Lightning in a Bottle
Posted in Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on May 7th, 2005
So how come a doughy looking white guy like me enjoyed these performances, and didn’t watch a single part of the Martin Scorsese miniseries that covered Blues music? It’s because growing up, the first big musical influence in my life was Jimi Hendrix, so I was a bit familiar with the Electric Blues sound that Jimi had. And names like Howlin’ Wolf, Muddy Waters and Leadbelly were not new ones to me. And with the help of Led Zeppelin, I also learned about Robert Johnson too.
So while Antoine Fuqua (King Ar…
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Bill Maher – Be More Cynical
Posted in Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on May 7th, 2005
Bill Maher – Be More Cynical is a recording of a 2000 performance in San Fransico. Now, the jokes are a bit dated. Monica Lewinsky and George W. Bush, back then, were still prime fodder (in fact Bush still is, but that’s beside the point.) This performance lasts just over and hour and is an excellent introduction to Maher’s work. He’s one of those “edgy” comedians. He rants a lot about religion, drugs, and sex. But Maher’s rants are well phrased and his comic timing is well polished. The guy knows how t…
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National Treasure
Posted in Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on May 6th, 2005
There are a lot of dumb movies out there. But there’s a good kind of dumb and a bad kind of dumb. National Treasure falls into the good dumb category. Nicholas Cage plays Ben Gates, a treasure hunter, an archaeologist I’m really not sure. But his mission is to steal the Declaration of Independence in order to prevent the “bad” archaeologists from taking it. Make sense? There are hidden clues, apparently, in this document which lead to hidden treasure. A treasure Gates’ grandfather (played by Christophe…
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Best of Everything, The
Posted in Disc Reviews by David Annandale on May 6th, 2005
Synopsis
The setting is a top New York publishing house, and our central characters are three womenbeginning their careers at the bottom of the secretarial ladder. Hope Lange is the smart one witha will, who might make a first-class editor. Diane Baker is the naive innocent, doomed to bepreyed on. Suzy Parker wants to dump the office pool for acting, and she begins a difficultrelationship with theatre director Louis Jourdan. Meanwhile, there is tyrannical editor JoanCrawford (whose …
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Merchant of Venice, The
Posted in Disc Reviews by David Annandale on May 5th, 2005
Synopsis
Antonio (Jeremy Irons), silently in love with his friend Bassanio (Joseph Fiennes) acts asguarantor for a loan Bassanio needs in order to woo the beautiful Portia (Lynn Collins). Theyborrow the sum from Shylock (Al Pacino) who demands, should Antonio default, a pound offlesh (literally). Bassanio’s adventures in love are successful, but Antonio’s ships founder, andShylock, distressed over his daughter’s elopement and incessant anti-Semitism he hasexperienced, demands his te…
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Are We There Yet?
Posted in Disc Reviews by David Annandale on May 5th, 2005
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Synopsis
Nia Long is the sexy single mother of two vile little monsters who do everything short oftorturing and killing would-be suitors in the illusory hope that their father will return to thefold one day. Ice Cube plays a fellow who doesn’t like kids (and with these two case studies, whocan blame him?). He falls for Long, and foolishly volunteers to carry her two spawn cross-country for New Year’s Eve. Cue no end of trouble. You got it, it’s Planes, Trains andAutomobiles m…
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Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou, The
Posted in Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on May 4th, 2005
Wes Anderson has been a breath of fresh air since he hit the Hollywood scene in 1996 with his first feature length film Bottle Rocket. Since then, Anderson has continued to stretch the imagination of film-goers with fabulous films such Rushmore (1998), The Royal Tenenbaums (2001), and now with The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou (2004). Anderson’s films are not for every joe-schmo film fan; his work could even be described as an acquired taste. But from a creative and visual perspective,…
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Alone in the Dark
Posted in Disc Reviews by David Annandale on May 4th, 2005
Synopsis
Hmmm. How to provide a synopsis for something that makes no sense at all? Here goes.Two decades ago, a bunch of orphans were, for reasons left vague, experimented on by a scientistwho merges them with creatures from beyond (implanting them with some sort ofextradimensional parasite/worm thingy that clings to their spines, as it turns out). In the presentday, the one orphan who escaped the worst of the experiments is Christian Slater, who goesaround digging up rare artifacts…
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Dodgeball (Unrated)
Posted in News and Opinions by Archive Authors on May 3rd, 2005
Fox Home Entertainment will release an Unrated Edition of the Ben Stiller/Vince Vaughn comedy Dodgeball on August 2nd. This disc will be presented in a 1.85 anamorphic widescreen transfer, along with a Dolby Digital 5.1 audio track. Extras will include a new joke commentary (with writer/director Rawson Marshall Thurber, Ben Stiller & Vince Vaughn), two additional “easter egg” commentary tracks, deleted and extended scenes (with optional commentary), an alternate ending, a blooper reel, four featurettes (“…
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Starsky & Hutch – The Complete Third Season
Posted in Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on May 2nd, 2005
The third season of Starsky and Hutch offered some changes from the first two seasons. Two-parters were a little more prevalent, the tone was often more serious, and the light banter remained as did Huggy Bear’s schemes and dreams. Still, the actors were looking to stretch their thespian muscles in the third year.
