O Brother Where Art Thou?
Posted in Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on July 11th, 2003
Joyously unhinged and very inventive, O Brother Where Art Thou? is the latest film from the imaginative minds of the Coen brothers. Based very roughly (and loosely) on Homer’s “Odyssey”, it’s a Depression-era musical about three convicts who escape from a chain gang to unearth a buried treasure, get one of the men home to be reunited with his wife, become overnight musical sensations as “The Soggy Bottom Boys”, and at the same time, elude a bloodthirsty team of Mississippi lawmen. For those of you who don’t …
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Loving
Posted in Disc Reviews by David Annandale on July 11th, 2003
Synopsis
Brooks Wilson (George Segal) is a professional illustrator. His career is muddling along, butwill take a giant leap forward if he can land Sterling Hayden as a client. His marriage with EvaMarie Saint is closing in on some dangerous shoals, and the same is true of his affair with JanisYoung. His life is very close to spinning out of his control, and over the course of the film, thatis exactly what happens. Ignore the case, which refers to Loving as “a shattering tale of roman…
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Target, The
Posted in 1.33:1 Fullscreen, Action, Artisan Entertainment, Disc Reviews, Dolby Digital 2.0 (English), Dolby Digital 5.1 (English), DVD by Archive Authors on July 10th, 2003
Synopsis
Professional hit man Christopher Lambert is given a new contract, but this one doesn’tinvolve killing. He is to travel from Europe to Cape Town (where his parents were killed whenhe was but a wee lad) and protect Dennis Hopper, a businessman with mob ties who is going totestify against psychopathic gangster Christo. Even in jail, Christo’s reach is long and deadly, andLambert has his work cut out for him protecting the very unpleasant Hopper and his daughter.So far, so conventional…
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Grand Theft Auto: Vice City (PC Games)
Posted in Game Reviews by Archive Authors on July 10th, 2003
Written by Jason Franz
I can’t remember the last time I’ve installed a game on my PC that had so many entertaining qualities matched with such brilliant gameplay. All too often PC developers focus on the eye candy and give gameplay little thought. WithGTA: Vice City, Rockstar not only avoided that problem, but they take us back to the glory days of fun PC gaming.
After an effortless installation I fired up the game, configured my settings and began my journey as Tommy Vercetti, on my way to terrorizing the b…
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All That Jazz
Posted in Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on July 9th, 2003
It’s showtime!
Dead for nearly two decades now, choreographer/director Bob Fosse (Cabaret, Lenny, All That Jazz) created this sardonic semi-autobiographical tale that takes a long, hard look at his compulsive and neurotic life that was rife with women, sex and smokes, as well as some rather serious alcohol and drug abuse.
In All That Jazz, Fosse is embodied in Joe Gideon (Roy Scheider), a Broadway choreographer who can’t face the day without his usual regiment …
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UHF
Posted in Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on July 9th, 2003
UHF is one of those cult films that has gained quite a following over the years. Fans of the film have been clamoring for a DVD release for many months now and somewhere in the hallowed halls of MGM, someone did something about it. The company is going to release a full-blown DVD of the film on June 4th that will appease the dozens and dozens of “Weird Al” Yankovic fans everywhere.
UHF is total satire and plays almost like the old Landis Kentucky Fried Movie from the 70’s. It’s target…
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Shield, The – Complete First Season
Posted in Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on July 9th, 2003
FX decided to jump on the cable bandwagon last year and come up with their very own original series, The Shield. The show stars Michael Chiklis, formerly of The Commish, as Vic Mackey, a hard-nosed Los Angeles detective that gives bad cops a good name – but in a bad way.
