Posted in: Highly Defined, News and Opinions by Archive Authors on August 28th, 2006
I feel like a kid in some sort of a store…
Well the week has seen some surprises, concrete or not for both camps. First and foremost, the 2.0 Firmware for the Toshiba HD player is out now. There has been some glowing praise, not only for the firmware (which now allows TruHD), but for the continuing consumer support. Bill Hunt at The Digital Bits was the first to really publicly comment on the job Toshiba (and the HD camp is doing), and while as an HD owner I can agree with it, one also has to remembe...
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on August 27th, 2006
Synopsis
I wanted to like Annapolis. I really did. I appreciated the intent of the film without having a full awareness of what it was about. I thought it kind of served as a de facto publicity film for the Naval Academy. But as I was watching it, several things started on course for me to dislike the film.
First, the story is tremendously predictable. Huard (James Franco, Spider-Man) is a kid who has been raised on the wrong side of the tracks, and helps to build the ships that the ...
Posted in: Brain Blasters, News and Opinions by David Annandale on August 25th, 2006
You’re a fan of Eurohorror, especially the Italian variety. You’ve seen everything you can find from the masters: Mario Bava, Dario Argento, Riccardo Freda, Michele Soavi. You’ve exhausted the catalogue of less reliable but nonetheless important figures such as Lucio Fulci. You plunge deeper, sleazier, in the company of cannibal-meisters Ruggero Deodato and Umberto Lenzi. Ere long, you’re scraping the bottom of the barrel, tracking down the incompetent, boring, but at least gory work of the likes of Bruno Mattei (
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on August 25th, 2006
Synopsis
Marilyn Monroe was THE blonde bombshell. Jayne Mansfield was the cartoon version of Monroe, bombshell become sex bomb, with proportions so improbable she could give Barbie an inferiority complex. Her cartoon figure makes it appropriate that two of the movies here are directed by a specialist in cartoons: Frank Tashlin. In fact, this set might almost be more appropriately called the Frank Tashlin Collection.
The two Tashlin movies are The Girl Can’t Help It (1956) and Will...
Posted in: News and Opinions by Archive Authors on August 24th, 2006
Discussing the old school DVD’s that still sound and look great in the era of Blu-Ray and HD-DVD technology.
Mr. And Mrs. Smith will likely be remembered more for being the film that put Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie on the road to saving the world, one Cambodian child at a time, than being an enjoyable action-comedy film. Though despite all the media buzz over the film prior to its release, it actually turned out to be a financial and critical success, unlike Gigli, a film tha...
Posted in: Dare to Play the Game, News and Opinions by Michael Durr on August 23rd, 2006
Power, Madden and a little Butterfly - Welcome to the series rehash with no new features and year old rosters known as Dare to Play the Game.
Welcome to another edition of Dare to Play the Game. I'm your host that has no real stories to tell. My birthday came and went. I got some cool presents (Fry's GC, Messiah (NEX), Target GC, EB Games GC, etc) but nothing too crazy. I actually haven't spent any of my gc's yet. I'm being pretty particular and know exactly what I'm af...
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on August 23rd, 2006
Synopsis
Imagine my surprise that there was a miniseries made about the threat of bioterror, and that this cloak and dagger miniseries (that aired at some time on network TV) sported two Oscar winners, neither of them men! Anjelica Huston (Prizzi’s Honor) and Mira Sorvino (Mighty Aphrodite) are part of a wide ranging series that is set over several continents, and explores the possibility of a bio-terror attack in the US.
Based on the book by Robert Ludlum, the man responsible for t...
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on August 23rd, 2006
It’s always interesting when works of art (books, plays, films, etc…) are updated from their native settings. Baz Lurhman’s Romeo + Juliet took the Bard’s most famous play and set it in modern day California, making it fresh again. Francis Ford Coppola set Conrad’s Heart of Darkness during the Vietnam War, making Apocalypse Now one of the most revered and realistic films of that era. There are several more examples in this trend that deserve to be mentioned, but I must fast-forward to the film a...
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on August 23rd, 2006
Synopsis
Arriving late one night at a village near Canterbury are an English sergeant (Dennis Price), and American one (Sgt. John Sweet) and a landgirl (Sheila Sim). As they leave the train station, Sim is set upon by a mysterious figure who dumps glue all over her hair. The trio become amateur detectives, determined to unmask the “glue man” and their suspicion first falls on Eric Porter, the local magistrate who is consumed by an enormous love for the countryside.
The film was made in 1944...
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on August 23rd, 2006
Synopsis
In the mid 90's, poachers are decimating the antelope population in the pristine lands of Kekexili. The locals have organized themselves to fight back, and now one of their patrolmen has been murdered by the poachers. Ga Yu, a journalist from Beijing, arrives to cover the story. Initially rejected by the leader of the mountain patrol, Ga Yu is taken in by the group when he suggests his coverage might help turn the area into a wilderness preserve. A long, grueling, dangerous manhunt ensues.>
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