Any respective movie lovers looking to save money this Christmas with your classic movie packs on DVD or Blu-Ray and are in the mood for science fiction and action films need look no further than Mill Creek Entertainment’s 4 Movie Collection. This 4 movie pack collects four very entertaining science fiction movies for folks who like action, suspense, and violent menaces and this collection has it all. In 2000’s “Hollow Man,” director Paul Verhoeven brings his own unique vision of the Invisible Man to the forefront. Combining state of the art effects and a cast of great actors, “Hollow Man” star Kevin Bacon as Sebastian Cane, a doctor who volunteers to become a guinea pig for a technology that can turn its subjects invisible.
When he and his team accomplish the formula, Sebastian soon becomes power hungry, corrupting his invisibility using it to victimize and control others while his insanity begins to rot away. What starts as an experiment becomes a fight for survival as his crew tries to stop Sebastian who becomes increasingly violent and murderous, and will not stop until he’s whetted his appetite for blood. With some searing tension and solid performances from folks like Elizabeth Shue and Josh Brolin, Verhoeven’s science fiction treatment is surprisingly entertaining if flawed.
“Dan O’Bannon’s Guide to Screenplay Structure” often tends to read more like a memoir of a man who worked with the legendary late great director and writer, and less like an instructional book. Author Dan O’Bannon is able to build a book that’s outside the norm of your typical screenwriting book. Author O’Bannon stresses the importance of writing a book that stands out from the shelves of screenwriting books, and while demonstrating how he sought to break the formula of screenwriting in his days of making movies, he tries to break the formula of screenwriting books in general.
Director Sacha Gervasi’s treatment of the life of Hitchcock is very much in the tone of Tim Burton’s “Ed Wood.” I gather there will be numerous comparisons and parallels drawn, as this new look at Hitchcock’s career is very much like Burton’s own tribute to Ed Wood. There’s the breaking of the fourth wall, the satirical look at filmmaking, the focus on the madman behind the director, the glimpses at studio politics, and ultimately the way women affected these two famous directors. This time around Alfred Hitchcock is worn by Anthony Hopkins who doesn’t quite convince as the rotund director, but has a ball as the perpetually repressed and lovelorn creative genius who expressed his inner most desires and fears through his own creative work. For Hitchcock aficionados, “Hitchcock” doesn’t quite inform you of facts about the man’s life that you haven’t already seen or read before.