Posted in: Disc Reviews by Michael Durr on August 25th, 2008
Sonic Underground would be an interesting study in the land of Sonic Cartoons if one was into such a thing. The series lasted forty episodes and was made at the request of Sega who needed the promotion for their Dreamcast console in the fall of 1999. The show itself was an odd departure from the first two series in that it always contained a musical number and featured three main hedgehogs instead of just one. The show did serve to introduce a couple of new sub villains and Knuckles the Echidna. I honestly don’t remember Sonic Underground; I am more familiar with the previous two series, but with one look at the dvd cover and description on the outside, I might have begun to see why.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by David Annandale on August 25th, 2008
Current indie It-girl Ellen Page stars in this pre-Juno effort as a similarly headstrong teenager but whose life is far, far worse simply being pregnant. Here she comes from a dysfunctional home, her high school would be called a snake pit if that weren’t disrespectful to snakes, and her baby brother has disappeared while she was supposed to be taking care of him. She plunges into the underbelly of Toronto in a quest to find him, and an unending picaresque nightmare ensues.
Posted in: Brain Blasters by David Annandale on August 22nd, 2008
Apparently, achieving just the right level of success can work against you. This would appear to be the case of the recent Spanish horror effort [REC]. Co-directed by Jaume Balagueró (who gave us the underrated Darkness and The Nameless) and Paco Plaza, this was one of Spain’s biggest box-office hits last year. Does that earn it a theatrical North American release? Not a bit of it. Instead, it earns itself a remake, under the title Quarantine. Though there are, apparently, some changes being made (the unfortunate jettisoning of the supernatural angle being one), from the looks of things, the new version is going to be a pointlessly exact retread (and speaking of pointless, why give us a trailer that shows the very last shot of the film?). Not only is [REC] not gracing the theatres, it is also being deprived, at least for now, of a domestic DVD release. But if I might speak a word to the wise, it is available as a Region 2 release, so those of you with region-free players know what to do.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by David Annandale on August 22nd, 2008
No, this is not the movie that promised to show us men turned inside out. It is, in fact, a curious mixture of genocide documentary and concert film. The performance is by rockers System of a Down. The lead singer’s grandparents were survivors of the Armenian Genocide, and so that atrocity is the primary focus of the film, which cuts between concert footage, personal interviews, grisly documents and academic talking heads. By extension, the film also takes a stand against all forms of genocide, and is an explicit invitation to the audience to get involved in the fight for justice.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on August 21st, 2008
My mother was a big fan of The Untouchables. I think she really just had a crush on Robert Stack. Years later when Stack was hosting Unsolved Mysteries, I could swear that I heard her murmur a few
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on August 21st, 2008
There was some speculation from folks out there, myself included, that
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Michael Durr on August 21st, 2008
In recent years, there has been only one group of parody movies that were considered really good. The Scary Movies. Started off by the Wayans Brothers, the first two movies were very mature but also very funny. The third & fourth films were taken over by David Zucker who did a fine job of making it more family friendly while keeping the zany humor. In September of 07, production started on a spoof movie that went after Superhero movies. David Zucker took on the producer role while Craig Mazin stepped into the writer/director chair. Craig had also worked in the third & fourth installments of Scary Movie and was obviously talented. The question remained. Was this act tired or did it still have some life to produce a quality spoof film?
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Michael Durr on August 20th, 2008
My earliest recollection of VCR’s was when I was just a little boy and my parents went down to the local TV shop and purchased a Zenith for about $600. At the time, it was a wondrous machine and I can still remember fondly my copies of Ghostbusters or Die Hard and how many times I would watch them. I didn’t care whether the tapes had a case or which edition of the tape I had. As long as it was the original movie and the tape wasn’t beat to heck I was a happy camper. Times change. I don’t think I own a single VHS tape that isn’t exercise related and my dvds, more than 400 of them are cataloged and cared for to the utmost degree. In truth, I sometimes miss the VHS days when things were simpler & films sold on the film alone, not on how many extras the dvd has or how fantastic the Dolby Digital 5.1 sound is. Be Kind Rewind goes back to that simpler time and gives a movie that is more about substance than the tiny snap case it comes contained in.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on August 20th, 2008
What is love worth? How much pain would you endure before you would murder someone you loved to end it? In The Killing Gene our serial killer seeks these answers, reducing it all down to an algebraic equation. The film is actually the American DVD release titles for the British film WAZ or W Δ Z depending on the source. This title refers to the killers equation which translates to roughly W Δ Z = COV. It’s a rather odd indy looking piece, filmed in
Posted in: Dare to Play the Game, News and Opinions by Michael Durr on August 20th, 2008
Come Get Some Duke Nukem 3d, Wii is prime for Hardcore, and is there really a Hardcore or Casual division? - Welcome to the column that believes birthdays are kinda like the yearly edition of Madden football, you get all excited for release day only to find out nothing has changed from the year before known as Dare to Play the Game.
Welcome to another edition of Dare to Play the Game. I had a birthday on Tuesday. I turned thirty-three. Yes, your favorite video game columnist turned thirty-three. The end is near; okay, okay not really.
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