Time to Leave is a lean character study from French writer/director Fran ois Ozon (5X2). It's the story of Romain (Melvil Poupaud, Le Divorce), a fashion photographer in his early '30s who has just learned he has cancer. The doctor predicts that Romain has very little time left, and though he recommends chemotherapy, since he only gives it a 5% chance of working, Romain decides against it. Part of it is vanity, he can't stand the idea of his hair falling out; the rest of him embraces the futility.
Romain has always been a selfish person, and the tendency is hereditary. His father (Daniel Duval, Cach ) can only express himself by worrying on behalf of others and reveals that he simply never learned to talk about himself. His gr...Read the entire review
I'm not an aerobics kind of person. I do exercise, but I use an exercise bike. I throw on a DVD and pedal my way to the final credits four or five times a week.
So, I approached The Bollywood Dance Workout as an absolute beginner. To help me, I enlisted my friend, Jo lle Jones, an artist who I collaborated with on the graphic novel 12 Reasons Why I Love Her. She's more of a pilates person, and would classify herself as a beginner when it comes to aerobics, as well. The box for The Bollywood Dance Workout, however, indicates that it's for "ALL fitness an...Read the entire review
Welcome to yet another edition of "Disney Direct-to-Video Animated Sequel Theater". Here, we can freely discuss Disney's practice of releasing sequels to their theatrical animated films which go directly to video. The first example of this which I can recall was 1994's The Return of Jafar, which I often refer to as "The longest 66-minute movie ever made." Since that time, many such movies have been released, ranging from awful (the aforementioned The Return of Jafar) to the fairly decent (The Little Mermaid II and Pocahontas II). The latest entry into this genre is The Fox and the Hound 2, which has just hit DVD.
In case you're unfamiliar with the original 1981 film The Fox and the Hound, it dealt with a hound puppy, Copper, who befriended a young fox, Tod. However, as they matured, their relationship grew strained as Copper ...Read the entire review
Yasuzo Masumura has long been acknowledged as a master of sophisticated and often disturbing satires and genre pictures unlike those of his Japanese contemporaries. If Akira Kurosawa was criticized for making films with a foreign sensibility, Masumura's shockers go beyond consideration of national styles. Several years have passed since the Fantoma DVD label released three of his more notable pictures. Giants and Toys (1958) is a scathing criticism of the Japanese consumer culture and its cutthroat business environment. Manji (1964) is a delirious soap opera of sexual manipulation and emotional blackmail. And Masumura's Moju (The Blind Beast) (1969) is a...Read the entire review
The fourth and last disc from the second batch of films provided by Greek dstrib New Star presents Theo Angelopoulos' politically charged drama Μερες του '36 a.k.a Days of 36 (1972).
The story of the film evolves around the fate of an unjustly imprisoned man who manages to take hostage a high-ranking Greek official. As the news of the abduction spreads around the many branches of the Greek government and consequently the media the country finds itself in a state of paralysis.
The abduction also has a tremendous effect on the future political climate in Greece. It coincided with the rise of Ethniki Organosis Neolaeas (EON), the National Youth Organization championed by Greek General Ioannis Metaxas (1871-1941) who was elected premier and shortly after dismissed ...Read the entire review
Background: It seems that a lot of foreign movies, at least those that the art snobs try to cram down out throats as being somehow better then anything made domestically, are geared towards audiences that treat movies with actual entertainment value as beneath them. They seek out titles that are found solely in film festivals that no one has ever heard of in order to play the one upsmanship game and read hidden meanings into every obscure passage from the movies in order to feel superior. Thankfully, not all foreign movies cater to such types, some of the best from around the world finding their way onto DVD thanks to small companies like Film Movement. Their movies tell stories from around the world, shown from the perspective of directors that may never see ...Read the entire review
Compilation DVDs are nothing new to the world and we've seen it countless times for many TV shows. When it comes to these discs the audience is usually split between those who already own the complete seasons, those who want them, or those who just don't care. As you can imagine that makes it difficult for one of these releases to find success in the marketplace. It's basically up to the consumer who isn't serious about getting the whole set to pick it up. Such is the fate of Garfield and Friends: Behind the Scenes.
