DVD Review: 45

.45 (2006) R

***

WARNING: This review might contain SPOILERS!

LIZ: "You are a woman, You have POWER and you need to use it. Lips, Tits, Hips. All Woman"

I was pleasantly surprised by this film. I bought it sight unseen used from Ebay for only .50¢ (+ $3.00 postage). I didn't realize at the time of purchase that I was going to receive a previously RENTED copy (the Ebay listing said it was used but didn't mention it was a previous rental which is risky) from Wally World video (the disc hub has printing that was marked out with a sharpie/magic marker that had a phone number and "WALLY WORLD Video" on it) So at first I thought I might have a crappy copy with the extras deleted but fortunately the Disc plays fine and all the extras are still there not blocked or deleted.

As for the plot of the film judging from the cover I thought for sure it was going to be a La Femme Nikita/ Point of No Return spy-espionage action film, but it is not like that at all. It is an urban drama with mild violence, some gun play a bit of sex and tons of the F-Bomb.

Milla Jovovich plays Kat a young woman who lives in a bad neighborhood of New York with bad boy Big Al (Angus Macfadyen) who is the gun running/black market crime king of the neighborhood. Kat stays with Al because of their shared love of guns and the fantastic sex due in part to his massive manhood. At first things are OK even though Al is a tough alpha male and short tempered, but Kat soon realizes that she needs to get out of the abusive relationship. Part of the tension comes from her best friend Vic (Sarah Strange) a lesbian and the most sensible of the circle of friends that Kat has, but Al can't stand her. Vic also happens to be in love with Kat but knows she can't have her. Also in love with Kat is Reilly (Stephen Dorff) an associate/friend of Al who is starting to turn over a new leaf and trying to avoid the dark path that Al is on. Reilly is also attracted to Vic and tries his charms on her but fails a few times.

After a huge round of abuse from Al that gets him arrested and the attention of social service counselor Liz (Aisha Tyler) Kat starts to realize the only way she can make her dreams of getting out of the neighborhood is to get away from Al. At one point Vic tells Reilly that if he kills Al she'll sleep with him, he tells her that he couldn't  kill Al he couldn't "do" a friend. He does start to take it into serious consideration though. Kat eventually gets her revenge on Al by setting him up for the murder of one of his associates.

As I said I was pleasantly surprised by this film, however, the use of some straight to the camera "interview" type monologues I didn't like. They were useful in moving the plot along and by giving some exposition and needed background info on the main characters, but I didn't like them. The story could have been told without them but the director chose that style to tell the tale. The entire film has bookend monologues by Kat to show the audience that she made her dreams a reality. During the commentary the director/writer said for some scenes he only had one camera available, and would have preferred to have two to capture more of the action.

Starring: Milla Jovovich, Angus Macfadyen, Stephen Dorff, Sarah Strange, Aisha Tyler

Directed by: Gary Lennon

TH!NKFilm

DVD Release Date: 24 April 2007

Region 1

1 Disc - 97 Minutes

I give the film itself 3 stars *** and the DVD for it's quality 3.5 stars ***.5 I would have liked the DVD to have had English subtitles, the disc itself only has Spanish, fortunately my TVs closed caption subtitles worked for this disc.

Source Code: DVD Review

Colter Stevens: It's the same dream, but it's different!
Christina Warren: Deep. I hope it's different. I feel the same way.

Source Code (2011) PG-13

****

WARNING: This review might contain SPOILERS!

Source Code - When I first saw trailers for this film my first reaction was the plot was similar to the main plot device for the television show Seven Days, because of the time limit of how far back the "time traveler" goes, except it isn't quite the same thing. In the show it was the technology that limited the trips to only 7 days into the past, in this movie the main character goes back to earlier in the day but is limited to 8 minutes in the past due to the "source code" which is more like going into a Matrix of some kind than a time travel machine. I also saw similarities to the show Quantum Leap starring Scott Bakula who makes a vocal appearance in this film as the main character's father in a nod to Quantum Leap. The main character or at least his mind sort of "leaps" into another character via the technology of the "source code".

Bare with me here for a moment. The "technology" or science that allows for source code traveling is more sort of a biotechnology than mechanical technology. The basic gist is that after a person is clinically dead there is still some brain activity for approximately eight minutes after death. The source code technology allows someone to tap into or "leap" into that persons final memories and allows for them to "live in" that person's final moments of life. It also allows the "leaper" to go back multiple times. They don't state a specific number of leap attempts that can be made but they seem to indicate there are limits, due to the deterioration of the dead subjects brain activity.

