Davis Freeberg's DVD AllStars

The Dark Side Of Finance

davisfreeberg — Wed, 08 Oct 2008 19:00:34 GMT

Wall St. has been a cult classic for finance types for well over 20 years and is still relevant today. It's a classic tale of the pitfalls of greed and a refreshing look at how slipperly that slope can be. The movie produces a number of really good quotes including, lunch is for whimps, money never sleeps and of course Gordon Gekko's famous greed is good speach. While the final message of the movie is a warning against the excesses of success, it also does a good job of highlighting the struggles of those who play by the rules.

Paranoia Meet The Internet

davisfreeberg — Wed, 08 Oct 2008 00:23:07 GMT

I wouldn't consider this one of the best movies about technology, but it was still pretty good. Sandra Bullock plays a character who ends up sideways with a shadowy government and ends up having her identity stolen in a big way. While the plot is fairly predictable and the acting is a little on the weak side, the fast pace action makes it easy to look past it's flaws. The key to enjoying the film is to not take it too seriously. Not recommended for those of you who've had your credit hijacked by Nigerian scammers.

Virtual Reality Meets Science Fiction

davisfreeberg — Thu, 04 Sep 2008 21:45:55 GMT

I tend to like anything with Denzel Washington in it, so I'm probably biased on this one, but I really enjoyed this film. Sure it had it's cheesy moments, but the special effects were fantastic and the plot was intriguing. Basically, it's about a psycho computer program that connects with cutting edge nanotechnology to produce the world's worst serial killer. The movie was predictible, but there were also a few surprises. I don't know that I'd pay to see it a second time, but if you enjoy sci-fi, it's worth checking out.

So Good It Made Me Depressed

davisfreeberg — Fri, 09 Mar 2007 22:30:20 GMT

I was never really all that interested in seeing Chinatown until Netflix recommended it to me as something I would like. After recording the movie on my TiVo, I went to watch it, but immedietely I saw it was a Roman Polanski film.

Polanski is a bit of a controversial figure for me because he's been accused of doing some pretty bad stuff. In the past I've intentionally refused to see his films, so when I went to watch the film and saw it was a Polanski film I almost turned it off.

Like most of the Polanski films I've seen, the movie was great. The character development was especially well done. The storyline gripping. During the entire film, I couldn't bring myself to turn it off.

Like most of the Polanski films I've seen, it also included some pretty weird stuff, including a character who had an incestuous relationship with her father.

While overall, the film is very well done, it was depressing for me to see such a great movie made by such a morally questionable man. Perhaps I should be judging each film based on the quality of it's work, but I can't help but feel a little guilty that I may have helped to support someone who is still considered on the lam.

If the moral objections don't bother you, then my advice is to check it out, but personally, I wish I would have stuck with my ethics and avoided this one, even though it turned out to be one of the better films that I've seen over the last year.

I'll Take CIA Assassians For $1,000

davisfreeberg — Mon, 26 Feb 2007 20:38:10 GMT

I'm a huge gameshow fan, so when I saw that there was a movie about Chuck Barris (the buy behind the dating game and the Gong show), I was pretty excited to see it.

I didn't know a lot about the film when I scheduled my TiVo to record it, but I figured CIA + Chuck Barris = Exciting Film.

Was I ever wrong about this one. This film wasn't exciting at all, it was boring and confusing. The limited CIA scenes had limited action and almost no background. One moment you were watching Barris on a date, the next you were trying to figure out who he was killing and why. In the end, the movie's only strength was the character development throughout the film and even that was pretty limited. I especially didn't understand why Julia Roberts or George Cloney was in the film as their performance seemed pretty weak.

Overall, I've got to recommend avoiding this one. It's not the worst film ever, but it's pretty bad.

When There Is No More Room In Hell

davisfreeberg — Tue, 20 Feb 2007 20:57:18 GMT

After being a little disappointed with the first film of this franchise, I came in with low expectations for this film, but was pleasantly surprised at how great this film turned out to be. Filmed nearly a decade after the original Night of the Living Dead, the Dawn of The Dead takes up where the last one left off. Being made a generation later really added a lot to the film. It's images are more disturbing, the plot more engaging and the film more sophisticated.

Unlike the first film that took place pretty much in a farm house, this film takes place at a mall populated by a group of bandits and a gazillion zombies that want to eat their flesh. The film takes the viewer from the first week of the zombie uprising to several months later.

One of the things I really enjoyed about the film was the fact that it was made in the 1970's. While there wasn't any references to disco, the culture of the 70's really came through on the film. I also liked that Romero left the ending of the film more open ended for his follow up film a decade later. Overall, I felt like this was a stronger film in the franchise.

Mmmmmm Brains . . .

davisfreeberg — Tue, 20 Feb 2007 20:38:56 GMT

As a horror movie afficianado, I knew that sooner or later I would not only need to see this film, but the whole series as well. When it was first released, Night of the Living Dead was actually a pretty controversial film, but over the years, as movies have gotten more graphic, the film has lost a little bit of it's edge. Since it's initial production we've seen a number of remakes/extensions to this franchise with varying degrees of success.

After watching the film, I wasn't really all that impressed with the movie itself, but it was neat to go back and see the start of the zombie genre. The most disturbing scenes are when the zombies eat the flesh right off of their victims, but even at some of it's more intense moments, this film would likely get a pg-13 rating today. If you are planning on watching other films in the franchise, you don't necessarily need to see this film in order to know what's going on, but given it's influence on other horror movies, it's still worth checking out, even if it's just to see how other film makers were impacted by the film.

Queen Of The Straight To DVD

davisfreeberg — Fri, 29 Dec 2006 17:26:00 GMT

I was a big fan of the Interview with the Vampire movie and actually read the book Queen of the Damned before seeing the film. I think that the whole franchise is pretty good, but they didn't do a very good job with the film. Anne Rice does a good job of using Queen of the Damned to help continue the story of Lestat's life after Interview, but they went cheapo on the sequel and instead of hiring Tom Cruise had another actor play Lestat. There were also a lot of holes that never got filled in from the first movie. Overall, the movie was entertaining and a good way to spend 2 hours, but it really didn't have the same bite that the first one had.

Movie By Numbers

davisfreeberg — Sun, 24 Dec 2006 22:06:00 GMT

This movie definetely had it's weak spots, but overall it was actually decent in the teenager horror genre. The movie is about two high school kids who try and get away with the perfect crime. They try and plant forensic evidence, but Sandra Bullock plays a super cop who figures it out. The movie is well cast, although one of the killers is a bit creepy. The plot is a little obvious and really won't keep you guessing, but it tells an interesting story and throws a little danger and adventure at you along the way. I'm not sure that I'd go rent this one, but if it was on TV, it might be worth checking out.

The Whole 19 Yards

davisfreeberg — Sun, 24 Dec 2006 04:24:00 GMT

It's hard for me to look at movies seperately when they are sequels. I always want to see the all picture and tend to judge the whoe franchise by it's overall quality. Normally, I won't see a film, if I'm not prepared to see it's sequel too, but for this pair of dark comedies, my advice is check out The Whole Nine Yards, but skip the tenth yard.

The first movie is dark, witty, very funny. A lot of sophisticated humor mixed in with it's moments of slapstick. The second movie is just as dark and at times witty, but the plot makes no sense and it fails at ever being funny. This is a case of sequels gone bad. The first one made so much money, that they had to jump in and try to make too much out of it. In the end the sequel has the same cast of characters, but it feels much more forced and the humor too dependent upon what happened in the first movie.