Posted in Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on October 3rd, 2005
Winter Solstice is one of those quiet, somber independent films. While not as flashy as The Upside of Anger (and that’s not a flashy film), Josh Sternfeld’s feature is a meditative look at a broken family trying to rebuild its life. Don’t expect any major plot twists or a flashy directing style. Solstice takes its […]
Posted in Disc Reviews by David Annandale on September 30th, 2005
Walking in on his wife and another man, J.M. (Barnes Walker III) blows his top and kills her with a baseball bat. He is subsequently horrified by his actions, and is unable to part with the corpse of his wife. He takes off to his sister’s farm with the body, thinking he will be alone. […]
Posted in Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on September 14th, 2005
I am a foreign film fan, so I was quite excited to find this disc in my queue of DVDs to review. From the cover, this looked like just the kind of thing that I typically enjoy. Unfortunately, as the saying goes, you shouldn’t judge a DVD by it’s cover… or something like that. The […]
Posted in Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on September 14th, 2005
Synopsis Val Kilmer is found, shot in the head and near death, outside the middle-of-nowhere desert town of Blackpoint. When he comes to in the hospital, he has total amnesia. But as flashes of his memory return, he becomes convinced that an attempt will be made to kill the President. No one believes him, including […]
Posted in Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on August 27th, 2005
Synopsis After being the hunk of the moment on E.R., George Clooney came out of the starting blocks as a film actor in a few films, ranging the gamut from cult favorite (From Dusk ‘Til Dawn) to somewhat critically praised (The Peacemaker). He was also played the starring role in the film that put the […]
Posted in Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on August 26th, 2005
Synopsis Peter Finch plays Umberto Nobile, an Italian general and explorer who is haunted by his disastrous attempt to fly over the pole in a dirigible in 1928. In the present day, sleepless, he summons the ghosts of his crew and the people affected by the disaster to sit as judge and jury, and the […]
Posted in Disc Reviews by David Annandale on August 3rd, 2005
Synopsis There are two Lawrence Tierney vehicles here, and the first is the one that made his name, the 1945 Dillinger. Told in flashback for no visible reason, this chronicles Dillinger’s rise from naive and incompetent thief to ruthless, brutal gang leader, and his ultimate fall. There are some startlingly brutal scenes here, for the […]
Posted in Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on July 28th, 2005
I remember a couple of years ago when MTV produced The Real World Movie: The Lost Season. I was sitting at home on a Saturday, and didn’t know exactly what I had tuned in to. At first, I was just watching the show as if it were any other first-episode of a season of The […]
Posted in Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on July 4th, 2005
Synopsis Among the more unjustly ignored performances was Jack Nicholson’s turn as Union boss Jimmy Hoffa in Hoffa. Fox finally decided to put out the Danny DeVito directed, David Mamet written film on DVD. Mamet’s script seems to romanticize Hoffa, portraying him as more of a Union man, as one who was forced to make […]
Posted in Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on June 24th, 2005
Las Vegas has a credo of sorts: What happens in Vegas stays in Vegas. Well… not anymore. Las Vegas tells all in a new smart and often sexy NBC series. Most of the cast was chosen for their more physical attributes; however, the performances are not bad either. James Caan takes a surprising journey to […]
Posted in Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on June 20th, 2005
Synopsis Sydney is a poker-faced professional gambler with a soft heart for a hard luck story. He plays guardian angel to unlucky John and a hooker, Clementine, whom he grows to love like family. When John and Clementine’s honeymoon night leads to a disastrous hostage situation, Sydney takes care of it, as usual. But when […]
Posted in Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on April 24th, 2005
Elektra was pretty much a failure at the box office, bringing in just over half of its production cost. Add to this the raised expectations of comic characters in the movies and it’s a safe bet Elektra won’t return anytime soon. Although this was not a great film by any standards, it’s a shame it […]
Posted in Disc Reviews by David Annandale on March 17th, 2005
Synopsis The focus of this documentary is on the last few years of Martin Luther King’s life, as hisactivism moved beyond the struggle for civil rights to encompass the other progressive battlesof his era. There’s a real richness here in terms of documentary footage of the man himself andinterviews new and old with those […]
