DVD and HD DVD reviews

I Am Legend is actually the third telling of Richard Matheson’s illustrious novel. First came The Last Military man on Earth starring Vincent Price, then Charlton Heston took a shot at the seed material in Omega Man.

In this adaptation, Volition Smith plays Robert Neville, the only human subsister in New York Metropolis after an apparent cure for genus Cancer goes awfully awry. By day, Neville blazes through the eerily desolate streets of the Big Apple foraging for supplies. Robert’s only fellow? His pet dog. By night, Neville barricades himself within the confines of an upscale home praying that the ominous creatures that angry walk the dark, won’t obtain a way inside his house. It seems that the plague didn’t rub out everything. Those infected have off into fanatic, vampire wish monsters, and a delirious Neville commode only hope that he will finally find the cure.

The first half of I Am Fable is incredibly powerful, and from the get go, the pic basically rests on Smith’s capable shoulders. Like Tom Hanks in Cast Aside, Smith has the daunting challenge of going the proceedings unequalled. Sure, he has a dog by his side and the movie smartly gives us flashbacks in which we see he and his family preparing for a New House of York evacuation, merely for a great deal of the film’s running time, Smith has no other actors to bounce off of. This one-time Fresh Prince of Bel Air, pad deep to create a most memorable character - a sad and solitary, but highly driven individual who must find a cure for a ostensibly incurable disease all while trying to outwit his foe and maintain his sanity.

Director Francis Gertrude Lawrence (Constantine) does a great job creating a chilling sense of isolation. The film is pretty hoot massive in terms of scope, simply at it’s core, this is a surprisingly intimate story. As previously stated, the first half of this picture is selfsame strong. There’s a sorting of placid, slow build at work here, simply during a pivotal moment about midway through the story, the film dead switches gears.

Without giving too a lot away, in that respect is a definitive turning point in the photographic film, and what started as an interesting character survey about Neville and his dealing with the theory of existence the lowest man on Earth, degenerates into a typical legal action piece. Thankfully, Smith clay grounded. He stays true to the inner works of Neville, and that keeps the proceedings from turning into a Will Smith fomite like I, Robot.

Perhaps the most disheartening aspect of I Am Legend is the effects act upon. I’m non referring to the sets and such. The deserted New House of York landscape sent a gelidity up my spine. Regrettably, the film is less successful in the animate being department. When we number 1 get a look at these "night stalkers" Lawrence is wise to only give us mere glimpses. There’s a temperature reduction scene in which Neville witnesses the creatures huddling in a circle feeding on…something. It is a creepy-crawly, effective instant because Lawrence keeps the beasties obscure in the shadows. A technique Neil Marshall used to startling effect in the olympian The Descent. Sadly though, the rest of the film gives us shots of the night stalkers head on and they are less than telling. Rather than going the effects even up route (like Danny Boyle wisely did in the similar 28 Days Later), the moving-picture show makers possess opted for CGI. Really crappy CGI. I’ve seen better graphics in a video game. Most of the personal effects shots were incredibly distracting. They took me out of the experience altogether.

The final act of the plastic film has none of the gradual build up that makes the first base half of the motion picture so blame effective. Lawrence and screenwriters Mark Protosevich and Akiva Goldsman just cut to the chamfer and the end result is a rushed orgasm punctuated by a silly act of so called heroism that, despite the film makers’ best intentions, didn’t move me the way it was hypothetic to.

In the final stage though, on that point is the incomparable Will Smith. This is just a great performance. ‘tween a soulful Smith, the compelling kickoff hour of this goal of the world epic, and the kick hindquarters Dark Knight trailer that preceded the film, I was won over by the know as a whole. On a final note, I Am Caption is besides playing on Imax screens. That’s the way to see it if you get the opportunity.

This plastic film is some other one of those schlocky horror comedies that tries to be hip and scary simultaneously–only it’s neither. Ever since the Screaming series, it’s all been downhill from there.

This non-sensical thriller is around a high schooler whose hand becomes possessed and goes on a murdering spree. In one polar scene, the boy cuts his bridge player off, recalling Bruce Campbell’s dilemma in Sam Raimi’s Evil Drained 2–a motion picture that was much scarier and a lot more fun.

