Topic: Tom's Random Reviews

[Najemikon]

Soppy buggers. And one of you is horror fanatic? 

[addicted2dvd]

  but even us horror fanatics has a soft side! We just know how to hide it better! 

[Tom]

Title: Leap of Faith
Year: 1992
Director: Richard Pearce
Rating: PG
Length: 104 Min.
Video: Anamorphic Widescreen 1.78
Audio: Czech: Dolby Digital Surround, German: Dolby Digital Surround, English: Dolby Digital 5.1, Spanish: Dolby Digital Surround, French: Dolby Digital Surround, Italian: Dolby Digital Surround, Hungarian: Dolby Digital Mono
Subtitles: Arabic, Bulgarian, Croatian, Czech, Danish, Dutch, English, Finnish, French, German, Greek, Hebrew, Hungarian, Icelandic, Italian, Norwegian, Other, Polish, Portuguese, Romanian, Slovenian, Spanish, Swedish, Turkish

Stars:
Steve Martin
Debra Winger
Lolita Davidovich
Liam Neeson
Lukas Haas

Plot:
In a tour-de-force performance, Steve Martin plays Reverend Jonas Nightengale, a slick-as-oil flimflam man who'll trade salvation for a donation to his touring ministry. Jonas knows how to work a crowd and a con, but his works of wonder are done with mirrors and smoke.

When his tour bus breaks down, Jonas pitches his tents in impoverished Rustwater, Kansas. While his alluring manager (Debra Winger) tries to persuade the local sheriff (Liam Neeson) not to close the show, Jonas sets his sights on a beautiful skeptic named Marva (Lolita Davidovich). But making a believer out of Marva is going to take a real miracle. With its heartwarming spirit and rousing soundtrack, Leap Of Faith is a movie that will make you stand up and cheer.

Extras:
Scene Access

My Thoughts:

A fun movie. Not necessarily a must-see, but I enjoyed Steve Martin's performance in this one. It's worth to look into it when you come across it on TV.

Rating:

[Tom]

Title: Hollow Man
Year: 2000
Director: Paul Verhoeven
Rating: FSK-16
Length: 119 Min.
Video: Widescreen 1.85
Audio: English: Dolby Digital TrueHD, German: Dolby Digital TrueHD, Italian: Dolby Digital TrueHD
Subtitles: English, German, Italian, Turkish

Stars:
Elisabeth Shue
Kevin Bacon
Josh Brolin
Kim Dickens
Greg Grunberg

Plot:
Der brilliante und ehrgeizige Wissenschaftler Sebastian Caine (Kevin Bacon) und sein Team haben im Auftrag des Pentagon eine Substanz entwickelt, die es vermag, Menschen unsichtbar zu machen. Caine, berauscht von seiner Entdeckung, ignoriert alle Risiken und startet einen gefährlichen Selbstversuch. Der wissenschaftliche Durchbruch gelingt! Caine wird vor den Augen seiner Kollegen unsichtbar. Doch das Experiment bleibt nicht ohne Nebenwirkungen: Die Droge macht extrem gewalttätig, der Wissenschaftler wird zu einer todbringenden Gefahr für seine Umgebung. Verzweifelt versuchen Caines Kollegen Linda (Elisabeth Shue) und Matthew (Josh Brolin) ein Gegenmittel zu entwickeln, das den Unsichtbaren in Schach hält. Caine jedoch findet Gefallen an seiner neuen Macht und beginnt, in seinen Kollegen eine unmittelbare Bedrohung für sein Leben zu sehen, die er bekämpfen muss ...

Meisterregisseur Paul Verhoeven ("Basic Instinct", "Total Recall", "Starship Troopers") inszenierte einen provozierenden und spannenden Thriller, der die Grenzen des Sichtbaren überwindet. Kevin Bacon ("Wild Things"), Elisabeth Shue ("Leaving Las Vegas") und Josh Brolin ("Mimic") brillieren in diesem fantastischen Film mit atemberaubenden Special Effects in nie zuvor gesehener Qualität.

Extras:
Featurettes
Scene Access
Trailers

My Thoughts:

An enjoyable action/horror movie. I liked the first part of the movie, but it strangely got into a slump, when Kevin Bacon became invisible. It only picked up again in the end, when he went rampage in the lab.
The special effects were great though!

