Posted in: Brain Blasters by David Annandale on May 17th, 2008
Recently, I've had occasion to go back and revisit the Airport franchise. The 70s disaster movie arguably came into being with the first film (though the first pure disaster film of that era is more properly The Poseidon Adventure). If the peak of that cycle of cinematic carnage was Irwin Allen's The Towering Inferno, and its spectacularly lovable nadir is Allen's The Swarm, the Airport movies fell somewhere between the two. The best are the first (Airport itself) and third (Airport '77). The other two – Airport 1975 and The Concorde: Airport '79 – approach The Swarm's level of cosmic ineptitude.
Today, let's get back to the roots with Airport. As mentioned above, it is not, strictly speaking, a disaster movie in the same sense that the rest of the franchise entries are. Sure, there's a bomber aboard the plane piloted by Dean Martin, but the threat doesn't surface until relatively late in the film, and is but one of many intertwining storylines. The sequels would move the catastrophe very much to the centre of the action.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on May 15th, 2008
For a third straight year, Jim Henson’s lovable Muppets attracted some of the biggest names in show business. Who would have thought that such big stars would so eagerly agree to co-star opposite a clump of felt and fur? The show was also coming off a monster second year with acts like Elton John, Bob Hope and John Cleese. How do you follow up a year like that? Easy. You get more big names like: Roy Clark, Jean Stapleton, Liberace, Alice Cooper, Cheryl Ladd, Raquel Welch, Danny Kaye, Harry Belafonte, Sylvester Stallone, and even Roy Rogers and Dale Evans. Add to the tremendous star power more adventures of Pigs In Space, Veterinarian’s Hospital, and The Swedish Chef, and you have a decade of entertainment in one season set of The Muppets.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on May 15th, 2008
We’re in the US Marines, boys and who could have guessed that it would be so much fun? I often wondered how the real life members of The Corp think about Gomer Pyle. It would have made a great extra. I remember one of the F Troop sets offered a look at members of the real unit. With only another season to go I hope
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on May 15th, 2008
I’m going to admit right from the start, I hate cell phones. They’re evil, and I didn’t need a horror film to tell me about it. The world would be a safer and certainly a more courteous place without them. Just last week I was run of the highway by a Werner semi because the idiot driver was on his cell phone. So it didn’t come as any surprise that someone was bound to include them as part of a horror film. One Missed Call is simply the latest Asian Invasion film to be retooled for American audiences. What started with The Ring, which was a truly original and suspenseful film, has also given us losers like The Grudge. Unfortunately this film falls into the latter category. Believe me, I wanted so much to love this film. I was the annoying guy cheering the trailer at the local cineplex.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on May 14th, 2008
Many attempts have been made over a decade or so to imitate
Posted in: Dare to Play the Game, News and Opinions by Michael Durr on May 14th, 2008
Adult Gaming, WiiWare, & The Death Knight class unveiled - Welcome to the column that discovered it was an adult one day back in 1996 and has not been heard from since known as Dare to Play the Game.
Welcome to another edition of Dare to Play the Game. 42&22. I unfortunately did not get to play my dwarf priest, except past a couple of quick quests and leveling some of my cooking & fishing. I honestly expected a slowdown with my Troll Rogue in WoW once I hit 40. Quite the opposite I guess. The game seems to get more interesting once you pass the magic mount level. My mining and blacksmithing are well over 200 (228 and 208 respectively) and my skills make me a major DPS force to any party. I even played as the main DPS for a group in Scarlet Monastery over the weekend and we did quite well. My only weak point as I consider it is my lockpicking. I'm currently at 166. I just started picking level 40 mobs that drop junkboxes that require 175. So needless to say, I need to be about 10 points higher. This weekend coming up, my focus will be on lockpicking (up to said level) and cooking. Cooking is at 223 and I hear Gadgetzan calling my name. You want Giant Eggs, Zesty Clam Meat and Alterac Swiss? Me got 'em mon!
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on May 13th, 2008
Just in time for the release of one of the most eagerly awaited films in years comes a new box set of the Indiana Jones Adventures. The problem is that these transfers are not upgrades so, aside from squeezing out a few extra bucks, what’s the point? I’m sure that The Kingdom Of The Crystal Skull will add hundreds of millions to the
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on May 13th, 2008
12 Angry Men is one of those rare films that appears to defy all the
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on May 12th, 2008
Jim Phelps (
Posted in: Brain Blasters by David Annandale on May 10th, 2008
I'm very late to the party here, but I've never been shy about jumping on a bandwagon (if I might so mix my metaphors), especially one as spectacularly kitted out as this one, so allow me to add my voice to the legion who are chanting the praises of Inside (French title: A l'intérieur). Directed by Julien Maury and Alexandre Bustillo, this brutally effective piece is yet further evidence that the creative vanguard of the horror film has shifted from Asia to French-speaking Europe.
In the wake of such merciless pieces as High Tension and the Belgian Calvaire comes this even more unforgiving film. Alysson Paradis has just lost her husband in a car accident that miraculously spared her unborn child. It's Christmas Eve, the Paris suburbs are ablaze with riots, and Paradis is going to be induced the following day. She returns home from her doctor's appointment, and is just settling down when the doorbell rings. A strange woman (Betty Blue's Béatrice Dalle) asks to come in to use the phone. When Paradis, justifiably nervous, turns her down, Dalle calls her by name and demands to be let in. And so the siege begins. Before long, Dalle has made her way into the house. Her goal: to slice open Paradis' belly and steal the child.
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