Slipstream (2008)
Posted in Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on July 1st, 2008
Hannibal Lechter is running the show, and even if it is his alter-ego Sir Anthony Hopkins who�s at the wheel of this ride, it could just as easily have been
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Meerkat Manor, Season 3
Posted in Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on June 30th, 2008
Meerkat Manor is back for a third season on DVD. You’re invited back into the South African desert with the famous Whiskers Clan. Animal Planet has themselves a relatively big hit here with Meerkat Manor. OK, so, it’s not exactly The Sopranos or The Shield, but it does have a modestly dedicated audience. Seems that folks just can’t get enough of these fur balls. They’ve set up blogs and websites dedicated to the antics of the celebrated Whiskers. If you, like them and are dying to see what these lil’ guys are up to next, wait no longer.
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Walker, Texas Ranger: The Complete Fifth Season
Posted in Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on June 30th, 2008
There was a new Cowboy in
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Some Notes Welcoming a New Resident of the Badfilm Pantheon
Posted in Brain Blasters by David Annandale on June 30th, 2008
Well, I’m back, with apologies for a couple of weeks’ absence, and with some more facile musings. I’ve dumped all over M. Night Shyamalan in this space before, and it would be tempting to do it again, but I haven’t actually seen The Happening yet, so I won’t officially trash it right this minute. However, the vox populi has spoken, and the movie is officially a bomb, which makes three in a row for our boy, following up the atrocities of The Village and Lady in the Water. Which means it might, perhaps be time for a re-evaluation of the auteur, perhaps even time for a different branch of fandom to claim him for their own.
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Dare to Play the Game
Posted in Dare to Play the Game, News and Opinions by Michael Durr on June 25th, 2008
PS2 Edutainment, Disney goes Rockband without the Band and the Beginning of the End? – Welcome to the column that knows the end is near when it’s mentioned in the mainstream press as informative & witty known as Dare to Play the Game.
Welcome to another edition of Dare to Play the Game. I don’t feel like crap anymore. Unfortunately, now my girlfriend feels like crap. So that means I’m feeling like crap by proxy I suppose. WoW update: 48/22/18 and I will be sick of Blacksmithing quests very soon. A man should not have to mine this many mithril bars in one sitting
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The Comebacks (Unrated)
Posted in Disc Reviews by Michael Durr on June 23rd, 2008
Spoof movies have been wearing on me for the last few years. Complete travesties such as Date Movie & Epic Movie have soured my look on a favorite genre of mine. Where were the Mel Brooks classics or the Scary Movie series that I remember so well? Smart comedy and well done jokes about movies we have come to love. So, I’ll admit when I saw the Comebacks on DVD, all I could see was red and think the torture that was Epic Movie. I wanted to believe it could be as smart and zany as Blazing Saddles or at least in the same league as Scary Movie 3 or 4. I would hope that director Tom Brady would restore my faith in this once awesome genre.
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Hitman (Single Disc Version)
Posted in Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on June 23rd, 2008
It’s not that video game movies are bad because they are based on video games — things that are usually void of character development and plot in favor of cheap thrills — it’s just that they’ve mostly been handled by hacks, from the director down to the caterer. This usually makes the movie about as tedious as the filmed vignettes you’re forced to watch in between the video game’s levels.
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Early Edition – The First Season
Posted in Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on June 20th, 2008
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Resurrecting the Champ
Posted in Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on June 19th, 2008
Resurrecting The Champ claims to be “inspired” by a true story written by J.R. Moehringer for the Los Angeles Times Magazine. I’m not very well versed in the original story, so I won’t bore you with any attempt to justify the film against actual events. I only hope that the real Moehringer wasn’t a tenth the idiot that Erik is in this film. Perhaps so close on the heels of the Tomase Spygate fiasco it’s not as hard to believe that a reporter could be this gullible.
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Dare to Play the Game
Posted in Dare to Play the Game, News and Opinions by Michael Durr on June 18th, 2008
Postal wins an award, 360 Avatars all gassed up and ready to go, and a brand new TV Gaming Competition Show? – Welcome to the column that got dressed an hour early but realized it has no place to go known as Dare to Play the Game.
