Dark Passage
Posted in Disc Reviews by David Annandale on November 16th, 2003
Synopsis
Unjustly convicted of murdering his wife, Vincent Parry escapes from San Quentin. He ispicked up and helped by Iris Jansen (Lauren Bacall), who has always believed in his innocence.Parry, whose face we never see (much of the first half hour of the movie is shot from his POV),but whose voice is clearly Bogart’s, undergoes plastic surgery, eventually emerging as Bogart.He wants to clear his name, but the murder of his best friend only makes things worse. Centralto his …
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New World
Posted in Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on November 15th, 2003
James Gandolfini is a brilliant actor. He is one of those rare talents that sneak in the back door to show business, hiding in the shadows until the public realizes just what a powerful artist he has always been. I, like many Americans, first began to notice Gandolfini through his work in the immensely successful HBO television series The Soprano’s. In the French/American hybrid film New World, Gandolfini is at top form yet again, playing an American soldier stationed in France in the 1950’s with more …
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Darling
Posted in Disc Reviews by David Annandale on November 15th, 2003
Synopsis
The opening credits set the tone, as we see a Relief for Africa billboard being replaced byone advertising the tell-all autobiography of the glamorous Diana Scott (Jule Christie). Yup, it’sall very symbolic, folks: all kinds of close-ups ram the point home just in case we missed it. Therest of the film is no more subtle. See! Diana sleep her way to the top of the modelling world.Feel! John Schlesinger’s contempt for horrible rich people pretending to do good for the ThirdWo…
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44 Minutes: The North Hollywood Shoot-Out
Posted in Disc Reviews by David Annandale on November 15th, 2003
Synopsis
In 1997, two goons armed with AK-47s and decked out in body armour rob a bank, then triedto shoot their way through the army of police that had gathered outside. In this real-timerecreation, Michael Madsen, Ron Livingston and Mario Van Peebles are the cops we follow mostclosely during the pitched battle. Many, many bullets are fired, and the pace is quick, but directorYves Simoneau resorts to far too many action cliches (scads of slo-mo and freeze frame),ultimately leeching…
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One Christmas
Posted in Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on November 14th, 2003
This 1994 Hallmark film is based on an obscure Truman Capote story. It’s loaded with the usual heavy sentimental trappings of a Hallmark film. The film attempts to create atmosphere through its 1930’s period setting. The trouble is I found it very hard to relate to or care about anyone in the film. The young Buddy appears to have each emotional turn literally forced out of him. Even the lovable Fonz, Henry Winkler, never gets a good foothold on his character. Katherine Hepburn’s age has obviously robbed her of the abilities she has so often displayed in her vast body of work.
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Legend of Suriyothai, The
Posted in Disc Reviews by David Annandale on November 14th, 2003
Synopsis
We first see Princess Suriyothai as she is on the cusp of adulthood. Though she loves anotherman, she agrees to marry a prince out of duty to her country. This sets a pattern that will holdthroughout her life, as any decision she makes is not for her own sake but that of the nation. Shewill have plenty of call to be selfless, as a series of palace intrigues threatens the stability of whatwill become Thailand, and leaves it at the mercy of Burma. There is a lot of voice-over h…
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Law & Order Special Victims Unit – The First Year
Posted in Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on November 13th, 2003
Dick Wolf reinvented the cop drama with the original Law and Order. That flagship program is the longest running drama currently in primetime. There does not seem to be an end in sight. This second version has a bit harder edge; dealing with sex crimes, it was important that the new show didn’t degrade into a “pervert” of the week scenario. The writing is top notch. For me, the addition of Richard Belzer as Homicide’s John Munsch was a stroke of genius. Belzer’s deadpan characterization is a perfect fit for such a sensitive subject.
