“Malkovich may be set up as the great actor, and Cusack as the schmuck here, but in High Fidelity we see the range of the latter actor, who carries this film that’s also full of wierd, obsessive characters. This time they’re running a vinyl record store, Cusack the failing owner, Rob, with a pair of rock trivia nut employees. Music buffs will recognize the guy played deliciously by Jack Black, who spends his time protecting the store’s past pop treasures, often finding customers unworthy of acquiring them…”

“After watching The Mask Of Zorro, it’s hard to believe Catherine Zeta-Jones isn’t actually Spanish, and harder to accept that she’s really Welsh, such a convincingly swashbuckling senorita is she. Zorro is another big budget Hollywood film, with numerous sumptuous sets, and the creation of a slave-worked gold mine, which is not quite a recreated Titanic, but a huge edifice none the less…”

“I know these are supposed to be DVD reviews, but this film, the all-time box-office biggie, has yet to appear in that format, but was recently released on LD. I guess that up until I bought this set, beautifully packaged for the 12″ format, I was the only North American to have not seen Titanic, not having experienced it in the movie theatre…”

“If Susan Anspach was a bit of a fish in Five Easy Pieces, Andie MacDowell was a frozen fillet in Sex, Lies, And Videotape. But in this film she is the perfect foil for Bill Murray as a his TV producer. He’s an egotistical, insensitive weatherman cursed to cover Ground Hog Day over and over again until he finds his humanity. The premise is silly, but a good and often very funny script by Harold Rubin makes it work as a perfect vehicle for Murray’s remarkable comedic talent…”

“Written and directed by the same man who made The Coca Cola Kid, Montenegro chronicles the brief straying of a bored housewife (Susan Anspach into the company of a band of Yugoslavian immigrants. Like Wag The Dog, Montenegro was made long before that region or its people became daily news fodder. It’s a charming film, with many funny moments. I didn’t realize that Makavejev was behind both this film and the Coca Cola Kid, which I look forward to seeing out on DVD…”

“If this film stops people talking about Mon Oncle Antoine and Goin’ Down The Road as great Canadian films, then it will have served a good purpose, as far as I’m concerned. The Sweet Hereafter is probably the best Canadian film ever, and so far the highest grossing one at the box office. Atom Egoyan has woven a complex web of recollections of a school bus crash by those who survived and those whose children didn’t, as they talk to a lawyer, played by Ian Holm, who is trying to get a class action lawsuit going against the bus company. Almost entirely composed of flashbacks…”

“It used to be that the Criterion laserdiscs were the ones you paid all the extra money for to get a lot of extra special features, as well as exceptional image quality and packaging. Now this sort of thing has become common in the DVD world, with almost any release offering extra features: commentary from directors, etc. (often several), production documentaries, and other behind-the-scene insights. By such standards the Criterion Silence Of The Lambs seems almost sparse…..”

“Ever since I got this DVD I’ve been wondering why I liked it more on the small (51-inch) screen rather than on the big (60-foot) IMAX one. I think it has something to do with relating to a 40-foot-tall Mario Andretti; his easy intimacy and evident love for family, in particular, racing-driver sons and pet pig, Martini, seem to come across better on the smaller screen. Also, all the scenes shot from racing cars going 200 miles an hour, so carefully crafted and caught by the team led by director Stephen Low, seemed overly big and flat on the IMAX screen…”

“Ron Fricke has taken his time-lapse film camera to a variety of locations around the world,ranging from city centres in America and Europe to deserts, landmarks, and sculptures. We see familiar and unusual objects, architecture, and landscapes as the sun rises and falls, and clouds flash across the sky around them, with a musical score that underlines the greatness and futility of man’s struggle to form nature when, in fact, nature forms him…”

“It is very much to Kevin Costner’s credit that he could take a story without much story line to it, and make it into a long and lyrical film that sustains interest. It does so because of a combination of visual beauty, human drama on an epic scale (the survival of a race of people), and an individual love story. Strong performances by Graham Greene and Mary McDonnell, as Indian chief and love interest, respectively, hold one’s interest…..”

