Posted in: Dare to Play the Game, News and Opinions by Michael Durr on July 22nd, 2009
NXE Dashboard commercials, Ghostbusters busting budgets and Microsoft not Gay or Proud? - Welcome to the column that is straight but scared to know where his sensitive side has been known as Dare to Play the Game.
Once upon a time, I gamed on my Xbox 360. Then, the people of Blizzard put subjective thoughts into my head about getting to level 70 and becoming addicted to a thing called rep. The rest is history. *sigh*. This week in World of Warcraft, I did finally get my Ambassador’s title and then you would think I would put down my Warcraft and start up something else. Anything else. No...I worked on rep with Timbermaw Hold. Timbermaw…yeah the wooly things in the tunnel at Winterspring/Felwood. Got to within 8k of Exalted. Burnt myself out bad. The most I could do from that point was to go and group up for a couple of Auchindon dungeons.
Posted in: No Huddle Reviews by Archive Authors on July 22nd, 2009
In the 1970’s, Ted Bundy murdered over 30 women across several states. He was jailed only to escape two times, and was finally captured and languished on death row until 1989, when he was put to death in the electric chair.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by David Annandale on July 20th, 2009
In 1954, Coco Chanel (Shirley MacLaine) unveils her first collection in 15 years. The reception is disastrous. As she struggles to bounce back from the fiasco, she flashes back over her life. The bulk of the film then follows the young Chanel (Barbora Bobulova) and her love affairs, first with a callow playboy (Sagamore Stévenin), then with the Englishman (Olivier Sitruk) who will be the great love of her life. Along the way, we see a little bit of her development as a fashion designer.
If you're sitting down for a soap opera in period dress, then you could certainly do worse. As silly as it often is, Coco Chanel is consistently entertaining. Its desire to worship its subject does mean for some unfortunate choices, however. Setting aside the fact that there is too little time spent on what made her one of the world's most famous designers, the film decides to pretend that nothing much happened to her between 1925 and 1954, when the most cursory Wikipeida search reveals all kinds of juicy incident (shacking up with a Nazi officer during occupation, espionage games, post-WWII arrest) that would have made for wonderful storytelling. Oh well. Malcolm McDowell is rather oddly cast as the older Chanel's confidant, and perhaps the fact that he has nothing much to do is the reason why he can't seem to get rid of that sneer of contempt, even when he supposed to be genuinely moved. Still, suds and all, its 139 minutes clips by quite efficiently.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by William O'Donnell on July 20th, 2009
Unless you were around for Iron Butterfly's big boom in 1968, you might remember this band best as the composers of that song the organ player plays for 17 minutes in that episode of The Simpsons in which Bart sells his soul. Yes, this is how I knew them for much of my youth, and I thought of them best then too.
This DVD documents a 1997 concert of Iron Butterfly, and it did little to sway my fond memories of what was a very good Simpsons episode that was. My apologies...I shall leave that Fox program (not to be mentioned again) and focus on the band that is most famous for the 17 minute plus psychedelic adventure that is In A Gadda Da Vida.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on July 17th, 2009
The List is adapted from a novel of the same name written by Robert Whitlow. After returning home from his father’s funeral, Renny Jacobsen (Chuck Carrington) discovers he is the inheritor of his family’s seat in a secret society founded during the civil war. However, Renny suspects the society’s activities are more troubling than they lead on and decides to examine them more closely. When his inquiries are uncovered by the group’s leader (Malcolm McDowell) Renny becomes targeted by a mysterious force that has the power to destroy him and the people he holds close.
Posted in: Dare to Play the Game, News and Opinions by Michael Durr on July 15th, 2009
EA vs UFC, New Michael Jackson Game and Am I a journalist or not? - Welcome to the column that has a job title that roughly translates into video game hack known as Dare to Play the Game.
Remember that whole spiel about how I was going to pick a new 360 game and play that instead of World of Warcraft? Hahaha, fooled you. Actually, more accurately I fooled myself. If you remember, I was working on my ambassador’s title and blacksmithing. Well, I did get exalted with Darkspear Trolls, giving me 3 out of the 5 home factions to reach that level. The remaining two did see a lot of growth. Silvermoon is now within 44 measly points of the goal (down from about 5k) and Thunder Bluff is 4300 away (down from nearly 14k). I’d say considering my progress over last week, I should have the title this weekend.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on July 10th, 2009
“It’s like one of those fatal attraction things, like they show on the Donahue Show, you know?”