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Loco Love
Posted in Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on November 12th, 2003
Henry Turner from the Campus Circle is quoted on the cover of the DVD stating that Loco Love is “The funniest film since ‘My Big Fat Greek Wedding.’” What I would like to ask Henry is “Dude what were you smoking and where can I get some?” This utterly lifeless and unfunny “comedy” is the first of what I would expect to be a long line of “My Big Fat Greek Wedding” clones. I mean let’s face it “My Big Fat Greek Wedding” worked because of a great story, great cast and a very funny script. Let’s say that Loco Love falls …
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Pumping Iron
Posted in Disc Reviews by David Annandale on November 12th, 2003
Synopsis
Part documentary, and part (as Schwarzenegger points out in the extras) total fabrication,Pumping Iron follows Arnie as he prepares to compete for the Mr. Olympia title onemore time. His principle competitor, as presented here, is future Hulk Lou Ferrigno. All sorts ofmachinations ensue between the various body builders. Most of the character stuff is, it nowappears, pure fiction, but it serves the purpose of making the film more interesting. The freakshow qualities …
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Looney Tunes Golden Collection
Posted in Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on November 11th, 2003
Everybody has their favorite Looney Tunes character and particular cartoon shorts. That’s the largest obstacle facing Warner Brothers in this ambitious project to restore and release these shorts on DVD. The first collection features 56 all time great shorts plus a ton of extras. If your favorites were not included, take heart. This is only the first of many promised releases. All in all it would take a Dickens’ Scrooge not to find something to love about this collection. It doesn’t matter if you’re 5 or 105, these cartoons have been a vital part of growing up for all of us.
Soylent Green
Posted in Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on November 11th, 2003
Soylent Green is an… interesting movie. Its one of the seventies movies that’s funny to look back on and recognize that people in the seventies thought that people in the year 2020 would still be dressing like… people in the seventies. Soylent Green steps beyond the traditional seventies sci-fi flick and into the boundaries of social activism, however, adding a further layer of irony to the film: as an apocalyptic tale its interesting to see how we haven’t traveled down the frightening route envisioned in Soylent Gre…
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St. Andrew’s Girls
Posted in Disc Reviews by David Annandale on November 11th, 2003
Synopsis
We open with Jennifer in the process of taking her own life. Flashback to how this came tobe, as she falls in with the wrong crowd (and extremely rebellious trio) of girls at St. Andrew’sCatholic High School. All sorts of cynical blackness ensues, involving drugs, sex, violence andthe like. Undeniably energetic, the film turns its amp to 11 and keeps it there. This lack of tonalvariation may explain why I found the viewing experience somehow flat.
Audio
Chitty Chitty Bang Bang
Posted in Disc Reviews by David Annandale on November 11th, 2003
Synopsis
Dick Van Dyke, the unaccountably American father of two very English children and theson of the equally English (and doddering) Lionel Jeffries, retools an abandoned early-1900s racecar into the gleaming, flying Chitty Chitty Bang Bang. Off they go on a series of adventures,most particularly involving the imaginary kingdom of Vulgaria. Based on a book by Ian Fleming,the creator of James Bond, the film is produced by Albert Broccoli (who also produced the Bondseries) and fea…
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Miami Tail, A
Posted in Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on November 11th, 2003
This film is based on a Greek comedy, but I feel like I just watched a Greek tragedy. A Miami Tail is based on the Greek play “Lysistrata”, which tells the story of how a group of women ended war by abstaining from sex with their husbands. It’s not an entirely bad idea for a film, but unfortunately the plot has fallen victim to bad acting and a horrid script, and is helmed by a director with no vision.
I’m not kidding, the acting really is bad. Appalling, in fact. Rapper Trina stars in her first (and…
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Primus – Animals Should Not Try To Act Like People
Posted in Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on November 11th, 2003
Primus is an enigma wrapped in a funk groove. The band members may come and go (and come again), but bassist Les Claypool stays the same. Seemingly the twisted spawn of Robin Williams and Victor Wooten, Claypool is a fanciful musical genius, an artist so ahead of everybody else that we all know he’s fantastic, but nobody knows exactly why.
Some of those “why’s” are answered on this DVD. It includes a smorgasbord of video clips, which cover what seems to be every single moment that the band has been on film….
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Defiance
Posted in Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on November 10th, 2003
No movie can be all bad.
This is a motto that I have lived by for many years. I believe that nothing can be completely bad… that some good can be found in everything. As bad as Spice World was, it had some great moments. Its sarcastic look at the music business was often clever, even if its stars weren’t. Tomcats was a horrible film with major continuity issues. Having said that, it did have some genuine laugh-out-loud moments.
