Orca
Posted in Disc Reviews by David Annandale on August 27th, 2004
Synopsis
Fisherman Richard Harris ignores the warnings of whale expert Charlotte Rampling andattempts to capture a killer whale, the idea being to make a mint by selling it to an aquarium.Everything goes horribly wrong, and he accidentally kills a pregnant female (the scene is prettydamn gruesome). The whale’s mate mounts a vendetta against Harris. It attacks boats and causeshuge fires, turning the town against him, and then lures him out for a final confrontation.
The Ja…
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Passion of the Christ, The
Posted in Disc Reviews by David Annandale on August 26th, 2004
Synopsis
If you really need a synopsis, where have you been hiding for the last 2000 years? Anyway,the film follows the last twelve hours of Jesus’ life, beginning with the Garden of Gethsemane,where he is tempted by Satan and betrayed to the authorities by Judas. We then move on to thetrial, the whipping, scourging and crucifixion (interspersed with little sepia flashbacks of Jesuspreaching to his apostles). At the very end, we get the resurrection (oops, was that aspoiler?).
Soap – The Complete Second Season
Posted in Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on August 25th, 2004
Sometimes, the craziest ideas are the best ones. In the world of television (and movies as well), there seems to be a constant struggle between playing it safe and gambling on a big return. For instance, when it comes to sitcoms, stories about a family plus one or two outside characters are sure-fire hits. Just look at Family Matters, The King of Queens, The George Lopez Show, Cosby, Frasier and My Wife and Kids. Shows about work, such as Newsradio, Suddenly Susan, Veronica’s Closet, Scrubs and < ...
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Blindness
Posted in Disc Reviews by David Annandale on August 25th, 2004
Synopsis
Pity poor Daniel Hong (Chin Han), a mild-mannered eye surgeon who is buffeted at homeby the war between his wife Natalie (Vivian Wu) and blind mother Mrs. Hong (Lisa Lu). His lifeisn’t going to get any easier, however. This night, while he is called away to the hospital, his oldfriend Patrick (Joe Lando) descends on the house. Patrick has spent the last ten years in prison forthe murder of his parents. He has escaped from custody, and he arrives at the Hong residence,hungry…
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Troy
Posted in News and Opinions by Archive Authors on August 25th, 2004
Warner Home Video will release the Wolfgang Petersen’s blockbuster Troy (starring Brad Pitt, Eric Bana and Orlando Bloom) in separate 2.40:1 anamorphic widescreen and 1.33:1 fullscreen versions on January 4th. This 2-disc set will feature both English and French Dolby Digital 5.1 audio tracks, along with three featurettes (“In the Thick of the Battle”, “From Ruins to Reality” & “Troy: An Effects Odyssey”), a photo gallery, the theatrical trailer & Easter eggs.
Large Cover:
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Bad Boys II
Posted in Disc Reviews by David Annandale on August 23rd, 2004
Synopsis
Martin Lawrence and Will Smith are squabbling away, as partners in cop movies of this kinddo. Lawrence is trying to achieve inner peace, while Smith is trying to hide the fact that he issleeping with Lawrence’s sister. Said sister is also a DEA agent, and all our heroes are trying totrack down a Cuban drug lord who seems to have cornered the market on Ecstasy. Theinvestigation proceeds with as much colossal property damage as possible.
Are we seeing the death spiral of Mich…
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Missing, The
Posted in Disc Reviews by David Annandale on August 23rd, 2004
Synopsis
Cate Blanchett is rearing her two daughters in 19th-Century New Mexico. The youngest isa pleasant tomboy, the eldest is a whiny young woman who wants fine things (they seem to havebeen lifted straight from Mildred Pierce). Appearing at their home one day is TommyLee Jones, Blanchett’s father who walked out when she was a little girl. The stiff, unforgivingBlanchett wants nothing to do with him, until her eldest daughter is kidnapped by a roving bandwho sell women into prosti…
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Spider-Man 2
Posted in News and Opinions by Archive Authors on August 23rd, 2004
Columbia Tristar will release Spider-Man 2 in FIVE separate versions on November 30th. You will be able to choose from a standard two-disc set (in widescreen and full screen editions), a Superbit edition (no extras, but with a DTS track), a double-pack containing the first and second films, and a limited edition giftset. The giftset will include the two-disc edition along with a new miniature reproduction of The Amazing Spider-Man #50 comic book, five postcards, & a twenty-five page artists’ works portfolio inspired …
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King Kong Lives
Posted in Disc Reviews by David Annandale on August 21st, 2004
Synopsis
Turns out Kong didn’t die at the foot of the World Trade Center. He’s been kept alive(though in a coma) in a University lab for the last ten years. Linda Hamilton has designed a hugeartificial heart for him, but he needs a massive blood transfusion. By lucky coincidence,adventurer Brian Kerwin is wandering around a set that is supposed to be Borneo, and hestumbles upon a female Kong. A half-dozen tribesmen with blowdarts promptly sedate her (asimple solution to monster trou…
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Three Musketeers, The
Posted in Disc Reviews by David Annandale on August 21st, 2004
Synopsis
Mickey, Donald and Goofy aspire to being Musketeers, but their respective weakness,cowardice and stupidity stand in their way. All seems lost, until Peg-Leg Pete, the evil captain ofthe Musketeers, finds a use for them for his own dastardly ends: the deposing of Minnie so hecan take the throne himself. Our heroes, of course, rise to the occasion.
