Posted in: Disc Reviews by David Annandale on July 16th, 2003
Synopsis
Marina Sudina is Billy Hughes, a make-up artist on an American film being shot in Moscow.She is also mute. Accidentally locked in the studio after hours, and unable to call for someoneto let her out, Sudina stumbles upon the making of a snuff movie. Pursued by the murderers, sheescapes, but her problems are only beginning. The snuff-makers are highly connected, andSudina soon doesn’t know whom to trust. The heroine’s muteness is deployed for maximumsuspense, and the first h...
Posted in: Disc Reviews by David Annandale on July 15th, 2003
Synopsis
Boris Karloff adds Dr. Julian Blair to his collection of mad doctor roles. Here he starts offperfectly sane and well-respected, having just developed a device that records brain-waves.When his wife is killed in an accident, he is overcome with grief, and, one night in his lab, hismachine records a new transmission of his wife’s brain-waves. Karloff becomes obsessed withcommunicating with her, stopping at nothing in his quest, along the way frying the mind of hisservant and ...
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on July 15th, 2003
Film
The film starts out in a comic convention, where we are introduced to Holden McNeil (Ben Affleck) and Banky Edwards (Jason Lee), the co-creators of the smash hit book “Bluntman and Chronic.” Holden is an artist who feels trapped into his commercial success, afraid he’ll always be known as “the guy who invented Bluntman and Chronic.” His partner and best friend of 20 years, Banky, is justifiably unapologetic for their success; he likes having his name on something that everyone recognizes. It’s ...
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on July 14th, 2003
Quite possibly the worst Jackie Chan film ever … strike that … quite possibly one of the worst films ever, City Hunter is a live-action film based off of the Japanese anime of the same name. Here, Chan plays private detective Ryu Saeba, who, along with his partner, Kaori (Joey Wong), are hired to track down the missing daughter of a wealthy Japanese publishing tycoon.
Ryu is quite the ladies man and his initial thoughts of turning the job down vanish once he sees a picture of the magnate’s beautiful ru...
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on July 13th, 2003
The In-Laws was one of those films that just never fit neatly into any safe category. Recently I’ve been ask to describe it to others who had not seen it before. If your only point of reference is the recent remake with Michael Douglas, run to your nearest rental store and look up this gem of an original. Peter Falk is best known, of course, for the rumpled-raincoat detective, Columbo. While many of his Columbo mannerisms are in evidence in this film (that outstretched hand to the head and his gravelly low mumbles) the character is really quite removed from Columbo.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on July 13th, 2003
Synopsis
Rosalie Boca is married to Joey, a pizza maker and womanizer. When she catches him with another woman she decides that he must go. With the help of her mother, the new age busboy and drug-addled cousins Harlan and Marlon, she attempts to send Joey on his way to the big pizza pie in the sky. Based on a true story truth really is stranger then fiction in this story of love and infidelity.
Video
Presented in both a 1.85:1 widescreen format and a 1.33:1 fullscreen v...
Posted in: Disc Reviews by David Annandale on July 12th, 2003
Synopsis
Based on the life of Gladys Aylward, The Inn of the Sixth Happiness features IngridBergman as Aylward (granted, Bergman’s accent makes her an unlikely Englishwoman, but shealso played a cockney wench in Dr. Jekyll & Mr. Hyde, so what the hell). Desperate to be amissionary, but turned down by the society she approaches, Bergman makes her own way toChina, where her extreme goodness soon wins over everyone in sight. At the climax, during theJapanese invasion of China, she must...
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 ...
Posted in: Disc Reviews by David Annandale on July 11th, 2003
Synopsis
Brooks Wilson (George Segal) is a professional illustrator. His career is muddling along, butwill take a giant leap forward if he can land Sterling Hayden as a client. His marriage with EvaMarie Saint is closing in on some dangerous shoals, and the same is true of his affair with JanisYoung. His life is very close to spinning out of his control, and over the course of the film, thatis exactly what happens. Ignore the case, which refers to Loving as “a shattering tale of roman...
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...
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