Idle Hands rips off countless better films; including, John Landis’ An American Werewolf in London, Oliver Stone’s The Hand, and Barry Sonnenfeld’s Addams Family pictures.

However, the film isn’t a total loss. In one inspired scene, the lead singer of The Offspring gets scalped by the cut off hand. Away from that, Idle Men gets the idle feel!

I think this photographic film is a fantastic unitary. Its suspect, with Mickey and Pnub coming back from the dead, and Anton beingness a girl obsessed drug addict. Its also very gross with all the deaths, especially Tanya’s, where she gets chopped up in the fan. This film is like adolescent horror at its c. H. Best! Even better is that Devon Sawa is in it and he is a top actor. on of my fave choices for Allhallows Eve I give it 10 outta 10!

Lone Star State of Mind would have you believe that all Texans are collection of nutjobs, whose superlative ambitions in life ar to win the drawing of gazump the pizza delivery guy cable (more for the pizza pie than the money.) It is barely such a crime that is the spark that sets this fun, only not frightfully well-written small town farce into motion.

The teller of the tale is Earl Crest (Joshua Thomas Jonathan Jackson) who is the rock of this community, tolerant of the self-proclaimed rescuer of the various wing-nuts that come into daily contact with his life sentence. And all of these wingnuts, feel exactly the same as Earl. He’s the bastion of sanity standing among a earth of wackiness. Josh heads a merriment cast that includes his fiancee Jamie King, his gay charles Herbert Best friend Gospel According to Matthew Davis, his cousin in law Jnr (DJ Qualls, Road Trip-up) and to round it out Lavatory Mellencamp as his no-account step-father.

When Junior and the recently paroled Jimbo (Earl was somewhat creditworthy for Jimbo’s 2 class Irish Vacation) rob the Pizza man, they inadvertently end up with a duffel base full of 20 Lordly and a fortune in cocaine. After Junior starts sporting around a caboodle of fantasy boots an duds, Earl takes him aside and squeezes the truth extinct of him and (as is his calling) takes it upon himself to help extricate his fiancee’s cousin and Jimbo from a world of trouble that they soon find themselves in.

Not only do the ruthless drug-lords want their money and merchandise back, but the fellows that Jimbo promised to sell the ware to, demonstrate up and just decide to consume it without the courtesy of remuneration. The plot pretty much ping pongs back and forth betwixt who has possession of the goodies and world Health Organization comes strapped and ready to reclaim comprise the majority of the game and though there ar some fun and laughable moments it wears fragile.

Jaime Rex just wants to beget the the pits out of Texas and move to LA an become a soap opera actress and Earl sees this as a dear way to get out of Dodge and forbidden from under the responsibleness of being the sheepherder of the entire ithiel Town. Problems lift when Earl is forced to spend the couple’s LA money to save Junior’s cigarette - just in the end it all shakes out about the way you’d figure and though this is not a great film, it makes for a kooky little diversion.

Where is White avens,TX or is it fictional in the pic?

JR, no relation to the Ewings I trustingness. As it turns extinct Bennet Lone-Star State is a fictitious locale, it mustiness have interpreted quite a while to find a name that hadn’t already been exploited. Thanks for tuning in.

OK, take this motion picture as a simple ‘cult flick’ in the qualification. Bizarre and stereotypes. Care the Texas bonehead version of Office-Space.

Based on a novel by Elleston Trevor, film director John Moore’s Flight of the Phoenix is a remake of a 1965 film of the same name prima film image James Jimmy Stewart. The story revolves around the plight of Captain Frank Towns, a cowcatcher whose C-119 cargo aeroplane full of oil workers could non withstand the violent winds of a desert sandstorm. The Captain is forced to gain a break apart landing that is a lot more than crash than landing. Stranded in the harsh terrain of Mongolia’s Gobi Desert (a loss from the original, in which the plane crashed in the Sahara), Weenie and his navigator face the challenge of survival as comfortably as that of maintaining order among a coloured collection of survivors. The rangle gangle crew of oilmen had embarked on a modus operandi mission to shut cancelled a group of rigs that had fallen under their productivity, what they got instead is a harrowing have trying to make it out of the forsake alive. Before long, we learn which men ar cowards and which take the inside resources to stand strong in the face of adversity. Pretty soon what begins to shape up is a group of men hoping to salvage the reckage amid a situation that fast devolves into a "Godhead of the Flies" scenario.