Rating:

[Tom]

Title: Die Geschichte vom Brandner Kaspar
Year: 2008
Director: Joseph Vilsmaier
Rating: FSK-6
Length: 100 Min.
Video: Widescreen 2.35
Audio: German: DTS HD Master Audio
Subtitles: German

Stars:
Franz Xaver Kroetz
Michael Bully Herbig
Lisa Maria Potthoff
Herbert Knaup
Peter Ketnath
Detlev Buck


Extras:
Commentary
Interviews
Photo Gallery
Scene Access

My Thoughts:

This movie is based on a bavarian play from 1871. It is about a man, who is visited by Death (called in his old bavarian name "boanlkramer" which translates to "bone collector"). He offers death Kirschwasser and cheats him in playing cards. Thus he tricks death to prolong his life to his 90th birthday.
But as his wife his already dead and also his daughter died when giving birth to his granddaughter, he finds, that he looses interest in living, when also his only granddaughter dies in a hunting accident. He is offered by death (who has been found out in heaven of failing to get Brandner Kaspar at his supposed time) to take a look at heaven. When he got there and meets his wife, daughter and granddaughter, he decides to stay).
This movie is enjoyable adaption of the story. Most fun are the scenes in the bavarian heaven, which is based on a lot of bavarian stereotypes (e.g. they eat Weißwurst the whole day)

Rating:

[Tom]

Title: Driving Miss Daisy
Year: 1989
Director: Bruce Beresford
Rating: U
Length: 95 Min.
Video: Anamorphic Widescreen 1.78
Audio: English: Dolby Digital Stereo, Commentary: Dolby Digital Stereo
Subtitles:

Stars:
Morgan Freeman
Jessica Tandy
Dan Aykroyd
Patti LuPone
Esther Rolle

Plot:
After stubborn, aging Southern widow, Miss Daisy (Jessica Tandy), crashes her car into the neighbour's fence, her son insists on hiring her a driver. At first, the self-sufficient Miss Daisy is reluctant to accept the services of her chauffeur, Hoke (Morgan Freeman), but his quiet, wise and tolerant nature slowly wins her over. As the years pass the unlikely friends develop a deep mutual respect and admiration, and slowly build a relationship that transcends their differences.

This bittersweet and funny film won 4 Oscars®, including Best Picture and Best Actress.

Extras:
Commentary
Featurettes
Scene Access

My Thoughts:

A very enjoyable movie. It is great how the friendship between the characters deepens through the years.
I like they don't show all the development but only hint at them. For example we do not see how Miss Daisy teaches Hoke to read. We only see how she learns that he cannot read and then, in a scene which is years later, she gives him a book about how to write properly as gift and he obviously can read fairly good now.
And the ending is great, too. Really touching.

Rating:

[Tom]

Title: Juno
Year: 2007
Director: Jason Reitman
Rating: 15
Length: 96 Min.
Video: Widescreen 1.85
Audio: English: DTS HD Master Audio, Audio Descriptive: Dolby Digital 5.1, German: DTS 5.1, Italian: DTS 5.1, Spanish: DTS 5.1, Commentary: Dolby Digital Stereo
Subtitles: Danish, English, Finnish, German, Greek, Hebrew, Italian, Norwegian, Spanish, Swedish

Stars:
Ellen Page
Michael Cera
Jennifer Garner
Jason Bateman
Allison Janney

Plot:
Don't miss the outrageously offbeat comedy hit that has everyone talking and laughing!
Juno MacGuff (Ellen Page - X-MEN) is a cool, confident teenager who takes a nine-month detour into adulthood when she's faced with an unplanned pregnancy and sets out to find the perfect parents for her baby. With the help of her charmingly unassuming boyfriend (Michael Cera - Superbad), supportive dad (J.K. Simmons) and no-nonsense step mum (Allison Janney) Juno sets her sights on an affluent couple (Jennifer Garner and Jason Bateman) longing to adopt their first child.

Extras:
Audio Descriptive Track
Commentary
Deleted Scenes
Featurettes
Outtakes
Scene Access

My Thoughts:

A good movie. Ellen Page is great in it, so is JK Simmons as her dad. I liked the humor of this movie. It's better than the other unwanted pregnacy movie of the same year, "Knocked Up".
At the beginning, when Jason Bateman's character was more friendly and Jennifer Garner was acting a little distant with Juno, I thought to myself, that probably at the end of the movie it turns out, that she is the good one and he is the asshole. Of course it did come this way.