Jake Gyllenhaal plays Colter Stevens the protagonist a US Army helicopter pilot who last recalls being stationed in Afghanistan and the source code "leaper". He wakes up on a train as someone else, who he later learns is one of the victims on the train when it is blown up by a terrorist outside of Chicago and that it was believed to be just the beginning of a bigger terrifying plan. It was determined that the train had been bombed remotely by a former passenger on the train. Colter's mission is to find out who bombed the train and stop them before more bombs go off. Along the way he learns that he is in the body of a man named Sean Frentress and the woman who is sitting across from him is a friend of Sean's named Christina Warren (Michelle Monaghan).

After the bomb goes off Colter finds himself in a dark chamber that slightly resembles a larger version of his copter's cockpit. He learns that the isolation chamber he is in is part of some military operation. He is told he is in a place called "belegerd castle" a part of some experiment called "The Source Code" by a female Captain Goodwin (Vera Farmiga). Goodwin briefs him on his mission to locate the bomb and try to determin who put it there. Just when he thinks he knows what is going on he is sent back onboard the train to relive "his" or rather Sean's last 8 minutes. Along the way Colter meets the creator of The Source Code Project a Dr. Rutledge (Jeffrey Wright).

Colter falls in love with Christina and then his main goal is to figure out how he can save her and the other passengers. Rutledge and Goodwin inform him that stopping the bombing is NOT his mission and that he needs to concentrate on finding the bomber. Of course he does manage to find a way to save the day and change the future a bit.

I really enjoyed this film. The time limit of the traveling reminded me as I said of Seven Days. Colter's waking in the body of someone else reminded me of Quantum Leap. There is even a slight nod to the show both in the casting of Scott Bakula as Colter's father and a scene with a mirror when Colter first learns he is in another body.
Both of the main actresses Monaghan and Farmiga are beautiful and give great performances. The interaction between Monaghan and Gyllenhaal was also very good. They have a great chemistry which shows and in the extras on the DVD is talked about by the actors and the director.

Starring: Jake Gyllenhaal, Michelle Monaghan, Vera Farmiga

Directed by: Duncan Jones

Summit Entertainment

DVD Release Date: 26 July 2011

Region 1

1 Disc - 93 Minutes

Monster Ark on Sci-Fi Channel

Where do I start with this? I watched the movie Monster Ark on the Sci-Fi Channel. It sounded a little better than it ended up. It was OK but it could be considered a modern B-Movie about ancient history and archaeology ala Raiders of the Lost Ark. One of the selling features is it stars Renée O'Connor of Xena: Warrior Princess fame (she will join her Hercules/ Xena co-stars in an up coming movie for next year called Bitch Slap)


WARNING: This Review contains Spoilers!

OK in a nutshell after discovering an ancient Biblical scroll (which turns out to be the "Original" copy of the book of Genesis) in the same area the Dead Sea Scrolls were found an archaeology professor teams up with his ex-wife (O'Connor) to find Noah's First Ark that's right according to the text before the famous flood adventure Noah was sent on a mission from God. This first ark of Noah's was to transport and destroy (or eternally imprison) an evil creature. Well guess what? These archaeology folks unleash this evil creature back into the world, and have to track it down.

I thought Renée O'Connor was OK in this, but I don't think she really fit the part. At first I thought it should have been played by a slightly older actress. She is mid to late 30s and I thought the character should have been late 40s.


This film would have been a little better if they had cut out some blatant Raiders of the Lost Ark ideas. I won't give the exact details but what do the words: Map Room/ use a staff to find hidden room, topple a giant statue to knock a hole in a wall and crate up an ancient power source and put into storage, make you think of?

To make the young guys drool the movie also has Amanda Crew in it as one of the professor's graduate students. Normally I wouldn't mind what she was wearing, usually shorts and a t-shirt or sleeveless shirt, however, in many of the areas of the world where they were supposed to be - Iraq for one - she was dressed way to skimpy.


Even with ripping off Raiders I liked this film. It was OK, but it is a B-Grade film. You also have to do some big suspending of your disbelief, even though the film is a little preachy about personal beliefs. Things like being able to just up and go to the next area you want from an ancient map, even within areas of Iraq the US military has problems patrolling, deciphering an ancient text that is slightly different from previous similar documets, being able to decipher more of the document overnight when it took 3 weeks to figure out only about 1/2 of it previously, being escorted by a military detachment and being able to tell the commanding officer "lets go here" with no problems,

I give it 3 out of 5 stars.

NOTE: The Renée O'Connor pics are from Xena: Warrior Princess episodes. Yes the Indiana Jones like one too. Oh The Amanda Crew pic? That came from IMDB.com.