Duane Hopwood
Posted in Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on May 20th, 2006
Synopsis
Duane Hopwood (David Schwimmer) works as a casino pit boss in Atlantic City, and is an alcoholic. His drinking has already cost him his marriage, and now ex-wife Janeane Garofalo is having to face the possibility of curtailing his visitation rights after he drives drunk with his young daughter in the back seat. After he makes a bad call at work, his job is in jeopardy as well. But there is hope for redemption still.
Roger Ebert calls this a “career-transforming performance.” Hardly…
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Syriana
Posted in Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on May 19th, 2006
The world of politically charged films has certainly grown in the past few years. Films like Farhenheit 911 have seen big success, while other films like Rupert Murdoch’s OutFoxed have seen more of a critical success. Both of these films had extreme media attention, one obviously more than the other, prior and after their releases. Both asked questions and demanded answers to topics and issues we, as people, wondered about but never really asked about as a simple person can’t really enact a high success…
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New World, The
Posted in 2.35:1 Widescreen, Disc Reviews, Dolby Digital 2.0 (English), Dolby Digital 5.1 (English), Drama, DVD, New Line by Archive Authors on May 19th, 2006
Synopsis
Virginia, 1607. English ships arrive and a colony is set up, but with considerable difficulty. Famine and disease take their toll. Captain John Smith (Colin Farrell) heads off to seek help from the Powhatan. He is captured, sentenced to death, but saved by Pocahontas (Q’orianka Kilcher, whose character is never actually given that name). So begins a fateful relationship.
Terence Malick has something of the Stanley Kubrick around him: he only puts out a movie about once a decade, hi…
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Hill Street Blues – Season 2
Posted in Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on May 19th, 2006
In the first season review of Hill Street Blues I talked about the Steven Bochco family tree of producers and show runners that got their start on this show. This season does a lot to remind us that a great many actors made their mark with this program. Such future stars as Danny Glover, David Caruso, Brent Spiner, and Dennis Dugan all made their first heavy mark on Hill Street Blues. Dugan’s Captain Freedom episodes are some of the most remembered shows of the series run. This particular arc is a great example of how the show could be funny, emotional, and action packed, and still have more heart than any show on at that time.
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Cheeky!
Posted in Disc Reviews by David Annandale on May 18th, 2006
Carla (Yuliya Myarchuk) is a Venetian in London, looking for a flat in which she and her boyfriend Matteo can live once he actually arrives there. In the meantime, she has been in London for a month, and he is in Rome, pining for her. Both of them are getting a bit sexually frustrated, but Carla works that issue out with a series of affairs, and for some reason, Matteo seems to have a problem with this.We are once again in the of Tinto Brass’ ass-worship and cheerful infedelity. The tone is established by Carla’s opening credit stroll through Hyde Park (a walk which Matteo will recreate later to transformative effect), which is depicted as a carnal wonderland.
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Wedding Singer, The (Totally Awesome Edition)
Posted in Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on May 18th, 2006
Synopsis
Adam Sandler plays Robbie Hart, wedding singer in 1985, making a living covering other people’s songs, but happy with his life, until he is dumped at the altar. Total professional meltdown then ensues (in the big money scene that everyone saw in the trailers). Hope for romance still exists, however, in the person of Drew Barrymore, a waitress about to be married to a total jerk.
This is the film that demonstrated that Sandler was more than a one-trick pony, that the man could act i…
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The Producers (2005)
Posted in Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on May 17th, 2006
The Producers has taken an almost cinematic storyline of its own. In 1967 Mel Brooks filmed this tale with one of his mainstays, Gene Wilder. The film was a modest success. It was as a Broadway production that this material reached a wide audience. The play has been a hit for decades now. It only seems inevitable that a new film would surface. This 2005 version of the story is closer to the stage production than the original film. There are quite a few more musical numbers, and that’s essentially where this film goes wrong.
