Posted in: Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on March 19th, 2008
It seems like foodies are everywhere these days. Maybe Emeril is to blame, maybe it's Paula Dean, maybe it's the Food Network as a whole.I have even been sucked in my Anthony Bourdain myself (whose show is ironically also named No Reservations). Wherever there is a trend, there is guaranteed to be a romantic comedy to follow. Enter Aaron Eckhart and Catherine Zeta-Jones. Eckhart has been doing some fantastic work lately, from his work in Thank You for Smoking to lesser known films such as Conversations With Other Women, he is quickly becoming one of the best actors on the scene today.
I have no problems with romantic comedies whatsoever. The problem is that the vast majority of them are just the same film over and over again. A girl who is a cute mess is pursued by a surprisingly understanding man who loves her just the way she is, and the whole thing is wrapped up with some dialog that thinks it is much more clever than it actually is. In this case, the girl is a chef, and the man is her new sous chef. Sure, the not-so-clever is here just as you would expect, but in this film, the serious dialog is no good either. The film is filled with poor imitations of life in a kitchen, not to mention some amazingly bad acting. It is obvious that everybody here phoned it in, which leads me to ask the question of why anybody signed on to do this film at all. In doing some background research, I discovered that Catherine Zeta-Jones worked for exactly one day as a waitress in preparation for her role... as a chef. Believe me, it shows, in the way that an actor who spent one day playing guitar would be completely unconvincing as a musician.
![No Reservations (Combo HD DVD and Standard DVD) [HD DVD] dvd cover art](https://upcomingdiscs.com/ecs_covers/no-reservations-combo-hd-dvd-and-s-large.jpg)
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on March 19th, 2008
Bee Movie is almost completely a Jerry Seinfeld creation. The idea apparently came out of a conversation the comedian had over dinner with Steven Spielberg. From the simple concept of a film about bees called Bee Movie, Seinfeld teamed with his long-term collaborator Spike Feresten. Together they created a rather amusing world where bees can talk and live in a human-like society dedicated to the production of honey. I’ll admit that while I often enjoyed the Seinfeld television series, I was one of those that never really got it. On the surface a lot of it was funny, so I watched it, but I can’t really call myself a true fan of the series or the comedy of Jerry Seinfeld. Pretty much however you might have felt about the show will carry over to Bee Movie. The entire film reflects pure Seinfeld in the characters and his somewhat trademark observations on life. It is that element that might have lessened the overall enjoyment for me. Seinfeld’s bee world is so much like his television or stand-up world that I found it hard to immerse myself into the story. No question there were some clever ideas at work here, but it sure seemed like somewhere along the way someone settled for mediocrity.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on March 18th, 2008
I don’t know what I really expected when I started watching Greek. I never saw the broadcast, and the series was extremely underplayed in the crowded wilderness of promos and press. Honestly, I’m not sure I would have invested any time in the show if I had heard of it. So, when Greek showed up at my door to watch and review, I had to scratch my head a little bit before deciding to put the first disc into my DVD player. The release case almost makes the show sound like a Greek life reality show, and I’m sure as we speak some new reality creator is just now thinking what a great idea that would be. But Greek is not a reality show at all. It’s a teen soap opera set in the party environment of a college campus and both a fraternity and sorority house. The concept would appear to be slightly misplaced on ABC’s Family Network. The prerequisite underage drinking and promiscuous sexual lives don’t appear to be the best “family” entertainment. We don’t get even halfway through the pilot episode before we’re already charting those waters. To be sure, Greek is no Animal House, and the atmosphere is toned down considerably, but the issues remain, and this is not a show for the kiddies.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on March 18th, 2008
Two couples, each with their own intimacy issues, set out to spice up their love life by attending a sex therapy seminar. After navigating through their problems for about forty minutes, they each settle on group sex to solve their problems, because that's always the best solution to everything, right?
The first couple is James and Heather (Culkin and Alexis Dziena). James is madly in love with Heather, but she can't have an orgasm when they have sex. That, my friend, is a problem. The second couple is Ellis and Renee (Kuno Becker and Dushku), who seek thrills to liven up their bored sex life. That, is a problem too... but not as bad as the first.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on March 17th, 2008
“Greed is Good.”
No other cinematic phrase described the 1980’s better. And no other movie captures the financial corruption of the 80’s better than Oliver Stone’s Wall Street.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on March 16th, 2008
I now realize that the funniest funny is found in awkwardness. This is why Curb Your Enthusiasm is so popular. The main characters do things that make you cringe, often to the point where you even cover your eyes because it’s just too painful to watch. You say aloud to yourself, “Oh my god, no he didn’t just get a boner while hugging that old woman,” or “why are you talking to the TiVo guy when your wife might die?!” But with all due respect to the people that hate Larry’s character (Larry David) because he’s so rude and does stupid stuff, he often gets the short stick and apologizes when he shouldn’t have to.
If the unscripted show didn’t already shoot from the hip, the sixth season of Curb adds new potential for cringe-worthy activities. This 10-episode season introduces the Blacks (including Vivica A. Fox), an African-American family displaced by Hurricane Katrina Edna who altruistic Cheryl (Cheryl Hines) wanted to take in while the family’s house was being rebuilt. I was surprised by the few issues that actually sprung up with the new additions.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on March 14th, 2008
If Matt Stone and Trey Parker have learned anything in their long run with
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on March 14th, 2008
Let’s make the point right from the start, that
Posted in: Brain Blasters by David Annandale on March 14th, 2008
So last week, I looked at Universal’s latest collection of their vintage SF movies, a set unfortunately limited to a Best Buy exclusive. We have another one of those today: the Universal Horror Classic Movie Archive. It, too, can be tracked down pretty easily through the Amazon marketplace.
Back in the mid-90s was when the films on all of these collections were first showing up in a home video format. It was a great time for collectors (barring that chilling moment when, for a little while, the only version of the original Dracula available was the one with the new Philip Glass score). Now, there are only so many films from that era (30s and 40s for horror, 50s for SF) that legitimately qualify as classics, so more and more B-level pictures followed in the wake of their more famous brethren. There is nothing wrong with this, as the opportunity finally came for many of us to see these things for the first time, and minor gems would inevitably crop up.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by David Annandale on March 14th, 2008
Here are four films from renowned maverick Jean-Luc Godard. Insofar as these films have plots in the conventional sense of the word, Passion is about a filmmaker struggling to rediscover his love for his profession, First Name: Carmen plays with the tale of that same name to tell another story of filmmaking and bank robbery, Detective is an idiosyncratic tribute to films noirs, and Oh, Woe Is Me is about a man who may or may not be possessed by a god wanting to seduce his wife.
Samuel Johnson once remarked that anyone reading Samuel Richardson’s Clarissa for its plot would be moved to suicide, and that is certainly the case for anyone trying to watch Godard for story. That is not what he’s interested in. These films, all from his late period (ranging from 1982 to 1993), are postmodern, allegorico-politico-philosophical musings on the human condition. Narratives fragment; soundtracks are multi-layered, with dialogue that is dense, sometimes obscured, and often opaque; and there is plenty of provocation. These are films that are probably not terribly inviting for newcomers to Godard. If you already have the likes of Weekend under your belt, you’ll be fine. If this is your first time, your might well reject the filmmaker as a pretentious twit.
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