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DVDs on the Shelf
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Written by Trent Daniel
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Tuesday, 24 August 2010 |
 Often, sci-fi and low budget indie productions go together about as well as chocolate and onions. The high budget demands on special effects eventually hamper the entire story. Clone Hunter is indeed a low budget sci-fi actioner, but it overcomes any limitations of budget by doing all the things an indie should, namely offering an involving story, solid acting and intriguing characters.
The story follows Cane (Benjamin Thomas) a freelance clone hunter somewhere in deep space and his part-cybernetic partner (Angela Funk). They are hired by Montserrat, a tycoon who owns his own private planet, to track down and kill a younger clone version of himself. In the universe of this film, the rich and powerful can have clone created, have the brains transferred into younger versions of themselves, and thus give themselves a form of immortality. However, this younger version of Montserrat has rebelled and started a murderous army that threatens the stability of Monterrat’s planet. Like any good thriller, there is much more to the story than it seems, as the more Cane and Angela dig, the more rotten they find things at the planet’s core.
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Read more... [DVD review: Clone Hunter]
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On The Screen Reviews
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Written by Trent Daniel
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Monday, 02 August 2010 |
 So far, my favorite film this year is Christopher Nolan’s Inception. Not only does it deliver all the action and thrills expected of a big budget summer blockbuster, but it has inspired endless debate among my friends and others who have seen it. It also officially moves Christopher Nolan near the head of an elite class of directors working today whose films I will definitely go see if their name is attached.
Case in point: my fiancé and I were in line at a sporting goods store. While the clerk was ringing up my t-shirts, my fiancé casually mentioned we had just seen the movie. Instantly, we started to enthusiastically recount memorable scenes: the floating figures in the hotel, the raid on the ice station and, of course, the ending.
For those who have not yet seen Inception (and what are you waiting for? It clearly deserves to be seen on the big screen), the plot is as follows:
Dominic Cobb (Leonardo DiCaprio) is one rare type of thief- as he has the unique skill of being able to steal valuable secrets from deep within the subconscious of his victim during his or her dream state. Cobb’s skill makes him valued among corporate giants trying to get one up on each other, but it has also made him an international fugitive and cost him his wife and child. Cobb is offered a last chance at redemption. He can be reunited with what remains of his family if he can pull off the never before tried feat of inception-meaning not to steal an idea from their target, but to plant one.
Spoiler alert!
(I would say don’t read any further if you haven’t seen it, but I know that is a moot point. Anyway, still see it if you get the chance.)
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Read more... [What to make of the ending to Inception?]
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DVDs on the Shelf
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Written by Ed Flynn
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Wednesday, 21 July 2010 |
 The White Ribbon is a drama starring Christian Freidl, Ulrich Turkl and Burghart Klaussner. Directed by Michael Haneke.
There is something wrong here. In a seemingly quaint German village pre-WW1, one unpleasant event occurs after another and no one is quite sure why.
There is a seeming sense of order in the village. It is run by a baron who owns most of the land and is the primary employer. There is a pastor who is the moral authoritarian in the village, along with a doctor and a young schoolteacher who is smitten with a young woman from a nearby village (he narrates the story years later).
Like Haneke’s most notable films (Funny Games; Cache), a sense of perfect order is upset by a strange, unexplainable occurrence which slowly spreads through the formally ideal sense of order like a cancer, until it destroys what once was.
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Read more... [DVD Review: The White Ribbon]
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DVDs on the Shelf
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Written by Trent Daniel
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Wednesday, 23 June 2010 |
 The film begins on an ominous note. Eerie strings play as the film fades to white. Soon, a ship appears out of the fog. Cut to a gumshoe, looking and speaking as if he has stepped straight out of a Mickey Spillane novel (fitting, since the setting is 1954), trying to hold himself together and fight off a case of severe sickness (“all that water”) in the ship’s bathroom. It turns out the gumshoe, US Marshall Teddy Daniels (Leonardo DiCaprio) and his new partner, Chuck Aule (Mark Ruffalo) are being ferried to one Shutter Island, rock island in the middle of Boston Harbor-one that houses an institution for the criminally insane.
So begins “Shutter Island”, a haunting, challenging thriller by master filmmaker Martin Scorsese. Teddy and his partner are there seemingly to investigate the disappearance of a female patient-but Teddy has personal reasons of his own for taking the case. Though it appears at first that Teddy is a gifted investigator, it seems that every lead he follows only opens multiple other doors. Soon, Teddy is battling suspicious doctors, a downright sinister warden, a hurricane that descends on the island and, most critically, his own neurosis as he strives for the truth. As seeming clues lead nowhere and the twists in the case only multiply, Teddy soon begins to question everything around him, including his own sanity.
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Read more... [DVD Review: Shutter Island]
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DVDs on the Shelf
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Written by Trent Daniel
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Friday, 18 June 2010 |
 Interestingly, the familiarity of “Day of Vengeance” is what separates it from many other low budget independent films. Where as many low budget indies tend to veer either into serious coming of age dramas, obscure mind trips, or horror, “Day of Vengeance” is more straightforward in its attempt to stage a modern day Western. While the film is clearly hampered by its low budget and (admittedly) amateurish acting, it is still a noble effort and effective debut for director Isaac Pingree.
The plot resembles that of a vintage western: a young hitchhiker named Jake Reid travels to the small town of Covelo, CA (note: an actual town) to uncover information about a botched robbery that led to the death of his father, as well as 3 other men. Though the townspeople clearly want to keep this grim moment in the past buried, Jake is determined to get answers-as well as find the missing loot. Jake eventually finds one reluctant ally in the town in Laura (who, as a child, saw her father killed in the aftermath of the botched robbery shootout). Soon, old wounds are opened, culminating in the local police, one outlaw who survived the shootout, and trigger-happy locals all clashing, with Jake and Laura caught in the crossfire.
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Read more... [DVD review: Days of Vengence]
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| Results 1 - 9 of 92 |
DVD review: Clone HunterOften, sci-fi and low budget indie productions go together about as well as chocolate and onions....
What to make of the ending to Inception?So far, my favorite film this year is Christopher Nolan’s Inception. Not only does it deliver all...
DVD Review: The White RibbonThe White Ribbon is a drama starring Christian Freidl, Ulrich Turkl and Burghart Klaussner....
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Black Swan - Trailer