Mackey is head of a tactical Strike Team that is comprised of plainclothes officers working in one of the most crime-ridden areas of Los Angeles – the Farmingdale District. Mackey’s group shows impressive results however – s…
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Avenging Angelo
Posted in Disc Reviews by David Annandale on July 9th, 2003
Synopsis
Sylvester Stallone is Frankie Delano, bodyguard to Anthony Quinn (in his final filmappearance). Quinn, an aging mobster, is tidying up his life, and spending most of his timewatching his daughter (Madeleine Stowe) from a distance. He had to give her up in her infancy,otherwise she would have been killed in a vendetta, and she does not know who her father is.Stallone, natch, has long since fallen in love with Stowe after decades of watching her from afar.When Quinn is murder…
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Mutant Aliens
Posted in Disc Reviews by David Annandale on July 8th, 2003
Synopsis
Twenty years ago, astronaut Earl Jensen blasts off into space, only to be betrayed Earthsideby the evil Dr. Frubar. Earl loses his fuel and drifts off into space. In the present, he returns, benton revenge, and accompanied by a group of strange and ferocious creatures. Summarized thus,the film sounds nowhere near as bizarre as it actually is. But wait until you see what happenedto Earl while he was in space for 20 years. This you should discover for yourself, but I will say…
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Tsui Hark’s Vampire Hunters
Posted in Disc Reviews by David Annandale on July 7th, 2003
Synopsis
The plot is an almost completely disconnected series of set pieces, and so defies easysynopsis. Essentially, a group of vampire hunters track a vampire king to the home of a richeccentric. Many battles ensue, and they are the main reason for watching this. The comedy islame, and the characterization non-existent. So many things happen, but for so little reason andwith so little relation to each other, that the story manages to be both frenzied and meandering.Apart from a fe…
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Intacto
Posted in Disc Reviews by David Annandale on July 7th, 2003
Synopsis
The central premise is that luck is a real force, a gift that people are born with but can betaken away. Deep in the bowels of a mysterious casino (one that sits in the middle of mountainwasteland) lives Max Von Sydow in Howard Hughes-like seclusion. He appears to be the darkgod of luck, capable of stealing any trace of your like by a single touch, and this is precisely whathe does to a protege who wants to strike out on his own. This latter, deprived of his own luck,seeks …
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Naked Killer
Posted in Disc Reviews by David Annandale on July 7th, 2003
Synopsis
Kitty (Chingmy Yau) and Tinam (Simon Yam) have just met and are falling in love. Theirrelationship faces a few obstacles, however: he’s a cop so traumatized by his role in theaccidental shooting of his brother that he can no longer draw his gun without throwing up; shehas an explosive temper, and has already stabbed her unpleasant hair stylist in the groin. They areseparated after their first date: Kitty’s father is killed, and she takes revenge by shooting up theoffice of …
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Dude, Where’s My Car?
Posted in Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on July 7th, 2003
To be completely fair, Dude, Where’s My Car? was neither the worst movie of last year, nor the worst movie of its kind during the year. Heck, at times, it even showed signs of comedic inspiration. However, before I seem too kind, Dude, Where’s My Car? is as dumb and crass as its title implies.
Taking obvious cues from Bill and Ted’s Excellent Adventure from years gone by, Danny Leiner’s Dude, Where’s My Car? follows in those same footsteps of the past in an almost slavish manne…
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Simon and Garfunkel – The Concert in Central Park
Posted in Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on July 6th, 2003
When one thinks of the “Golden Age” of rock, the middle sixties to the middle seventies, a cornucopia of big name, big time acts usually surfaces in discussion. The big three, of course: The Beatles, The Rolling Stones, and Led Zeppelin. Some impressive but undoubtedly second tier acts follow: The Who, Cream, Black Sabbath. Solo acts like Bowie, Elton John, Marvin Gaye and Jimi Hendrix stand out. One musical act that seems to get lost in the glare of these musical supernovas was a pair of soft-spoken, poetic friends …
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All About the Benjamins
Posted in Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on July 6th, 2003
I could sit here and type away for hours, deconstructing the finer points (using the term loosely) of the latest Ice Cube project, All About the Benjamins, were I so inclined. I could tell you about Bucum the bounty hunter (Cube), his target-turned-partner Reggie (Mike Epps, otherwise known as “Hey, that isn’t Chris Tucker!”) losing a sixty million-dollar lottery ticket and accidentally learning about a diamond heist while being relentlessly pursued. I could tell you about Bucum’s complicated motivation for …
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Dark Blue
Posted in Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on July 4th, 2003
Synopsis
We are in the last five days before the Rodney King verdict will set LA on fire. Movingthrough the mean streets is one mean cop — Eldon Perry (Kurt Russell). Perry is very much avintage Ellroy character: hard, mean, utterly corrupt, but still possessing the glimmerings of asoul. He is contrasted by his younger partner Scott Peedman, who still has ideals and wants tobe a good cop, and his boss Brendan Gleeson, who is a complete monster in the Dudley Smithmould. Investigatin…
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La Femme Nikita
Posted in Disc Reviews by David Annandale on July 4th, 2003
Synopsis
Drugged-out, hyper-aggressive street punk Nikita (Anne Parillaud) is recruited (whether shelikes it or not) by a top-secret government agency. The first act of the film sees her rebelliousnature gradually being channelled by Tcheky Karyo, and Nikita becomes a glamorous assassin.The action scenes are terrific (so much so that John Badham replicated them shot-for-shot in theremake Point of No Return), and the flick, as with all Besson pictures, has style to burn. I’venever be…
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Basic
Posted in Disc Reviews by David Annandale on July 3rd, 2003
A Ranger training exercise goes horribly wrong. The instructor (Samuel L. Jackson) and halfthe cadets are missing. There are two survivors. One is injured, and the other was seen engagedin a firefight with one of the other cadets. Investigating are Connie Nielsen and John Travolta,who bounce back and forth between the two survivors as the stories they tell keep changing,Rashomon-style. The twists pile upon twists, and so few are motivated by anything in the storythat audience good will is soon exhausted, despite the decent atmosphere and performances.
