Posted in: Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on May 16th, 2006
To say that director Danny Boyle has quite an eclectic resume for his directing filmography may be a bit of an understatement. After an impressive first feature in Shallow Grave, he moved on to the cult classic film about heroin addiction called Trainspotting. From there he took an interesting part for a film called A Life Less Ordinary, followed by directing a hot commodity named Leonardo DiCaprio in The Beach. He took on an interesting zombie film called 28 Days Later, and that brings him up to the children's film(?) called Millions.
Written by Frank Cottrell Boyce (Code 46), Millions tells the story of Damian and Anthony, who live with their father Ronnie, who is a recent widower. Damian and Anthony are both kids (7 and 9, respectively), and are even more isolated when Ronnie moves into a new suburb in England. Damian finds solace is his knowledge of saints, specifically their lives and what they did to qualify for sainthood. He takes some of the moving boxes and sets up a makeshift playhouse in the backyard away from the house, near some train tracks.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on May 16th, 2006
What's a boy to do when he is called into work and has to work a graveyard shift and is virtually disallowed to access the internet? Why, watch the first and second seasons of Wings of course, and thoroughly enjoy the wild antics of the folks in an airport on Nantucket Island. You have Joe (Tim Daly, Return to Sender), the uptight anal retentive serious one, along with his younger brother (and general goofball) Brian (Steven Weber, At First Sight). Together they own and operate Sandpiper Air, a sleepy small airline with one plane. They have a customer service attendant, the former stewardess Fay (Rebecca Schull, Analyze This). Their mutual friend is a woman named Helen (Crystal Bernard, Young Doctors in Love) who runs a small kitchen, and there's an airport handyman named Lowell (Thomas Haden Church, Sideways). Together, their lives (and the wacky people and occurrences that happen to them) compose the hi-larious situation comedy that was created by those who helped previously shape Cheers and who would later shape the long-running show Frasier.
The first thing that surprised me about the show when I was doing some research on it was that it ran for so long, going from 1990-1997. Seasons One and Two encompass this four disc set, with 7 episodes on each disc. The episodes focus on Joe and Brian's continuous flirtation with Helen, who resists because of a rule she has about not dating pilots, but that rule lasts about a season and a half. Some of the laughs are OK, but the problem with the show living in its era is that some of the jokes are topical references and really show the age of things.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on May 16th, 2006
Perhaps the folks at MTV thought that Wildboyz was doing so well, that they figured that maybe they should fly the boys out to even more remote locations, but that they should include some old Jackass members also. And sure enough, in the second season of Wildboyz, both Wee Man and Johnny Knoxville show up for guest starring roles and accompany the boys as they travel to Indonesia, Africa, Brazil and Costa Rica, to name a few places.
I'm pretty sure I'm not spoiling it for those who haven't seen it, but there's very little surprise involved. You've got Party Boy, Chris Pontius, and Steve O, both travelling to exotic locations to encounter animals, the locals in those areas, and to get drunk off the indigenous moonshine.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on May 15th, 2006
Synopsis
Her hands covered in blood, a distraught-beyond-coherence Julianne Moore wanders into a hospital with a story of being carjacked in a predominantly black housing project area. Detective Samuel L. Jackson, assigned to the case, learns from her that her young son is apparently still in the car. Given that her brother is a cop in the adjoining white area, all hell breaks loose and racial tensions threaten to send an explosive situation into terminal meltdown. But the question is whether there i... more to Moore’s story than there at first seems.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on May 15th, 2006
Jim Henson was a creative genius. Who among us hasn’t grown up with his immortal Sesame Street characters? In the years leading up to his untimely death from pneumonia, The Henson Creature Shoppe had begun to expand out of its Muppet roots. The Dark Crystal was an amazing breakthrough in puppetry technology. One of Henson’s last ideas was about a family of dinosaurs. Sadly, Henson passed before his vision could be fully realized. Fortunately for us his son Brian has continued the Henson tradition, beginning with Dinosaurs.
This was no ordinary sitcom. Each character was a sophisticated animated puppet as well as a suit performer. In all, it took four people to bring each character to life. Combined with the familiar voice talents of the likes of Sally Struthers and Sherman Hemsley, a “man in a suit”, and 2 animatronics puppeteers, these hysteric prehistoric characters were brought remarkably to life. Like The Flintstones, Dinosaurs was modeled after the popular 50’s comedy The Honeymooners. Earl was very much a Jackie Gleason clone from his “king of my castle” attitude to his bulky frame. Like Ralph, Earl had a meek and somewhat simple minded pal. Roy was as much an Art Carney clone as Earl was Ralph Kramden. Even Roy’s voice echoed Norton The show diverged from its Honeymooner roots with the addition of two children. Robbie was very much a rebel against the sins of his society. Charlene was the typical valley girl who cared more about the latest fashions than anything else. Fran, the mother, was a somewhat modern woman who still managed to juggle independence with traditional roles. Finally the best laughs and lines came from newly arrived Baby Sinclair. His “:Not the momma” , “Again!” and “Gotta love me” chants became pop culture mainstays.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on May 14th, 2006
Here's the dilemma with these kinds of movies; it's hard to successfully fit a hard R story into a PG-13 package. Usher is a big draw in the under-18 market, so the challenge is to take a strong dramatic story and mold it to hit that balance between Hard Eight and Raise Your Voice. However, I have said it before, and here we go yet again... movies that try to appeal to everybody will successfully appeal to nobody. This is a movie that is a bit too racy and violent for your average 12-year-old girl, but way too soft for adults.