While observation the threadbare parade of remakes and sequels that Hollywood continues to churn out, it makes one wonder if there is really that great a paucity of new or original ideas left in Tinseltown. I’ll admit that I did somewhat enjoy this plastic film, but as I watched it, I couldn’t serve but marvel why all this talent and money couldn’t have been applied to something novel?

Not only have we seen this film literally just figurateively as well, and if it weren’t for the performance of Giovanni Ribisi wHO absolutely salvaged this wreck (so to speak) this film would have been nothing merely a treat for vultures. Thanks to Ribisi’s stellar turn, the movie is not only watchable, but even compelling at times - level though the ending is a foregone conclusion. Had the ending been changed to something less predictable, perhaps the critics might have got on gameboard and praised the film, but in case you hadn’t noticed, Flight of the Phoenix has taken a pretty good savaging by to the highest degree. The film made me think of a theory I get about the way films end these days as opposed to the means they did in the 1960’s. A great example is the ending to the original Oceans Eleven as opposed to the way it was wrapped up in the sequel.

Other than Ribisi only Dennis Quaid turns in a sizeable performance here - Quaid is a reliable actor and visual perception as how he was filling the shoes of the enceinte Jimmy Stewart, it’s non surprising that he stepped up. The two actors lend some much-needed class to this production and between the two they make the film desirable of a middling recomendation. Flight of the Phoenix has a ton of action, level if most of it’s completely predictable - the old platitude of "if anything can go wrong it will and does so frequently." It also has exactly enough humor and 1 or two surprises that make it worth renting down the road a few months, or at best a matinee screening at your local discount theater.

I must admit that I accept never been one for soap operas. There are people in my life, however, that do love watching them. My mother is a religious All My Children freak, piece my married woman Tonja watches Days of Our Lives when always she can. The max opera is a captivating phenomenon. Why so many people ar engrossed by them, I don’t to the full understand. Perhaps it’s because they’re such an exaggerated and excessively glamorous opinion of how we ourselves live our daily lives. At least that’s what the new film Nurse Betty sort of implies.

Nurse Betty was directed by BYU graduate Neil LaBute, and while his early films (In the Company of Men and Your Friends and Neighbors) are superb, many weigh them abrasive, misogynistic, and mean game. They ar interesting lineament studies that delve into the minds of some of the most dysfunctional and brute people you will of all time see in a plastic film. Nurse Betty also offers a look at some characters that have like traits, only takes a much gentler road getting to it’s point.

I’ve always had a hard time completely understanding Renee Zellweger’s appeal (although I did care her in Jerry Maguire) but here she soars in a career-defining performance. It’s non that this is a deep rooted role, only she manages to sludge likability, and brings a kind of warmth and openness that few actresses could have matched.

In the film, Zellweger plays the title role, a sweet edward Young woman with a filthy husband wHO gets a chance at a new life when an unexpected tragedy takes place. Following the traumatic event, Betty becomes at bay in a psychological fantasy, and believes that her favorite grievous bodily harm, Reason to Live (it takes place in a hospital), isn’t a soap at all, but a real station with real people. And since her favorite worker of all time (played to idol by Greg Kinnear) is in the show, Betty believes that they were once an item, so she packs it up and heads out on a road trip to win back the supposititious love of her life.

Many other things ar going on in the well rounded and completely absorbing Nurse Betty. In that respect are deuce hitmen played with dynamical flair by Morgan Freewoman, and Chris Rock wHO believe Betty is some kind of genius femme fatale, and are hot on her trail to recover stolen merchandise. They embark on their own road trip in which they lock in some nifty dialogue that Quentin Tarantino believably cut from Pulp Fabrication. Thankfully, it never becomes annoying as it did in Way of the Gun because these characters are so engaging.

Perhaps the impregnable point in the splendid Nurse Betty is it’s winning screenplay. John C. Richards and James Flamberg have devised clever shipway to juggle all of there plotlines into a funny, capricious, often touch take on The Champion of Oz. I likewise enjoyed how everything loss on in the real life scenario is just as preposterous, if not more so, than the crazy antics going on within A Reason To Live. This is for certain one of the best screenplays of the yr. Nurse Betty tips it’s hat to films wish Pulp Fiction, Soap Bag, Fisher B. B. King, and unnumbered others, patch remaining clean, exciting, and wildly unpredictable.

