Above the Law
May 30, 2007
Above the Law (1986) aka Righting Wrongs is a classic example of Hong Kong action cinema from the 1980s, complete with a soundtrack that evokes Harold Faltermeyer’s early 1980s work (Fletch and Beverly Hills Cop) with cheesy synthesizer music. Regardless,...
Kitchen Confidential: The Complete Series
May 30, 2007
Based on the American chef Anthony Bourdain’s professional memoir of the same name, Kitchen Confidential was a short-lived television sitcom that Fox abandoned after only airing four episodes in North America. Thirteen had actually been made, all of...
Scrubs: Season 5
May 22, 2007
As season five of Scrubs begins, J.D. (Braff) is homeless after a tenant above him crashed through his ceiling at the end of the previous season. So, he moves back in with Turk (Faison) and Carla (Reyes). Elliot (Chalke) is working at a new hospital and...
Army of Shadows
May 21, 2007
For reasons that are still unknown, Jean-Pierre Melville’s Army of Shadows (1969) was never distributed in North America. It wasn’t until April 2006 that it finally enjoyed a theatrical release on that continent. Who so long? Was it perhaps Melville’s...
Dark Corners
May 18, 2007
After acclaimed performances in two high profile movies – American Beauty (1999) and Ghost World (2001) – Thora Birch was on the brink of becoming the “next big thing.” Whether by fate or by design, she shunned the spotlight in favour of low-key...
Vengeance is Mine
May 17, 2007
Shohei Imamura’s Vengeance is Mine (1979) is based on a novel by Ryuzo Saki which was inspired by the real-life story of a serial killer. According to the booklet that accompanies the DVD, Imamura spent a year researching the facts of the case and uncovered...
Night at the Museum
May 15, 2007
With the escalating budgets of tent-pole Hollywood studio films, the big budget comedy is an endangered species. Several recent ones with big movie stars attached have been scuttled because of their large budgets and the fear that they will be unable...
The Lost Room
May 14, 2007
Originally airing on the Sci Fi Channel, The Lost Room (2006) is a mini-series that blends The X-Files with David Lynch in an intriguing way. Detective Joe Miller (Krause) investigates a bizarre double homicide with his partner. They track down a witness...
La haine
May 11, 2007
La Haine (1995) is a blistering howl of dissent chronicling the disenfranchised minorities living in the projects just outside of Paris. Mathieu Kassovitz’s film sheds light on the unemployed youth and the pointlessness of their existence. We normally...
The Hitcher
May 11, 2007
The Hitcher (1986) was a nasty little horror film that had no ambitions other than to scare the crap out of you and succeeded due in large part to Rutger Hauer’s creepy turn as a charismatic and seemingly unstoppable hitchhiker cum killer. The film...