When I first heard about Behind the Scenes I thought that it was another release of some of the older TV specials. It's not clearly marked on the case but the fact that it has "Garfield and Friends" and "hand-picked by creator Jim Davis" in the summary on the back is a dead give away. Garfield fans with the complete show need to read care...Read the entire review
The Product: Some have called it the University of Roger Corman. The independent producer, always looking for fresh young talent to employ and some say, exploit for his own fiscal purposes, gave many now famous filmmakers their first big breaks behind the camera. Names like Scorsese, Copolla, Dante, Demme, and Cameron all matriculated on Corman's cinematic campus, and all went on to define themselves as true motion picture mavericks. Sometimes, these chances to direct were dictated by Corman and his sense of potential aptitude. At other times, success bred a desire to drop back behind the camera. After the amazing monetary achievement of Eat My Dust, Corman approached star Ron Howard about making another movie together. The former child actor, slogging away through the hit series Happy Days, agreed, but with a slight tweaking of demands. Instead of merely acting, he wanted t...Read the entire review
Gene Simmons, founding member and blood spurting bass player for KISS, is one of the most recognizable rock personalities of all time even without his trademark make up on. The self-proclaimed god of thunder and rock n roll has managed to get his grim visage plastered onto comic books, posters, clothes, and worked into video games, action figures you name it, Gene's found a way to get KISS' trademark onto it. The guy is an unabashed merchandising whore and, as KISS fans have known for years now, he'll do anything to make a buck. With that said, it makes sense that Gene would jump on the reality show bandwagon. After all, if Ozzy can hit gold by letting cameras into his home to record the day to day high jinks of his bloated, perma-fried self, why shouldn't Gene? Interestingly enough, however, the Simmons' family differs from the Osbourne tribe in pretty much every way you can...Read the entire review
The Product: Forget 9/11. Ignore the supposed lasting impact of the War in Iraq. The defining tragedy of the 21st Century's first decade will definitely be the devastation associated with Hurricane Katrina. One year after terrorists took down the World Trade Center in New York City, people we're purposely preparing to move on with their lives, not allowing the horrors of that fateful day to deflate their determination. Similarly, the situation abroad has made Americans rethink their political position, questioning a policy that would allow our brave military troops to die for a cause that was poorly defined and badly mismanaged. But 16 months since a Category Five storm flattened most of the Louisiana/Mississippi/Alabama Gulf Coast, a subliminal state of emergency still exists. Less than 25% of New Orleans residents have returned, and entire areas of the city the flood devastated Ninth Ward...Read the entire review
Somewhere around my fifty-third rewrite of this introduction, it dawned on me that maybe I should just throw out a link to YouTube. I mean, what's going to give you a better impression of a comedian -- video...something you can see and hear...or a few awkward quotes and a half-assed three sentence write-up? Thanks, YouTube, for making the life of a lazy DVD reviewer incrementally easier.
Really, though, if you need an introduction to Zach Galifianakis, I'll save you a few minutes. Watch his Comedy Central Presents special. Dig through some of his stuff on YouTube. See if one of those underground torrent sites has the entire run of his brilliant-but-cancelled ...Read the entire review
The fourth (and final) of the MGM James Bond: Ultimate Edition boxed sets compiles an interesting selection of five films from one of the most recognizable movie franchises of all time. Here's a look at the films before we move on to the technical specifications and massive amount of supplements that have been compiled for this release:
Dr. No (1962):
The first ever James Bond movie (based on the sixth book by Ian Fleming) did a fine job of introducing audiences to the character. The film begins when three Jamaican assassins, posing as blind beggars, kill Commander John Strangways (Timothy Moxon) of the British Secret Service. Shortly after, while on the radio with London, his secretary is also killed. Suspicions arise as to why the...Read the entire review
When I was a kid, Hogan's Heroes was always a solid, go-to rerun when nothing else looked good. It wasn't something you thought of watching first (that would have been The Avengers or Mission Impossible or maybe even The Brady Bunch), but you could always count on it to give you some solid laughs and adventure if you caught it. That's probably because for six years, it just remade the same episode over and over and over again. It really is rather shocking to watch Hogan's Heroes: The Complete Fifth Season, and not be able to tell, for sure, what season it truly is it could be the first; it could be the last -- who knows? Repetition seems to have been the guiding motto for the show's production. And with that in mind, you can then understand why kids and pre-teens probably loved this show (it aired on Friday, Saturday, and Sunday nights during its broadcast r...Read the entire review
As Christmas approaches, the releaseof vaguely holiday-themed DVDs increases. It's a sensible move on thepart of marketers; even this reviewer isn't immune, as the impulse ofthe season led me to give a try to a DVD that I otherwise might nothave picked up, The Greatest Miracles on Earth: CompleteCollection. (That and the kind of groovy cover art, I have toadmit. Not that I recommend that as a criteria for choosing one'sviewing material.) It's clear from a quick glance at the back-covercopy that this is a collection of inspirational miracle stories, afeel-good program above all. Does it have any real substance, or isit fluff?