The writers took more chances and the stories were far more intense. One of my favorite episodes begins the third season. The two-parter Murder On Voodoo Island featured prominent guest star Joan Collins.
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King of the Hill – The Complete Third Season
Posted in Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on May 2nd, 2005
Starting way back with The Simpsons, working up to King of the Hill, growing into Futurama & Family Guy, and now spawning American Dad, Fox sure does know the market of primetime animated TV; and the driving force behind the huge popularity of these shows comes down to DVD releases such as this. Not only have more fans come out of the woodwork since the incarnation of TV on DVD releases, these fans have also driven Fox to push forward with this genre of programming.
Steve McQueen Collection
Posted in Disc Reviews by David Annandale on May 1st, 2005
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Synopsis
This is an interesting collection, with two of the films being among the most famous SteveMcQueen was ever involved with, and the other two being noticeably less high profile. TheMagnificent Seven (1960) is one of the last and greatest of the straightforward westerns,before the deconstruction of the genre at the hands of Sergio Leone and Sam Peckinpah, andeven here the death of the west is foregrounded theme, with Yul Brynner, McQueen, JamesCoburn, Charles Bronson an…
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Entourage – The Complete First Season
Posted in Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on May 1st, 2005
As I always say when I review HBO television sets… you gotta love HBO. Entourage cannot be placed in the same family as Six Feet Under or The Sopranos, but it still can hold its own against the offerings from other networks. Not only do you get a good show, but you also get the benefits of a cable broadcast… adult language and nudity. Who could ask for more from a TV show?
Produced by “Marky” Mark Wahlberg, this is the story of a guy from Jersey who make his way to Hollywood to make …
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Lone Gunmen – The Complete Series
Posted in Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on May 1st, 2005
E. B. E. was a first season X-Files episode. For the most part it was very much like any other episode in the early years of the hit series, except it wasn’t. The story introduced us to three of Mulder’s friends/contacts, The Lone Gunmen. Basically Frohike, Langly, and Byers were your typical 80’s dot com geeks who used their computer skills to seek out government conspiracies instead of striking it rich. They self-published a tabloid paper that revealed all to a small conspiracy obsessed following. The appearance was always intended as a one time deal.
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Everybody Loves Raymond – The Complete Third Season
Posted in Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on May 1st, 2005
Very few sitcoms have the endurance to last nine seasons. Everybody Loves Raymond shares their long-running tenure with comedy heavyweight shows such as Friends, Frasier, & Cheers. Not even Seinfeld lasted nine seasons… it fell short, ending after eight. That says a lot for this show; I guess everyone does love Raymond.
All 26-episodes of the complete third season of Everybody Loves Raymond are included in this set. The episodes are all very entertaining; from “The Invitation” all the way to “How They Met”.
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Control
Posted in Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on May 1st, 2005
When first reading the synopsis of Control I thought that it would be something similar to the Michael Keaton-Andy Garcia movie Desperate Measures, and how violent criminals can be reformed somehow. Lee Ray (Ray Liotta, Goodfellas), a convicted criminal sentenced to death, is offered the chance to start life anew with the help of counseling from Dr. Copeland (Willem Dafoe, Spider-Man), along with some behavior suppressing drugs.