Rating:

[addicted2dvd]

I was at the library today making some copies... seen this DVD there... started to pick it up but changed my mind at the last minute. Maybe will grab it the next time I am there.

[Tom]

Title: Little Miss Sunshine
Year: 2006
Director: Jonathan Dayton, Valerie Faris
Rating: 15
Length: 103 Min.
Video: Widescreen 2.40
Audio: English: DTS HD Master Audio, Spanish: DTS 5.1, Portuguese: DTS 5.1, French: Dolby Digital 5.1, Commentary: Dolby Digital Stereo, Commentary: Dolby Digital Stereo
Subtitles: Chinese, Commentary, English, French, Korean, Portuguese, Spanish, Thai

Stars:
Abigail Breslin
Greg Kinnear
Paul Dano
Alan Arkin
Toni Collette
Steve Carell

Plot:
Greg Kinnear, Toni Collette, Steve Carell and Alan Arkin star in this hilarious comedy about hitting the road...and driving to the edge of insanity! Seven-year-old Olive Hoover (Abigail Breslin) wants to compete in the Little Miss Sunshine pageant in far-off California, but it's going to take the combined efforts of her dysfunctional family - and their rusted-out VW bus - to make her dream come true.

Extras:
Commentary
Deleted Scenes
Featurettes
Music Videos
Outtakes
Photo Gallery
Scene Access
Trailers

My Thoughts:

This was the second time I saw this movie (I already had seen it in the theatres) and I enjoyed it just as much this time around. Great cast, quirky characters and funny story.

Rating:

[Tom]

Title: Andy Richter Controls the Universe: The Complete Series
Year: 2002
Director:
Rating: NR
Length: 417 Min.
Video: Anamorphic Widescreen 1.78
Audio: English: Dolby Digital Stereo, Commentary: Dolby Digital Stereo
Subtitles:

Stars:
Andy Richter
Paget Brewster
Irene Molloy
Jonathan Slavin
James Patrick Stuart

Plot:
The rules of comedy are about to be broken in Andy Richter Controls The Universe, one of the funniest sitcoms in TV history. A bored writer of instruction manuals, Andy spends his office hours daydreaming about what his life could, should and ought to be. Starring in his outlandish fantasies are his unlucky-in-love boss Jessica (Paget Brewster), best buddy Keith (James Patrick Stuart), quirky pal Byron (Jonathan Slavin) and Andy's secret object of desire, Wendy the receptionist (Irene Molloy). Featuring the Emmy®-nominated series' 14 episode run – plus 5 that were never shown on network TV – this it cutting edge lunacy at its irreverent best, a mirth-quaking 10 on the Richter scale!

Extras:
Closed Captioned
Commentary
Featurettes

My Thoughts:

When Andy Richter left the Late Night Show with Conan O'Brien, he started this great (but sadly short-lived) comedy series. It has a great cast. I especially liked Jonathan Slavin as Andy's new collegue Byron. Paget Brewster is really beautiful in this series. The main gag in this series is, that you always see something really strange happening, which turns out to be Andy's imagination, followed by his "...this is what really happened".

Episodes:

#	Episode	Rating
01	Pilot
02	Grief Counselor
03	Little Andy in Charge
04	Second Episode
05	Gimma A C
06	Wedding
07	We're All the Same, Only Different
08	Twins
09	France
10	Holy Sheep
11	Relationship Ripcord
12	The Show Might Go On
13	Crazy In Rio
14	The Maid Man
15	Bully the Kid
16	Duh Dog
17	Final Fantasy
18	Saturday Early Evening Fever
19	Charity Begins D Block

[Tom]

I decided to keep track of my TV series reviews I post in this thread in the opening post.

[Tom]

Title: Life On Mars: Series One
Year: 2006
Director:
Rating: 15
Length: 472 Min.
Video: Widescreen 1.78
Audio: English: Dolby Digital TrueHD, English: Dolby Digital Surround, Commentary: Dolby Digital Surround
Subtitles:

Stars:
John Simm
Philip Glenister
Liz White

Plot:
Sam Tyler (John Simm) is an ambitious young detective determined to keep the streets of 21st Century Manchester safe. However, the hunt for a serial killer becomes a personal vendetta when Sam suspects his girlfriend has been kidnapped by the very man he's tracking down.

