Are you ready to get down with the sickness? Movie logic dictates that you shouldn’t remake a classic, but Zack Snyder’s Dawn of the Dead defies that logic and comes up a winner. You could argue that George A. Romero’s 1978 original was sacred ground for horror buffs, but it was a low-budget classic, and [...]
Posts Tagged ‘jeff-shannon’
9/11 – The Filmmakers’ Commemorative Edition [VHS]
Posted by admin on September 14th, 2011
Originally broadcast on CBS in March 2002, 9/11 is an extraordinary record of that fateful day in New York City. This one-of-a-kind documentary was originally conceived as a portrait of 21-year-old Tony Benetatos, a firefighter trainee at Manhattan’s Duane Street firehouse, located seven blocks from the World Trade Center. By the time filming was finished, [...]
End of Days [HD DVD]
Posted by admin on August 22nd, 2011
After a two-year hiatus that included recovery from heart surgery, Arnold Schwarzenegger returned to the big screen in November 1999 with End of Days, a Thanksgiving turkey if ever there was one. Overcooked and bloated with stuffing, this ludicrous thriller attached itself to the end-of-the-millennium furor that kicked in a year too early. A prologue [...]
Shadowlands [VHS]
Posted by admin on July 29th, 2011
This emotionally moving romantic drama was adapted by William Nicholson from his own acclaimed play, based upon the real-life romance (during the 1950s) between the British writer C.S. Lewis and a divorced American poet named Joy Gresham. Best known for writing The Lion, The Witch, and The Wardrobe, Lewis (Anthony Hopkins) is living comfortably as [...]
Posted in VHS 
Tags: american-poet, anthony-hopkins, british-television, british-writer, christian-faith, claire-bloom, debra-winger, emotional-risk, jeff-shannon, joss-ackland, joy-gresham, life-romance, richard-attenborough, romantic-drama, sensitive-direction, spiritual-transformation, william-nicholson 
No Comments »Lion of the Desert [VHS]
Posted by admin on July 27th, 2011
Destined to remain a dubious footnote in books of movie trivia, this occasionally impressive epic from 1981 was financed with a budget of $35 million by Libyan dictator Muammar Qaddafi, who previously attempted the role of movie producer with the critically roasted Mohammad: Messenger of God. This effort didn’t fare much better (it grossed approximately [...]
Schindler’s List [VHS]
Posted by admin on June 7th, 2011
Steven Spielberg had a banner year in 1993. He scored one of his biggest commercial hits that summer with the mega-hit Jurassic Park, but it was the artistic and critical triumph of Schindler’s List that Spielberg called “the most satisfying experience of my career.” Adapted from the best-selling book by Thomas Keneally and filmed in [...]
Posted in VHS Tags: banner-year, ben-kingsley, catholic-war, concentration-camps, delicate-diplomacy, german-army, greatest-films, human-spirit, jeff-shannon, liam-neeson, living-nightmare, oskar-schindler, prison-camp, ralph-fiennes, steven-spielberg, target-practice, thomas-keneally, war-profiteer No Comments »Erin Brockovich [HD DVD]
Posted by admin on August 2nd, 2010
Much will be made of Julia Roberts’s wardrobe in Erin Brockovich–a brash parade of daring hemlines and Wonderbra confidence. Roberts is unabashedly sexy in the title role of this fact-based comedy-drama, but she and director Steven Soderbergh are far too intelligent to rely solely on high heels and cleavage. Susannah Grant’s brassy screenplay fuels this [...]
Wall Street (1987) [VHS]
Posted by admin on July 27th, 2010
Michael Douglas won an Oscar for perfectly embodying the Reagan-era credo that “greed is good.” As a Donald Trump-like Wall Street raider aptly named Gordon Gecko (for his reptilian ability to attack corporate targets and swallow them whole), Douglas found a role tailor-made to his skill in portraying heartless men who’ve sacrificed humanity to power. [...]
Shadowlands (1993) [VHS]
Posted by admin on July 23rd, 2010
This emotionally moving romantic drama was adapted by WilliamNicholson from his own acclaimed play, based upon the real-life romance (during the 1950s) between the British writer C.S. Lewis and a divorced American poet named Joy Gresham. Best known for writing The Lion, The Witch, and The Wardrobe, Lewis (Anthony Hopkins) is living comfortably as a [...]
Posted in VHS Tags: american-poet, anthony-hopkins, british-television, british-writer, christian-faith, claire-bloom, debra-winger, emotional-risk, jeff-shannon, joss-ackland, joy-gresham, life-romance, richard-attenborough, romantic-drama, sensitive-direction, spiritual-transformation No Comments »Mercury Rising [HD DVD]
Posted by admin on July 22nd, 2010
Take off your thinking caps and toss ‘em in a corner, ‘cuz you won’t need ‘em when you’re watching this deliriously dumb thriller from 1997. Bruce Willis stars as a demoted FBI agent who comes to the aid of an autistic boy whose mind holds a potentially deadly secret. It seems that by gazing on [...]
