Posted in: Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on February 2nd, 2007
The World Cup is unquestionably the greatest sporting event in the world. No other event, sporting or otherwise, pulls nations together like the World Cup does. Once every four years, the whole of the world (save for the majority of the United States) takes a month off to focus their eyes on the efforts of a group of young men to put a white ball into a white net. This film is the story of the 1996 edition of the famed tournament.
This film does a great job of capturing the story of the tournament, while not ...etting bogged down in the details that could drag a film like this one to a standstill. The entire tournament is discussed, but not every game is shown. In fact, the group of 16 is skipped all together. While this does not make for a complete document of the tournament, it certainly helps to keep the film on task. The first half of the film showcases the road to the final, and the second half focuses on the semi-finals and the final match itself. Impressively, the film does not shy away from touchy subjects, as it discusses referee controversies and “the head-butt” openly. Much of the film showcases field-level images of the gameplay supported only by crowd noise, which brings the beautiful game to life in a very real way. This is a compelling and entertaining film even for those that are casual fans of international sport.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on February 2nd, 2007
It’s a shame that there aren’t many stand-up comedians around anymore. And the ones that are still around (Chris Rock, Dane Cook) usually only use the medium as a launching pad into a flawed movie or television career that never equals the laugh factor and energy that exists in their stand-up comedy shows.
So along comes Damon Wayans’ Last Stand.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by David Annandale on February 1st, 2007
Five men wake up in a middle-of-the-desert chemical warehouse. Some of them are tied, some are wounded, and all have no memory of who they are or how they came to be here. They soon discover that they are part of a kidnapping plot, but who is victim and who is kidnapper remains a mystery. What they do know is that the rest of the criminals are on their way back, and if they don’t escape the warehouse, someone is going to die.
Though the opening had me worried this was going to be Saw II with a prestige cast (Jim Caviezel, Greg Kinnear, Joe Pantoliano, etc.), it quickly developed into a tight thriller whose premise made up in niftiness what it lacked in plausibility. The paranoia is played out to the fullest, the twists come fast and furious as fragments of memory return, and frequent cuts to the police investigation of the kidnapping prevents the film from becoming a claustrophobic play. We’ve certainly seen variations on this concept before (everything from Reservoir Dogs to House of 9 is swimming in the same waters), but that doesn’t prevent this from being a very fun hour-and-a-half.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on January 31st, 2007
Romeo and Juliet is a classic tale that has been told and re-told over and over again. It is generally accepted that the definitive film version of Shakespeare's story of lovers' twisted fate is the 1968 version by Italian director Franco Zeffirelli. Rather than attempt to best this effort, more recent film adaptations have decided to modernize the story. Baz Luhrmann tackled it with Claire Danes and Leonardo DiCaprio using all the original dialog, but ultra modern wardrobe, sets and music. While some critics myself included) fell in love with this fast paced adaptation, others were appalled.
This time around, the story is told in a Spanish language film from Mexican director Fernando Sarinana. You know the plot. This time, the divides between the two star-crossed lovers are not political but economical. Our Juliet is a very wealthy girl, while "Romero" is a poor but good boy who has to work to get by. I really wanted to like this movie, but I just couldn't do it. This is the same lifeless high school girl romcom crap that you find here in the states, it just looks worse.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by David Annandale on January 31st, 2007
Bridget Moynahan is the new stepmother to Peter Weller’s children. 14-year-old Carly Schroeder is not at all pleased with the state of affairs, and just as displeased to be hauled off to Africa for a safari while Weller works on a dam. When their guide goes off-road, they run afoul of a pride of lions. The guide is eaten, the car is disabled, and the lions are circling. Weller mounts a hunt for his missing family, hiring a misanthropic big-game hunter to help.