It might not have exactly been “fatal”, but the attraction that Jack Lemmon and Walter Matthau had for each other, and we still have for them, is on perfect display in Grumpy Old Men. Then again… it might just as well have been fatal, if not fate. The two men died just months from each other. Matthau left us in July of 2000, and just under a year later in June of 2001 we lost Jack Lemmon. Chris Lemmon, Jack’s son, doesn’t think it’s entirely a coincidence. He told me in a recent interview that the men loved each other. He joked that “if Walter had played golf, he’d have married him.” Whether it was the chemistry these guys had off screen or just their natural abilities, might be hard to pin down. Whatever the reason, there have been few Hollywood duos that put out as impressive a body of work. With Lemmon, it was the fact that he was always rather a dramatic actor who found himself in hilarious roles. With Matthau, he was always the lovable buffoon whose characters almost always got in their own way. They appeared in about a dozen films together, from the enigmatic Oliver Stone JFK to The Odd Couple, perhaps their most renowned comedy. Like all of their films the main attraction, fatal or otherwise, is watching these two buddies work together. Grumpy Old Men might not be anything like their best work, but I’d take these guys on an average day over most duos on their very best.
![Grumpy Old Men [Blu-ray] dvd cover art](https://upcomingdiscs.com/ecs_covers/grumpy-old-men-blu-ray-large.jpg)
Posted in: No Huddle Reviews by Gino Sassani on July 10th, 2009
Jamie (George) has just been in a violent car accident that was really not an accident at all. She awakes to find herself prisoner in a dirty warehouse room. She discovers that she and her young son have been kidnapped, but her captors are not looking for ransom. Her husband has been secretly working for some pretty bad dudes, and he has squirreled away 44 million dollars of the bad guys’ money. Now they want it back. Jamie is given boxes of audio recordings that were made at her home and asked to break a code her hubby was using that might help identify where the money is. The promise is that she and her son will go free if the money is recovered. Unfortunately there is a deadline. Someone named Falco (Krige) is coming soon and will kill all of them if the money is not recovered.
The film is quite claustrophobic. It pretty much all takes place in the same small room. The entire film depends too much on the performances of the two leads. Melissa George does about as much as she can with the role. Her movements and range of emotions is pretty limited. Oded Fehr plays the kidnapper who interacts the most with Jamie. For some reason he does not list the credit on his official resume. It is also not included on his IMDB profile. I’m not sure if he was unhappy with the finished result or if it is merely an oversight. He does a pretty good job here, but half the time his face is covered, giving him even less to work with than George has. There are some good tension moments, to be sure. Still, I found the film didn’t move fast enough or supply enough stimulation to keep it from getting very tedious. It was a brave choice, to be sure, but never carried off as effectively as was needed to keep the film engaging.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by David Annandale on July 9th, 2009
In a mythical world, a series of apocalyptic prophecies are coming true. These events presage the awakening of a world-devouring dragon. Dragon hunters are needed more than ever, but all of the knights of yore are dead or insane. The only game in town is a couple of misfits: Lian-Chu, who still bears the trauma of the night his village was destroyed by the dragon, and his friend Gwizdo, a two-bit con artist. They are accompanied by Hector, a strange little scene-stealer who might be a rabbit or a dog. Zoe, the excitable niece of the decrepit and blind king, recruits the motley crew to defeat the evil, and off they go, journeying to the end of the world to face terrible danger.
This computer-animated effort is French, but only the English language track has been provided, and I can't help but wonder if something was lost in the translation. Forest Whitaker is top-billed as Lian-Chu, but the character has very few lines, and even less expression. Zoe and Gwizdo have the lion's share of the dialogue, and these two are overly familiar figures. The dialogue moves the story along, but doesn't particularly sparkle. What does shine, however, is the look of the film. The world is a stunningly beautiful universe of floating platforms, and the detail work is tremendous. If the story isn't anything to write home about, the eye candy most certainly is.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on July 9th, 2009
Guns is a Canadian TV mini-series that came to fruition in late 2008. The premise of the series is slightly convoluted. Paul Duguid (Colm Feore) is a legitimate arms dealer that sells to governments around the world. However, Duguid also sells illegal weapons to gangs around Toronto as well. Duguid comes under police scrutiny when his son Bobby (Gregory Smith) goes to a street level gun dealer’s house that is under police surveillance. Bobby also becomes implicated in the murder of the father of a U.S. Senator. During all of these events, Bobby’s girlfriend Frances (Elisha Cuthbert) volunteers to smuggle guns across the border. The multiple storylines on display here work well in a TV mini series. However, when shown in 180 minutes on a DVD, they are difficult to appreciate.
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