As a tough-minded person myself, Irecognized pretty quickly that The Greatest Miracles on Earthreally wasn't aimed at an audience that included me, which is toobad, because as it...Read the entire review
Teruo Ishii was a great director. While working within genre films usually doesn't earn you much artistic credibility, Ishii managed to gain the respect of his peers with his enthusiasm, imagination, and resolve to remain in control/independent for much of his nearly fifty year film career. He tackled most everything, from superhero/monster movies, to biker films, prison films, torture, samurai, gangster, sci fi, and karate flicks. Not content to rest on his laurels, he was still scraping together money and making films well into his eighties.
The last three films before his death in 2005, Screwed (1998), Jigoku, and Blind Beast Vs. Killer Dwarf found Ishii in a very experimental mood. Each film delivers a delirious approach to the material: Jigoku a modern re-imagining of Nobuo Nakagawa's horror classic, Blind Beast Vs. Killer Dwarf an adaptation of the writings ...Read the entire review
As their only DVD release in December, Something Weird Video uncorks a couple of static Sappho epics movies that dish out the same sex shenanigans with an apoplectic aplomb that makes similar Skinamax offerings seem sensible by comparison. As the chief champion of cinema's sleazoid past, Mike Vraney and the gang continue to unearth motion pictures that, in some cases, should have stayed dead and buried in the first place. This time around, we get the strange saga of New York's "secret society" scene, all told in a manner that makes the erotica seem aggravating instead of arousing. First up, a financially needy Manh...Read the entire review
The Product: We're long past the moratorium stage now. Somehow, the serial killer genre has become such a formulaic fright flick mainstay that even foreign countries are getting into the act. These are not novel twists on the whole slice and dice ideal, or visually arresting variables on the mass murdering mindset, however. No, most of these ineffectual offerings are direct descendants of the whole hackneyed horror ideal of the current post-modern macabre. You know the drill supposedly smart psycho who can slaughter at will; an unwilling accomplice who doesn't know about the death occurring right under her nose; lame law enforcement who couldn't solve a one man game of Clue; and lots and lots of kinetic killing. Spain's most recent example of this terror type H6: Diary of Serial Killer considers itself a deep and dark Sie7e like scarefest. The truth is far more flaccid. Th...Read the entire review
Spaulding Gray, who died in 2004, was an actor and writer. What reallymade him famous however were his monologs. His one man show Swimming toCambodia, about Gray's experiances while filming the movie The KillingFields, was filmed by Jonathan Demme and was a surprise hit. Five years later Spaulding was back in front of the camera with anothermonolog, Monster in a Box, in which he discussed how fame treatedhim, working in LA, and writing an autobiographical novel. This touching,funny, and interesting work has now been released on DVD for all of Gray'sfans to enjoy.
As he relates at the beginning of the show, Spaulding was contractedto write a novel, entitled Impossible Vacation by a large publishinghouse. He wrote and wrote, hundreds and hundreds of pages, well over1000, and then he just couldn't write an...Read the entire review
Wow. I've spent the last three weeks immersing myself in the M*A*S*H: The Martinis & Medicine Collection, and I must say that it was a surprisingly emotional experience for me. I was seven when the show premiered in 1972, and almost eighteen when it ended in 1983. I grew up with M*A*S*H being one of the most talked about and watched TV shows during those influential years of mine, and I was rather taken aback at the flood of memories and feelings I've had during this month, reviewing this mammoth box set. I can remember sitting down next to my father on the couch, watching the first, funniest years of the show (his favorite episodes from the series, as well as mine and many other fans). And I remember going over to the house of this girl I was crazy about in high school, where she threw a "Farewell M*A*S*H" party for the celebrated Goodbye, Farewell, and Amen f...Read the entire review
Background: Science fiction movies often tend to borrow concepts from one another, building on the ideas of what has gone before. The same holds true for anime so it was of interest to me to see the latest version of a Japanese classic, Zeiram: Special Edition recently for review, as it is another example of this concept, with all the cheese I remember from when it came out so many years ago. Fans of the genre may want to know that the original release of the movie (titled Zeram by Image Entertainment has long been out of print but since it had few extras to speak of, no original language track, and looked like no one cared how it was mastered, so this remastered update from Tokyo Shock should make a lot of you happy (I'm still keeping my old copy unless I get a good offer though). As a side note, the animated OVA has long been considered a compelling story with more quality then ...Read the entire review
Doctor Who - The Mark of the Rani, originally broadcast in 1985, stars Colin Baker as The Doctor and is a singularly lesser two-parter, watchable but only just, though as usual BBC America has crammed its DVD with first-rate extra features that go a long way to make this ignoble tale much more palatable than it actually is.
