The Movie:
The legend of Robin Hood has spawned film adaptations ranging from the sublime (the classic Flynn/De Havilland version), the slightly less sublime (Richard Lester's Robin and Marian, imagining the duo, played by Sean Connery and Audrey Hepburn, later in life) to silly (Mel Brooks' Men in Tights) to the, well, really silly (Prince of Thieves anyone?). I first became aware of this early 80s British-American co-production through its evocative soundtrack album by the Irish supergroup Clannad, "Legend," which was a platinum seller two decades ago. This repackaged boxed set of previously released material, finally bringing together all three seasons of the series, shows why Robin of Sherwood is so highly thought of by Robin Hood aficionados, despite the many liberties it takes with its source material.

As reimagined by scenarist Richard Carpenter (...Read the entire review

The Movie:
Television cooking programs are, to coin a food-based phrase, an odd duck, frequently hosted by people who might be considered just a tad bit peculiar should they show up in your own kitchen. The cooking show has been dotted with such eccentrics (a polite euphemism, if ever there were one) as Julia Child and Graham (The Galloping Gourmet) Kerr. But (following through with my extremely apt food metaphor) taking the cake in the "strange but true" category are the duo in charge of the batty and wonderful BBC series Two Fat Ladies, the late Jenifer Paterson and Clarissa Dickson Wright. The two, who arrive to their various destinations aboard a rip-roaring Triumph Thunderbird motorcycle with attendant sidecar, take their viewers on scenic tours of the English countryside while cooking up various foodstuffs that can only be described as the complete antithesis to everything you...Read the entire review

Ganges:
Yet another stunning multi-part documentary about our planet (or part of it) from the BBC leads me to wonder if I know what I want anymore. A little over two-and-a-half hours, this look spans the length of the Ganges river in India, breaking down to about 45 minutes per 500 miles, if you choose to look at things that way. Ravishing visuals and side trips to places you wouldn't expect to go make this an entertaining and informative way to spend an evening or two. Producers cast their nets wide, however, bringing up that all-too-common bugaboo (a little forthcoming ecological disaster) called global warming, which can be both depressing and can make viewers hunger for more information than such a doc can deliver. Packed in among a nearly endless parade of breathtaking shots is a message that makes me long for my youth in the '80s, while making that era's imminent nuclear catastrophe see...Read the entire review

The Film:
Honestly, there's nothing wrong with some films having more style than substance. Don't get me wrong, because I can only take such films in measured doses; but from time to time it is nice to watch something and just enjoy all the pretty lights. Of course, if a movie is going to be style over substance, then at the very least it should be coherent enough to be easily understood and followed with minimal amount of effort. And therein lays one of the fundamental problems with Toxic, a film that has plenty of style, very little substance and a story that is so convoluted you simply can't keep track of what is going on.

Trying to describe the plot of Toxic is almost as difficult as it is pointless. This is one of those films where you find yourself wondering, "What's going on?" very early in the game. Seriously, after only fifteen minutes, you're likely to be so lost th...Read the entire review

The Product:
Okay zombies, time to step aside. For more than a decade, you were the overused macabre monster du jour. Sure, vampires have had it equally bad, but at least they get to cuddle with hot babes as blood runs down undoubtedly fake cleavage. No, the living dead were the Washington Generals of terror (to borrow from one Homer J. Simpson), but they have since been usurped by another paranormal party - the ghost. That's right, spooks and their ectoplasmic partners are the latest exploited entities, thanks in part to the surge (and the current collapse) of the J-Horror genre. As the old saying goes, familiarity definitely breeds contempt, and in the case of the junky Johnny Come Latelys like Shutter, disdain is the least of these movies' critical concerns. While the cannibal corpse is still a very viable scary movie symbol, this latest example of specter-vision may end the polterg...Read the entire review

I guess it takes a sequel and high definition home video releases to make Universal halt their game of repackaging the same material in a new shell.

"The Mummy Returns" takes all of the technological wonders from its predecessor and pushes the envelope even further. This film has always begged to be demo worthy material and it's a crime we've had to wait so long for an upgrade.

We're treated first to a history lesson that begins in 3067 B.C. A war general in his time, the Scorpion King ruled a vast army that was vicious and unforgiving. All good things must come to an end of course, as the Scorpion King finds himself defeated and alone at the end of his final battle. Desperate to emerge victorious, a frantic prayer to Anubis vanquishes the opposition... but at a price. The Scorpion King is sealed in the desert of Ahm Shere and transformed into a hideous beast, in likeness of his ...Read the entire review

THE FILM

The opening titles refer to "Outsourced" as "A John Jeffcoat Film."

Now, I've seen hundreds of possessive credits in my time, but John Jeffcoat? Perhaps he's a wonderful fellow who contributes regularly to charities and nurses sick puppies back to health in his spare time. However, I'm not sure he's ready to proclaim himself a total cinematic experience just yet.

Still, "Outsourced" is an appealing film. Maybe this Jeffcoat guy is somebody to watch.

As a manager of a novelty product call center in Seattle, Todd (Josh Hamilton) is horrified to learn his job is being outsourced to India. Offered termination or a trip overseas to train his replacement, Todd takes the travel, arriving in a land that's way beyond his comfort level. Meeting his trainees in a new, dilapidated office space, Todd is ordered to bring productivity to new, nearly unreachable levels. Teach...Read the entire review

Similar to the humdrum Chinese visual epic The Promise, South Korea's The Restless is all bells and whistles without an event to merit the fanfare. Painstaking measures have been spent to craft richly intricate visuals in Cho Dong-Oh's martial arts extravaganza, all which try and dress up an underdeveloped and rather trite narrative arch. And it works ... but only on some very low level. Only those with infatuation towards bright colors and empty performances need apply, as The Restless carries nothing beneath its almost headache-inducing surface.


The Film:

One of the best-ever Hollywood biopics, Universal's Man of a Thousand Faces is an almost completely fictionalized telling of the story of Lon Chaney, one of the most interesting of the silent film talents. Chaney's makeup skills were as admired and clucked over as today's CGI special effects, and only decades later did biographers bring out the facts about his fascinating life behind the cameras.

This picture captures some of the flavor of silent Hollywood while grossly misrepresenting Chaney's career; it's really a showcase vehicle for the estimable talents of James Cagney, who takes the movie and runs with it. Half Sirkian soap opera and half showbiz legend, Man of a Thousand Faces proves that historical accuracy isn't essential for great entertainment.

...Read the entire review

The Movie:
Oh, how far the lowly stupid joke has fallen. Where once we had Barbara Billingsley speaking jive, now we have Marion Ross giving advice on oral sex hygiene. That devolution is pretty much endemic of Superhero Movie, which continues the--er, proud tradition of taking a genre and squeezing out every possible, and even some impossible, jokes from it. With a production crew and cast with credits like everything from Airplane! to Scary Movie, you can pretty much guess what you'll get in this film. But the fact is, even knowing beforehand that everything including the kitchen sink (well, a school drinking fountain, anyway) will get skewered doesn't keep Superhero Movie from being very, very funny at times. At others, of course, it just sort of lays there, sinking under the weight of its surely sophomoric humor. And, yes, I did call it Shirley.

The fil...Read the entire review