Posted in: Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on December 16th, 2010
KISS fans will likely feel like they’re in heaven with this quasi-intimate look at the long-tongued demon of rock. All others might be tempted to stay away, and yet, that might be a mistake. Let me first admit that I’m no fan of reality television or KISS. With that said, you might be expecting me to trash this particular program. Wrong! Honestly, as an outsider I have the unique ability to judge the show without all of the trappings of the band’s fame and history.
I’m not sure if it’s a case of morbid curiosity, but I ended up somewhat liking the show. At about 21 minutes an episode, it’s just the right length. Even if I did find this stuff entertaining, there was only so much of Gene’s family I could take in one sitting. The premise is simple and has been done to death by now. Cameras follow some famous person or family in the hopes of providing compelling drama for millions of viewers. OK, so that’s a bit of an exaggeration, but so is the idea that we’re going to get an intimate inside look at these folks while the cameras are rolling. It’s a lot like wrestling. If you don’t buy into that what you’re seeing is actually real, you can get a few laughs out of the whole thing. I will also admit this show destroyed a lot of the Gene Simmons mystique for me. Let’s face it. Can you ever watch the stage persona in the same light again after watching Gene scoop kitty litter or wash his dog by throwing him in the pool? Let’s not even talk about an attempt to get semen from a bull. Still, Gene turns out to be an interesting character very much removed from the one we’re so used to seeing. While Gene dominates the show, there is plenty of time given to wife Shannon Tweed, from Playboy and soft-porn films.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by William O'Donnell on December 16th, 2010
Thierry Guetta has the habit of filming everything he does in his entire life. This habit did not shake while filming the, technically illegal, work of his cousin 'Invader' who is a street artist that pastes up images from and inspired by the video game Space Invaders. Guetta quickly fell head over heals for this underground movement of creating street art and started documenting some of the most famous street artists in the entire world, including the ever (in)famous 'Banksy.' It was Banksy who questioned Guetta as to what his plans were for all of this footage, which was originally nothing, and encouraged him to make a documentary about street art as it is a temporary medium (since it is considered vandalism, all pieces are removed or destroyed soon after being created) and these pieces deserved to be recorded for history's sake in a formal film. Guetta's attempt at the film was deemed unwatchable and so Banksy took over the film and turned the camera on Guetta so that his personal story would be told along with displaying many artists' work.
Some speculations state that this film is an elaborate prank being pulled by Banksy. Remaining anonymous as he directs this film, who is to say that the art made by Guetta is not in fact created by Banksy as a way of demonstrating that pop art is the last vestige of the under-talented, and yet they can make millions if hyped just right. Indeed, the climax of the documentary is Guetta putting on an epic gallery opening in Los Angeles as his new moniker “Mr Brainwash” (a name that has been seen as evidence towards Bansky's message of how hype can brainwash the masses and disguise lack of depth or meaning). I do not subscribe to this theory, as this film seems more like a jab at those (Mr Brainwash being central) who use marketing and gimmicks to make money from something that should be about expression and not profits.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by David Annandale on December 15th, 2010
Six young men and women head off in two cars for a weekend trip in rural France. Along the way, the car with the three guys runs out of gas, fortunately within pushing distance of a filling station. There, our boys inadvisedly pick up a hitchhiker, who turns out to be an escaped psychopath. But no sooner have they started to worry about their new passenger when a mysterious fog and a ghostly vision send them careening off a cliff. Wounded and lost, they find that not only do they have a killer to contend with, but there is something monstrous and huge under the ground that is hunting all of them.
Clearly shot on a shoestring, but very ambitious in its special effects (an opening prologue featuring a meteor strike in 17th-Century France, giant tentacles reaching of the ground to grasp a helicopter), this is a film that certainly pulls out the stops. The plot is pretty packed, too, what with a ghost, a killer, AND a monster. But for all that, what the film needs is something quite inexpensive: a stronger script. The characters are set up quite well, but nothing much is done with them, and they wind up playing out in fairly conventional ways (the loser is the hero and vice versa, for instance). And for all the elements that are tossed into the mix, much of the running time still involves racing around to little effect in dark woods. Still and all, there is some fun monster work, and the just how much this little movie attempts to pull off, whether it fully manages to or not, is worthy of admiration.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by William O'Donnell on December 14th, 2010
7th heaven reaches its 11th and final season of rampant political correctness and lessons of family togetherness through Christian love. Yes, that was a mildly passive aggressive summary of this show, but I feel sometimes one strong bias deserves another to challenge it. This show, the story of a very large family lead by a Minister (and don't deny it, he leads them) as they convey their socially and politically conservative Protestant Christian point of view of “real-life” situations.
To be a fair reviewer, I shall put aside my personal objections to critique how the show works just as a family drama for a moment. The 11th season is quite hard to get into as there are countless references and relationships that have been building up for a very long time. I'm not asking it to be like a Law and Order brand of storytelling, where a viewer can jump in at any episode to enjoy a fully encapsulated story, but this show becomes an undeniable challenge to watch if you are seeing it without any background knowledge of the characters and their previous stories.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on December 13th, 2010
Written by Dave Younger
Young Adam (2003, 98 min.), set in drab postwar Glasgow, Scotland, combines the kitchen-sink dramas of late 50s/early 60s northern England with a Hitchcockian tale – what if you discovered your girlfriend floating dead in a river? Throw in explicit full-frontal NC-17 sex (most movies, like Blue Valentine, will do anything to avoid this kiss of death, but Young Adam embraces it; they wanted to cut Ewan McGregor’s junk for the American release, but he fought to keep it in) with the sexually-charged characters of Joe (McGregor), Ella (Tilda Swinton), and Cathie (Emily Mortimer), and you have more than enough angry young men and women to overcome the tedium of being one of the working poor in the grimy, coal-infused landscape of the docks of Glasgow.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by William O'Donnell on December 13th, 2010
The comedy team of Jason Friedberg and Aaron Seltzer should be commended for their unwavering attempt to destroy the spoof comedy entirely. Sure, they aided the Wayans brothers in creating the first Scary Movie film (which is decent spoof film) but in 2006 they started their campaign with Date Movie and continued right through Epic Movie, Meet the Spartans, Disaster Movie, and now Vampires Suck. Did they succeed? And did it take the recent loss of Leslie Nielsen to have us be reminded that spoofs where once a glorious and enjoyable thing.