Plenty of songs here (some quite witty), and some sharp gags too. The Useful Lessons,however, seem to me rather more hamf…
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Doing Time on Maple Drive
Posted in Disc Reviews by David Annandale on August 21st, 2004
Synopsis
The Carter family might appear to have it all. But as this is a Movie of the Week, we knowthat these people are really a dysfunctional calamity. And so they are: Dad is a tyrant, Mom isa social-climbing bitch-on-wheels, daughter is terrified of becoming like her mother and so hasan abortion behind her husband’s back rather than risk being a mother, older son (Jim Carreyin a supporting role) is a disappointment in every aspect, and Perfect Younger Son turns out tobe gay. My …
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Hardcore
Posted in Disc Reviews by David Annandale on August 20th, 2004
Synopsis
When midwestern Calvinist father George C. Scott’s daughter vanishes on a Church Youthtrip to California, he hires greasy PI Peter Boyle to find her. Boyle discovers a rough and nastyporn loop that she appears in. When Boyle turns out to be untrustworthy, Scott fires him andtravels to California himself, descending into the world of the sex industry in an increasinglydesperate and violent search for his daughter.
Schrader was still very much working out his own issu…
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Alexander’s Ragtime Band
Posted in Disc Reviews by David Annandale on August 20th, 2004
Synopsis
Tyrone Power comes from a good family and a has a fine future as a concert violinist, but hedreams of leading a band. A chance encounter in a bar leads to the formation of Alexander’sRagtime Band, with the brassy Alice Faye as singer. Power and Faye are at it hammer and tongs,so you know they’ll wind up falling in love, and so they do. But the road they must travel is notan easy one, as Faye is hired away from the band to Broadway, and Power is recruited into thearmy just i…
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Late Night with Conan O’Brien 10th Anniversary Special
Posted in Disc Reviews by David Annandale on August 19th, 2004
Synopsis
Conan O’Brien’s 10th anniversary show is pretty much what you’d expect: lots of highlightclips from the past, old friends and guests showing up on-stage (Will Ferrell, Mr. T, AndyRichter, etc.), and so on. Though the format is hardly revolutionary, the fact remains that a lot ofthese routines are extremely funny, and the parade of characters highlights just how one-of-a-kind the Conan show is, not to mention how much network TV has relaxed over the decades (justtry to imagi…
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Best of Triumph the Insult Comic Dog, The
Posted in Disc Reviews by David Annandale on August 19th, 2004
Synopsis
The most unholy of characters from the Conan O’Brien show, this rubber dog has reallytaken on a life of his own. You either love this guy, or you can’t stand him. Me, I’m still laughingas I try to write this review. Included in this compilation are such routines as the controversialQuebec City visit, and Triumph’s appearance on The Hollywood Squares. Extremely rude andnasty, but quite appallingly funny too.
Audio
The 2.0 audio is certainly adequate …
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New York Minute
Posted in Disc Reviews by David Annandale on August 19th, 2004
Synopsis
Ashley Olsen is the anal-retentive honour student who is off to New York to give a speech.Rocker bad-girl sister Mary-Kate is skipping school in order to hit the Big Apple also, hoping tocrash a music video shoot for the benefit of her band. Everything conspires against their success,with the principle antagonists being Eugene Levy as the obsessive truant officer after Mary-Kate,and Andy Richter (sporting a Chinese accent) as a music pirate whose crucial computer chipwinds …
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Sugarland Express, The
Posted in Disc Reviews by David Annandale on August 18th, 2004
Synopsis
Goldie Hawn plays Lou Jean, a woman as hysterical as she is stupid (she makes the bag ofhammers look like Kierkegaard), descends on her slightly more intelligent husband, Clovis(William Atherton). Clovis is four months from release from prison, but she insists he break outRIGHT NOW and come with her to fetch their baby Langston from his foster home in Sugarland.They wind up taking Texas State Trooper Michael Sacks hostage, and travel across Texas,pursued by what looks like …
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Candyman
Posted in Disc Reviews by David Annandale on August 18th, 2004
Synopsis
Virginia Madsen and Kasi Lemmons are working on a thesis on urban legends. They haveheard several version of the Candyman story, and they trace it back to its origins at the horrificChicago housing project Cabrini Green. Madsen destroys the legend by exposing the truth, whichforces the legend to become real. Candyman (Tony Todd) frames Madsen for his own crimes,and threatens worse unless she voluntarily surrenders to be his victim.
