Posted in: Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on August 8th, 2006
Synopsis
Here we go again. Punky Brewster (Soleil Moon Frye) is pretty comfortably ensconced in the home of Henry Warnimont (George Gaynes) now. The season follows Punky through the usual round of problems at school, with friends, with boys, and so on. Will she do her homework and get to a rock concert? We await the answer on the edge of our seats. Frye is a few years older now, and so is moving from precocious youngster to tiresome tween. Lessons are learned in the most painfully didactic and mundan... fashion. The laugh track kicks in mechanically everytime Punky moves. This is sitcomus moronicus at its most depressing.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on August 4th, 2006
Synopsis
Robin Williams is struggling to keep his job, and struggling to keep his sanity in the face of his teenage children (particularly daughter Joanna “JoJo” Levesque). This all becomes more difficult when his boss forces him to cancel a trip to Hawaii and head off to Colorado instead. Williams rents an RV, packs his family in, and hits the road for misadventures and hijinx.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on August 3rd, 2006
Synopsis
Well, Mark Dancer’s review of Season Two of Bridezillas pretty much echoes my general thoughts on the show. Now, for those of you who haven’t read his review, go there. Come back, and see what I do with it.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on August 2nd, 2006
Kathy Bates and the late Jessica Tandy star in Fried Green Tomatoes, a wonderfully surprising film about four strong women finding friendship, loyalty, and strength in each other. Sounds boring, right? I thought so, too, until I actually sat down and gave the extended anniversary edition a chance. The film, based on Fannie Flagg's novel Fried Green Tomatoes at the Whistle Stop Cafe, is really two stories in one. Bates plays an unhappy Southern woman stuck in a marriage routine, which doesn't favor her n...eds at all. She is underappreciated, despite her calm, sweet demeanor, and routinely thrown out of her husband's aunt's room at the nursing home. It's during one of these rejections that she meets Nanny Threadgoode (Tandy), a positive old woman determined to get her house back, and eager for the chance to talk about her past.
But it isn't her own life that Nanny wants to tell her new friend about - it's the friendship of two women, Idgie (Mary Stuart Masterson) and Ruth (Mary-Louise Parker), whom Nanny used to know, that gets the old woman talking. Be forewarned. There are some hanky moments, but they're all handled with great care. Also, the racial elements of the backstory and an intriguing murder mystery amp up the drama to a reasonably tense and captivating level. Director Jon Avnet keeps the film from ever getting too hoky or melodramatic, though I will say it can't escape predictability. There are some pseudo-surprises you should see coming from a mile away, and even a touch of morbidity toward the film's conclusion. But it all works, thanks in large part to great source material, a strongly adapted script, and the amazing performances of all four women.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on August 1st, 2006
Synopsis
In 1930, the animation department at Warner creates three characters: the Warner Brothers and their sister, Dot. The siblings run riot, however, and are finally caught and imprisoned in the Warner water tower. Flash-forward to today, when they escape to once more wreak havoc.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on July 31st, 2006
Synopsis
Jon Voight is a rogue director in the National Security Agency. When politician Jason Robards stands in the way of dangerous bill that would give the NSA almost unlimited powers, Voight has him killed. The murder is captured on tape, and a disc containing the incriminating evidence winds up in the hands of attorney Will Smith. The next thing he knows, his life is turned upside down as Voight sends high-tech minions after him. He seeks the help of retired surveillance whiz Gene Hackman.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on July 30th, 2006
Synopsis
I’m probably one of the few remaining “critics” that wasn’t familiar with the Showtime original series Weeds, and when Mary-Louise Parker (Fried Green Tomatoes) won a Golden Globe for Best Actress, like some other people who haven’t seen it, my response was “what the hell for?”
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on July 30th, 2006
Synopsis
There are a lot of surprising things that I was not aware of about when it came to Tales From the Crypt. Not only is this the fourth season that I’m reviewing, but there were a couple more seasons on top of everything else. Now granted, the show’s executive producers have a bit of a good pedigree. There’s Richard Donner (16 Blocks), Walter Hill (Aliens), Robert Zemeckis (Back to the Future), Joel Silver (The Matrix) and David Giler (Myra Breckenridge).
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on July 30th, 2006
This is a really odd idea for a DVD release. In Bill Maher's HBO television show, Real Time with Bill Maher, he does a short segment called New Rules. This segment is mostly made up of one-liner jokes that take shots at celebrities and the Bush administration. Each segment runs less than a minute, and this disc contains every one of them from the show's three seasons.
The jokes themselves are funny enough, but my big complaint is that this entire disc just plays like one big overblown special feature. The short segments are played one after another over a repetitive music bed for 45-minutes, and then the credits roll. There is nowhere near enough content here to justify a full DVD release of just this. This disc would make a wonderful companion piece to a Bill Maher stand-up special, but it by no means justifies a separate release all to itself.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on July 30th, 2006
Blue Collar TV is essentially a perfect balance between Hee Haw and The Man Show. As with all sketch comedy shows, some of the skits are very funny, and some of them never really go anywhere. The Blue Collar team of Jeff Foxworthy, Larry the Cable Guy and Bill Engvall have hedged their bets, however, by adding in some stand-up bits, and the occasional musical guest. This means that the average half-hour show might only have two or three skits in it, so the odds of those skits being funny are pretty good.
The show is actually quite entertaining. Much more than I was expecting. Of course, it will probably appeal to those living in the Southern Unites States much more than those in other regions, with recurring segments like “the Redneck Yard of the Week” and “White Trash Days of Our Lives”. Some of the segments are just too redneck, such as the NASCAR sponsored baby delivery segment, but for the most part, you are guaranteed one or two big laugh in every show.