Director LaBute shows that he is a very capable and versatile film maker wHO will be around for quite some time. This is an expertly directed piece of entertainment in which LaBute demonstrates true skill with great timing and a wonderful signified of humor. He even pays homage to other film makers including the Coen Brothers, the antecedently mentioned Tarantino, and Henry M. Robert Altman.

I’d also like to citation Zellweger once again, because she really adds a lot of ability to this film, as a char who seems to spellbind people everywhere she goes. This cinema could feature been called There’s Something About Betty. It should also be noted that the pivitol scene between Freeman and Zellweger, features some of the nigh memorable playacting of the year.

In an extremely mediocre year for movies, things are looking up. The antic Nurse Betty takes us out of a very disheartening slump. LaBute and company have got made an endearing beguiler.

I’ve record your recapitulation of this film and I besides realize that you’re non exactly in the minority opionion, but in order to enjoy this flick you take to be able to play along with way to a lot improbable circumstance. To buy the premise of this film is almost as absurd as believing that someone could survive a firing squad without beingness hit, with ten marksmen all shooting live rounds from point blank kitchen stove. Maybe I just wasn’t in the mood gor such a logistical stretch, but I couldn’t enjoy the plastic film because of it.

For the first time in his career, Henry M. Robert Redford has decided to direct and star in the like movie, with mixed results on both sides of the tv camera. Redford plays the title character, a man wHO tries to a help a crime syndicate and their horse get to damage with a traumatic event. Kristin Walter Scott Thomas, and Sam Neill play the parents and newcomer Scarlett Johanssen is their emotionally disturbed fry. Thomas, fresh from her nominated turn in The English Patient, is zilch special here. Johanssen, however, is prominent in her first major role. Redford also gets terrific performances out of his encouraging cast including; Chris James Fenimore Cooper, Diane Wiest, and Surface-to-air missile Neill. He also gives himself some great moments, but non enough to fully advocate.

The Horse cavalry Whisperer’s independent attribute is that it’s always beautiful to expect at. Although Redford does tend to go overboard with his aerial shots of cars driving down long wandering roads through the Treasure State countryside. For the most part, however, the filming is stunning. Especially the sequences that deal with the horses. Thomas Newman’s beautiful score is besides quite noteworthy.

The Cavalry Whisperer’s main problem is it’s running time of nearly 3 hours. This film is not as big as it wants to be. The same story could have been told more effectively in under 2 hours. Redford spends a lot of time lease scenes linger far overly long. I was likewise quite thwarted by the romance facial expression of the film. I didn’t feel that at that place were enough sparks ‘tween Redford and Thomas. A friend of mine joked that they should get called this film The Horses of Madison County. We were both in agreement that The Bridges Of Madison County was a much better love story.

The Horse Whisperer wasn’t a bad film. It’s for certain better than a lot of the other junk that’s playing right now. I was just hoping for the masterpiece that I know Robert Redford can extradite.

Hello, I am a disabled flight attendant for USAirways, 40 years of age, I feel tired alot only I always put in a dVD and it takes me to where I want to go. I dearest the motion picture the cavalry whisperer and who is not impressed with Robert Redford. I feel in Love with a pilot who bought a cattle ranch out in Boise Gem State and I always wondered if a ranchers married woman is where I motive to be???? He reminds me of Robert Redford alot he likes the horses and wide open spaces. The story is quite beautiful I feel alot like the lady friend in the movie, One always askes ,Will anyone want me????? I felt the same. Thank you for the beautiful movie. Sharon Aurednik

Hello once more, If you have whatsoever information or maketing around this motion-picture show please write me: Sharon Aurednik, 401 Cline street, east Pittsburgh, PA 15112, 412-823-1503 late phone number. Thanks over again A Robert Redford Fan and My hats of to the original knight whisperer, whoever he crataegus laevigata be. Sharon Aurednik

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Every summer there seems to be a film that comes out of nowhere and surprises the hell out of you (films such as Equipment failure and Braveheart come to mind). Although Eyes Wide of the mark Shut and The Anthony Charles Lynton Blair Witch Project are the summer’s best films, I was pretty confident departure into both of those pictures that they would be special.

