Recommended THE FILM: Click an image to view Blu-ray screenshot with 1080p resolution. Perhaps you’ve heard of “middle-film syndrome.” That’s my own terminology, but you’ve seen the signs in films infected with this ailment: superfluous plotting, lack of narrative drive, and general pointlessness
Recommended The Hunchback of Notre Dame Blu-ray Review Click onan image to view the Blu-ray screenshotwith 1080p resolution The Hunchback of Notre Dame is one of the most famous storiesever told. The basis of this film version (and the many otheradaptations that have happened throughout decades) is the novel byaut…
Skip It The Film: Several optimistic possibilities rush through one’s mind while watching the trailer for 47 Ronin , Carl Rinsch’s costly feature-length debut. Could it be visually interesting in the vein of Asia’s native martial-arts fantasies? Or, will it offer enough swordsmanship and wizardry within it quasi-historical Japanese context to become something of a guilty pleasure
Rent It The Movie: Chinese Zodiac (released in its homeland as CZ12 ), a 2012 feature directed by, co-written by and starring the great Jackie Chan, was a highly anticipated picture among the action star’s legions of fans because it was touted as a follow up of sorts to the two popular Armor Of God films. The movie begins with a fantastic sequence in which a man named Hawk (Chan) escapes from a …
Highly Recommended The Movie: Abel Ferrara’s 1981 rape/revenge film Ms .45 (also known as Angel Of Vengeance ) follows the story of a young woman named Thana (played by Zoe Lund credited here as Zoe Tamerlis, who was obviously quite young when the picture was made), a pretty young woman who works in the fashion district of Manhattan. Thana is incredibly shy and doesn’t talk, she communicates …
Highly Recommended While troops on the front lines wait for D-Day, the high command of the American Navy is serviced by the wait staff in fancy London hotels. Lieutenant Commander Charlie Madison (James Garner) is a “dog robber”, a man who specializes in providing all the luxuries of home: food, clothes, booze, women — and he’s very good at what he does. Visitors excitedly agree his hotel room …
DVD Talk Collector Series Akira Kurosawa set out to make The Hidden Fortress ( Kakushi toride no san akunin or “Three Bad Men of the Hidden Fortress,” 1958) as “100% Entertainment.” In that he succeeds completely. The movie, later the basis for the first Star Wars (1977), to the point where Hidden Fortress star Toshiro Mifune was even considered for the role of Obi-Wan Kenobi, remains as …
DVD Talk Collector Series Reviewed by Glenn Erickson How does one write a critical review of a movie that plays as nothing less than perfect? It was a shock when, after receiving ten Academy Award nominations, David O.
Recommended The Movie: Directed by Joe Massot (who would later make The Song Remains The Same ) in 1968, Wonderwall is noteworthy for being the first movie that George Harrison did the music for. The storyline, such as it is, follows a strange fifty-something man named Professor Oscar Collins (Jack MacGowran) who lives all alone in his apartment
Rent It TheSeries: Big History is a way of looking at the past with a broader perspectivethan historians have traditionally used (or so the adherents claim).Instead of looking a linear progression of events, the field tries toembrace the whole of history and science in order to discoverpreviously unknown links between seemingly disparate events. At leastthat’s the theory. My only exposure to the …