Welcome to another edition of Dare to Play the Game. I feel like crap. Actually I’m getting better, because a day or so ago I felt like absolute crap. It’s kinda different and usually doesn’t involve vodka. I stayed home from work on Monday and spent a good portion of that time either getting rest or playing World of Warcraft with my trolly troll and working on a blacksmithing quest. Cause I soooo love blacksmithing quests *insert sarcasm flag here*. But it helps your skill, it really does. I also did the unthinkable. I pvp’ed.
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Jericho – The Second Season
Posted in Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on June 17th, 2008
Because I was fairly certain I would be asked to review this second season of
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Meerkat Manor: The Story Begins
Posted in Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on June 17th, 2008
So I find out I’m going to review a film called Meerkat Manor. My research tells me it’s actually a television show on Animal Planet, but I still didn’t know much. Was this some kind of animal version of The Tudors? And what exactly is a meerkat, anyway? The answer to all of these questions arrived one sunny morning via UPS on my front door. I yawned my way to the door and picked up the nondescript package that fell over with a flop as I opened my home to the bright
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The Jungle Book 2 (Special Edition)
Posted in Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on June 17th, 2008
The voices aren’t the same. The animation has lost that classic charm. The story is completely contrived. What remains is a dim reflection of a few beloved characters from a bygone year of vintage Disney magic. This sequel of the classic Disney telling of Rudyard Kipling’s The Jungle Book looks more like a direct to video knockoff. I was actually quite amazed to note the film did have a box office run.
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The Sword in the Stone (45th Anniversary Special Edition)
Posted in Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on June 17th, 2008
The time was that following the death of a good king,
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Control (2007)
Posted in Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on June 17th, 2008
It’s nice when a movie lives up to its expectations and even surpasses them because it rarely seems to happen anymore. Such is the case with Anton Corbijn’s Ian Curtis bio-pic, Control.
I’ve been waiting to see Control for a long time. From the start, the film sounded interesting, since I am a huge fan of post-punk alternative rock music, the genre that Ian Curtis and Joy Division practically invented in the late 1970’s. But when I heard that long-time band collaborator and renowned music video director Anton Corbijn was directing the film, my anticipation rose to even higher levels.
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27 Dresses
Posted in Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on June 14th, 2008
Katherine Heigl gets her Juila Roberts on in the romantic comedy 27 Dresses as Jane, a friendly woman who can’t say no to planning weddings for the many people she knows. Ever since she was young she’s loved weddings, even though she doesn’t seem to have the time to find a future groom of her own. She’s in love with her boss, George (Edward Burns), but when Jane’s sister Tess (Malin Akerman) drops in for a visit, Tess and George fall in love and before Jane knows it, they’re engaged to be married and she’s planning their wedding. Let the cliched rom-com hijinks begin!
Strange Wilderness
Posted in Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on June 13th, 2008
I’m not sure how many people are familiar with the process of moviemaking, but when a film is not up to studio expectation and takes a long time to finally arrive to theaters after filming has wrapped, the result is sometimes due to financial issues with the studio. But most of the time it’s due to the fact that the studio has seen the final product, and it’s so abhorrent and without any value, redeeming, comic or otherwise, that it will be released as quietly and without recognition as possible. Now I don’t know if there were any financial issues surrounding Strange Wilderness, but I will say this: the film was shooting as far back as December 2005 and was released in February 2008, and at this point on rottentomatoes.com, there is not one positive review from the three dozen that are on the site. I’ll leave it to you to decide what the reasons why are.
Jumper
Posted in Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on June 13th, 2008
Come on, admit it, you want to say that Hayden Christensen was the worst part if the latest trilogy of Star Wars films, and yeah, the guy did bring the suck, to be sure, but he wasn’t really that bad, right? Well yeah, he was, but he’s not the only thing wrong when it comes to Jumper, the latest film from writers David S. Goyer (The Dark Knight) and Jim Uhls (Fight Club), who adapted the Steven C. Gould novel. Directed by Doug Liman (The Bourne Identity), Jumper features Christensen as David Rice, a man who grows up with a genetic gift, the ability to ”jump” from place to place, Christensen’s performance was his first major role since transforming Darth Vader from an ominous, silently rueful and dominating presence, to a dude who thought his girl was cheating on him, so he started hanging out with a creepy old guy as a result.
