Posted in: Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on July 4th, 2006
Fox has done a really great thing with their Fox Film Noir line. There are tons of great film noirs from the 40's and 50's, and Fox has done an excellent job of grabbing those classic films and presenting them in great new affordable editions for modern viewers to experience for the first time. I Wake Up Screaming is one of 18 films currently in the series, and I am sure that number will only continue to grow over time.
Betty Grable shows up here in a starring role that is a departure from her u...ual flirty faire. Here she plays a secretary, the sister of a murdered model. The film is told in flashbacks through the police interrogation process, as the investigation into who murdered this mysterious woman slowly unfolds. We discover that Grable's character has fallen in love with the prime suspect, and the more questions the police ask, the deeper the story goes. Plot twists, quick dialog and shady characters fill this film, and the whole sorted affair builds to a gutsy surprise ending.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on July 4th, 2006
I admit, when I received this film in the mail for review, I was extremely suspicious of it. I am not a conspiracy theorist, and though I am interested in the facts surrounding the 9-11 tragedy, I am not one that buys into all the theories surrounding the day. The cover of this disc, and the fact that it came to me by itself in a plain brown envelope, made me believe that I was in for another crackpot theory.
When I started to watch the film, however, I realized that this was going to be a film that was much ...ore aligned with my interests than I originally thought. The main premise of this film is to dispute the growing belief in the United States that the Jews were behind the attacks of 9-11. specifically, the focus is on an ancient manuscript called The Protocols of the Elders of Zion, which is said to be the minutes of a meeting of a group of Jews, and outlines their plans for world domination.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on July 4th, 2006
The career transformation that Clint Eastwood has endured over the last several generations can be called nothing short of extraordinary. After all, we are talking about a guy who made a steady name for himself in action films of the late '60s and '70s, first appearing in the spaghetti western films of Sergio Leone, then moving onto the Dirty Harry films of director Don Siegel, before moving on again to more of a directing role. Some of his works were hits and others were plain misses.
Then you have the case of Unforgiven a script that, admittedly he hung onto for years as a bit of a security blanket. In case of career drought, break glass, so to speak. The film helped vault Eastwood into the upper echelon of American directors while simultaneously providing a fitting closure to an earlier level of his stardom. With the help of similar top-shelf acting talent in key supporting roles, Unforgiven also perhaps did something that few other films have failed to do, which was to give a reflective farewell to a treasured genre of film.
![Unforgiven [HD DVD] dvd cover art](https://upcomingdiscs.com/ecs_covers/unforgiven-hd-dvd-large.jpg)
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on July 2nd, 2006
Doctor Who is much more of a cultural phenomenon in the UK than it is here in the States. In fact, the series about a time traveler who fights evil is very much on par with the Star Trek series in North America in terms of its rabid cult following. The original series ran for a staggering 26-seasons on the BBC before finally fading away. The show has become one of the most popular Science Fiction programs of all time.
In 2003, the dead show was brought back as a new series, following the same ba...ic storyline as the original. The Doctor in question is actually an alien who fights evil with the aid of his rickety and unreliable time machine, which is cleverly disguised as a British police box. Though such boxes have become a bit rare in today's society (in much the same way as the common pay telephone has disappeared in the U.S.), the boxes are still fairly inconspicuous, which allows the good Doctor to leave the machine sitting about without too much interference from the general public.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on July 2nd, 2006
The Brilliant But Cancelled DVD series is the brainchild of the web site of the same name, run by the Bravo network. As of now, there are just two titles in the series, a set of four different crime dramas, and this show. EZ Streets was a show from the 1996/1997 television season that was something of a precursor to The Sopranos. Hardly the same quality, but a similar idea. This time, Joe Pantoliano plays the boss of a crime family simply called the EZ. Ken Olin plays an undercover police detect...ve who has infiltrated the organization, and is sometimes torn between his job and his loyalty to his new friends. Meanwhile, Jason Gedrick plays a gangster that is fresh out of prison, struggling between his desires to play it straight and his need to rejoin the high income lifestyle of his friends.
The show may have been Canceled because it was just a bit ahead of its time. It's possible that America wasn't ready for a sympathetic look at the lives of career criminals on network television in 1996. As a result, the show only got an eight episode run on the air, including a two-part pilot. That pilot is included on this disc, as are episodes 6 and 7 from the shows short broadcast run. It seems odd to only present the series' first episode and two mid-season episodes. The episodes don't flow together, so there is no overarching storyline.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on July 1st, 2006
David Boreanaz is better known as the guy who played Sarah Michelle Gellar�s love interest in Buffy the Vampire Slayer for the first three seasons of its existence. Being used sparingly in some parts and shining in his occasional showcase episodes, helped convince Buffy creator Joss Whedon and producer David Greenwalt to give the guy his own spin-off series. And by having the Buffy writers and directors pull some double duty in the beginning before gently phasing in some new creative influences, it's grown into a spin-off show that, in its fourth season now, arguably gives Buffy a run for its dramatic money. Since Angel was a semi-regular on Buffy but was mysterious, it was safe to assume that more things have to be explained for the show to work. The supporting characters had to be given some more depth as well. Buffy cast regulars were brought in for the occasional show, even two, depending on the storyline. Even Faith was brought in as part of two very episodes late in the season that finally gave Buffy and Angel some long-awaited closure.