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Sexual Intelligence
Posted in Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on May 17th, 2006
Kim Cattrall has had a long and storied career in both television and movies. In the 80’s she hit a streak of cult comedies with parts in such as Porky’s, Police Academy, Big Trouble in Little China and even Turk 182. Of course, even with a resume like that, we would never be talking about her today were it not for her work as Samantha on Sex and the City. In 2005, Cattrall wrote a book Called Sexual Intelligence that explores various areas of sex, such as arousal, desire and…
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White Countess, The
Posted in Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on May 17th, 2006
One reviewer accurately described The White Countess as having “echoes of Casablanca.” More than that, this last production from Merchant-Ivory seems like it lifted its premise entirely from the classic Bogart film. But at the same time, there is enough different about this colorful and mesmerizing piece to distinguish it as something original – or original enough. With murmurings about that Hollywood may one day remake Casablanca (as it seems they have everything else), I hope and pray the gods …
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Wildboyz – The Complete Second Season
Posted in Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on May 16th, 2006
Perhaps the folks at MTV thought that Wildboyz was doing so well, that they figured that maybe they should fly the boys out to even more remote locations, but that they should include some old Jackass members also. And sure enough, in the second season of Wildboyz, both Wee Man and Johnny Knoxville show up for guest starring roles and accompany the boys as they travel to Indonesia, Africa, Brazil and Costa Rica, to name a few places.
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Wings: The Complete First and Second Seasons
Posted in Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on May 16th, 2006
What’s a boy to do when he is called into work and has to work a graveyard shift and is virtually disallowed to access the internet? Why, watch the first and second seasons of Wings of course, and thoroughly enjoy the wild antics of the folks in an airport on Nantucket Island. You have Joe (Tim Daly, Return to Sender), the uptight anal retentive serious one, along with his younger brother (and general goofball) Brian (Steven Weber, At First Sight). Together they own and operate Sandpiper Air, a sleepy small airline with one plane.
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Millions
Posted in Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on May 16th, 2006
To say that director Danny Boyle has quite an eclectic resume for his directing filmography may be a bit of an understatement. After an impressive first feature in Shallow Grave, he moved on to the cult classic film about heroin addiction called Trainspotting. From there he took an interesting part for a film called A Life Less Ordinary, followed by directing a hot commodity named Leonardo DiCaprio in The Beach. He took on an interesting zombie film called 28 Days Later, and that brings him up to the children’s film(?) called Millions.
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Cinderella Man (HD DVD)
Posted in Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on May 16th, 2006
Are we that jaded a country when a movie like Cinderella Man can be somewhat ignored during its theatrical run, and yet when it still garners the occasional award nomination as it did last winter, people snort, “Well, it’s just your usual manipulative dramatic crap”. Yeah? So what? For god’s sake, take a look at what plays during the summer. Did we honestly need a remake of When a Stranger Calls?
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Dinosaurs – The Complete First and Second Seasons
Posted in Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on May 15th, 2006
Jim Henson was a creative genius. Who among us hasn’t grown up with his immortal Sesame Street characters? In the years leading up to his untimely death from pneumonia, The Henson Creature Shoppe had begun to expand out of its Muppet roots. The Dark Crystal was an amazing breakthrough in puppetry technology. One of Henson’s last ideas was about a family of dinosaurs. Sadly, Henson passed before his vision could be fully realized. Fortunately for us his son Brian has continued the Henson tradition, beginning with Dinosaurs.
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Freedomland
Posted in Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on May 15th, 2006
Synopsis
Her hands covered in blood, a distraught-beyond-coherence Julianne Moore wanders into a hospital with a story of being carjacked in a predominantly black housing project area. Detective Samuel L. Jackson, assigned to the case, learns from her that her young son is apparently still in the car. Given that her brother is a cop in the adjoining white area, all hell breaks loose and racial tensions threaten to send an explosive situation into terminal meltdown. But the question is whether there i…
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In The Mix
Posted in Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on May 14th, 2006
Here’s the dilemma with these kinds of movies; it’s hard to successfully fit a hard R story into a PG-13 package. Usher is a big draw in the under-18 market, so the challenge is to take a strong dramatic story and mold it to hit that balance between Hard Eight and Raise Your Voice. However, I have said it before, and here we go yet again… movies that try to appeal to everybody will successfully appeal to nobody. This is a movie that is a bit too racy and violent for your average 12-year-old girl, but way too soft for adults.