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Narc
Posted in Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on July 3rd, 2003
Synopsis
Nick Tellis (Jason Patrick) is an undercover narcotics officer who is placed on suspension after a shootout with a dealer gone very wrong. He is brought back to active duty to shadow another officer who might have had something to do with the death of his partner.
Henry Oak (Ray Liotta) is a short tempered renegade cop intent to find out who killed his partner. AS they start to dig deeper into the life of Oak’s partner we find that things are not as they may seem. We see some intere…
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Down By Law
Posted in Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on July 2nd, 2003
Film
Jack, a pimp, ends up in prison when a competing pimp frames him for child prostitution. Zack, a down-on-his luck deejay, is there because an associate paid him a thousand dollars to drive a car across town, unaware of the contents of the trunk. In the same cell, they bemoan their situation: each man innocent of their crimes, but vaguely guilty of something, we’re never sure what. When a third man shows up, an Italian tourist named “Bob,” he seems to brighten the dour men as much as can …
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A Very Brady Sequel
Posted in Disc Reviews by David Annandale on July 2nd, 2003
Like The Brady Bunch Movie, this effort combines several incidents from the TV series and strings them together with a loose central premise, and the result is actually funnier than the first film. This premise is that Tim Matheson shows up pretending to be Carol Brady’s long-lost husband. He is after a priceless horse sculpture in the Bradys’ living room. The innocent/rude tone of the first film is carried through here, and given extra impetus by the addition of an is-it-incest-or-not?
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Rebecca
Posted in Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on July 2nd, 2003
Film
To film fans, the clause “Directed by Alfred Hitchcock” has almost become an adjective in and of itself. It has come to mean suspense created by using the viewer’s imagination and mind as a part of the film, first and foremost. These films didn’t have the freedom of CG, and consequently had to invent ways to achieve visual effects (Watch the documentary on Birds or Rear Window for example). Besides the lack of freedom of creation that digital filmmaking now provides, the filmmak…
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The Brady Bunch Movie
Posted in Disc Reviews by David Annandale on July 1st, 2003
The plot, such as it is, is a pastiche of several episodes of the TV series, all twisted just enough to send them into a sunny version of the Twilight Zone. So the Bradys are going to lose their house if they don’t raise $20,000.00 by the end of the week, and Marcia’s nose is flattened by a football before the school dance, and Jan is jealous of the attention her big sister receives, and so on. The Brady’s are just as oblivious to how the rest of the world perceives themas they are to the (sometimes very funny) innuendos and double-entendres they constantly (and inadvertently) utter.
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Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas
Posted in Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on July 1st, 2003
Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas can be and has been described in many ways, but one of the things that this movie isn’t is a Cheech and Chong road movie about a couple of whacky buddies on a drug binge in the city of sin. There’s no going to strip clubs, no hilarious misunderstandings that make one of them have to dress in drag and be involved in a stage show, in fact, there isn’t even any gambling. This movie is more accurately described as a scalding epitaph to the counterculture of the sixties, a re…
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Houseboat
Posted in Disc Reviews by David Annandale on June 30th, 2003
After the death of his estranged wife, Cary Grant swoops back into his children’s lives,determined to be a proper father. He’s a bit rusty, and his kids aren’t exactly ecstatic about living with him. In over his head, he searches for a maid, and into their lives comes Sophia Loren, who is actually the daughter of a famous Italian conductor. They wind up living on a rickety houseboat, and romantic heat is gradually generated between Grant and Loren while Loren brings father and kids closer together.
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