Initially, the only character that went straight from Buffy to Angel was Cordelia (Charisma Carpenter), but Wesley (Alexis Denisof) became a mid-season addition who was later included in the regular cast. A couple of new characters were introduced in the mix. Kate Lockley (Elisabeth Rohm) was brought in as a Los Angeles detective who really didn't provide much in substance outside from showing up to provide Angel information for cases he was pursuing. Although she did find out about Angel's vampire past which was a nice twist on things.There were a couple of episodes that were done to give her some depth also, and her main conflict was with her father who was also a recently retired LA cop, and the hot and cold relationship the two shared, until his killing by a demon late in the season. Another character named Gunn (J. August Richards) was added in the last 3 episodes of the season, and subsequently became part of the permanent cast just in time for the start of Season 2. Alan Francis Doyle (the late Glenn Quinn) started on the first episode as a half-demon that received visions of people in assistance, which helped Angel in helping people out each week. He was a bit of a mystery in the beginning, until we later find out more about his past (he was married briefly) and his feelings for Cordelia, while having reservations about telling her about his demon side. Sadly, Doyle was killed off of the show in the middle part of the first season, and transferred the power of the visions to Cordelia for future episodes. The recurring protagonist in the show is a legal firm named Wolfram and Hart, a firm that even "Johnnie Cochran wouldn't join", and with mind readers, shamans, and other forces helping them in their pursuit of evil in LA, they seem like the perfect group to have hatred for.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on July 1st, 2006
God bless producer Irwin Allen for aiming high in just about everything he did. He would make large scale productions, some focused on disasters (like his next film after this, The Towering Inferno), but he also produced Lost in Space for TV and made other contributions like Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea and an incarnation of The Lost World. He may not have had a DeMille-like grip on his project because the studios had so much control still in the early '70s, but he sure dreamt big, which is always a good thing.
In The Poseidon Adventure, based on the novel from Paul Gallico, the S.S. Poseidon has set sail and its cast and crew will be celebrating New Year's Eve on the water. When captain Leslie Nielsen (Airplane!) receives a notice about a tidal wave from an earthquake, he prepares for the worst. The wave hits the ship and turns it over, and it leaves a handful of passengers left to try and reach the water's surface before the ship sinks. Among those are Reverend Frank Scott (Gene Hackman, fresh off The French Connection), Mike and Linda Rongo (Ernest Borgnine (From Here to Eternity) and Stella Stevens (The Ballad of Cable Hogue), respectively), Belle and Manny Rosen (Shelly Winters, (Lolita) and Jack Albertson (Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory), respectively, Acres (Roddy MacDowall, Planet of the Apes) James Martin (Red Buttons, The Longest Day) and Susan Shelby (Pamela Sue Martin, Dynasty).
Posted in: Brain Blasters, News and Opinions by David Annandale on June 30th, 2006
Herewith begin my weekly musings on the field of cult movies. As an opener, it would probably behoove me to define exactly what is meant by a “cult movie.” I’m going to be a bit disingenuous here, and provide a definition arguably so nebulous that some might consider it useless. That’s fine. There have been many attempts at this sort of definition, and most founder on specifics once one moves much beyond the “I know one when I see one” type of description often applied to porn. That said, here goes. Generally speakin..., the cult flick usually emerges from the realm of the B-movie (the two terms are not synonymous, though there is a large degree of overlap). As soon as there is any kind of following, however small but definitely committed, we have a cult film. So far, so good. The problem, of course, is what happens when the cult becomes huge. The Star Wars films and The Lord of the Rings (in both print and movie form) command a rabid following, some of whose members displaying behaviour no less obsessed and eccentric than that of the most religious followers of The Rocky Horror Picture Show, which is the textbook definition of a cult film.
So whither our definition? One might refine it by emphasizing the B-movie or indie nature of the movie. In other words, it must not be mainstream, or at least not have had a mainstream success. This last qualification is, I think, important, because there are major studio productions that do, I feel, qualify as cult films. Very often, however, they were not box office successes upon original release. They are frequently pretty terrible, and are celebrated by their audiences for their awfulness. In other words, the cult movie audience embraces the film for reasons not necessarily intended by its makers. Some examples: Myra Breckinridge, Showgirls, Battlefield Earth.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on June 30th, 2006
Synopsis
Ken Stott plays Inspector John Rebus. Working in Edinburgh, Rebus is dogged in his pursuit of the truth, no matter how many years it might be buried. He’s not one to stand on ceremony, doesn’t suffer fools at all, never mind gladly, and is curiously successful in romancing younger women. The two mysteries here, The Falls and Fleshmarket Close take place in very different settings: the former delves into the secrets of the very wealthy, the latter takes place in a high-rise proj...ct.
Posted in: News and Opinions by Archive Authors on June 29th, 2006
Discussing the old school DVD’s that still sound and look great in the era of Blu-Ray and HD-DVD technology.
I’ve been having a hard time of it lately.
On The Web
Sponsors