Kingdom of Heaven (Four Disc)
Posted in Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on May 13th, 2006
When Ridley Scott’s latest epic Kingdom of Heaven was released for common viewing in May 2005 at 145 minutes, critics either really liked the film, or where really dissatisfied with the film. Audiences, it seemed, tended to agree with the latter critics as the film only grossed $47 Million Dollars, which was a dissapointment considering the film had a budget well over $100 Million. Rumors started to fly, as with any big epic, that Scott was forced to slash the film’s running time to not only make audiences ha…
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Closer, The – The Complete First Season
Posted in Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on May 13th, 2006
Like it or not, you can’t talk about this show without talking about the C.S.I. phenomenon. The extreme popularity of that single show has launched an entire genre of hour-long police investigation shows that are showing up on every network, every night. There are now three different C.S.I. programs on the air, as well as military crime programs, FBI profiler programs… even a mathematical approach to crime solving with Numbers.
The latest show in this trend is The Closer, a TNT …
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Rampage – Total Destruction (Playstation 2)
Posted in Game Reviews by Michael Durr on May 13th, 2006
Scene in EB Games/Gamestop: wow, Rampage: Total Destruction for $20; didn’t I play that game when I was a kid at the arcade or on my NES? Yes, yes you did. And for the record it hasn’t changed much. Rampage has made its PS2 return and hundreds (or at least dozens) are anxious for George, Lizzie & Ralph to start punching buildings again. To this game’s credit, they get something pretty decent to fill the bill. In addition, even if the main game doesn’t provide enough umph, the bonus material will certainly take …
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Surrender, Dorothy (2006)
Posted in Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on May 12th, 2006
Diane Keaton and Tom Everett Scott star in Surrender, Dorothy, a predictable, over-the-top melodrama plagued with unsympathetic characters, clichés, and unbelievable plot developments. The plot centers on Keaton as she copes with a car accident, which claims the life of her daughter. There is a lot of venom and hostility inside her, as the rest of the world takes a back seat to her own grief. As someone, who has lost a loved one prematurely, I take offense to the behavior of this central character. She’s a sel…
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Training Day (HD DVD)
Posted in Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on May 11th, 2006
Training Day stars Academy Award Winning Actor Denzel Washington in the role of Alonzo Harris. Harris, who is one of the meanest, baddest cops in the city of LA, is a person who cruises the streets in his customized Caddy. Harris, in one of the film’s opening scenes, meets Jake Hoyt (Ethan Hawke), a young cop whose dream is to be promoted to the elite narc squad. Naturally, this is Jake’s first day of training and he is thrown into the arms of Harris. Alonzo tries to show him the streets so he can understand e…
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Whisper of the Heart
Posted in Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on May 11th, 2006
Whisper of the Heart follows Shizuku, a young girl on the cusp of womanhood as she learns to realize her talents and follow her dreams. She harbors deep admiration for Seiji, a mysterious young man, who shares a strange kinship with her that soon blossoms into love. From the start, Shizuku isn’t sure who she is. She indulges in songwriting and reading. It’s the latter hobby that first links her to Seiji. She starts to notice his name in the histories for every library book she checks out. It seems he’s always …
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Transamerica
Posted in Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on May 11th, 2006
Synopsis
Felicity Huffman plays Bree, formerly Stanley, who, after years of therapy, surgery and hormone replacement, is one week away from undergoing the operation that will finally and definitively make her a woman. Out of the blue, a phone call comes revealing that Stanley fathered a son seventeen years ago. Bree’s therapist won’t let the surgery go ahead until Bree comes to terms with her past and her responsibilities. She travels to New York City to bail out Toby (Kevin Zegers), a street hustler…
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Pooh’s Grand Adventure: The Search for Christopher Robin
Posted in Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on May 11th, 2006
From reading the back of the box, one would think that this film was one of the true Disney animated classics. Phrases like “digitally remastered for the first time on DVD†and “the original Disney classic†would certainly lead one to believe such a thing. The fact of the matter is, however, that this “classic Disney film†was just originally released in 1997. Sure, it’s remastered, but we’re talking about remastering a print that is less than a decade old. Improvements were undoubtedly made, but this re…
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If Only
Posted in Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on May 10th, 2006
If Only is a romantic drama, which too often goes for the cheapest emotional reaction out of its viewers, without incorporating logic or common sense into such decisions. Jennifer Love-Hewitt and Paul Nicholls star as a couple of young lovers, who represent the prototypical female and male, with very little surprises in their characterizations. In the beginning, we see Nicholls is a bit invested in his work, and, while adoring his singer-songwriter girlfriend, he instinctively keeps her and the rest of the wor…
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