Feature Story
Interview: David Zucker, legendary spoof comedy writer/director
Posted by: Matthew Ardill • November 10, 2025 @ 3:22pm
David Zucker has written and directed some of the biggest comedies of all time, including Airplane! and The Naked Gun.
Okay. I'll admit it. I'm a fast-food junkie. You wouldn't know it by looking at me, but for the purposes of this motion picture film review and because it is in fact true, I'm a fast food junkie. Or as McDonald's calls us, "Heavy Users". I'm a man on the go and usually can be found at a fast food establishment at least 3 times a week, sometimes even more than once a day.
What made the original Shrek so entertaining was how the animators turned the world of fairy-tales upside down, but without ruining the morals that kept them together. The careful precision and absolute hilarity that was housed in every frame of Shrek made the film an instant classic. It is no wonder it went on to win an Academy Award.
2001 was the year of the Ogre and the year of CG films. After Disney and Pixar had tremendous success with the two Toy Story films and A Bug's Life, Dreamworks and PDI, as well as a host of other competitors, brought forward a number of efforts to dethrone the mouse.
There is certainly nothing small or subtle about Wolfgang Peterson's (Das Boot, The Perfect Storm) latest contribution to the realm of Hollywood blockbusters. Troy is an adaptation of Homer's "The Iliad" that is truly grandiose.
One of the greatest wars of the Ancient World was forged between rivals Greece and Troy. The war itself and its immortal heroes were chronicled by legendary scribe Homer in his immortal epic, "The Iliad".
What happens when you cross a gothic horror movie with state-of-the-art special effects? You get Hugh Jackman and Kate Beckinsale starring in Van Helsing. Not only does our hero fight vampires, werewolves, and Frankenstein's creation, in the first 5-minutes he dispatches Mr. Hyde.
Stephen Sommers' Van Helsing is a rip-roaring start to the 2004 summer blockbuster season, complete with attractive performers and so much computer-generated action that my friend Jonas stated that "the special effects made my retinas burn".
Okay, I admit it. I am a fan of monster movies. If you were to point out the quintessential staple of monster films, you would have to look to the stable of creatures that populated the Universal Pictures horror films of the 1930s. The films that made the likes of Boris Karloff (Frankenstein, The Mummy), Bela Lugosi (Count Dracula) and Lon Chaney Jr.
Review: The Saddest Music in the World
Posted by: Mark McLeod • April 30, 2004 @ 11:59am
The year is 1930 and the world is in the middle of The Great Depression. Many people have returned from the war to see their jobs eliminated and a time of great sadness is upon them. Alcohol has been outlawed in the United States and many Americans are travelling north of the border to Canada to get a taste of that sweet brew.
Review: The Saddest Music in the World
Posted by: Timo Puolitaipale • April 30, 2004 @ 11:59am
The Saddest Music in the World, adapted from a screenplay by Booker Prize-winner Kazuo Ishiguro, takes us back to Winnipeg in 1933. The depression has gripped Winnipeg, but local beer baroness and amputee Lady Port-Huntly (Isabella Rossellini) launches a contest with which to catch the imagination of the world. She sets up a competition to determine who plays the saddest music ever.
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