“I guess I’ve lumped these two films together because they both star Kurt Russell, who always looks as if he’s just swallowed a prune. Backdraft is set in Chicago and is about firemen and fires, with strong supporting performances from Scott Glenn, William Baldwin, Robert De Niro, and the usual riveting cameo by Donald Sutherland as a psychopath. The DVD transfer of this film faithfully retains its visual quality and exciting soundtrack, and I enjoy it, too, for all the Chicago locales, this being one of my favourite cities…”

“The claim is made in this DVD’s 8-page booklet that it outdoes its predecessor, GoldenEye, in special effects, and though it undoubtedly does, the earlier movie was a lot more fun, a lot of this in the antics of “the next girl”, Xenia Onatopp, not to forget Robbie Coltrane’s hilarious cameo as a Russian mobster. Somehow, the mood of Tomorrow Never Dies is more sombre, though the action never stops as Bond and his Chinese sidekick ride motorcycles and leap off tall buildings…”

“This is the film that introduced Richard Kiel as the chrome-toothed giant assassin, Jaws, who went on to become a much more sympathetic character in Moonraker. It also features the delectable Barbara Bach as a Russian agent who teams up with Bond to defeat villain Karl Stromberg, played with appropriate menace by Curt Jurgens. Many Bond fans could never see anyone but Sean Connery in the role, but I always liked the dapper rogue that Roger Moore made of Bond, a little seamier and more of an opportunist than the heroic Connery version…”

“HBO has done this wonderful film and its creator Tony Richardson a serious injustice in its DVD release. Instead of going back to original negatives or even a good print, it has mastered from a somewhat beat-up work or theatrical print with faded colour, lots of scratch sparklies, poor resolution, and mediocre screechy stereo sound. In other words, it’s pretty much the same old brew you saw on cable in a new cup…..”

“These two MGM movies fit well together as a review pair, both Sci-Fi, both big-budget, and both full of special effects. Though called a classic, the 1968 2001 least stands the test of time, in my view. It is overly long, ponderous, pretentious, full of bloated symbolism (starting with those stupid apes). What else can you say about a film that is dominated by a bland-voiced, neurotic computer…”

“Finally, a movie that makes really intelligent use of many DVD features. Das Boot has Dolby Digital for both its original German soundtrack and the dubbed English one, as well as subtitles that allow one to hear the German with all the sound effects intact (and these are spectacular), and also understand the script. This was my preference in watching this classic 1982 film; I even joked to a friend that after watching all 200+ minutes of Das Boot this way, I would probably end up fluent in German….”

“Body Heat is one of those films that’s so hot and steamy you sweat watching it, even with the air conditioning on. Set in the Florida keys in summer, it contains brilliant youthful performances by William Hurt as a dumber-than-he-looks lawyer, and Kathleen Turner as a true femme fatale. Director Kasdan would go on to make The Big Chill and The Accidental Tourist (both with Hurt in leading roles), but this is his most accomplished film, the combination of atmosphere, performances and pacing absolutely perfect….”

“Many remember Richard Nixon as the dark force of American politics, and his era ended in shame with his post-Watergate resignation. The agents of his fall were two dogged Washington Post reporters, Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein, on whose book this 1976 film was based. They are played by Robert Redford and Dustin Hoffman, respectively. Both lead performances are restrained and unaffected, though Hoffman makes the most of the reporter’s chain smoking in his dramatic business….”

“One of the most expensive films ever made at close to $200 million, Waterworld was expected to be a bomb, but did quite well at the box office, and seems to fit the DVD format very well, too, with its bright vivid colour, action and stunt filled story, and larger-than-life characters. Dennis Hopper makes the most of his role as arch-villain, while Costner is more energized than usual as an amphibious mutant….”

“Produced for MTV, this show in the Unplugged series showcases the folkier side of Eric Clapton, and was a bestseller on CD, laserdisc, and VHS. It was interesting to hear it in discrete surround, and to compare that with the CD with its uncompressed digital audio.

“But first to the picture: I was surprised at the relatively poor resolution of the video on this DVD, bad even compared to off air images on my TV….”