DVD Review: True Romance

Rated R for language, violence, sexuality, nudity

Starring Christian Slater, Patricia Arquette, Gary Oldman, Val Kilmer, Christopher Walken, James Gandolfini

Clarence Worley is a comic book store clerk who lives a simple life. For lack of better things to do, he spends his birthday watching a martial arts triple theater at a Detroit theater, where he meets the attractive Alabama Whitman. The two go for coffee after the films and he shows her the comic book shop, after spending a night together, she regretfully confesses that she is a call girl who was hired by Clarence's boss as a birthday present, however she has fallen for him completely. Luckily, Clarence has fallen for her as well and the next day the two go down to the courthouse and get married.

After learning about her pimp Drexl, Clarenced decides he's going to confront him and get Alabama's things for her. The confrontation doesn't go as planned though, and gunfire breaks out, with Clarence killing Drexl in the process. He grabs what he believes to be Alabama's suitcase of belongings and heads back to her, only to learn that he took the wrong suitcase and this one contains a bunch of stolen cocaine.

The couple decides to head out west to LA to hideout and sell the drugs so that they can establish a home for themselves elsewhere, however the mob is on their tail wanting to retreive the cocaine. The police also get involved.

Clarence and Alabama are very likable characters, played memorably by Christian Slater and Patricia Arquette. Written by Quentin Tarantino as his first major screenplay, this film has bit of it all - action, violence, sexuality, romance, crime, the mob, and thrills, this one classic you won't want to miss.

DVD Review: The Lookout

Rated R for violence, language, sexuality

Starring Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Jeff Daniels, Matthew Goode, Isla Fisher

The film starts out with a teenage Chris driving at night with some friends down an old country road. In an attempt impress his girlfriend, he turns off the headlights to show them the fireflies, but crashes into a combine, killing their 2 friends, leaving Chris with brain damage that affects his short term memory, and his girlfriend requiring a prosthetic leg.

As years go by, Chris has been learning to live with his disability, by keeping notes in a small notebook and living with helpful aid by blind friend Lewis. Chris holds a job as a night janitor at a small-town bank, however he has desires to become a teller someday, learning from one of the fellow bank tellers and practicing regularly.

Eventually Chris  becomes the target of a gang who is planning on robbing the bank he works for. Knowing of his condition, the gang befriends Chris and uses the lovely Luvlee to seduce him and convince him he is part of their gang. Chris is confused at first, but eventually goes along with the gang, only to realize they are just using him for access to the bank. He decides to take matters into his own hands to put a stop to it.

The Lookout was a very good drama and thriller. It builds the characters very well - you symapthize with both Chris and Lewis, as they both struggle make the best of their disabilities and you hope for the best for them as well. While many may have missed this gem in the theater, be sure not to miss it on DVD, as both Levitt and Daniels give great performances.

DVD Review: Untraceable

Rated R for violence, torture, language, gore

Starring Diane Lane, Colin Hanks, Billy Burke, Joseph Cross, Mary Beth Hurt

Jennifer Marsh is widowed mother who cares for her daughter by day and heads up the FBI's cybercrime division by night, usually fighting indentity theft and the like. One night however, she comes across a webite called killwithme.com which is streaming video footage of a kitten being tortured and killed, live on camera. Not thinking too much of it, as it's only an animal, Jennifer's supervisor tells her to just shutdown the site and don't worry too much about it.

Shortly later, however, killwithme.com is active again, and this time the vicitim is a human. The more people that tune into the site, the faster the victim dies. Despite warning from Jennifer, the press holds a conference, urging people to avoid the site, however this causes more people to become curious about it and only increases the site's popularity.

Will Jennifer and the FBI be able to find out and stop the killer before he strikes again? Will they be able to do it before more and more people tune into the site, causing the victims to die even faster? As Jennifer gets closer to figuring out the case, the killer begins to come after her. In this deadly game of cat and mouse, who will come out alive?

This film, starring Diane Lane, was an interesting view into the FBI cybercrimes division. While still considered to be part of the "torture porn" genre of horror films that include flicks like Saw and Hostel, this one was a lot more toned down that its predecessors. The violence and torture, while a bit graphic at times, was necessary in order for this film to work, but fortunately, it wasn't nearly as graphic as what we've seen in recent films like Saw.

A bit too scary and graphic for the kids, this in an interesting race against time thriller for the adults to watch.

DVD Review: Teeth

Rated R for language, some graphic violence, sexuality

Starring Jess Weixler, Hale Appleman, John Hensley

Dawn is a teenager who, with a small group of like-minded friends, is part of a Christian group that promotes abstinence by wearing purity rings and speaking at different schools about what it means. During one of these meetings, she is introduced to fellow abstinence pledge Tobey and developes a crush on him, fantasizing about marrying him one day. After giving in to their mutual feelings for each other, Tobey and Dawn meet at a local swimming hole, where he attempts to rape her, however we, including Tobey and Dawn quickly learn that something is not normal with Dawn - she has vaginal dentata. Horrified at what has just happened, Tobey stumbles off. Scared of what just happened, Dawn goes home to research online, trying to learn what is wrong with her and she visits a gynocologist  to get checked out, however the gyno takes advantage of her and the dentata strikes again.

Dawn eventually learns how to control the dentata and by movie's end, we are left to believe she will put her 'gift' to good use when it comes to dealing with perverted men in the world.

Even though it's an indie film, it was actually done pretty well and was quite an interesting take on the subject matter. While a bit graphic at times, it was a decent story.

DVD Review: The Island

Rated PG13 for brief language, action violence

Starring Ewan McGregor, Scarlett Johansson, Sean Bean, Steve Buscemi, Ethan Phillips

Directed by Michael Bay, The Island takes place in 2019. Lincoln Six Echo lives in a colony of uncontamined humans who all believe something happened tot he planet to cause them to live here. Each week, a drawing is conducted to decide who will be the next inhabitant to go to The Island, the last place left on the surface of Earth that wasn't contaminated. Lincoln however becomes frustrated at the lack of individuality in the colony, as they are forced to wear plain white clothes and everyone is under strict rules by the colony leaders. Upon learning that his good friend Jordan Two Delta is next to go to The Island, Lincoln discovers, thanks to a friend in a restricted construction area of the colony a way out. However on his exploration of the world directly outside the colony, he sees 2 recent colonist, thought to have been taken to The Island, being subjected to medical procedures and organ harvesting.

Concerned for Jordan, he finds her and the 2 try to escape and get to the bottom of what is going on, after learning that there is a whole world outside the colony they thought was destroyed.

Not to give too much away, but the film is a commentary on cloning and raises some interesting questions for being a Michael Bay film. However, like most Michael Bay films, his love for explosions is shown and we are subjected to the typical elements of a Michael Bay film.

It was an interesting sci-fi film though, so it's worth a view.