Posted in: Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on October 25th, 2008
You would think that after 8 years, CSI would begin to show a little wear and tear around the edges. When you factor in the dilution of the two other versions of the franchise with a combined 11 years of episodes, you end up with nearly 300 total episodes of CSI. Certainly even the best of shows with the most imaginative writers can’t stay fresh for that long. Still, somehow, the gang at CSI continues to crank out compelling drama, rarely repeating itself. Every year I go into a new season of CSI expecting to find it starting to show its age a bit, and every year I continue to be amazed.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by David Annandale on October 25th, 2008
Two inept thieves and their prostitute girlfriend decide to hit the big time, crime-wise, by kidnapping the little girl (clearly and disturbingly dubbed by an adult) of an automobile tycoon. When their contact manages to get himself run over by a car while crossing the street, they have to hightail it out of town until the heat cools (or something like that – don't press me too hard for clear logic in this film). So off they head to what I suppose is the South American jungle, by my goodness there seem to be a lot of pine trees in the jungle. There they hole up at the home of a friend-of-a-friend, a middle-aged man who has the role Jess Franco would be playing if this were a Jess Franco film. He has a beautiful wife, and one of the thieves takes it in his head to rape her. So their host now has vengeance on his mind, and there are cannibals (you were wondering when I was going to get to them, weren't you?) lurking in the woods.
Posted in: Brain Blasters by David Annandale on October 25th, 2008
Oh God, here we go again with another When I Was A Wee Lad memory. Sorry. But When I Was A Wee Lad, two of my favorite books were The Hammer Horror Film Omnibus, and The Second Hammer Horror Film Omnibus. Written by John Burke, each volume contained four novelizations of Hammer films, and for many a year, this was the only way I could experience the stories. It would be a long time before I saw the films in question. Still, most of those films I got under my belt some time ago, but one remained stubbornly out of reach, seen once on TV and then never again, VHS and then DVD releases apparently never on the horizon. That film was Curse of the Mummy’s Tomb (1964), and the wait is finally over. It appears as one of four films on the Icons of Horror: Hammer Films 2-disc set. Accompanying it are The Gorgon (also novelized by Burke, and more about it another time), The Two Faces of Dr. Jekyll, and Scream of Fear.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by David Annandale on October 23rd, 2008
Hagar Shipley (Ellen Burstyn) is in her twilight years, and her son (Dylan Baker) is trying to get her into a home. Fiercely independent, possessed of a will that has been both a strength and a weakness (making life miserable for herself and all around her), Hagar fights back. She also looks back on her life, and in the flashbacks (where the young Hagar is played by Christine Horne) we see the tragic relationships that have brought us to the fractious family we see now.
Posted in: Dare to Play the Game, News and Opinions by Michael Durr on October 22nd, 2008
Little Big Planet causing controversy, Rockband goes a little country, and Golden Axe: Beast Rider is a bunch of rubbish - Welcome to the column that would say something about Ohio but there are people with pitchforks & torches and the Amish are a little poed off too known as Dare to Play the Game.
I am currently sitting in Ohio. Oh Hi Oh. We've had a nice time in the Buckeye state but keeping it mostly simplistic. The temperature has been very cool for this time of year at least for me. As a result I've come down with a slight cold or allergies or something that makes me all sneezy, runny nose, stuffy nose and general bad things with my nasal region.
Posted in: Brain Blasters by David Annandale on October 18th, 2008
Just the other week, I was singing the praises of [REC]. Today, I come to bury its American remake, Quarantine. At first glance, Quarantine is a virtual photocopy of its model. Scene follows scene in the same order, to the same (intended effect), to the same final shot. And yet somehow, the whole thing falls flat. How can this be? If the movies are identical, why aren’t they identically effective?
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on October 17th, 2008
I think it’s safe to say that HBO changed the face of television with the arrival of The Sopranos back in 1999. The show raised the bar for television across the board. Before we knew it, many of the cable networks were scrambling to offer up the next show that would generate the same praise from critics and audiences alike. To this day that show has generated more subscribers to a pay network than any other. So, we really can’t blame the network’s rival Showtime for trying to have their own Sopranos. And that’s exactly what The Brotherhood is.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Michael Durr on October 17th, 2008
My personal bias may be leaning through but I fully enjoy the Transformers. More than meets the eye, robots in disguise, Starscream for President! Well, he can’t be any worse than the two turkeys we got running right now. Anyhow, after the Generation 1 cartoon series came and gone, we got a slew of off-shoots and attempts at re-creating the cartoon hit that was the Transformers. In the middle of 2005, a series produced by a partnership between Hasbro and Takara came to the fold. It was a sequel to Transformers: Armada & Transformers: Energon. It was called Transformers: Cybertron. Fifty two episodes later, the series ended. Was it any good or did it just get sucked into a black hole?
Posted in: Disc Reviews by David Annandale on October 17th, 2008
Very much in the tradition of such other overheated Mexican emotional dramas as Amores Perros and Y Tu Mamá También, Drama/Mex gives us two intertwining plot strands, each dealing with relationships as tormented as they are sexual. In one, upper-class Fernanda’s bad boy ex-lover Chino resurfaces, takes her violently, but she doesn’t exactly hate it, and this has, as one might imagine, some awkward consequences for her relationship with current boyfriend Gonzalo. Meanwhile, a middle-aged man, guilt-ridden over what he has done to his daughter (take a guess), is contemplating suicide when he runs into a precocious teenage hustler. In other words, basically enough material to give Sarah Palin a fatal coronary.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Michael Durr on October 16th, 2008
Most people who know me know that Daredevil is my #1 Superhero of all time. Number #2 is Batman. Third is somewhat of a surprise for a lot of people. It’s the Punisher. It’s surprising because the Punisher is portrayed as a nemesis of Daredevil quite often in the comic books. However, like Batman and Daredevil, Punisher is a classic flawed hero. In the comics, his family was gunned down gangland style and he seeks out to “punish” those responsible. In the proceedings, he finds that the greatest enemy is not those who executed his family but himself. Drinking, suicidal thoughts, and endless pursuit to extract justice at any cost chip away at this very core. Enter 2004, and director Jonathan Hensleigh decides to bring the story of the Punisher to the big screen.
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