Posted in: Brain Blasters, News and Opinions by David Annandale on February 9th, 2007
Genre and cult fans have their pantheons of cinematic deities. Some of these immortals are currently active, some are not. Some are celebrated for their incompetence. But there are others who are deified for actually making great films. And it is always heartbreaking when idols totter on their pedestals. Consider the giants of the horror film who emerged in the 1970's, and where they are now. Wes Craven has done quite nicely for himself, thank you very much, but what has Tobe Hooper really and truly done for us since...The Texas Chainsaw Massacre? And is John Carpenter really going to end his feature film career with Ghosts of Mars? Say it isn’t so.
And now comes along Masters of Horror. The series is currently airing its second season, and much of the first is now out on DVD. The premise is fabulous: get the acknowledged giants of the field to make short films with very little constraints with regards to content. But the execution isn’t always as inspired as said premise. There certainly have been some pretty memorable episodes, but for my money, the most striking (even though it has its own flaws), is the one episode that never aired in North America: Takashi Miike’s insanely nasty “Imprint.” The current season is shaping up to be a disappointment: too many mediocre-to-pedestrian episodes, directed by people who hardly qualify as “masters” of the genre.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on February 8th, 2007
Ever write off a movie based solely on the buzz? I did that with Hollywoodland before I'd ever heard the actual title - someone asked, "did you hear about Ben Affleck's new movie? I hear it stinks." Given Affleck's recent string of box office flops, that's all it took for me to avoid the film.
Of course, it's not just an Affleck movie; it also stars Adrien Brody (The Pianist), Diane Lane (Under the Tuscan Sun) and Bob Hoskins (Mrs. Henderson Presents). As expected, these actors turn in fine performances, creating characters that keep viewers' interest while the film meanders its way through one of Hollywood's unsolved mysteries. The nice surprise here, though, is that Affleck (Surviving Christmas) more than holds his own with a superb performance as George Reeves. It's easy to forget that Affleck is a talented actor, but if you think back to films like Shakespeare in Love and Good Will Hunting, his performance here is less of a surprise.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on February 8th, 2007
There are a few early sequences in Hollywoodland that show two important aspects of the film. First these sequences show us the type of man that George Reeves was trying to become (simply trying to get noticed) and, possibly more important, the type of actor that Affleck is becoming as his career becomes more about making quality films than making sure-fire moneymakers.
Based on the true story of the Hollywood unsolved murder of TV�s George Reeves, Hollywoodland stars accomplished actors Ben Affleck, Diane Lane, Bob Hoskins and Adrien Brody. Each plays a rather pivotal role in the film either as Reeves� lover (Diane Lane), her estranged husband (Bob Hoskins), a private investigator (Adrien Brody) or the man himself George Reeves (Ben Affleck in quite possibly his finest peformance to date).
Posted in: Dare to Play the Game, News and Opinions by Michael Durr on February 7th, 2007
Super Mario World arrives, Mass Effect delayed and Duke Nukem never? - Welcome to the column that does not know if it’s coming or going known as Dare to Play the Game.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on February 7th, 2007
The Force family is not your typical American Brady family. Then again, if they were, they wouldn’t be interesting enough to get their own reality television show. Still, just because you’re interesting doesn’t necessarily mean everyone will want to watch you. John Force is apparently the winningest drag racer in the sport’s history. His wife and three daughters live on his property but in a separate home. His daughters have decided to follow in Daddy Dearest’s track marks and are also circuit race car drivers. Oldest daughter Ashley is, in fact, creating quite a name for herself in the sport. While she expresses doubts often, her pre-race interviews show a real addiction to the thrill and adrenaline rush the sport provides her. The girls’ level of commitment sometimes wavers, and Dad finds the whole situation frustrating at times. Dad constantly reminds us that he wishes he’d had sons instead. This might be cute if I believed for even a second he was kidding around. And so, camera crews follow this real-life dysfunctional family through their daily trials and tribulations. Dad’s a hothead who, while he expresses genuine pride for his girls, is terribly self-centered most of the time. The series follows the family from the beginning of a new racing season. We get a nice inside look at the workings of a racing business. The opening episode also brings home the stark reality of the inherent danger the sport operates with each day. John Force warns his daughter during a training session that you only get one shot at dying. Laurie, John’s wife and mother to the girls, is quite the tragic figure. Most of the time she looks like she’d rather not be there. She shows all the classic signs of an emotionally battered woman and expresses constant fear and frustration at being near John. What a role model these two make for their daughters. The only appeal this series had was to drag racing fans. Truth is, it doesn’t look like anyone in this family enjoys each other’s company, so why would we want to spend any time with them?
