Posted in: Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on May 7th, 2008
In the first season of The 4400 we are introduced to 4400 people who, we are led to believe, have recently returned from being abducted by aliens. Before you can look for Samantha Mulder among the group, we eventually discover that it was in reality the future that abducted these hundreds for nefarious reasons of their own. Some abductees have returned with mysterious powers and abilities. No, this is not Heroes or X-Men; in fact it’s a lot more like The X-Files than anything else, particularly in this the final season. Up to this point the government has developed a vaccine that inhibited these powers. Again we seem to be treading on X-Men territory here, don’t we. When the third season left us we were introduced to another drug that can reverse the effects of the inhibitor, but it carried an almost even chance of death. It is here that season four begins its likely final stories to tell.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Michael Durr on May 7th, 2008
The original Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles series ran from 1987-1996 and had over one hundred and ninety episodes. Millions watched as Leonardo, Donatello, Michaelangelo, & Raphael grew up from little turtle babies into mean, green, fighting machines. They could take on Shredder, Krang and any other bad guy that wanted to turn them into turtle soup. The sixth season takes on episodes 128-143 and spins them into a tiny two disc package from Lionsgate. Over a hundred episodes in, do the turtles still pack the punch they did back in 1987? As Splinter would say, "Be patient young ones, the answer will come."
Let's see, where were we in the TMNT saga? The last episodes of the fifth season saw the Turtles land up on a planet where turtles ruled and introduced us to a couple of new mutants named Groundchug and Dirtbag. True to form however, the turtles were successful in their exploits and sent Krang & Shredder back to the Technodrome. Season six opens with Krang & Shredder in the Technodrome, trapped in the Arctic. The Turtles are busy eating pizza, fighting crime and striking back at whatever plan the bad guys hatch at them each episode.
Posted in: Dare to Play the Game, News and Opinions by Michael Durr on May 7th, 2008
Wiimote not to be threatened, GTA IV threatening the Wii, and Nazi killing gets a birthday - Welcome to the column that will not be threatened a second time ahhhhh (and bring us a shrubbery!) known as Dare to Play the Game.
Welcome to another edition of Dare to Play the Game. 40&22. Yes I got the silly emerald raptor. I still have half of my reputation bar for Undercity to go before I become exalted. By every calculation, it is near impossible to be exalted with Undercity by level 40 unless you are of course Undead to begin with. Will I get it by Level 60? Sure. I actually liked the Silvermoon area quite a bit when I was questing there last week. So much, that if I make another character (won't be before one of my characters hit 60) it will be a Blood Elf Hunter. I promise I won't be a huntard either. I played a max level Ranger in Guild Wars and know my way with a bow and a filthy animal. As to where I will quest with my Troll Rogue now? Stranglethorn Vale or Feralas seems to be the popular choice. Naturally I will still try to find any and all quests that have Undercity rep but my concentration will be in this area.
Posted in: Brain Blasters by David Annandale on May 2nd, 2008
All right, I know this horse is so dead it’s glue, and I’m one of the killers, but after calling for a remake last week, I have to at least go on record with my extreme dread over some others coming down the pike.
My principle in this series has been to look at films that were botched the first time around, but nevertheless contained a germ of something that might actually blossom into a wonderful piece of work, given the right team. Meanwhile, there are some projects that sound wacky enough that they just might work, but don’t (hello, Neil LaBute’s Wicker Man). And then there are those that are doomed from the start.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on May 2nd, 2008
A couple of years ago, I was out a trip to New Jersey on business with my boss. When we got there, he wasn’t feeling well, so I had him sit down while I went to the clinic down the hall to see if some medical attention could be given to him. As I turned the corner with an attendant, that’s when I saw him hit the floor. After a few moments of stabilization he was taken to the hospital, where it was determined that he had a stroke. A co-worker and I stayed with him for the duration of the next couple of days until his family could get there, and over that time, he suffered several smaller strokes in the process. One minute he could talk rather lucidly, and like flipping a switch his facial muscles would sag and be nonresponsive. Once his family came, we managed to get the chance to come home, and he spent several more days in the hospital, remarkably without any repercussions from this incident, and came back to work, where we still talk (I’ve moved to another company) and share the occasional gallow humor about what happened.
