Posted in: Dare to Play the Game, News and Opinions by Michael Durr on June 11th, 2008
LucasArts putting on the halter, Wii wanting to go steady with HDD, and Blu-Ray & Xbox 360 tying the knot? - Welcome to the column that got married once but forgot to read the fine print about descending into the pits of hell known as Dare to Play the Game.
Welcome to another edition of Dare to Play the Game. So at some point last week, you were probably wondering where the heck is your favorite video game columnist. The truth is I don't know where Adam Sessler is and he won't return my messages (something about me and Morgan sitting in a tree). As for me, I was in Las Vegas, Nevada. Internet for tourists in Las Vegas, NV sucks. Why is that? Because they charge, $13.99 a freaking day. My conference did have it for free, but it moved like a 300 baud modem. (For the kids at home, that is like your dad asking you to walk to the liquor store on the other side of the county line and back with a bottle of JD stopping for every hobo that asks for a sip). So there was no decent way I could have got a column out last week. I wanted to, but alas the internet connection (not to be confused with vegas showgirls) wouldn't let me. But I am back, somewhat refreshed and ready to provide a winning column to you. Okay, 1 out of 3 ain't bad. I really should get a secretary for these things.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by David Annandale on June 10th, 2008
Tang Wei plays a student who is a member of a radical theatre troupe during the Sino-Japanese War. She and her cohorts determine to assassinate a prominent collaborator (Tony Leung). In order to get create the opportunity for the killing, our heroine must infiltrate Leung's household. She is on the threshold of becoming his mistress when he leaves Hong Kong for Shanghai. Three years later, now backed by the Resistance, she makes a new attempt. But she hasn't counted on the entanglements of passion in the affair she has embarked on.
Ang Lee's film was widely seen as both sumptuously beautiful but too leisurely for its own good, and there is something to that position. The story takes its sweet time, and the affair itself, along with its transgressive (by mainstream standards) sex scenes, doesn’t properly begin until over 90 minutes into the film. On the other hand, so much of the film is unspoken, left for the viewer to read between the lines (and Tony Leung is a master of conveying deeply repressed pain) that there is a lot going on, even when the images are still. And when the paroxysms of violence and sex do come, they are explosive.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on June 10th, 2008
Felix and Oscar return for a fourth year of laughs in The Odd Couple. Not much has changed in the world of Oscar and Felix, but isn’t that what you were hoping to hear? What I found interesting in this somewhat weaker season is that even when the actors were beginning to realize that the show was slipping, the pair never missed a beat in their own chemistry. Often it seems they lacked interest in the material when their characters were apart, but something always happened when they were together. I get the impression they genuinely enjoyed each other’s company. It’s the saving grace in season four.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on June 10th, 2008
Working in
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on June 10th, 2008
Charlie Sheen is an unlikely actor to star in a television sit-com. Even after watching the show, I’m not sure how anyone came up with the idea in the first place. He has little to no comedic timing and he’s about as funny as a funeral. The thing that works here, however, is that he really doesn’t need to be all that funny to make this show work. Sheen pretty much deadpans his entire performance, which generously enough works rather well teamed with the more manic comedy of Jon Cryer. Throw into the mix a rather extraordinary young child actor in Angus T. Jones, and suddenly a show that looks terrible on paper turns out to be pretty dang funny. We’re not talking Fred Sanford funny, but I caught myself laughing far more often than I expected to. I had only caught the show before in bits and pieces and was never all that fond of what I saw. Watching these DVD episodes from the third season shed some new light on the show for me.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on June 9th, 2008
When the Learners are driving home from their son Josh’s recital, they stop off at a gas station where he is struck and killed by Dwight Arno (Mark Ruffalo) who is heading home from a Boston Red Sox game with his son Lucas. Dwight flees the scene while Ethan (Joaquin Phoenix) and Grace (Jennifer Connelly) mourn the death of their son. In the following weeks, Ethan becomes obsessed with finding the hit and run driver while Dwight deals with his guilt and tries to bond with his son against the backdrop of the 2004 Boston Red Sox historic World Series run.
Reservation Road had a lot going for it on paper. Phoenix, Connelly, and Ruffalo are all talented actors and Terry George (Hotel Rawanda) is an acclaimed up-and-coming director. However, Reservation Road fails to hit the emotional high notes that come with the territory. None of the actors are given much to do with the material, and the film’s pace is drearily slow. Connelly and Mira Sorvino are severely underused while Phoenix and Ruffalo don’t explore the depths of their characters. Everything is paint by numbers and the end result is a film that never lives up to its potential.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on June 9th, 2008
When last we left the fine folks of Weeds, Nancy Botwin (Mary-Louise Parker, Saved!) and her herb-growing buddy Conrad (Romany Malco, Blades of Glory) were being held at the mercy of two rival drug groups, both of which were very interested in Nancy’s stash and her cash, but it was taken by her son Silas (Hunter Parrish, Freedom Writers), who was arrested by Nancy’s friend Celia (Elizabeth Perkins, 28 Days). I’m not even close to discussing how things got to this point, and needless to say, the twists and turns sound a little soap operatic at times, but when you’re invested into the characters’ fates as you are, they provide for some memorable experiences.
