Posted in: Disc Reviews by Michael Durr on November 27th, 2009
Superman: The Animated Series was made in the same fashion as Batman: The Animated Series. The tone was a little more serious and a lot more action. It was first produced in 1996 and made 54 episodes through the year 2000. The show received high praise for raising the bar but at the same time keeping what was important to the mythos of Superman. In fact, it even received a nomination for an Emmy. Besides Smallville, this probably stands out as the best television adaption of the one known as Superman, the Last Son of Krypton and hero to the planet Earth (and beyond).
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on November 27th, 2009
Don’t You Forget about Me is a documentary/tribute to the late John Hughes. Four amateur filmmakers set out to find answers to the questions, why did you leave? How did you capture adolescence so perfectly in your films? Why do your films remain a fixture in popular culture? After obtaining interviews with many of the John Hughes alumni such as Ally Sheedy, Judd Nelson, Alan Ruck and Andrew McCarthy, the filmmakers came to the realization that they required an interview with John Hughes to complete the film. The documentary combines the interview footage as well as covers the filmmaker’s road trip from Toronto to Illinois to acquire an interview with the reclusive director.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on November 27th, 2009
James Gray’s Two Lovers revolves around the troubled Leonard Kraditor (Joaquin Phoenix). Leonard has moved back into his childhood home to recover from his recent break up. In quick succession, two women enter Leonard’s life: Michelle (Gwyneth Paltrow), an entertaining and peculiar neighbor who transcends Leonard’s world and Sandra (Vinessa Shaw) a classy, traditional woman who is the daughter of a businessman attempting to purchase Leonard’s family business. Leonard becomes confused between desire and love and the story unfolds from there.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by David Annandale on November 25th, 2009
In early-20th-Century Dublin, a winter's musical gathering is being held. The first two-thirds of the film takes us through the course of the evening, from the arrival of the guests, to the musical entertainment, to the dinner and its discussions (and arguments), and finally the departures. During the party, one is aware of a certain tension or distance between one couple: Donal McCann (nephew to the hostesses) and his wife (Anjelica Huston). As they prepare to leave, Huston hears one of the guests sing, and is rooted to the spot. Later, McCann asks her why the song affected her so much, and a painful memory from her past comes out.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by David Annandale on November 23rd, 2009
We are in the late 1920s, and to the family manor comes Ben Barnes, in the company of new wife, Jessica Biel. That this woman is both American and a race car champion does not sit well with the very conservative mother Kristin Scott Thomas. That her nose is out of joint delights husband Colin Firth, a veteran of the Great War who, thoroughly world-weary and disillusioned with just about everything, wants nothing to do with the petty concerns and squabbles of his family. What follows is a clash of cultures and generations, veering between slapstick comedy and something rather darker.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by William O'Donnell on November 23rd, 2009
This is the story of an unfortunate underachiever who is left with his niece after his even less fortunate sister abandons them. Unhappy with social services and the places they are forced to live, they take what little money they have to fund an aimless trip across the country until arriving at the home of his abusive father.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by David Annandale on November 22nd, 2009
Some thirty years after seeing his father killed by a car bomb, Samir Horn (Don Cheadle) is a dealer in explosives. When he is imprisoned in Yemen along with members of a militant group he was about to make a sale to, he is drawn in and becomes an integral part of the group's terrorist activities. But wait – is he in fact an intelligence agent who has infiltrated the group in order to bring down their leader? Meanwhile, FBI agent Guy Pearce is hot on Samir's trail, but if he catches up, will that be a good thing or a bad one?
Posted in: Disc Reviews by David Annandale on November 20th, 2009
The title pretty much speaks for itself. Here are four episodes of the sequel that surpassed its inspiration in television longevity. They are as follows: “Relics” (which sees Scotty revived in this brave new world, and finding himself redundant), “The Inner Light” (an amnesiac Picard lives out an entire lifetime on a strange planet), “Cause and Effect” (the Enterprise and crew wind up stuck in a time loop, and must struggle to escape their repeated collisions with another ship) and “Tapestry” (where Picard winds up in the afterlife, which is certainly more than Kirk could say). It's a bit trickier yanking episodes of ST:TNG out of their season contexts than with the original show, given the former's greater emphasis on continuity, but these stories here are all good standalone adventures.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by David Annandale on November 20th, 2009
Here is a rather strange fish. Imagine a series of very economical Blair Witch-style mockumentaries, featuring a different creature each week (giant lizards, giant snakes, werewolves, you name it). The “found footage” is interrupted every few minutes by actual footage of real animals related to the supposed monster while factoids parade on the screen. Most peculiar. Individual episodes have a certain ripe-cheese entertainment value, but you'll want to watch them in widely separated screenings, as the mockumentary approach feels repetitious and tiresome quite quickly. Viewers expecting to get their monster fix in will also likely be disappointed by the brief and unconvincing FX.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by William O'Donnell on November 17th, 2009
This is the comedic tale of a grocery store's young assistant manager (Seann William Scott) who believes he is the prime candidate to take over the soon-to-be built addition to the chain. This leads him to buying a house before the job is secured and lo and behold a hotshot Canadian (John C. Reilly) shows up in town from their sister company and begins campaigning for the job himself.