But after a near fatal car accident, Sam wakes up, dazed and confused, in 1973, struggling to understand what's real. Has he gone back in time? Is he in a coma? Or has he simply gone insane? His new boss is hard-nosed DCI Gene Hunt (Philip Glenister), a man who gets results by trusting his gut instinct and using a 'fists first question later' policy.

Thrown head-first into this new world, Sam faces some of the hardest cases he has ever known. He has no idea why he is in 1973, but maybe if he can work out the reason, he can get home...

Extras:
Commentary
Featurettes
Interviews
Outtakes
Scene Access

My Thoughts:

I didn't really warm up to this series. As I said before, the time-travel element is only an excuse to set the series in the 70s. This series could just have been a series about a big city cop coming to a small town police force like it has been done many times before.
As a matter of fact the main character Sam reminded me very much of Simon Pegg's character in Hot Fuzz (okay, maybe Simon Pegg was influenced by this series, as it was first aired, when Hot Fuzz started filming). For one thing his attitude is very similar. And the fact, that we have a big city cop believing in a lot of procedures the police force he has been transferred to do not follow. Both characters feel like they have to bring morale to their new home.

I could have accepted that the time-travel is not a big part of the series, but I found the rest of the series to be a rather average cop show.

Only two episodes have shown potential what the series could have been. The fourth and the last episode of this series. Both are about Sam interferring with his family.
For the rest of the series, you wouldn't know that he is from the future if he wouldn't make certain comments from time to time, or him hearing voices of doctors and family calling for him to wake up from the coma (which he is in the future).

I will leave the second series on my wish list but I am not sure if I will buy it.

Episodes:

#	Episode	Rating
01	Episode 1
02	Episode 2
03	Episode 3
04	Episode 4
05	Episode 5
06	Episode 6
07	Episode 7
08	Episode 8

[Najemikon]

I am disappointed that you didn't enjoy it as much as I thought you would, but while the time elements are an excuse for a 70s cop show, I thought that it was as good if not better than many of those shows. Brilliantly written and well-rounded characters. Of course much of it is nostalgia for my generation, but it still has to be good. As way of comparison, the first series of Ashes to Ashes, the sequel, was a bit flat and hard going because they tried a rather brave new direction. The second series is currently running and it is back to its brilliant best and found a new thread to explore. In fact the recent episodes were not only good stories, but were beautifully filmed too.

Series 2 of Life on Mars? No idea now! I can't remember the episode order and I know I mentioned a plot line to you before, but it must have been in series 2 (they drug Sam in the future and he gets high while on the job!). The ending was very well done because it gives no definitive answers, but draws a line. I do appreciate how it was written from episode 1 to have a fixed end in sight. They're doing the same with Ashes to Ashes. One more series and that's it.

Overall I don't see so much of a link with Hot Fuzz. Maybe in a very broad sense, but this is far more ambitious. I don't thing the Spaced boys were influenced as they were strictly looking at making a full-on action film in a sleepy English village. The cop-from-the-big-city is nothing new to US film, so it's more Beverley Hills Cop.

And anyway, I can't believe you're giving this a kicking and then raving about Due South of all things! Same episode, one after another, and it was only ripping off McCloud in the first place.

Actually I quite like Due South... 

[Tom]

As I said, I do not particularly like cop shows, except if I find the characters and their interaction fun. The storyline in those shows is secondary for me. It's always the same: A crime happens, and the characters solve it.
In Due South I like the characters Benton and Ray and enjoy their little arguments. And also the supporting cast is fun. In Life of Mars I didn't care about Sam and Hunt, and when they were having their arguments, I was only thinking "I don't care, get on with it". And in the supporting cast there is no character which I thought was all that interesting except maybe Annie.

[Tom]

And don't feel disappointed or offended that I didn't like that series. I am always open to new stuff. Just this time, it just didn't click with me. Maybe nostalgia has something to do with it. I don't remember any 70s cop show that I liked watching and also it is not my generation.