One of the things that Weeds does is push things to the edge of the envelope, and I‘m fine with that. What I’m not fine with, and what my wife and I get into debates about from time to time, is that in Season Three, Nancy’s transformation from widowed mother in a upper/middle class suburban neighborhood to full-fledged marijuana dealer becomes full and complete. In the previous two seasons, Nancy mixed her Caucasian naivete rather well with her cold and precise drug dealing livelihood. In Season Three, she becomes much more cold and precise, particularly around people she knows and calls friends. She takes care of her feelings first, particularly in one episode where she sleeps with her boss (played by Matthew Modine of Vision Quest lore), despite Celia’s urge to be with him. Her rendezvous with Conrad, one the show had been waiting for for almost three seasons, was more for her convenience than anyone else’s. She becomes much more distasteful than in previous seasons, and all the sweetness of sucking on an iced coffee straw isn’t going to help things.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on June 9th, 2008
Honestly, I don’t know what the bigger tragedy is, the fact that John C. Reilly has been a funny performer for years, or the fact that it’s taken guys like Judd Apatow and Adam McKay a chance to show off his comedic talent. For those who don’t know, Reilly was in a hilarious ten-minute blooper reel in Boogie Nights which showed that he could improvise with the best of them. The guy also played Bigfoot in an episode of the Tenacious D show that aired on HBO in the mid ‘90s. But sure, put him in Chicago where he was nominated for an Oscar or in ensemble films directed by some of film’s greatest voices. His true love, that which gives him much joy and pleasure, appears to be when he’s goofing around, like he does in Walk Hard: The Dewey Cox Story.
Walk Hard was co-written by Judd Apatow, whom you might have heard of. Any R-rated comedy that has been released in the last 18 months to any sort of popular appeal has had some sort of involvement by the writer-producer-director. Jake Kasdan (Orange County) was the other writer and directed the film, where Reilly plays Dewey. He grew up in the shadow of his brother, who died after a tragic machete incident. Dewey grew up and had a hit early in his life, but then went through the usual period of drugs and substance abuse before his career went through a rebirth of sorts. If it sounds like the usual biopic treatment of a musical icon, that’s what it is, and what Apatow and Kasdan manage to do is stick a thumb in the collective eye of films like Ray and Walk the Line, as those films possess a slight precociousness that deserves lampooning of some sort. Reilly plays Dewey as a fifteen-year-old. The guy is over 40, OK? So yeah, that’s funny. When Dewey’s drummer Sam (Tim Meadows, Semi-Pro) shows him what drugs are like, it’s done with tongue firmly planted in cheek. Dewey’s various relationship issues are shown, starting from his first wife Edith (Kristen Wiig, Saturday Night Live) who seems to be pregnant in every scene as she puts down Dewey, to his second wife Edith (Jenna Fischer, The Office), who is a born-again Christian and hopes to get Dewey the same way. Every girl, boy, rock and stick in between is shown too.
Posted in: Brain Blasters by David Annandale on June 6th, 2008
Airport 1975 is the most famously bad of the franchise. It’s the one that gets all the attention. But in fairness, The Concorde: Airport ‘79 should not be ignored. Let’s give it a moment in the spotlight, shall we? Yes, let’s, if for no other reason that George Kennedy’s Joe Patroni character finally moves to centre stage.
The plot arguably outdoes the underwater-plane gambit of the previous film. The Concorde is in the middle of a goodwill flight in the lead-up to the Moscow Olympics. (So already history was about to blindside the movie, but never mind, carry on.) This particular plane has just been purchased by an American company, and Kennedy, whose character has mysteriously morphed from engineer to executive and now to pilot, is going to be at the helm, along with French pilot Alain Delon. The latter is romantically involved with flight attendant Sylvia (Emmanuelle) Kristel. Their relationship is undergoing some rather vaguely defined problems. Anyway, the big problems concern another relationship. News anchor Susan Blakely has just come by evidence that her beau, tycoon Robert Wagner, has been involved in all sorts of illegal arms sales and other skullduggery. Being an idiot, however, Blakely doesn’t blow the whistle immediately. Wagner decides to take care of the problem by downing the Concorde. What follows bears more than passing resemblance to Wile E. Coyote’s repeated attempts to exterminate the Road Runner. Only less realistic.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on June 6th, 2008
It’s ironic that 28 Days Later and the Dawn of the Dead remake (which was originally a George Romero film), have jump-started Romero’s long-running “Dead” series that started in 1968 with Night of the Living Dead.
Since 28 Days Later and the Dawn remake were released, Romero has released two new installments: Land of the Dead in 2005, and now Diary of the Dead in 2007.
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