Posted in: Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on August 14th, 2007
Written by Evan Braun
If I had to find one single word to completely encapsulate this show, and particularly its first season, it would be: Cute. No, wait ... scratch that. Make it: Nauseauting.
Silver Spoons came a little before my time, which possibly explains why I have no real affection for it. Certainly I'm guilty of having fallen for a few nauseatingly cute shows of my own (say, Full House, to name but one). If I was 5-10 years older, I could have fallen for this, too.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on August 14th, 2007
Written by Evan Braun
I am both the perfect person to be reviewing Babylon 5 and exactly the wrong person. Being an irrationally devoted fan of the series, it's difficult for me to be objective about it. And it is therefore with this unique perspective that I sat down to watch this newest B5 release.
I expected to absolutely enjoy it. In my mind, if it was really great, than it was good ... and if it was really mediocre, it would still be good on account of the fact that it had been so long since the last B5 movie. As it turns out, it was impossible for me to be as universally pleased as I'd anticipated.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by David Annandale on August 13th, 2007
Mads Mikkelsen, whom we last saw taking a rope to James Bond’s family jewels, is here up to a far more praiseworthy activity: helping run a school for orphans in an impoverished region of India. The school is struggling to survive, and when a Danish businessman expresses an interest in providing stable funding, but only if Mikkelsen comes to Denmark for a meeting, the latter is reluctantly persuaded to leave India for the encounter. At said meeting, the tycoon (Rolf Lassgard) casually (it seems) invites Mikkelsen to his daughter’s wedding. Mikkelsen accepts, and at that wedding receives quite a shock. Lassgard, it turns out, has a very personal secret agenda at work.
Posted in: Highly Defined by Archive Authors on August 13th, 2007
So in between the anticipation for Madden 08 and convalescing at home with a big arse fever, there’s not a lot for me to go over in this installment. Really. I’m waiting for my Pioneer Elite to come in in a couple of weeks, but the only other thing to talk about is more disc announcements. Knocked Up is going to come out on HD DVD on 9/25 from Universal (and Evan Almighty comes out two weeks later) while Ratatouille comes to Blu-ray on 11/6. Disc releases this week are fairly blah, as Blu-ray serves up Doctor Strange, The Lookout, Vacancy and Wild Hogs, while HD-DVD buyers get their choices of Dragon’s Lair, Erin Brockovich, Meet the Fockers, Mercury Rising and What Dreams May Come.
That’s it for me this week, and as always high definers, keep the brightness low and the resolution high!
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Michael Durr on August 12th, 2007
There are often stories about burn patients who lose part of their face or leave their other body parts horribly disfigured. It is sad and unfortunate. But what if you had horrible chemical and fire burns and had to take refuge in warehouses and underground? You had the strength of ten men, but could create a mask that you could use to duplicate your enemies or be the man you used to be? However, that face only lasted 99 minutes. This is the story of Darkman. A trilogy of movies that developed a cult following for its subject matter and campy presentation. Part action, part sci-fi, part thriller. But a great time as long as you left your brain at the door.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on August 12th, 2007
Erin Brockovich tells a story based on a true series of event. Erin (Julie Roberts in her Oscar winning role) has a tough life. She’s a single mother of three kids, her two ex-husbands left her not supporting her or her children, she can’t seem to find any work due to her lack of education, and she has $16 in her bank account. Life seems to be continuing on a downward spiral for Erin. Things start looking up when she is practically handed a job by her defense lawyer Ed Marsy (Albert Finney). It’s here that Erin stumbles upon a case involving PG&E, a $28 billion company that had been disposing a chemical into the local water supply of a nearby town called Hinkley, California.
![Erin Brockovich [HD DVD] dvd cover art](https://upcomingdiscs.com/ecs_covers/erin-brockovich-hd-dvd-large.jpg)
Posted in: Brain Blasters, Regular Columns by David Annandale on August 10th, 2007
All right, some musings on basics now. I have spilled a fair bit of verbiage over the course of this column about films that are so bad they’re good. But there are questions going unanswered, and, dare I say it, unasked: how exactly does this come to pass. How does a bad movie achieve a certain form of perverse greatness? Why do we enjoy watching these things? I could go on.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on August 9th, 2007
Wild Hogs is a pretty simple film for the most part. You have four guys who, for their own reasons, are finding their daily lives have gotten away from them. Their mid-life crises lead them to venture together on a cross country motorbike journey filled with enough peril to make them forget their ordinary lives and live the adventure of their dreams. The film has the standard sight gags that pretty much carry the first half of the film. Macy's character has a rather amusing computer glitch in a Wi-Fi cafe. A lot of these jokes, often dealing with a gay cop who thinks the four are a pretty hot and tempting, get carried too far and get stale rather quickly. I could certainly do without the naked butt shots myself.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by David Annandale on August 9th, 2007
Logan (Malcolm Stumpf) is a lonely 13-year-old whose experience of junior high, already hellish, is made exponentially worse by his emerging homosexual identity. Smitten with Rodeo, an older rebel who is one of the only other students to spend time with him, Logan adopts the female identity of “Leah†which he uses to seduce Rodeo over the phone, hoping to make his daydream a reality. Meanwhile, he identifies strongly with the mountain lions that have begun straying onto the campus and being shot.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on August 9th, 2007
There must be very few people out there who haven’t seen Taxi Driver or at the very least muttered the words, “you talking to me?†Regardless, this thirty year old film is easily a classic, and still on the top of many critics lists. It marked the blooming of an epic and ongoing relationship between Robert DeNiro and Martin Scorsese, the spawn of Jodie Foster’s career and arguably Harvey Keitel’s as well. At any rate Taxi Driver managed to receive four Academy award nominations as well as gaining a huge cult following. I don’t think it’s a surprise that I’ve already seen and love this movie, but how does the newly released DVD pan out?
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