadline, something quite remarkable happened. Simply stated, I didn’t stop watching. In that moment of hesitation, I began to catch a glimpse of what everybody’s been going on about.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by David Annandale on September 6th, 2007
Planning a high-profile charity football game that they must nonetheless be sure of winning, the powers that be of Yale attempt to invite the University of Texas, but instead accidentally invite Texas State University, a small college whose town population is a mere 700. Newly arrived coach Jack Haley and his formidable wife Patsy Kelly face the challenge of somehow whipping the football team into something that won’t be utterly destroyed on the day of the big game. The key to possible victory is bumpkin-but-natural-prodigy Stuart Erwin, but he’s a package deal, and comes along with little sister Judy Garland, here making her debut.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Michael Durr on September 6th, 2007
I like Paul Walker; I tend to enjoy his movies. However my experience with Paul Walker starts with JoyRide and ends with Running Scared. (we'll ignore the Fast and the Furious) So I was kinda excited at the chance to review Bobby Z, a straight to video release that also starred the clever Laurence Fishburne. Two fun actors in what looked like to be a fun action movie. The basic premise was that Tim Kearney (Paul Walker's character) is plucked from a prison by Tad Gruzsa (Laurence Fishburne's character) and his assistant because he looks exactly like the infamous Bobby Z, a drug runner who is supposedly dead. So, Kearney takes on the persona of Bobby Z and is used in a trade for a federal agent that was captured. Of course the deal goes horribly wrong and Kearney finds himself in the Mexican desert. Here he has to stay in the Bobby Z persona as he finds out that Bobby Z had a kid among many other plot points. This drives forward to a conclusion with some predictable twists where Kearney does everything he can to stay alive.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Michael Durr on September 6th, 2007
Do you as the viewer ever watch that movie that you feel due to overwhelming popular opinion you should like? Unfortunately, I run into this all too often. Most of the time I'm able to push that aside, and give an honest review. Sometimes it is harder. Private Fears in Public Places directed by Alain Resnais is one of those movies. Set in Paris (with language to match); this puts six lonely characters in search of love during the harsh winter season. However, what they find isn't what they were searching for. Naturally these characters' stories intertwine and we get a whole lot of snow effects which encapsulate the end of each scene (and each part of this review).
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on September 6th, 2007
I’ve said in the past and still believe that Josh Hutcherson will be a pretty good adult actor if he chooses to go down that path. I liked his work in Little Manhattan and recently finished watching him in Bridge to Terabithia, but then he comes back and makes films like Firehouse Dog, which seem to flush away a lot of that goodwill in my opinion. He doesn’t try at all and becomes the typical sweet kid, rather than the intellectual who acts larger than his shoes.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on September 6th, 2007
(Supplemental material portions of this review are culled from Gino Sassani's review of said film in the Blu-ray format, so enjoy or read elsewhere.)
I've always enjoyed Hitchcock's Rear Window, and I've gotta say I was more than a little disgusted when I saw that it was going to be remade and modernized, with no less than Shia fricken' LaBeouf in the main role. Oddly enough, LaBeouf carries the role pretty well.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by David Annandale on September 5th, 2007
In hellish vision of a near future (?) LA, Marty Malt (Judd Nelson) is an incompetent garbage man who moonlights as an even worse comedian (his jokes aren’t funny, and he is half-crippled by stage fright). His only friend is the manipulative Gus (Bill Paxton). When Marty starts to grow a third arm out of his back, he loses his girlfriend (Lara Flynn Boyle) but attracts the attention of sleazy showbiz types Wayne Newton and Rob Lowe.