And of course, Lee Ray resists at first, but soon g…
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Disney Learning Adventures
Posted in Disc Reviews by David Annandale on April 28th, 2005
Synopsis
Each disc uses a Mickey Mouse cartoon to teach children the basics about such topics as language, geography and numbers. “Mickey’s Seeing the World” uses the cartoon “Mickey’s Around the World in 80 Days” to these ends, while “Reading & Math Fun” uses the much older “Mickey and the Beanstalk” the cartoons are interrupted periodically to put them to educational use in the form of games. This is so far out of my field of expertise that I can’t pretend to evaluate how well this content works, t…
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xXx
Posted in Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on April 28th, 2005
Sony once again hits us with not only a double dip, but a triple dip release of xXx. What started out as a Special Edition, evolved into a Superbit release, and has now ultimately become the Uncensored Unrated Director’s Cut of the film. What is different this time around you ask… well, you get 8 more minutes of action and skin.
Let me guess… you want more specifics don’t you? Well here is what has been added… The scene with the girl “dancing” in Xander’s room has been extended. The…
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Riding the Bullet
Posted in Disc Reviews by David Annandale on April 27th, 2005
Synopsis
Set for no very compelling reason in 1969, this story sees death-obsessed art student Jonathan Jackson walking and hitch-hiking his way along spooky Maine highway in the middle of the night, trying to make it a hundred miles to where his stroke-felled mother (Barbara Hershey) lies in a hospital. Jackson has such a vivid imagination that neither he nor the viewer really knows what, if anything, we see is real, particularly when he is picked up by a messenger of death (David Arquette), driving…
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Frank Sinatra Collection
Posted in Disc Reviews by David Annandale on April 27th, 2005
Synopsis
Directed by Gordon (Them!) Douglas, these three crime thrillers have Frank Sinatra doing his best hard boiled as he unravels complicated (and not always entirely comprehensible) mysteries.
Tony Rome (1967) has Sinatra in Miami Beach as the titular PI, a former cop who still has plenty of connections. A simple task — returning a drunk young woman to her rich father — leads to a web of murder and blackmail as all sorts of interested parties chasing around, beating up …
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Stella Dallas
Posted in Disc Reviews by David Annandale on April 26th, 2005
Synopsis
Miner’s daughter Barbara Stanwyck sets her cap for John Boles, a New England aristocrat who has fled financial disgrace and sought honest work far from home. She lands him, and they marry, but almost immediately their very different backgrounds create tension. When he finds work in New York, she refuses to move with him, and they grow further apart. Meanwhile, their daughter spends most of her time with Stanwyck, but her visits to New York become more and more wonderful, as far as she is con…
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Attack on the Iron Coast
Posted in Disc Reviews by David Annandale on April 26th, 2005
Synopsis
Lloyd Bridges is the Major in the Canadian forces who is seeking redemption for a failed raid. His audacious plan is to attack the German’s fortified docks in occupied France. His scheme is opposed by Brit Captain Andrew Keir, whose son died in the earlier raid, but Keir finds himself captaining the substandard ship as the raid begins.
This is pretty run-of-the-mill WWII action, the kind of film that is virtually indistinguishable from uncountable others, all fodder for three-a.m. …
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Life and Death of Peter Sellers, The
Posted in Disc Reviews by David Annandale on April 26th, 2005
Synopsis
The life and career of Peter Sellers (Geoffrey Rush) is chronicled here, from the height of the Goon Show’s popularity to his penultimate, Oscar-nominated role in Being There. Along the way, we see the collapse of his first marriage to Anne (Emily Watson), his second to Britt Ekland (Charlize Theron), and his fractious working relationships with such directors as Stanley Kubrick (Stanley Tucci) and Blake Edwards (John Lithgow).
There’s an interesting conceit at work here: th…
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Crook, The
Posted in Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on April 26th, 2005
Synopsis
This is a film that delights in not being what it appears. The opening moments look like a period gangster film. Suddenly, the scene transforms into a musical. Then this turns out to be movie within the movie. And so it goes, as one scene after another turns out not to be what we thought it was. The plot has roguishly charming Jean-Louis Trintignant setting up a kidnapping scheme with two colleagues. I can’t say much more without giving away the whole plot and the strange circuit on which it…
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Bride & Prejudice
Posted in News and Opinions by Archive Authors on April 26th, 2005
Miramax Home Entertainment will release the bollywood-style comedy Bride And Prejudice on July 5th. This disc will be presented in a 2.35:1 anamorphic widescreen transfer, along with Dolby Digital 5.1 audio (in both English and French). Extras will include an audio commentary (with the filmmakers), deleted scenes, Ashanti’s song, a gag reel, extended songs, a “Bringing Bombay to L.A.: The Making Of Bride & Prejudice” featurette and a Conversation with Aishwarya Rai and Martin Henderson.