Posted in: Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on September 16th, 2005
Fever Pitch is an American-ized version of the Nick Hornby novel and subsequent British Film. American-ized usually means “watered downâ€, and there’s no doubt a lot of the bite from the original source material is missing. But I am a big fan of the movies High Fidelity and About a Boy. Instead of soccer, the protagonist’s obsession, in this Fever Pitch is baseball (in particular the Red Sox). This obsession gets in the way of having healthy relationships. I think the change of...sport still works; pitch is an apt baseball term. And the correlation between heartbreak in love and heartbreak in Red Sox fans is also relevant. But how is the movie?
Well, the movie is directed by the Farrelly Brothers. So there’s the typical physical and gross out humor one might expect from the fraternal duo. But this is a more, shall we say, “mature†work? The Farrelly’s are really subdued here (sometimes bordering on tepid). Shallow Hal this ain’t. But the material doesn’t lend itself to their hi-jinks. Jimmy Fallon and Drew Barrymore are the stars of this truthful romantic comedy. After the embarrassing Taxi, Fallon shows some range here. Barrymore also surprises with the degree of emotional truth in some scenes. The movie gains steam as it goes along, much like a baseball season, and the combination of smarts and schmaltz (from veteran writers Lowell Ganz and Babaloo Mandel) did win me over in the end. And I’m a Red Sox fan.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on September 15th, 2005
The classics become the classics for a reason. True, this may be a collection of classic cartoons, but they are classics all the same. This disc contains four different cartoons that introduce children to the stories of “The Ugly Duckling”, “Ferdinand the Bull”, “The Country Cousin” and “The Wind in the Willows”. Parents can rest easy by putting their children in front of something like this for an hour, as children will not only be be entertained, but they will learn a little something along the way as well. These s...orts are from the golden age of Disney animation, back when everything was drawn by hand, and the true creative artists practiced their craft. This is animation as an art form.
Audio
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on September 14th, 2005
Synopsis
There was a huge amount of anticipation over the American adaptation of the British sitcom hit of the same name. The original version, with Ricky Gervais as the office manager David Brent, won a series of Emmy equivalents in England and Gervais even won a Golden Globe for his work on the show. And with Steve Carell (Anchorman) appearing in the American version as Brent’s counterpart, expectations were high from more than a few people.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on September 14th, 2005
I am a foreign film fan, so I was quite excited to find this disc in my queue of DVDs to review. From the cover, this looked like just the kind of thing that I typically enjoy. Unfortunately, as the saying goes, you shouldn't judge a DVD by it's cover... or something like that. The plot of this film sounds reasonable enough; a couple of documentary filmmakers set out on a quest to try to find out what happened to a beautiful missing girl. Now, this is not a film shot in a “mocumentary” style, it is just a fictional f...lm that happens to feature documentary filmmakers.
Only it's not, really. This is a film that seems to be suffering from multiple personality syndrome. On the one hand, it presents itself as a movie about the filmmakers' search for the truth. On the other hand, so much of the film includes scenes presented “flashback style”, that the segments with the documentarians are the ones that seem out of place. This is a story that would have worked much better if it had followed a more basic storytelling style, instead of dragging extraneous characters into the mix.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on September 14th, 2005
Synopsis
John Cusack had done the 80’s adolescent romantic comedy thing to death. In one fashion or another, The Sure Thing, One Crazy Summer, Better Off Dead and Hot Pursuit had some mix of smooching and laughs to them, and Cusack was the main character. So why did he decide to do another in Say Anything, the directing debut for Cameron Crowe?
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on September 14th, 2005
Synopsis
Val Kilmer is found, shot in the head and near death, outside the middle-of-nowhere desert town of Blackpoint. When he comes to in the hospital, he has total amnesia. But as flashes of his memory return, he becomes convinced that an attempt will be made to kill the President. No one believes him, including Neve Campbell, who shows up claiming to be his fiancee. No one, that is, except perhaps Sheriff Sam Shepard, who wonders if there might not be something to this man’s beliefs after all.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on September 13th, 2005
Synopsis
After the events of the first film, Naomi Watts and her young son are starting a new life for themselves in a small town. But the curse of Samara reaches out to them, as not only are there more victims of the lethal videotape in this town (thus driving home Watts’ guilt for having copied the tape herself), but Samara strives to possess Watts’ son.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on September 13th, 2005
Synopsis
The orphanage where brothers Jake (John Belushi) and Elwood (Dan Aykroyd) grew up is going to be expropriated unless back taxes are paid, and our heroes are resolved to help. The nun in charge won’t accept any of their ill-gotten gains, however, and so they embark on a frenetic cross-county chase to reassemble their old band for a benefit gig. Cue many famous music cameos, and massive car chases.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by David Annandale on September 11th, 2005
In a future (or alternate) New York City plague by mutations and acid rain, a young man (Adam Plotch) falls for a strange woman (Talia Rubel). They begin a fractious relationship, and then it turns out that she's his sister, whom he thought had died ten years earlier. The relationship continues, however, and there are hints that their family is somehow connected to the problems besetting the city.Shot on video, this is the feature debut of director Miguel Coyula, and shows great promise. Viewers expecting Matrix-style thrillers will be disappointed, but the adventurous will be rewarded by a dark psychological drama played out against an SF backdrop, surprisingly well rendered given the non-existent budget.
Audio
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on September 11th, 2005
Synopsis
There are a good number of people who have labeled Oliver Stone as a fan of conspiracy theories, out to destroy foundations of conservative ideology, while at the same time re-visiting 60’s nostalgic icons. Despite the jokes and the stereotyping, one has to admit that, as a filmmaker, he has helped bring to screen some of the most talked about cinematic experiences of our time, including Midnight Express, Scarface, not to mention Conan the Barbarian. As a director, his works, s...ch as The Doors, Nixon, JFK and Natural Born Killers, have generated discussion both within and aside from the technical merits. Platoon was his most personal work, and is widely regarded as one of the defining films of the Vietnam War.