Which brings us to The Sixth Sense, one of the best surprises of the summer moving-picture show season. Not that it looked bad, but then how effective can a film with Bruce Thomas Willis as a child psychologist be? Identical effective as it turns out.

Willis is surprisingly restrained and very touching as a doctor serving a offspring boy with a terrific secret–his ability to see ghosts on a uniform basis. The boy is played smartly and realistically by Haley Joel Osment (little Forrest in Forrest Gump) and he gives one of the topper child performances in age. It’s likewise one of the best performances of the year period. On that point won’t be a moment where you don’t feel the genuine fear displayed by his wonderful performing. Also terrific is Toni Collette (Muriel’s Wedding) as Osment’s undivided mom. She has a vulnerable caliber that’s just heartbreaking.

Director M. Night Shyamalan emerges as a first-rate fibber and brings something new to this genre–sensitivity. He offers a variation on the traditional ghost story that is both creepy and compelling. Like The Blair Wiccan Project, this film does not use special personal effects to move the news report. Instead, Shyamalan uses character and superbly eerie light to take a creepy tone. These moments reminded me of Ghost, just never degenerated into that level of overt sentimentality.

The One-sixth Sense likewise plays as an intricate puzzle remindful of The Usual Suspects and Jacob’s Ladder. It all adds up to an unforgettable and selfsame satisfying conclusion. With dead fantastic performing, crisp writing, and sure-handed directing, this film is one of the years biggest surprises. It’s besides one of the topper ghost stories since Poltergeist. Shyamalan has fashioned a wonderful photographic film with characters of depth and a story with a surprising amount of heart.

I’ve forever loved director Ed Zwick’s films. The Civil Warfare drama Gloriole is 1 of my all time favorite pictures. Legends of the Fall and Bravery Under Fire were besides beautiful pieces of exercise. Enter The Siege, the third quislingism between Zwick and thespian Denzel Washington D.C..

In The Siege, several terrorist acts of the Apostles transpire in New House of York City forcing F.B.I. agent Washington to take activity. Bruce Thomas Willis is a blow-hard U. S. Army officer wHO is arranged by the President to identify and eliminate the terrorists. The film has come under attack for it’s portrayal of the Arabic community, which is absolutely ridiculous. The point of the movie is obvious - the real enemy is us. Zwick and his screenwriters actually go out of their way to make this apparent. Regular one of the films heroes, played by Tony Shalhoub from TV’s Wings, is Arabic. In fact, he’s genuinely the best part of the flick.

Unfortunately the movie reached a point where I didn’t buy into what was happening. It never felt material or threatening. It is also predictable and replete of cliches. Washington is solid as always, just not enough to sweep over the bogged-down screenplay. Annette Bening is also along for the ride and I was surprised by how annoyance her character was. Willis is completely forgettable in an super underwritten role.

Zwick has done a good task putting the film unitedly. It looks sharp, just doesn’t add up to much. In the end The Siege isn’t a really unsound movie, only it is a far cry from the director’s earlier films.

John Carpenter is clearly the topper filmmaker in the horror genre. With films like Halloween, The Thing and In the Mouth of Madness, I looked to Vampires with great anticipation. Alas, this film was not what I hoped for merely it’s sure enough better than Village of the Blessed and Escape From L.A. The biggest disappointment is that it’s not scary. Many of Carpenter’s best films evoke a sense of doom, whereas this movie is more of a light-hearted runaway with some stunning special effects.

In Vampires, James River Woods plays Jack Cut across, a really edgy vampire killer wHO is hired by the Catholic christian church to kill the number 1 original lamia Valek, a priest off vampire played by Seth Thomas Ian Griffith. Woods is assisted by Daniel James Baldwin and a group of partying lamia hunters.

Carpenter tries to have sport with the story in the same way Quentin Tarantino and Robert Rodriguez did with From Nightfall Till Dawn. It would have been nice if Carpenter made a scarey movie rather of a light-hearted one. Still, this film has enough to recommend, including strong performances from D. W. Griffith and Sheryl Lee (Twin Peaks). They play their roles straight instead of for laughs. I tail only hope that the next fourth dimension Carpenter sets out to make some other horror film, he sticks to what he does best–scaring the hell prohibited of me!