Well, while their previous efforts (I'm cringing at the idea that any “effort” was placed into making their films) where bloated with endless pop culture references that were dated before being made, Vampires Suck mostly just runs on one, the Twilight series. Yes, there is still a parade of references made, mostly to reality TV shows such as Keeping up with the Kardashians and Jersey Shore, but they mainly stick with vampire and werewolf gags that have either been done already or are simply too weak and witless to even register as a complete joke.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on December 13th, 2010
The Haunting of Sorority Row has one of those titles that, when you first hear it, you immediately make assumptions about. My initial assumption was that the movie might very well feature a house full of hot young girls in various stages of undress, acting all catty between pillow fights and being menaced by a supernatural entity of some kind. And then I looked down to the bottom of the dvd case and noted that this was produced by Lifetime. Wait, I thought, isn’t a horror movie by the Lifetime Network akin to Spike TV producing a Jane Austen film festival? Or Comedy Central hosting a David Cronenberg retrospective? Or Arts & Entertainment producing a reality show about a guy who traps raccoons….? Oh. Wait.
Never mind.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by David Annandale on December 12th, 2010
A mysterious figure or organization going by the name of War on Crime is apparently engaged in just that in the streets of Soweto. Known drug dealers are being gunned down. On the case is Lt. Deel (Nigel Davenport). Caught up in the case is newspaperman Chaka (Ken Gampu), who is contacted by War on Crime and given tips as to when the next attack will take place. Deel and Chaka are friends of long standing, but their friendship is challenged by the fact that the police captain now views Chaka as a possible accomplice in the vigilante killings. The question, too, is whether there is more to these killings than meets the eye.
Now this is an interesting artifact: a South African grindhouse epic from the 70s (and thus the Apartheid era). The case boasts that this is a blaxploitation effort, and while this is only 100% accurate, as a fair amount of screen time is spent with Deel, and ditto a white killer working for War on Crime, it's certainly close enough for government work. The story is a bit meandering, given that there isn't really that much plot (and so we can take time out to watch Chaka eat lunch and feed ducks). But the moments of tedium are made up for by the over-the-top slow-motion violence, not to mention the entertainment value of the hilariously clunky post-synchronization. And the editor, it seems, was having to work while being subjected to random electrical shocks. All in all, a most fascinating oddity.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on December 9th, 2010
In December of 1980, John Lennon was gunned down by a crazy man who was trying to get the attention of yet another celebrity. In 2010, the BBC assassinated the man's character in this dreadful television film called Lennon Naked. I had such high hopes for the film. I rather like star Christopher Eccleston. I enjoyed his take on The Doctor from Doctor Who. He was also quite good in the zombie thriller 28 Days Later with a run as a man who can become invisible on Heroes. What made such a fine actor stoop so low as to take a gig like this is beyond my understanding. If it was the temptation to maybe play an idol from his childhood, I would have hoped he would have stopped short once he'd read the script. As the aforementioned warning tells us, this film is actually a hodgepodge of speculation that doesn't fail to kick the singer at every point.
I'm not a huge John Lennon fan. In fact, I only have mild feelings about The Beatles in general. I respect what they have done but have leaned more toward Paul and George in their years after the super-band. I have no illusions that Lennon was anything but a spoiled brat, particularly at the height of his career. His famous, "We're bigger than Jesus Christ" statement said a lot about his immaturity at the time. It should be expected. The "lads" were mere teens when their music caught fire. Before they had a chance to start shaving, women were throwing themselves practically faint at the band, and money was coming in as if it were the most common thing in the world. It's really no wonder that the band members had a feeling of entitlement and were a bit rough around the edges. There is certainly a bit of fairness to some of this portrayal.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on December 7th, 2010
Written by Diane Tillis
The world of Avatar has been a part of James Cameron’s dreams for over a decade. When he initially approached studios to pitch the concept, they denied him the opportunity, citing the huge budget that would be necessary to create the film. Thus Cameron had to wait for technology to catch up with his vision. Flash forward a decade with the advancements in capture-motion cameras and 3D technology; Cameron finally saw his opportunity. With an amazing crew of visionaries, Cameron broke several boundaries in the film industry and created a cultural phenomenon. In early April 2010, the theatrical version of Avatar was released on DVD with only the feature film and no special features. Now in November 2010, the extended collector’s edition of Avatar is released with tons of goodies. The collection includes three versions of the film: the original theatrical version, the re-release version with eight minutes of deleted scenes, and the extended collector’s version with sixteen minutes of deleted scenes. The collection is divided into three discs. The first and second discs have the three versions of Avatar, each split in half. Thus, when you watch one version, an hour and a half later you will have to switch to the second disc to continue the movie. The third discs has all the deleted scenes from the films collected for instant viewing, forty-five minutes of never-before-seen deleted scenes in various stages of production, and a ninety-eight minute behind-the-scenes featurette.