Writer/director Bernard Rose (whos…
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Lost Boys, The
Posted in Disc Reviews by David Annandale on August 18th, 2004
Synopsis
Recently divorced Diane Wiest moves with her two sons Jason Patric and Corey Haim tothe California community of Santa Carla, where teenage vampires (headed by Kiefer Sutherland)cruise the boardwalk. Patric is initiated into the gang, but resists his vampiric urges, and Haimcalls in gonzo teen vampire hunters Corey Feldman and Jamsion Newlander to fight thebloodsuckers.
During the 1980s, some tributaries of the horror genre flowed into some very stagnant, fetidswam…
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I Vitelloni
Posted in Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on August 18th, 2004
The folks at Criterion continue their quest to make every one of Fellini’s heirs millionaires with their release of I Vitelloni, the famed director’s second solo effort. This semi-autobiographical tale follows the lives of a group of young men who are on the verge of growing up and making something of their lives, but haven’t quite gotten there yet. Part American Pie, part About a Boy, and all Fellini, this film is an important addition to any foreign film collection.
The film garnered …
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The Chronicles of Riddick
Posted in News and Opinions by Archive Authors on August 18th, 2004
Universal Home Video will release The Chronicles of Riddick (starring Vin Diesel) in separate Rated and Unrated Director’s Cut (10 minutes longer) versions on November 16th. Each disc will be presented in 2.40:1 anamorphic widescreen transfers along with English, French, & Spanish Dolby Digital 5.1 audio tracks. Extras will include “Riddick Insider Facts on Demand” during the film, a 360 degree location feature entitled “Riddick’s Worlds”, a complete level from the new “Riddick Escape from Butcher Bay” X-Box game, an in…
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Laws of Attraction
Posted in Disc Reviews by David Annandale on August 17th, 2004
Synopsis
Julianne Moore and Pierce Brosnan are two formidable divorce attorneys. Neither has losta case prior to meeting each other. Thereafter, they wind up taking turns going down to defeat. Adrinking contest leads to a night together, one that Moore would rather forget, but we know thesetwo are going to wind up together even as they spar in court. When another drunk binge leads tothe two getting married, they must pretend to love each other, even if they don’t. Or do they?
< ...
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Dogville
Posted in Disc Reviews by David Annandale on August 16th, 2004
Synopsis
The time is the Great Depression, and the setting is the isolated mountain village of Dogville.One night, a beautiful stranger named Grace (Nicole Kidman) arrives, pursued by gangsters.Would-be writer and pretentious pseudo-philosopher Tom (Paul Bettany) hides Grace, and thenpersuades the town to give her refuge. In order to win the townspeople over, Grace sets out tohelp each household for an hour each day. After some initial reluctance, the townspeopleembrace her and her …
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Jeff Foxworthy Show – The Complete First Season
Posted in Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on August 16th, 2004
Jeff Foxworthy has experienced something of a renaissance as of late. In the early 90’s, this loveable redneck burst on to the comedy scene with his southern style of humor, driven by the ever-popular series of “…you might be a redneck” jokes. Living in the south myself, I was both entertained and angered by his routine. On the one hand, it kind-of made me angry that he was making Southerners sound so stupid. On the other hand, it was funny because it was true. Such is the dilemma of living in the South.
An…
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Sliders – The Complete First & Second Seasons
Posted in Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on August 15th, 2004
While Sliders may not rank in the upper echelon of sci-fi/fantasy series like Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Angel or its predecessor Quantum Leap, it is a very watchable show with endearing characters and witty writing at times. Quinn (Jerry O’Connell), a brainy San Francisco physics student, has perfected a device – in his mom’s basement, no less – that opens up a temporary wormhole between alternate Earths. By leaping into the wormhole, one can “slide” between worlds; but of course there’s …
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