I’d heard so much about Guy wire Ritchie’s Revolver before I entered that dark room this weekend. About a year agone I knowledgeable that Mr. Madonna had recruited Ray Liotta, Andre 3000, Vincent Pastore and muse Jason Statham, so naturally I was wired for this movie, especially after loving his first two movies, Lock Stock and the superb Snatch. To be honest, I didn’t think that Swept Away was all that bad, just I was soooo proud of with the news that he was returning to the genre where he made his name.

So, a year on and its finally in cinemas. I’d heard the first reviews. ‘Confusing’, ‘rubbish’ and even ‘worst film of the year’ were being quoted from the UK press. I thought to myself, ‘it can’t be that forged — can it?’ This is Guy Ritchie for God’s sake?" Well, I’ll save me opinion until after I attempt to explain the film’s patch.

Jake Park (Statham) is released from prison afterwards a seven-spot year stretch, presumably because of an incident with Ray Liotta’s character Dorothy Macha and a trio of goons named the ‘three Eddies’. After getting out, and making a ton of money gaming, due to a can’t-lose-formula he picked up in the agitate, Green heads back to Macha’s Vegas-styled casino, where he challenges him to a few ludicrous high stake bets. After doing him proscribed of a substantial measure of dosh, Macha sends out his henchman to ‘off him’, and convey his money back. And that’s most all I can decode.

The problem with this movie is that it’is too goddamn hard to follow. I mean, after learning of its complexity, I made a pointedness of concentrating extremely hard at the screening. I was okay until about halfway in, and then everything just sort of rambles out of control. Perhaps if all of the bloaks on the same side wore the same semblance of hats, and if they’d handed out a nice computer program with easy to read instructions, I might’ve been able to stay with it - but as it is, I was as bewildered as everyone else appears to take been.

I’ll begin with the plus points of the photographic film. It looks good. There’s a superb use of color, in that respect are some really tasty camerawork, and the editing is spot on, in particular in a scene toward the end of the film where a hit man goes demented in a house. This all nods to the superb work Ritchie achieved in Snatch. Then on that point are fairish performances by Statham and Ray Liotta, and Andre 3000 and even Vincent Pastore.

So what’s wrong? Well, where do I start. The first half of the movie is great. The opener was extremely cool, and I was enjoying myself right up until we have to a completely wasted Kill Bill style anime section about half way in. From this point on the only way to maintain the crowd following the bouncing ball, would’ve been to full point the movie about every 10 seconds and offer up an explanation as to what the hell the previous 10 seconds were all around. Guy power just as well have named this film "Lost." Because that’s exactly where the audience spends the second half of the film. And just when I thought I might’ve by some stroke of luck picked up the narrative thread and establish my way - in an inst I was Swept Out again.

None of this movie made sense. I’ve seen Ritchie in interviews saying that it’s all down to the single, and if they don’t get the movie, then they motivation to question their intelligence. Well, I consider myself to be the median moviegoer, with better than average cognitive skills and if I didn’t catch it, then neither volition the rest of the people stipendiary their intemperate earned cash to discover it. Revolving door obviously suffers from nerve-wracking to be too intelligent, and it’s also also damn long. Just when you think it’s over, and you’ve thanked the good almighty, you’re treated to a completely pointless final reel. At this point, both myself and the majority of other cinemagoers were praying for the picture to ending. Liotta even got vexation in the end, and so did Statham’s overused and repetitive voice-over.

I won’t go as far to say that this is the worst flick of the year, merely it’s up there. I actually best-loved Swept Away. At least you understood just what the blaze was passing on. Revolver is a colossal misfire, and word of honor of lip for this movie won’t be sound, especially as the picture promised so much, and delivered so little.

Guy, if this is your return to form, we’d all favor the Mrs. running round half naked on the beach.

I’m surprised that a Cat ?Ritchie film with such a noteworthy cast has not been released in the states - what’s the deal?

What the hell happened to Guy cable Ritchie, has Madonna sucked all the life force play out of his creativity? This picture show sucked as bad as the one he made with Madonna on the island.

Great movie! It’s to bad you don’t get it. But, then you are just