Posted in: Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on October 18th, 2006
After one year of Alfred Hitchcock Presents, television had been forever changed. Hitch proved beyond any doubt that film quality production was practical in the fledgling television format. Nothing changed as the show returned for its second season. Hitch had a remarkable eye for good stories, and he often found them in the most unlikely of places. Take two of this season’s episodes. In The Three Dreams Of Mr. Findlater, a man fantasizes about his nagging wife’s death. In A Man greatly Beloved, we find a small tow...
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on October 18th, 2006
Japanese horror films are all the rage these days, with the originals hitting DVD in the States, and the remakes showing up in the theaters. Therefore, it stands to reason that even Criterion would get in on the trend, offering up a film from famed director Nobuo Nakagawa, widely regarded as the father of the Japanese horror film.
Jigoku is both strange and fascinating. The film tells the story of two friends that are involved in a hot-and-run accident. While one of the young men is cool, calm and collected, the other is wracked with guilt over their actions.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on October 18th, 2006
Synopsis
Michael Caine plays Nicholas Urfe, a self-centred, cynical Englishman who arrives on the Greek island of Phraxos to take a teaching post. He meets Maurice Conchis (Anthony Quinn), a mysterious individual who ensnares Urfe in a complex, psychologically violent mind game, where Urfe is increasingly unable to distinguish truth from lies, reality from illusion.
John Fowles wrote the script, adapting his own novel, and while the story is recognizable, the result is not encouraging. The ...
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on October 18th, 2006
In 1984 Brian De Palma dusted off his best Alfred Hitchcock imitation in the by now infamous Body Double. We all know the story by now. In fact, if you’ve seen the far superior Vertigo and Rear Window films, you knew the story already. Claustrophobic vampire actor Jake Scully is having a hard time. He’s just been fired because he can’t lie in a coffin, and getting home early, he walks in on his girlfriend in bed with another man. Out of work and homeless, things look up when a fellow actor gets him a sweet housesit...
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on October 17th, 2006
Garfield 2: A Tale of Two Kitties is a lot better than I thought it would be. Kids would love it, and it’s not too obnoxious for adults.
It’s a decent story for kids. Just before he’s planning to propose to her, Jon Arbuckle’s girlfriend, Liz, announces that she’s been scheduled at the last minute to speak at a conference in London, and she must leave right away. Jon decides to follow her there to pop the question. Garfield wants to interfere, so he and Odie smuggle themselves in Jon’s luggage.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on October 17th, 2006
Synopsis
Ariel is the rebellious teen daughter of King Triton. She falls in love with a human prince (whom she rescued from drowning), but her father will not hear of it. So she makes a bargain with the evil Ursula – she will be granted legs for three days (but no voice), and if she has not been kissed by then... well... you know how deals with Evil generally go.
After a long time in the dolldrums, this was a return to form for the Disney studios, and marked something of a second golden age...
Posted in: Highly Defined, News and Opinions by Archive Authors on October 16th, 2006
Happy belated Columbus and Thanksgiving Days!
Well, while early HD-DVD adopters were poring over the Batman Begins release, assuming one could be found somewhere in North America, the business of trying to win the hearts and minds of the next-generation home video buyer continued in earnest, with various types of news coming out over the last week.
As far as disc news goes, HBO, which was originally set to release The Sopranos 6th Season on 11/7, has now postponed the release indefin...
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on October 16th, 2006
Synopsis
A meteor lands in your typical SF/horror movie Small Town (and it could well be the same meteor that brought the original Blob to town). Bullet-headed mug Michael Rooker stumbles over it one drunken night, and promptly becomes infected with carniverous slug-parasites from outer space. He sets about spreading the good news, as it were, and before long the entire town is a chaos of slithering nastiness and zombiefied townspeople.
After scripting the slick but soulless remake of Da...
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on October 15th, 2006
Synopsis
What still surprises me when seeing Fast Times at Ridgemont High almost a quarter century after the film was initially released is the impressive casting. Some veterans did contribute to the film, but check out the laundry list of relative unknowns, and where they’ve gone onto. You’ve got Academy Award nominees (Jennifer Jason Leigh, Sean Penn and Martin Brest, who received Directing and Best Picture nominations for Scent of a Woman), an Emmy nominee/Golden Globe winner (Anthony Edwards), a ...
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on October 15th, 2006
There’s a bunch of people stuck in a bar in the middle of nowhere. Monsters want to eat them. What will they do? That about sums up Feast, a film that’s part comedy, part horror, and all around over the top. This is the winning project from season three of Project Greenlight, a contest and documentary series founded by Matt Damon and Ben Affleck back in 2000. What does that mean? Feast is a low-budget film helmed by a rookie director, based on an amateur script.
Rookie and amateur are often words associated with low quality, but this gore-fest is actually pretty good.
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