He was lucky, though there are others that have experienced far worse situations. The Diving Bell and the Butterfly is a look at the life of Jean-Dominique Dauby. The editor of the French version of Elle magazine led a somewhat glamorous life,and one day had a severe cerebrovascular incident, whereby he was left paralyzed, but responsive in his left eye, which allowed him to communicate solely by blinking. With the help of speech therapists, he was able to state his thoughts in his book by the same title, as a metaphor of his useless body, labeled as the “diving bell,” ironically clashing with his free spirit, your “butterfly,” if you will.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on May 2nd, 2008
It’s hard to peg a movie like Things We Lost in the Fire. While people want to slam it and say that it’s not an uplifting movie, I think that upon further review, they might want to examine those behind it, and see that it’s another solid effort from them.
Written by Allan Loeb in his writing debut and directed by Susanne Bier, the talented Danish director behind the film Brothers, the film centers on a recent widow named Audrey, played by Halle Berry (X2), who lost her husband Brian (David Duchovny, The X-Files) to a murder in tragic circumstances. After notifying Brian’s friend Jerry (Benicio Del Toro, Traffic) about the murder, Jerry doesn’t seem to take it so well. Brian and Jerry have been friends since they were kids, and while Brian went onto a life as a successful architect, Jerry was a lawyer before becoming addicted to cocaine and heroin, and was spending his days at a sleazy dive apartment getting high. Yet Brian would come and visit Jerry, to catch up and talk about his family. When Audrey would be skeptical of how Jerry might be exploiting Brian, Brian stuck by him. So what Audrey winds up doing is inviting Jerry to live with them. In the process, Jerry helps Audrey and her kids cope with their loss, while trying to strike the delicate balance of sobriety.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Michael Durr on May 1st, 2008
Retelling of classic tales has been a fodder for movie scripts for years. Take something that has worked for ages, spin it just so and you got a movie that might be gold. They have been doing this with Romeo & Juliet for years. The results can be great or sometimes they are one step of having the creator roll around in his grave with pain and anguish. Take Hamlet for example, the classic Shakespearian tale about a prince who takes revenge on his uncle Claudius who has murdered his father the King and taken the throne and the king's wife too. It has treachery, corruption and a little good ole fashioned incest to wet the palette. Now take that piece of journalistic tragedy and set it after the fall of the Tang Dynasty in China. Insert popular Asian actors like Ziyi Zhang & Daniel Wu and you might just have something.
Emperor Li (played by You Ge) has taken over the throne from his brother by murdering him. In the process, he has also taken the brother's wife Empress Wan (played by Ziyi Zhang) as his own for the good of the kingdom (and cause she's hot). An attack is also staged on the Prince, Wu Lan (played by Daniel Wu) who has devoted his life to the arts and is found at a nearby village of actors. After an elaborate fighting scene, he escapes with his life and makes his way to the castle to confront his step mother, the Empress (which we find out they shared romantic feelings toward each other) and expose his father's murderer, the Emperor.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on April 30th, 2008
Who says no one likes a guy who’s negative all he time? Becker has got to be one of the most cynical, grumpy, and negative characters to grace our sit-com screens. He’s a guy you probably love to hate, and he’s also hilarious. Ted Danson spent over a decade behind the bar at Cheers and could have easily called it a career. You know, stop while you’re ahead. Instead he climbed right back into the television saddle and reemerged as Dr. Becker. This time he’s a medical doctor who hates everything and everyone around him. Refusing to display that little bit of a heart we all know he has, Becker spends most of his life complaining about everything. Never before has it been so much fun to watch a guy moan and groan for twenty minutes at a time. Fortunately for him, Becker is truly a dedicated doctor, and while he’s likely to complain about it the whole time, he’ll go to any extreme to help a patient.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on April 30th, 2008
In the 1940’s Walt Disney was asked by President Roosevelt to take a good will tour across Latin America as an ambassador of sorts. He declined the invitation, protesting that he wasn’t the handshaking kind and that the cause would be better served using someone else. Not to be deterred,
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Michael Durr on April 30th, 2008
A question to ponder before we head into this review. What do you get when you mix anime or japanese animation with a healthy dose of John Woo? Besides a ton of falling gun shell casing and cute characters performing acrobatics in the air while taking down a dozen bad guys? You get a movie that goes full speed for over a hundred minutes and makes you realize that this is truly the perfect avenue for John Woo and style of films. However, just don't expect there to be a completely solid story behind it.
In the future, the world is annihilated by itself. However, out of the dust & debris, Olympus rises as a utopian society. The new society has a group of soldiers called the ESWAT (wasn't this a game for Sega Genesis? sorry, *turns off video game knowledge*). These warriors protect the peace and serve in the utopian society's best interest. The warriors consist of cyborgs and humans. Bioroids or genetically engineered humans serve as diplomatic leaders over ESWAT due to their calm and collective nature.
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