Posted in: Disc Reviews by David Annandale on July 12th, 2003
Synopsis
Posted in: Disc Reviews by David Annandale on July 11th, 2003
Synopsis
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on July 11th, 2003
Joyously unhinged and very inventive, O Brother Where Art Thou? is the latest film from the imaginative minds of the Coen brothers. Based very roughly (and loosely) on Homer’s “Odyssey”, it’s a Depression-era musical about three convicts who escape from a chain gang to unearth a buried treasure, get one of the men home to be reunited with his wife, become overnight musical sensations as “The Soggy Bottom Boys”, and at the same time, elude a bloodthirsty team of Mississippi lawmen. For those of you who don’t ...uite remember Homer’s tale, it doesn’t really matter too much here. However, for those interested in a quick history lesson, Homer composed “The Odyssey” around 700 B.C. as the epic poem takes place over a decade and focuses on Odysseus (aka Ulysses) and his journey home to his wife Penelope after fighting in the Trojan War.
The main character is a loquacious, debonair fellow named Ulysses Everett McGill (George Clooney) who is part of a Mississippi chain gang during the Depression. When he's not slicking back his locks with Dapper Dan hair pomade, admiring the pencil-line precision of his Smilin' Jack mustache, or squeezing nine-dollar words out of his 50-cent brain, he continually thinks he has it all figured out. Ulysses uses the lure of a bogus hidden treasure to con two of his simple-minded chain-gang buddies into escaping with him. He takes charge of this gang because, as he tells his cohorts, he “has the capacity for abstract thought”. Our other tragic heroes in this tale are Pete Hogwallop (John Turturro) and Delmar O'Donnel (Tim Blake Nelson), who make a getaway that seems far easier than the one Ulysses himself made from the ashes of Troy. Out on the lam, they encounter a series of obstacles and lucky breaks, bizarre characters and aberrations of nature.
Posted in: 1.33:1 Fullscreen, Action, Artisan Entertainment, Disc Reviews, Dolby Digital 2.0 (English), Dolby Digital 5.1 (English), DVD by Archive Authors on July 10th, 2003
Synopsis
Professional hit man Christopher Lambert is given a new contract, but this one doesn’tinvolve killing. He is to travel from Europe to Cape Town (where his parents were killed whenhe was but a wee lad) and protect Dennis Hopper, a businessman with mob ties who is going totestify against psychopathic gangster Christo. Even in jail, Christo’s reach is long and deadly, andLambert has his work cut out for him protecting the very unpleasant Hopper and his daughter.So far, so conventional... if you can call the sight of Hopper in a bad black toupee and goateeconventional. Then, halfway through the film, the main characters hightail it out of Cape Towninto the countryside, and the movie turns into a stately meditation on guilt, redemption andforgiveness. I’m not entirely convinced the project works: the imbalance of heavy action in thefirst half and hardly anything happening for the second is most peculiar, and the storytelling israther disjointed all the way through. The various subplots all get tied together rather too neatlyas well. Still, the very peculiarity of the film works in its favour, and made for a much moreinteresting viewing experience than I was expecting. The final shot is unlike any you’ll see in justabout any other recent action movie.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by David Annandale on July 9th, 2003
Synopsis
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on July 9th, 2003
FX decided to jump on the cable bandwagon last year and come up with their very own original series, The Shield. The show stars Michael Chiklis, formerly of The Commish, as Vic Mackey, a hard-nosed Los Angeles detective that gives bad cops a good name – but in a bad way.
Mackey is head of a tactical Strike Team that is comprised of plainclothes officers working in one of the most crime-ridden areas of Los Angeles - the Farmingdale District. Mackey’s group shows impressive results however – s...fer streets, high conviction rates, and tons of arrests – and he has the trust and respect of the men who work for him to boot. He’s ten feet tall and bulletproof within the department and because of that, he roundly ignores those who disagree with his somewhat questionable methods. One of those not in Mackey’s fan club just so happens to be the new captain at his precinct, David Aceveda (Benito Martinez) - a politician at heart and one who has higher aspirations than that of police captain. Being a political animal however, he manages to look the other way when it’s politically expedient for his desires and he knows that Mackey, regardless of his methods, produces and in turn, makes him look good.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on July 9th, 2003
UHF is one of those cult films that has gained quite a following over the years. Fans of the film have been clamoring for a DVD release for many months now and somewhere in the hallowed halls of MGM, someone did something about it. The company is going to release a full-blown DVD of the film on June 4th that will appease the dozens and dozens of “Weird Al” Yankovic fans everywhere.
UHF is total satire and plays almost like the old Landis Kentucky Fried Movie from the 70’s. It’s target... much like Wayne’s World, is small town, local access television and in order to have fun with the premise of a loser taking over a small UHF station, Yankovic strings together parody after parody after parody to get a laugh – some work, some don’t. (What frightens me is that many of you reading this review don’t even know what a UHF station is! Whipper Snappers!) I would imagine that your all out and total enjoyment of the film depends heavily on your enjoyment of Weird Al in general.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on July 9th, 2003
It’s showtime!
Dead for nearly two decades now, choreographer/director Bob Fosse (Cabaret, Lenny, All That Jazz) created this sardonic semi-autobiographical tale that takes a long, hard look at his compulsive and neurotic life that was rife with women, sex and smokes, as well as some rather serious alcohol and drug abuse.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by David Annandale on July 8th, 2003
Synopsis
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on July 7th, 2003
To be completely fair, Dude, Where's My Car? was neither the worst movie of last year, nor the worst movie of its kind during the year. Heck, at times, it even showed signs of comedic inspiration. However, before I seem too kind, Dude, Where's My Car? is as dumb and crass as its title implies.
Taking obvious cues from Bill and Ted’s Excellent Adventure from years gone by, Danny Leiner’s Dude, Where’s My Car? follows in those same footsteps of the past in an almost slavish manne.... Here, we substitute Bill and Ted for Jesse (Ashton Kutcher) and Chester (Seann William Scott), who employ pretty much the same speech patterns and slack-jawed surprise in circumstances. It seems that the main reason for Dude, Where’s My Car? is to simply update the genre with two new brain-dead dweebs to chuckle at – however, it’s questionable whether these two stars will ever hit the heights that Keanu Reeves has.