The story's background is England during the labor backlash that accompanied the Industrial Revolution of the early-1800s. The production makes extensive use of meticulously preserved buildings and museum artifacts at Ironbridge Gorge, and the story even features inventor-engineer George Stephenson (Gawn Grangier), considered the "Father of Rail...Read the entire review
Background: Shows centering on the use of powerful giant robots are common in anime with titles such as Full Metal Panic, Tetsujin 28, Eureka Seven, Neon Genesis Evangelion, and Sakura Wars but the smallest of samples you'll find available on DVD. The specifics vary but there are numerous archetypes such as the reluctant pilot, the warring factions relying heavily on technological advances, and secondary characters all too willing to engage in battle wanting to be given a chance (which doesn't go too well when they happen into battle). Well, with anime production houses trying their best to gain the ...Read the entire review
The travails of Chen Kaige's The Promise could probably fill a DVD unto itself. Lauded as the most expensive film in the history of Chinese cinema and chosen by its home country as its nomination for the 2005 Academy Award, it didn't have the most rapturous reaction from audiences. Many found the story a bit too over-the-top, and Chen Kaige was accused of selling out, abandoning his serious historical epics like Farewell, My Concubine and The Emperor and the Assassin for a trendier mix of fantasy and martial arts. The Promise was allegedly his bid for the mainstream success Zhang Yimou had achieved with Hero and House of Flying Daggers. (Personally I find such charges to be nonsense, but whatever....)
Background: As a big fan of Geneon over the years since they changed names from Pioneer, I often find myself scouring the rental racks of local stores since the company routinely sends out scattered volumes of their series. If you're anything at all like most people, watching anime volumes out of order is akin to reading chapters of a book at random, a trying task to be sure. One series I've learned to like but only as the result of hard work on my park has been Fantastic Children, a skillfully made series from Japan that offered up something new, unique, and fun with a lot of replay value as well. Today's review of Fantastic Children V5 continues my misfortune of seeing the show out of order but I guess someone didn't think the fourth volume was any good (reports of poorly mastered discs aside, such a marketing strategy leaves ...Read the entire review
It's hard enough to find that special person in life without coping with a mental or emotional disorder. Imagine not looking for love at all, attempting to cope with a disorder that hinders your social abilities, and having love dropped at your feet. Essentially, that's the setup for Mozart and the Whale, the low-key inspirational drama directed by Petter N ss. Since the film was written by Ronald Bass, crafter of such emotion-tapping screenplays as What Dreams May Come, Stepmom, and Rain Man, a touching film that tugs on the heart is to be expected. As with those previous flicks and under this great direction, Mozart and the Whale succeeds as a mild, romantically fused comedic drama that possesses fantastically portrayed characters and a compellingly honest storyline.
The Film:
Donald Morton (Josh Hartnett), a cab-driver who maintains a support grou...Read the entire review
to give you a better impression of a comedian -- video...something you can see and hear...or a few awkward quotes and a half-assed three sentence write-up? Thanks, YouTube, for making the life of a lazy DVD reviewer incrementally easier.
As their only DVD release in December, Something Weird Video uncorks a couple of static Sappho epics movies that dish out the same sex shenanigans with an apoplectic aplomb that makes similar Skinamax offerings seem sensible by comparison. As the chief champion of cinema's sleazoid past, Mike Vraney and the gang continue to unearth motion pictures that, in some cases, should have stayed dead and buried in the first place. This time around, we get the strange saga of New York's "secret society" scene, all told in a manner that makes the erotica seem aggravating instead of arousing. First up, a financially needy Manh...