Posted in Disc Reviews by David Annandale on March 13th, 2005
Synopsis The set-up for Green Acres is that we have a city couple (Eddie Albert and Eva Gabor) whohave forsaken the big city sophistication of New York for the titular verdant acres near the townof Hooterville. So there’s plenty of fish-out-of-water humour (Albert dressing in a suit in thecountry, Gabor a completely incapable housfrau), […]
Posted in Disc Reviews by David Annandale on March 7th, 2005
Synopsis Two brothers, Jin-seok and Jin-tae, are drafted into the South Korean army when war eruptsin 1950. Jin-seok is bookish and has a bad heart — there is no way he can survive the war withouthis older, stronger brother’s help. Jin-tae takes on one insanely risky mission after another,having been given the hope that […]
Posted in Disc Reviews by David Annandale on March 5th, 2005
Synopsis Jon Voight plays Eddie, known as “Eddie Maintenance,” who keeps things running at an amusement park. When a faulty ride clobbers him, he winds up in Heaven, where he meets, as the title suggests, five people from his past, in five different kinds of Heaven, at each stage learning truths about his life, […]
Posted in Disc Reviews by David Annandale on February 21st, 2005
Synopsis Dana Andrews is in suitably hard-boiled mode as the detective called in to investigate thedeath of beautiful society woman Laura (Gene Tierney). There are plenty of suspects, as Laurainspired passion on all sides. Accompanying Andrews on his investigation is misanthropiccolumnist Clifton Webb, whose protege Laura was. Chief suspect is fickle fiancé Vincent Price,but […]
Posted in Disc Reviews by David Annandale on February 11th, 2005
Synopsis The film opens at the very beginning of Ray Charles’ career, as he makes his way to Seattlefor his first paying gigs with an unscrupulous band leader and manager. We see him grow inconfidence and artistry, soon becoming a force to be reckoned with. Intercutting his rise areflashbacks to his childhood, and specifically […]
Posted in Disc Reviews by David Annandale on February 7th, 2005
Synopsis Denzel Washington plays Malcolm X, the black leader white folks DIDN’T feel comfortableabout. Beginning in the 1940s, when Malcolm is a zoot-suited cool cat with best friend Shorty(Spike Lee), the film then flashes back to just before his birth, and proceeds in properly epicfashion to trace the life of the charismatic, and extremely […]
Posted in Disc Reviews by David Annandale on January 22nd, 2005
Synopsis Jeanne Crain, Linda Darnell and Ann Sothern are three wives in an upper-middle-classneighbourhood. Just as they head off on an outing with a group of children, they receive a letterfrom the narrator (a silken-voiced Celeste Holm) that she has left town with one of theirhusbands. Which one? Unable to get home until the […]
Posted in Disc Reviews by David Annandale on January 12th, 2005
Synopsis Molly (Millie Perkins) is seriously disconnected from reality. She tells her two nephewswonderful tales about their grandfather, whom she declares a saint, even though we see (indisturbing flashbacks), that he repeatedly raped her. She also enjoys ogling well-built men andfantasizing about their violent deaths. But she doesn’t stop at fantasizing… Well! Here she […]
Posted in Disc Reviews by David Annandale on January 6th, 2005
Synopsis Jim Carrey wakes up on Valentine’s Day in a funk. On the spur of the moment, he takes offto Montauk, where he meets Kate Winslet. Sparks fly, and a relationship seems about to be born.We suddenly flash back in time, and realize that, though they no longer remember it, these twohave previously had […]
Posted in Disc Reviews by David Annandale on December 20th, 2004
Synopsis Kris Kristofferson narrates the story in flashback, telling the story of his younger self (JosephAshton) during the Depression. The young boy dreams of owning a hunting dog, and afterslaving away on odd jobs for two years, he finally acquires two: “Old Dan” and “Little Ann.”Together they become an unbeatable team, and have various […]
Posted in Disc Reviews by David Annandale on December 14th, 2004
Synopsis Aaron Gaffey plays Jack, whom we first meet in a warehouse, strung out, paranoid andfestering, and who, given some unholy drug cocktail overdose, flips his lid and kills histormentors with a jackhammer (hence, the title). Extended flashbacks then show us how Jackdescended into a hell of drug addiction, and he now takes orders […]
Posted in Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on December 10th, 2004
After learning about lawsuits filed by two obese women against McDonald’s – accusing the fast-food giant of making them obese – Morgan Spurlock decided to eat nothing but food from McDonald’s for 30 days to see what would happen. Even his doctors didn’t expect the eventual results: Spurlock gained 30 pounds, became depressed, experienced a […]
