Posted in: Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on November 12th, 2001
Intro
Lo how the mighty have fallen. There was a time when Patrick Swayze and Melanie Griffith were A-level stars with a certain guaranteed box office. No more, it seems. Now they’re starring together in made-for-cable efforts like this one, originally titled Forever Lulu.
Synopsis
Melanie Griffith is a schizophrenic. Once, she and Patrick Swayze were an item, but that ended. Unbeknownst to him, she became pregnant, and put the child up for adoption. Now, fifteen years later, she leave...
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on November 12th, 2001
Intro
‘Tis the season of bangs and booms it seems, as the release of big war movies of the past continues. This isn’t one of the best, but, produced as it is by Dino De Laurentis, it is big.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on November 10th, 2001
Intro
Here’s a unique opportunity: the chance to see director Paul Verhoeven’s very first theatrical release. We’re a long, long way from Total Recall and Starship Troopers here, but perhaps not so far from Showgirls, at least as far as subject matter is concerned.
Synopsis
This film has a plot only in the loosest sense of the term. This is really a series of short comic vignettes set in Amsterdam’s red light district, centering around a no-nonsense prostitute named Blonde Greet. Event...
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on November 7th, 2001
Intro
From the haunting soundtrack to the career-making performances from the Robin Cook’s superb cast, Ginger Snaps defines what a modern horror film should be: its artfully crafted reality skirts the edge of the mundane while maintaining an edge of surrealism through progressive applications of noire, violence, and the supernatural. The movie thoroughly involves the audience in a gruesome mockery of teenage evolution. Ginger (Katharine...
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on November 4th, 2001
Intro
CTHE has managed to squeeze yet another release out of the Monty Python franchise, this time in the form of a Holy Grail two-disc Special Edition. A single disc version with 2.0 sound streeted in September of 1999. While the discs are loaded with a mountain of extras and the video and sound are definitely better than the 1999 version, I would recommend this set for first time Holy Grail purchasers and suggest that current owners needn’t upgrade. This disc has regrettably bumped into the limitations...
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on November 1st, 2001
Intro
In terms of Box Sets, HBO has impressed with the Sopranos DVD Collection. Season One was a pure treat on DVD. From the packaging, the layout, the quality, and the content, the First Season was a beautiful DVD release. HBO has pleased again with the release of Season Two. The quality standards have remained impeccable, and the content is as good as ever…
Synopsis
“In its second season, The Sopranos sustains the edgy intelligence and unpredictable, genre-warping narrative moment...
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on November 1st, 2001
Hoooo boy! I bet you had forgotten what movies were like in 1979, right? Let me sum it up for you then: slow moving, and brown. The contrast in cinematic styles alone is shocking – this movie is full of long, long, long 20 second shots accompanied by ear-straining orchestrals; contrast this to the frenetic pace of today’s movies where camera angles change every three seconds and you’ll see how film styles have evolved in the 20 years since this movie was made to match waning attention spans. The highlight of this fil...
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on October 29th, 2001
Just in case you thought war propaganda was incompatible with good filmmaking, here’s this release in Fox’s War Classics series.
Synopsis
The film literally is a diary, narrated by Reed Hadley, a war correspondent covering the US assault on Guadalcanal. Every step of the way the men are up against not only the Japanese enemy, but the natural enemies of terrain, weather and disease as well. The film was made smack in the middle of the war in 1943, and was rushed into production after the book of the...
Posted in: Disc Reviews by David Annandale on October 29th, 2001
Intro
Weary of 24-hour CNN war coverage? Want to see a more emotionally satisfying version of war? Then look no further than this 1944 Oscar nominee.
Synopsis
Don Ameche is the rigid, no-nonsense commander of a US aircraft carrier shortly after the attack on Pearl Harbor. The crew becomes frustrated as more and more time passes and they still don’t move into combat. Fate, however, has picked them to play a major role in the Battle of Midway and help turn the tide of the war.
A...
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on October 28th, 2001
Fans of Saving Private Ryan are hereby advised to look in to this 1950 effort, one of the original platoon films.
Synopsis
Richard Widmark is former school teacher (sound familiar?), now Lieutenant. He and his men (including such notables as Jack Palance, Robert Wagner, Karl Malden and Jack Webb) are part of a massive assault on a Japanese-held island. Stymied by Japanese rockets, the attack stalls. Widmark must lead a small group to capture Japanese prisoners in the hope of finding the location of...
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