Posted in: Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on April 29th, 2006
In the era we live in, the eventuality of a movie about war was going to come, whether or not we wanted to see the film. Since the war in Iraq is such a hot button topic with a majority of people, regardless if you were for the war or against the war, Universal thought this would be the perfect moment to capture our interest in war. Enter director Sam Mendes (American Beauty) and stars Jake Gyllenhaal (Brokeback Mountain) and Academy-Award winning Actor Jamie Foxx (Ray) and you know you have a m...
![Jarhead [HD DVD] dvd cover art](https://upcomingdiscs.com/ecs_covers/jarhead-hd-dvd-large.jpg)
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on April 29th, 2006
Best guess, this is David Lynch's way of showing how crude and tasteless many modern animated shows are. Maybe by creating one of these shows at the truly lowest possible denominator, Lynch is trying to make an artistic comment on what the American public freely accepts as quality entertainment. Shows such as Beavis and Butt-Head have been mocked for their poor animation quality. South Park has frequently been mentioned when strong language is the topic of discussion. This series hits an all-new low in...
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on April 28th, 2006
Teddy Pendergrass, one of the lesser known soul rebels of the seventies, comes to DVD in this lackluster edition, which purports to be 80 minutes – but that’s only true if you factor into the running time the one bonus feature. This fact could be a detriment to fans of Teddy’s music. For me, however, it was a relief to discover the actual concert only ran about an hour. There was nothing here to justify the man’s status as some kind of legend, as his audience interactions and movements on stage were limited in scope ...
Posted in: Disc Reviews by David Annandale on April 28th, 2006
Synopsis
Red (as in Riding Hood) visits Granny, only to find the Wolf in disguise. Granny bursts out of the closet, and then the Woodsman crashes through the window, axe upraised. We then cut to the police investigation of this scene, as a frog investigator interviews each of the players in turn. The forest has been terrorized by the Goodie Bandit, who has been stealing recipes, and one of these characters might be the guilty party. What follows is a series of tales in the vein of Rashomon, wh...
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on April 28th, 2006
The Adventure of Sherlock Holmes’ Smarter Brother has everything that Young Frankenstein had except Mel Brooks (although he does make a very brief vocal cameo). With the combined comedic genius of Gene Wilder, Madeline Kahn, and Marty Feldman, how could this film go wrong? Like Young Frankenstein, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s Sherlock Holmes offers a rich classical mythology to mine for material. A wonderful supporting cast featuring the likes of Dom Deluise can’t miss, right? No so elementary, my dear Watson. Focus. ...
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on April 28th, 2006
This is another one of those films that is best suited for the international film festival crowd. I’m not sure, however, if even that group will get this one. Jennifer Van Dyck gives one of the silliest and most wooden performances I’ve ever seen as a woman suddenly constrained by normal life. Under the influence of a messed up play director, she is encouraged to experience life through other eyes. Her use of profanity, sleep deprivation, and depravity are just not interesting to observe. I’ve had bouts of sleep de...
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on April 27th, 2006
Huff – The Complete First Season, the Emmy Award-winning series from Showtime, comes to DVD from Sony Home Entertainment, and I have to say I couldn’t be more pleased with discovering it. The one thing I miss about premium channels in my cable package is getting to take part in the onslaught of superior original programming channels such as Showtime and HBO have to offer. Needless to say, Huff is a fitting inclusion to my reasons for jealousy towards all you subscribers out there. It follows the life of...
Posted in: Disc Reviews by David Annandale on April 27th, 2006
Synopsis
Sarah Jessica Parker is the very Manhattan, high stress and rather repressed fiancee of Dermot Mulroney. They head off to small-town New England for Christmas with his family, headed by matriarch Diane Keaton. This is the family Stone of the title, and their free-and-easy lifestyle clashes with Parker’s, and she is seen as an interloper. She is subjected to no end of humiliations, principally at the hands of Rachel McAdams. But when Mulroney’s brother Luke Wilson shows up, Parker finds herse...
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on April 26th, 2006
Dr. Dolittle 3 is yet another unnecessary direct-to-DVD sequel of a film, whose glory has long since passed. Young actress Kyla Pratt takes center stage as the next generation of Dolittle to inherit the gift – or curse – of hearing animals speak. At the outset of the film, she is ashamed of her gift, and her lineage. But when she is sent to an old family friend’s ranch for the summer, she begins to see that a talent is what you make of it. Along with telegraphed comedy, lightweight rivalries, and a budding rom...
Posted in: Disc Reviews by David Annandale on April 26th, 2006
Synopsis
Not much to is. This is one larger film and a series of shorter ones (though they are all of a piece) extolling the virtues of contemplative prayer, which, it appears, consists in sitting quietly and listening to God, rather than speaking yourself. The whole thing drips in every “inspirational” cliché you can imagine (lots of shots of parks, clouds, sunsets, gentle spring rains, and so forth). Oddly, for a piece that’s supposed to help viewers practice being quiet, some of the speakers here ...
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