The plot is the same kind of thing you have seen time and time again. Usher plays a Hip-Hop DJ trying to break into the music business on a national scale. One night at a party, he saves the life of his friend's father, who is a Mafia boss. As a result of his heroism, he is made to be the bodyguard of the boss' daughter (despite the fact that he has no experience in such a role). Naturally, he soon falls in love with the bosses' daughter, and a conflict of interest ensues.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on May 13th, 2006
Like it or not, you can't talk about this show without talking about the C.S.I. phenomenon. The extreme popularity of that single show has launched an entire genre of hour-long police investigation shows that are showing up on every network, every night. There are now three different C.S.I. programs on the air, as well as military crime programs, FBI profiler programs... even a mathematical approach to crime solving with Numbers.
The latest show in this trend is The Closer, a TNT ...riginal program staring Kyra Sedgewick. The twist on this program is that Sedgewick's character is a sweet southern investigator from Atlanta who becomes the head of the Priority Murder Squad in Los Angeles. As one could discern from the title, her specialty is suspect interrogation. Despised by her colleagues because she is a female southern outsider, she must fight against criminals as well as the members of her own department to solve the crime.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on May 13th, 2006
When Ridley Scott’s latest epic Kingdom of Heaven was released for common viewing in May 2005 at 145 minutes, critics either really liked the film, or where really dissatisfied with the film. Audiences, it seemed, tended to agree with the latter critics as the film only grossed $47 Million Dollars, which was a dissapointment considering the film had a budget well over $100 Million. Rumors started to fly, as with any big epic, that Scott was forced to slash the film’s running time to not only make audiences ha...py, but more importantly make 20th Century Fox happy. Well, the rumors have been confirmed as we are now being treated to Kingdom of Heaven in Ridley Scott’s complete vision featuring a running time of 191 minutes. Similar to Scott’s other recently released Director’s Cut of his other epic film Gladiator much is added to the film’s story and characters. But just what was added and could this version make a non-believer of the film’s Theatrical 145 minute cut enjoy this new vision? Read on to find out.
Before diving into what was exactly added (if you want to jump just to that section, go down a few paragraphs), I’m going to dive into the actual film a bit. Balian (played by Orlando Bloom) is a village blacksmith in France. He discovers that he is the illegitimate son of Sir Godfrey (played by the always amazing Liam Neeson). Godfrey, you see, is a knight returning from the Middle East. Godfrey, as we learn, feels that Jerusalem is not necessarily a holy war, but a war filled with opportunity for young men. It holds numerous amounts of potential for those who are willing to reach out and grab it.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on May 12th, 2006
Diane Keaton and Tom Everett Scott star in Surrender, Dorothy, a predictable, over-the-top melodrama plagued with unsympathetic characters, clichés, and unbelievable plot developments. The plot centers on Keaton as she copes with a car accident, which claims the life of her daughter. There is a lot of venom and hostility inside her, as the rest of the world takes a back seat to her own grief. As someone, who has lost a loved one prematurely, I take offense to the behavior of this central character. She’s a sel...ish, loathsome wretch, who feels like she can walk all over her daughter’s friends, simply because she’s the grieving parent. It’s an aggravating picture of grief, and it dims the possibilities of ever feeling for your protagonist. They should have toned her down several notches, because, by the time she does start to behave like a human being, you’re already sick of her. Also, the daughter’s tragic death is made a lot less tragic, when viewers actually get to know the kind of person she was. Her greatest offense is to engage in adulterous sex with her best friend’s husband, who gets her pregnant. Then, in a glowing act of heroism, she aborts the child out of convenience as if she’s having a wart removed. This portrayal does a real disservice to the women out there, who have made this decision out of duress, and then carry it with them all the days of their life. It does a disservice to the women, who wanted to have children, but couldn’t, because doing so would endanger their lives. Within the context of the film, it’s a selfish, loathsome act, from a selfish, loathsome daughter, who was raised by her selfish, loathsome mother.
Needless to say, I hated this film, but not because it was poorly made – or even poorly acted. Keaton is competent enough. Tom Everett Scott, as the token gay best friend – and he really is a token character, in this case – does the best he can with the material and, in fact, elicits more sympathy from viewers than any other character in the film, combined. No, my disdain hinges entirely on the lack of respectability of the characters. Each one – with the exception of Scott and the wife of the adulterous husband – tramples all over the others’ feelings, and uses them to get what they want, until a nice, neat little ending, where we are supposed to believe all is right with the world. It just wasn’t a great idea making a film, which tries to sympathize with the unsympathetic – a film where the only likeable characters are the ones, who take the proverbial back seat. If this is Keaton’s idea of a “good role for female actors of a certain age,” I’d hate to see her idea of a bad one.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on May 11th, 2006
From reading the back of the box, one would think that this film was one of the true Disney animated classics. Phrases like “digitally remastered for the first time on DVD†and “the original Disney classic†would certainly lead one to believe such a thing. The fact of the matter is, however, that this “classic Disney film†was just originally released in 1997. Sure, it's remastered, but we're talking about remastering a print that is less than a decade old. Improvements were undoubtedly made, but this re...ease is not the towering accomplishment that one might be led to believe.
The plot revolves around Pooh and the gang setting out on a cross-country trip to find Christopher Robin, who has mysteriously gone missing. As the gang travels on their search, they find opportunities to conquer their fears and accomplish great things. The viewers, however, know that Christopher was just at school the whole time.