My belief system has been shaken to the core, howev…
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Captain Kronos: Vampire Hunter
Posted in Disc Reviews by David Annandale on November 10th, 2003
Synopsis
Before Buffy, before Jesus Christ, there was Captain Kronos: Vampire Hunter. Ahandsomely if inexpensively mounted period piece, this sees the dashing swordsman of the titlebattling vampires in the English countryside. In this instance, the vampire doesn’t suck blood,but youth. The plotting is very haphazard, and the action scenes leave something to be desired,but there are fun turns by the usual set of British character actors, and Caroline Munro lends herever-smould…
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Dennis Miller – The Raw Feed
Posted in Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on November 10th, 2003
Love him or hate him, you have to admire his freakishly sponge-like brain. Dennis Miller has an amazing gift of recall, creating references so obscure that ABC Sports actually offered an on-line translator on the Tuesday mornings following his stint in the booth for Monday Night Football.
His rants are mostly easy to follow during this one-hour stand up performance, however. In fact, he even pokes fun at his own gift for the obscure early in the show, essentially acknowledging that he may have been too hig…
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dc Talk – The Supernatural Experience
Posted in Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on November 10th, 2003
dc Talk mixed up the formula on their “Supernatural” album, trading in their signature hip-hop for a much more progressive sound. The result is what I consider to be their best album to date. While they are not afraid to continue to sprinkle some hip-hop into their work, the majority of the songs are more modern pop and rock based tunes. Their stage show has also come up to date, complete with a sleek stripped down look to the sets.
This disc captures some of the songs performed on the tour, mixed in with i…
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X2: X-Men United
Posted in Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on November 10th, 2003
X2:X Men United is the follow-up film to the original X-men film from 2000. The original film did a good job of setting up the universe of the X-men and introducing us to the core characters that the comic books have always centered around. This film expands on this universe and brings along some of the coolest characters from the comics, this being Pyro, a brief glimpse of Juggernaut and lets not forget Nightcrawler. In this film we see the good and band mutants joining forces to defeat a common enemy. This is a little disappointing as we get to see cool new good characters but not really any super new baddies, but it also keeps the storyline fresh instead of it just being the good mutants versus the bad mutants.
Jamo DVR 50
Posted in Hardware Reviews by Archive Authors on November 7th, 2003
Introduction
Jamo is the second largest speaker manufacturer in the world, and is certainly number one in Europe. In North America they remain a somewhat unknown brand but have been gaining in recognition over the last few years. If you have a look at their website their product offering is very broad with stylish Lifestyle speaker designs all the way up to the mega-buck audiophile grade (a couple of friends of mine own the D8 towers and I can say with confidence that they are stunning).
All I Want
Posted in Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on November 5th, 2003
“All I Want” is a decent film that could have been great. Elijah Wood plays Jones Dylan (a quintessential Hollywood character name), a seventeen-year-old college freshman that decides that life has more to offer than formal education. Dropping out of college without attending a single class, he rents a nearby apartment and begins to get to know his neighbors. Before long, the underage Jones in enraptured in a tangled romance with two of his fellow boarders.
The plot of this film is interesting, but unfort…
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dc Talk – Free At Last: The Music and the Movie
Posted in Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on November 5th, 2003
DC Talk made the jump from playing small churches and clubs to playing arenas following their Dove and Grammy award winning album, “Free At Last”. Though some of the songs sound a bit cheesy and dated now, they were right on target when released in the mid nineties, as evidenced by the packed arenas shown during the performances on this disc. The band was getting so big, in fact, that they decided to release a concert video/documentary to major movie houses nationwide. The footage was shot, the project was edited, t…
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Winged Migration
Posted in Disc Reviews by David Annandale on November 5th, 2003
Synopsis
The movie is exactly what the title suggests it is: we journey with various migratory birdsover their long, often hazardous voyages. We are intimately involved with the travels, flyingcheek by beak with the birds, right in the middle of the formations. The result is beautiful,compelling, moving, and utterly astounding.
Audio
The 5.1 sound does wonders for the you-are-there feel the movie is shooting for. The musicis very nicely rendered, but what st…
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Counterstrike
Posted in Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on November 5th, 2003
TBS Superstation presents…
When it comes to DVD, these are frightening words. They conjure up images of bad acting, bad sets, and terrible scripts. Unfortunately, all of this proves true in the “action” film “Counterstrike”, staring Rob Estes (Silk Stalkings) and Joe Lando (Dr. Quinn, Medicine Woman). The plot is tired and familiar; two bothers are the only ones that can stop terrorists from holding the President of the United States hostage, and stealing China’s nuclear codes. Ho-Hum.< ...
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