Posted in: Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on July 6th, 2003
When one thinks of the “Golden Age” of rock, the middle sixties to the middle seventies, a cornucopia of big name, big time acts usually surfaces in discussion. The big three, of course: The Beatles, The Rolling Stones, and Led Zeppelin. Some impressive but undoubtedly second tier acts follow: The Who, Cream, Black Sabbath. Solo acts like Bowie, Elton John, Marvin Gaye and Jimi Hendrix stand out. One musical act that seems to get lost in the glare of these musical supernovas was a pair of soft-spoken, poetic friends ...
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on July 6th, 2003
I could sit here and type away for hours, deconstructing the finer points (using the term loosely) of the latest Ice Cube project, All About the Benjamins, were I so inclined. I could tell you about Bucum the bounty hunter (Cube), his target-turned-partner Reggie (Mike Epps, otherwise known as “Hey, that isn’t Chris Tucker!”) losing a sixty million-dollar lottery ticket and accidentally learning about a diamond heist while being relentlessly pursued. I could tell you about Bucum’s complicated motivation for ...
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on July 4th, 2003
Synopsis
We are in the last five days before the Rodney King verdict will set LA on fire. Movingthrough the mean streets is one mean cop -- Eldon Perry (Kurt Russell). Perry is very much avintage Ellroy character: hard, mean, utterly corrupt, but still possessing the glimmerings of asoul. He is contrasted by his younger partner Scott Peedman, who still has ideals and wants tobe a good cop, and his boss Brendan Gleeson, who is a complete monster in the Dudley Smithmould. Investigatin...
Posted in: Disc Reviews by David Annandale on July 4th, 2003
Synopsis
Drugged-out, hyper-aggressive street punk Nikita (Anne Parillaud) is recruited (whether shelikes it or not) by a top-secret government agency. The first act of the film sees her rebelliousnature gradually being channelled by Tcheky Karyo, and Nikita becomes a glamorous assassin.The action scenes are terrific (so much so that John Badham replicated them shot-for-shot in theremake Point of No Return), and the flick, as with all Besson pictures, has style to burn. I’venever be...
Posted in: Disc Reviews by David Annandale on July 3rd, 2003
A Ranger training exercise goes horribly wrong. The instructor (Samuel L. Jackson) and halfthe cadets are missing. There are two survivors. One is injured, and the other was seen engagedin a firefight with one of the other cadets. Investigating are Connie Nielsen and John Travolta,who bounce back and forth between the two survivors as the stories they tell keep changing,Rashomon-style. The twists pile upon twists, and so few are motivated by anything in the storythat audience good will is soon exhausted, despite the decent atmosphere and performances.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on July 3rd, 2003
Synopsis
Nick Tellis (Jason Patrick) is an undercover narcotics officer who is placed on suspension after a shootout with a dealer gone very wrong. He is brought back to active duty to shadow another officer who might have had something to do with the death of his partner.
Henry Oak (Ray Liotta) is a short tempered renegade cop intent to find out who killed his partner. AS they start to dig deeper into the life of Oak’s partner we find that things are not as they may seem. We see some intere...
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on July 2nd, 2003
Film
Jack, a pimp, ends up in prison when a competing pimp frames him for child prostitution. Zack, a down-on-his luck deejay, is there because an associate paid him a thousand dollars to drive a car across town, unaware of the contents of the trunk. In the same cell, they bemoan their situation: each man innocent of their crimes, but vaguely guilty of something, we’re never sure what. When a third man shows up, an Italian tourist named “Bob,” he seems to brighten the dour men as much as can ...
Posted in: Disc Reviews by David Annandale on July 2nd, 2003
Like The Brady Bunch Movie, this effort combines several incidents from the TV series and strings them together with a loose central premise, and the result is actually funnier than the first film. This premise is that Tim Matheson shows up pretending to be Carol Brady’s long-lost husband. He is after a priceless horse sculpture in the Bradys’ living room. The innocent/rude tone of the first film is carried through here, and given extra impetus by the addition of an is-it-incest-or-not?
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on July 2nd, 2003
Film
To film fans, the clause “Directed by Alfred Hitchcock” has almost become an adjective in and of itself. It has come to mean suspense created by using the viewer’s imagination and mind as a part of the film, first and foremost. These films didn’t have the freedom of CG, and consequently had to invent ways to achieve visual effects (Watch the documentary on Birds or Rear Window for example). Besides the lack of freedom of creation that digital filmmaking now provides, the filmmak...
Posted in: Disc Reviews by David Annandale on July 1st, 2003
The plot, such as it is, is a pastiche of several episodes of the TV series, all twisted just enough to send them into a sunny version of the Twilight Zone. So the Bradys are going to lose their house if they don’t raise $20,000.00 by the end of the week, and Marcia’s nose is flattened by a football before the school dance, and Jan is jealous of the attention her big sister receives, and so on. The Brady's are just as oblivious to how the rest of the world perceives themas they are to the (sometimes very funny) innuendos and double-entendres they constantly (and inadvertently) utter.
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