Posted in: Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on September 24th, 2007
Stop me if you’ve heard any of this before. Four teens set out on a road trip …
STOP.
OK. That’s just unfair. Let me go on a little longer.
They’re going to the “biggest party in the world” when their vehicle stalls and leaves them stranded out in the middle of nowhere…
STOP
Well. One of them is blind and they’re not all horny drug fiends.
OK. Go on.
They find an abandoned hotel and café where everyone has mysteriously disappeared…
STOP
I guess you get the idea.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on September 24th, 2007
2004 brought moviegoers two big-budget historical epics in Oliver Stone's Alexander and Wolfgang Petersen's Troy. One bombed. The other performed well, but was by no means heralded as a critical success. No, Troy was praised for slick production values and exciting battles, but derided for a lack of emotional depth.
Can it all be blamed on running-time constraints and compromises made for the ratings board? The answer is here, with the unrated Troy: Director's Cut, Petersen's second shot at eternal glory, this time with more than 30 minutes of additional footage.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on September 23rd, 2007
(Since I was lucky enough to review the standard def copy of The Wedding Date, I'm going to be lazy and let you view my thoughts on this, with the audio and video updated to reflect this HD DVD copy).
I would hope that The Wedding Date, signals the end of the genre of films set around weddings. There’s nothing left to mine, the horse is very dead, and in this case, the film is rather predictable. Or to put in another way, my wife said “this film will probably be stupid, but I’ll like it”. And when I was watching parts of the film, the story was so easy to follow that I could go and make a batch of chili, come back, and still know what happened while I was away.
![The Wedding Date [HD DVD] dvd cover art](https://upcomingdiscs.com/ecs_covers/the-wedding-date-hd-dvd-large.jpg)
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on September 23rd, 2007
(Comments on the supplemental part of the disc are pulled from Gary Van Auken’s review of the Blu-ray version of the disc, which can be foundhere.
Synopsis
I’d received a copy of The Condemned as part of its star’s massive publicity swing to promote said film. Despite the film’s abysmal 16% rating on rottentomatoes, the protagonist of the film is professional wrestler Stone Cold Steve Austin, who certainly knows how to charm people when he needs to. However unlike other wrestler’s Hollywood dreams, this role was Austin’s first feature, and his third acting performance overall.
Posted in: Game Reviews by Michael Durr on September 23rd, 2007
Bomberman has long been a friend of mine. I spent most of the early to mid 90's playing either the original Bomberman or Bomberman '93 for the Turbo Graphix 16 System. I played each until their eventual conclusion and then wouldn't touch them for years. So when there was word that a Bomberman game would come to Xbox Live I was very excited. But at the same time I was very skeptical. So skeptical, it took me about two months to download it and the accompanying first expansion pack. However, what came out of it was quite possibly the best multiplayer Xbox Live Arcade game of all time and one of the best reasons to own an Xbox 360 that doesn't involve a first person shooter.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on September 22nd, 2007
It’s hard for me to believe that Darkman comes from a time when Sam Raimi was fresh off directing Evil Dead 2 and Liam Neeson was a little known Irish actor. A lot has changed since then, but a true classic can stand the test of time, and although I was very young when I first saw this movie, I remember it being very unique. Of course my perspective on films has blossomed since the time I was watching Rugrats, and it has literally been that long since I’ve seen Darkman. Nonetheless I’m pleased to finally get the chance to watch this Liam Neeson classic, and in HD to boot.
![Darkman [HD DVD] dvd cover art](https://upcomingdiscs.com/ecs_covers/darkman-hd-dvd-large.jpg)
Posted in: Random Fun by Archive Authors on September 21st, 2007
Scott Adams, author of Dilbert, made an interesting observation about R vs. G rated movies in a recent post:
"A study done in 2005 showed that G-rated movies are 11 times more profitable than R-rated movies, yet the industry cranks out 12-times more R-rated movies." [from Scott Adams]
Posted in: Random Fun by Archive Authors on September 21st, 2007
Found via digg, another funny feature on Cracked: the 10 Best Animated Films for (Traumatizing) Kids.
Number One: Pom Poko, distributed by Walt Disney.
Posted in: Brain Blasters by David Annandale on September 21st, 2007
My very first horror film book, acquired in Grade 3, was Denis Gifford’s A Pictorial History of Horror Movies. Among its many stills were a number for films identified by title, but with no other information provided. The result was rather tantalizing. One of those stills was for a 1969 Japanese ditty called Horror of Malformed Men. At long last, thanks to a new release from Synapse (with the title pluralized to Horrors of Malformed Men), my curiosity has been more than satisfied.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on September 21st, 2007
It’s clear watching Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer that Tim Story and company spent lots of time on the Silver Surfer and little gags for the Four’s powers, and not so much time on the actual story.
The result is a shiny hunk of refuse. There are holes all over the place, and once again the filmmakers have failed to present characters and conflicts the audience will actually care about. The world’s going to end? Big deal. On the bright side, while the film sucks, this 2-Disc Power Cosmic Edition DVD set is pretty fantastic.
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