There are more than a few echoes of Jaws here. If Grizzly advertised itself as “Jaws with Claws,” is this “Jaws with Paws”? Most of the elements are there, if we replace the slowly sinking Orca in the ocean with the disabled vehicle in the savannah, and the hunter is in full-on Quint mode. The finale is pretty familiar, too. So nothing much new, right down to the predictable family dynamics, but it’s all pretty entertaining, and the eating scenes are nicely gruesome.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by David Annandale on January 31st, 2007
Arriving at a small English town, backpacker Christina Ricci is promptly run over by a car. Despite the impressive impact, she seems unharmed, apart from a complete loss of memory. The woman who hit her takes her in, and Ricci promptly bonds with the children, especially the little boy, who, like her, sees scary things at night. Meanwhile, the kids’ father (Stephen Dillane) is investigating a long-buried 1st Century church nearby, whose crucifixion scene is disturbingly out of whack. Ominous hints gather.
When the mystery is revealed, it is accompanied by a twist unlikely to surprise anyone with even a passing familiarity with horror films. Fortunately, the film doesn’t stand or fall on that telegraphed twist, which furthermore sets up the climax, rather than BEING the climax. The film’s central idea, though, is an interesting one, and the execution is nicely understated. This isn’t a classic in the making, but as an atmospheric little horror tale, it acquits itself honourably.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on January 30th, 2007
Synopsis
Of all the recent multi-film director stories that have been told in recent years, not too many have been as, well, historical, as Clint Eastwood’s two part telling of the battle at the Japanese island of Iwo Jima. The battle over a key stretch of property in World War II cost thousands of lives, but never seemed to get a proper cinematic treatment as many of the European theater battles have. Regardless, in Letters From Iwo Jima and Flags of our Fathers, Eastwood has given the world ...nother series of films that go beyond the normal “war is hell” mentality, and the first one has just come to DVD shelves.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on January 30th, 2007
Penelope Cruz and Salma Hayek are buddies in real life, so it makes sense for the two of them to show up in a film together. I was a little surprised to find this disc on my doorstep, however, having totally missed its existence during its theatrical release. It is a good reminder of how much a movie's success is driven by marketing. Clearly, this is one of those films that the studio wasn't happy with, so they cut their losses and quietly put the film into select theaters underneath the radar.
It's a shame, ...oo, because this is really not a bad little film. Certainly better than Wild Wild West, Salma's last western pic, which the studio threw a ton of money at. This is a western buddy picture in the vein of Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, except for the obvious difference of two beautiful women in the leading roles.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on January 30th, 2007
This could be my shortest film review ever: watch Step Up for the dancing - the rest is a formulaic bunch of "whatever".
But since you're reading, here's a little more. Like Save The Last Dance, Step Up is a teen dance/romance movie. The story follows Tyler Gage (Channing Tatum), a guy from the wrong side of the tracks, and Nora Clark (Jenna Dewan), a privileged ballet student attending a prestigious school for the arts. Tyler's your typical bad boy, stealing cars, getting into scuffles at night clubs and - of course - dancing up a hip-hop storm. Lucky for him, trouble leads him into doing community service at Nora's school. She's busy preparing for a really important dance at the senior fall showcase, which will make or break her dance career.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by David Annandale on January 29th, 2007
Amber Tamblyn, playing Sarah Michelle Gellar’s sister, comes to Tokyo to help Gellar, currently in a hospital and considered insane. The help is too little too late, and soon Tamblyn is contending with the same evil ghosts. Two other storylines intertwine with this one: a young American student goes into the evil house on a dare, and she and her two friends attract the unwelcome attentions of the spectral mother and son. And back in the States, a blended family moving into a new apartment is gradually torn apart by the influence of the malevolent duo.
When Takashi Shimizu revisited Ju-On as The Grudge for Western audience, he did so with a script that, while streamlining the original and making it more comprehensible, still stuck close to the story, and the resulting film was arguably superior to its predecessor. The Grudge 2, on the other hand, jettisons the story of Ju-On 2. That sequel had a pretty convoluted plot, but it built a quite the horrific charge, and was a great spook story. The new film’s storyline starts from a false premise (that the ghosts were previously confined to the house, when they manifestly were not) and proceeds from there to work diligently at creating a result that is nonsensical, repetitive, and dull.