World Heroes Anthology (Playstation 2)
Posted in Game Reviews by Michael Durr on June 12th, 2008
World Heroes. When I was a teenager, one of my favorite games was World Heroes 2 for the Super Nintendo. I remember it distinctly because it was one of the last games I bought brand new for the SNES. I played the game for hours, then days and even into many assorted weeks trying to exploit all the characters from my favorites like Rasputin, Muscle Power, & Kim Dragon to even lesser characters like Johnny Maximum or Erick the Viking. With the exception of Mudman, (I never played Mudman and I’m still annoyed when fighting him to this very day) I beat the game with each and every character. This is one of my prouder achievements when it comes to fighting games, and with the exception of the Tekken series or compilations, the last fighting game I’ve really played for such a long stretch.
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Slogan
Posted in Disc Reviews by David Annandale on June 12th, 2008
Serge Gainsbourg and Jane Birkin were the “it” couple in France during the late 60s and early 70s. This is the film that brought them together, their To Have and Have Not, if you will. Musician Gainsbourg (who, for the uninitiated, had a singing style that was a cross between Leonard Cohen and Tom Waits) plays a married director of successful TV commercials. He begins an affair with an 18-year-old (Birkin). Their relationship hits most of the predictable moments of such movie romances from that period.
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The Fugitive: Season Two, Vol. 1
Posted in Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on June 11th, 2008
“The man is Richard Kimble and, not surprisingly, the man is tired. Tired of looking over his shoulder, the ready lie of the buses and freight trains. Richard Kimble is tired of running…”
The elusive “one armed man” is one of the best known television icons of all time. The plight of Dr. Richard Kimball has been the subject of numerous imitations and even a feature film staring Harrison Ford as Kimball and Tommy Lee Jones as his pursuer.
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Home Improvement: The Complete Eighth Season
Posted in Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on June 11th, 2008
What time is it? That’s right, Home Improvement fans, it’s once again Tool Time. Unfortunately for the show’s followers, Season 8 would be its last outing. It’s always nice to see shows go out on their own terms and in their own time. Home Improvement is one of those series. It leaves a void. This was one of those rare shows that didn’t rely on sex and innuendo for cheap laughs. Don’t get me wrong, who can forget Debbe Dunning as Tool Time girl Heidi,
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Dare to Play the Game
Posted in Dare to Play the Game, News and Opinions by Michael Durr on June 11th, 2008
LucasArts putting on the halter, Wii wanting to go steady with HDD, and Blu-Ray & Xbox 360 tying the knot? – Welcome to the column that got married once but forgot to read the fine print about descending into the pits of hell known as Dare to Play the Game.
Welcome to another edition of Dare to Play the Game. So at some point last week, you were probably wondering where the heck is your favorite video game columnist. The truth is I don’t know where Adam Sessler is and he won’t return my messages (something about me and Morgan sitting in a tree). As for me, I was in Las Vegas, Nevada. Internet for tourists in Las Vegas, NV sucks. Why is that? Because they charge, $13.99 a freaking day. My conference did have it for free, but it moved like a 300 baud modem. (For the kids at home, that is like your dad asking you to walk to the liquor store on the other side of the county line and back with a bottle of JD stopping for every hobo that asks for a sip)
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Lust, Caution
Posted in Disc Reviews by David Annandale on June 10th, 2008
Tang Wei plays a student who is a member of a radical theatre troupe during the Sino-Japanese War. She and her cohorts determine to assassinate a prominent collaborator (Tony Leung). In order to get create the opportunity for the killing, our heroine must infiltrate Leung’s household. She is on the threshold of becoming his mistress when he leaves Hong Kong for Shanghai. Three years later, now backed by the Resistance, she makes a new attempt. But she hasn’t counted on the entanglements of passion in the affair she has embarked on.
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The Odd Couple: The Fourth Season
Posted in Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on June 10th, 2008
Felix and Oscar return for a fourth year of laughs in The Odd Couple. Not much has changed in the world of Oscar and Felix, but isn’t that what you were hoping to hear? What I found interesting in this somewhat weaker season is that even when the actors were beginning to realize that the show was slipping, the pair never missed a beat in their own chemistry. Often it seems they lacked interest in the material when their characters were apart
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