Posted in: Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on May 2nd, 2003
Synopsis
If you need a synopsis, why are you reading this review? The Bundys, for the uninitiated,are long-suffering boorish dad Al (Ed O’Neill), sex-deprived wife Peg (Katey Sagal), slut airheaddaughter Kelly (Christina Applegate) and cynical loser son Bud (David Faustino). Married withChildren definitely falls into the category into the category of acquired taste, and I’ll confess, Inever acquired the taste (I’ve always thought The Simpsons hit the same satiric targets -- andthen ...
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on May 2nd, 2003
Synopsis
Jamal and Peanut get together to hang out and cruise Compton. At Jamal’s house, however,they interrupt a thief who has broken in. Confronted with a gun, the thief keels over from a heartattack. In a panic, our two heroes bundle the body into their car and continue on their way. Thisis one-man-show filmmaking (the director handled just about every behind-the-camera duty),and the cast is very natural. The script is entirely (and obviously) improvised, and so each scenegoes on...
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on May 2nd, 2003
Synopsis
Billy Bob and Preacher are two 13-year-old boys, best friends, on the verge of discoveringgirls. They both fall in love with Lily Jane Bobbit, the new girl in town, who dreams ofHollywood and speaks with extremely elaborate diction. Over the course of the summer, LilyJane will transform the entire town. You know how Michael Bay loved to sprinkle Armageddonwith slow-motion, anachronistic Norman Rockwell shots of boys in overalls running throughfields and small towns? Now ima...
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on May 2nd, 2003
Synopsis
Two couples looking for something to do on the weekend decide to drive down to BeavertailLake and look for a UFO that supposedly landed there. (There’s a $100,000 reward if they findevidence.) Along the way, they squabble, meet odd characters, and get lost in the woods. Thisis another film with improvised dialogue. Improv is a tricky form to get right in films. It worksin films like Best in Show and The Blair Witch Project because a) the very forms of thosenarratives (pseud...
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on April 29th, 2003
Synopsis
An university expedition (two profs and a handful of students) is financed by a (improbablyyoung) tycoon. Their goal is to find traces of the long-vanished Calusas in the Evergaldes. Theyfind that evidence, all right, but they themselves are found bya monster, who kills them one byone. Behind a very banal title lurks a very banal film, with dialogue that is utterly lazy (any scriptthat uses "Let's get out of here" as its second line is in serious trouble), characters so stupi...
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on April 28th, 2003
Synopsis
Lucy Kelson (Sandra Bullock) is an anti-establishment lawyer, fighting to preserve historiclandmarks from heedless developers. One of these heedless developers is George Wade (HughGrant), a man as shallow as he is rich. Lucy confronts George just as he is desperate for a newlaywer, and he talks her into working for him despite her misgivings. He comes to depend onher for absolutely everything (clothes to wear, stationary to use, etc.), to the point that he takesover her lif...
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on April 26th, 2003
Synopsis
Tom (Gabriel Byrne) is adviser to Leo (Albert Finney), top boss of the Irish mob duringProhibition. Leo isn’t listening to Tom right now, and offends Johnny (Jon Polito), who leads theItalian gang. War between the rival mobs heats up, and Tom gets caught in the middle. I havejust oversimplified an incredibly complex plot, which you really should discover for yourself.Other discoveries that await are glorious cinematography by Barry Sonnenfeld, and endlesslyquotable dialogue...
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on April 25th, 2003
Synopsis
Chow Yun-Fat is Godfrey (not “Jeff” as the case has him, though “Godfrey” is, to NorthAmerican ears, an odd name for an action hero), tough-as-nails leader of a group of friends inThailand. Godfrey’s weak cousin gets them involved in a heist masterminded by the Judge(Simon Yam), who leads a gang as flamboyant as they are nuts. Godfrey is betrayed and left fordead, but comes back a year later for revenge. Directed by Ringo Lam, Full Contact doesn’tachieve the heights of John Woo’s b...
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on April 24th, 2003
In this story, very loosely based on his own life, Eminem makes his acting debut. This is the story of Jimmy Smith Jr. a white boy born on the wrong side of Detroit’s 8 Mile divide. With an alcoholic white trash mother played by Kim Basinger, a dead end job and a trailer park for a home he does not have much going for him. His dreams fed by Detroit’s vibrant underground rap battle scene Jimmy tries to find himself and his voice in the world. This is a well written story about courage and not allowing one’s self to become a product of your environment.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by David Annandale on April 24th, 2003
Synopsis
Nick Broomfield, never one to shy away from hard and prickly topics, here tackles theshooting deaths of Biggie Smalls (the Notorious B.I.G.) and Tupac Shakur. The trail opens up allsorts dangerous vistas, including crooked cops moonlighting as security for Death Row Records.Most intriguing, and more than a little alarming.
Audio
The sound quality is all over the map, but that’s to be expected: this is a documentary, folks,and you don’t expect the ev...