Video
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on February 7th, 2007
The prologue to The Covenant tells us of people with supernatural powers. We're told of how these powerful warlocks and witches were hunted throughout Europe and escaped to the New England colonies in the New World. The information is provided with the contradictions of pseudogrunge music and pages of ancient texts. It doesn't take us long to meet young men, descendants from these immigrant families. We discover them flaunting their powers by jumping off a cliff on the way to a teen party. These four special teen boys have the world, or at least their local community, by the short hairs. Soon we are alerted that something has changed. The group feels a strong presence that is disturbing their supernatural force. Newcomer Chase Collins (Stan) has a secret of his own. He is the last of a fifth family once banished from the society. His return means the usual tale of revenge and mayhem is about to unfold. Throw in a generous amount of teen sex, loud music, and fast cars, and we have a quite furious but erratic romp. We're informed in roundabout ways that the society operates under certain rules intended to keep the secret and allow them to remain safe. Unfortunately these rules appear more like suggestions, really, as the boys are usually apt to show off their powers whether being chased by police or merely to remove a girl's pants to win a bet. We also learn that using this force drains the user's life, causing premature aging, if the powers are used too frequently. Of course, there is always a potential workaround to such unfortunate effects. It seems any warlock may will his powers onto another, particularly at their 18th birthday when they come into full possession of their "gifts".
Comparisons to the superior Underworld films can't be helped. The box art invites such comparisons by telling us the film's share producers. The idea of a secret society with sinister history and secrets create a common thread. But warlocks are just not as cool as vampires and werewolves. Blue tints to the cinematography complete the comparisons. The Covenant obviously attempts to stay more grounded in reality and so is far more mundane overall. The film employs an odd combination of complex simplicity. We are treated to hints of this incredibly rich tradition and history, yet it is all cheapened by the one dimensional performance of the cast. We are always tantalizingly close to something larger that never makes its appearance on film. None of these characters exhibit the culture and sophistication that the filmmakers want so badly to convince us they possess. The film wants so much to be epic in its scope, but no power on heaven or earth, supernatural or otherwise, is going to make that happen. Add to these flaws some horrid examples of dialogue looping (dialogue replacement) and one begins to wonder if Renny Harlin was so obsessed with largesse that he simply ignored the critical details. Check out the looping at about 25 minutes into the film.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on February 7th, 2007
Boy, this title really came out of left field. I am one of those DVD collectors who picks out their favorite television shows and collects all the full DVD season sets. I did this with Wonder Woman, with Kung Fu and with The West Wing. I also started collecting full season sets of Mad About You just a couple of months after I started with Friends. I finished all ten seasons of Friends in late 2005, yet I was only two seasons in to Mad About You's seven season run. What...gives? The last season of Mad About You that was released was Season Two, which hit store shelves in April of 2003. Two seasons released in 5 years is not exactly the turnaround that fans look for; especially in a show that is no longer on the air. I, as did many fans, naturally assumed that no more seasons would be released after several years passed without a new season dropping.
So, imagine my shock when I read a news item in January of this year that announced Season Three's surprising release. Maybe the "greatest episodes" set they released in 2005 sold better than they expected. Maybe fan chatter reached those with their finger on the metaphorical button. Maybe Sony made enough off of the sale of the Seinfeld season sets to cover the losses on releasing another season of Mad About You (my personal guess). Whatever the reason, it's probably best not to ask too many questions, but to just be happy that this thing has finally shown up in stores at all.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by David Annandale on February 5th, 2007
Three young couples on a road trip leave their turtled vehicle and march through the dark woods, hoping to find the highway again. (Clearly Mensa candidates, each and every one.) They stumble upon an apparently abandoned secret facility, and naturally blunder in. A psychically powered lunatic uses astral projection to do bad things to them. People start to die. No great loss.
Think through this equation for me, will you? Direct-to-video + walking-around-tunnels-plot + Tara Reid = ? What do you think? That the movie is not a COMPLETELY incompetent mess at the technical level is a minor miracle. That it would be anything other than tedious, however, would have required a major one.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on February 3rd, 2007
All, the early '90s! I spent my time counting the days until my military service ended by drinking as much beer as possible until I got to the bright red circle on my calendar. But when Martin Lawrence (House Party) pitched an idea for a sitcom with an African American cast, Fox picked up the show and added it to a then-fledging group of shows that balanced themselves between evening soap operas and raunchy family comedies.
Martin tells the story of Martin Payne (Lawrence), successful host of an urban radio station program in Detroit. His girlfriend is Gina (Tisha Campbell, Boomerang), whose best friend Pam (Tichina Arnold, Everybody Hates Chris) disapproves of him. And Martin's boys, the guys who will always have his back are Cole (Carl Anthony Payne, The Cosby Show) and Tommy (Thomas Mikal Ford, Q & A), who bumble around a bit, but their loyalty is unquestioned.
Posted in: Brain Blasters, News and Opinions by David Annandale on February 2nd, 2007
I thought this week I’d toss my two cents into the whole HD DVD/Blu-ray debate. Let’s be clear: I have no particular technical expertise, and I have no interest in attempting to judge which is the superior format (though I note with interest that, in the latest issue of Video Watchdog, editor Tim Lucas mentions that Blu-ray players are not compatible with standard DVDs). I’m approaching this from the point of view of a collector, and specifically a collector of cult films.
It may be that the format w...r is over before it begins, if Warner’s dual-format disc or the dual-format players turn out to be everything promised. If not, one very significant difference between this battle and the VHS/Beta war occurs to me. During the previous two-format period, whichever side you took, this didn’t really limit your viewing options (at least until Beta started losing). But with studios lining up in opposing camps, that means that whichever format you choose today, there will be plenty of movies that you will simply NOT be able to watch because they will be exclusively released on the competing format. Gee, and is it a surprise that the units aren’t flying off the shelves?
On The Web
Sponsors
