Archive for the ‘Dolby Digital 2.0 (English)’ Category
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Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on September 1st, 2010
In the late 1960’s three musicians came together with an idea. It was a somewhat unconventional idea. Roy Wood and Bev Bevan were part of the band The Move when they met up with Jeff Lynne from The Idle Race. The three hit it off almost instantly. So much so that before long Lynne would also become a member of The Move so that he could work with Wood and Bevan. But that wasn’t going to be the ultimate goal. That unconventional idea that the three had involved combining rock and roll with classical music. Of course, other bands had done orchestral arrangements, most notably, The Beatles.
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Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on August 31st, 2010
Back in 2001 Larry Blamire and his troupe released The Lost Skeleton Of Cadavra. Blamire was obviously a fan of the science fiction films of the 1950’s and decided to take many of those standard elements and pretty much have a blast with the material. The end result was an over-the-top spoof that left you laughing, not because the material was all that funny. You laughed because they sometimes hit those ludicrous devices so perfectly that you have flashbacks to your favorite Mystery Science Theater 3000 episode.
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Disc Reviews by Michael Durr on August 29th, 2010
The original Batman: The Animated Series is one of my favorite cartoon shows of all time. Depending on which day you ask me, I might go ahead and say it is my favorite (the other times, I’ll probably mention X-Men or Johnny Bravo). It was the perfect blend of cartoon super-hero drama, with a dose of dark and foreboding circumstances. Enter 2008, Batman: the Brave and the Bold, another Batman cartoon but on the lighter side of the equation. Would this show hold up as much as the historic original?
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Disc Reviews by William O'Donnell on August 25th, 2010
Pauly Shore seems to be trying to steer his career from being a washed up b-lister to being a self-aware washed up b-lister. Pauly Shore is Dead was his first dabbling into mockumentaries about himself, and now he has followed it up with Adopted. This yarn is about Shore, following the trend set by Angelina Jolie and Madonna, of flying to Africa (and later Cambodia) to adopt a child, with the hopes that being a father would fill a void in his shallow Hollywood hills life.
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Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on August 24th, 2010
“I’m Rick Harrison, and this is my pawn shop. I work here with my old man and my son, Big Hoss. Everything in here has a story … and a price. One thing I’ve learned after 21 years? You never know what is going to come through that door.”
Remember that PBS show where some old-stuff expert would come to your town and sift through a lot of junk that folks found in their basements or attics? Remember that he would give you a story about the items these people brought in? The idea was that once in a while someone discovered valuable treasure in those dusty rooms. Remember that show? This isn’t that show.
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Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on August 23rd, 2010
“In the beginning there was darkness. And then bang, giving birth to an endless expanding existence of time, space, and matter. Now, see further than we’ve ever imagined. Beyond the limits of our existence. In a place we call The Universe.”
Up until now these History releases have been season sets of the documentary series. This release is the first which appears to be a planned series of specific subject titles. It does create a bit of confusion when you see a series called The Universe and all of the episodes on the set deal with our own back yard
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Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on August 23rd, 2010
“They rob, kill, and terrorize, and they’ve left their mark on our nation’s history.”
It’s hard for me to believe that Gangland has been on History for five years now and I’ve only recently heard about it. Certainly, there are a ton of shows on every year, what with so many new networks trying to come up with original material. History has found a way to consistently bring out relatively solid programming without having to spend a lot of cash on the production budget. Everybody wants their 15 minutes, and it’s exactly shows like Gangland that manage to take full advantage of that fact.
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Disc Reviews by William O'Donnell on August 23rd, 2010
A robber tosses his loot onto a freeway and it lands on the hood of a random passerby. Said passerby decides to keep the $600,000+ and use it to buy brand new…everything, for him and his wife. While the robber gets incarcerated, he offers half the money to his twin brother if he can track it down. If the young couple flashes their money around and started paying cash for big ticket items, they will be hunted down…they do, and they are.
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Disc Reviews by David Annandale on August 23rd, 2010
The biggest troublemakers at Beaver High (get it?) are sent to a remedial school for the summer. There (wait for it), they make life miserable for the principal while (you’re not gonna believe this) finding various ways to see the female students naked, not to mention getting it on with the (but of course!) sexy French teacher. It’s hijinx and nudity, 80s style.
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Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on August 19th, 2010
There have been a ton of specials to come out over the last few years dealing with some of the planet’s extraordinary places and life. From The BBC to National Geographic, these specials have populated the science networks, and have even begun to shine in beautiful high definition. In just this last year I feel like I have been transported to some of the most spectacular sites on Earth and witnessed many of the most extraordinary creatures that inhabit this planet. Few of these places compare to the Great Barrier Reef that lies off the coast of Australia.
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Disc Reviews by Michael Durr on August 18th, 2010
Some of you are aware of this but my favorite movie of all time is Escape from New York. To me, John Carpenter and Kurt Russell represent the perfect director/actor combination. The director knows how to play the actor’s strengths (and minimize weaknesses) and the actor knows how to bring out the best in the direction. It is my sincere pleasure to cover this film on its first trip to the Blu-ray format.
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Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on August 11th, 2010
“This documentary is about a website that engaged in the commercialization of bondage and sado-masochistic imagery and performances. It in no way represents bondage and sado-masochism as practiced by many adults in their private lives.”
In recent years the horror film industry has created the term torture porn. When you hear the term, it usually applies to that sub-genre of film where there are intense depictions of torture, mutilation, and most often death. Eli Roth’s Hostel films are likely the most cited examples,
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Disc Reviews by David Annandale on August 10th, 2010
Jody Balaban (Leelee Sobieski) is a newly minted film school grad who, heady with the success her student film has brought her (an award presented by Garry Marshall!), heads off to Hollywood to find fame and fortune. Instead, she finds doors shut to the newcomer, the closest she can get to a major studio job being a stint directing traffic. But then she is offered a job as an editor. The only problem is, the studio in question is a porn outfit. Her dismay is all the greater since she has been put off sex due to the enormous childhood traumas of having been spanked
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Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on August 3rd, 2010
NOVA is one of the longest-running series of documentaries in television history. It has been a mainstay on public television since 1974 when the first episode took us behind the scenes of the filming of a nature biography. Since then the series has explored everything from space to mathematics. Episodes have focused on people, places, and things. Classroom curricula have been built around the series. In case you’re keeping track, that’s 37 years that the show has been on television.
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Disc Reviews by David Annandale on July 31st, 2010
The second (and final) season of this erotic horror anthology series follows the pattern set down by the first. David Bowie replaces Terence Stamp as host, and takes up the job of briefly uttering portentous statements before each story rolls. These stories star such luminaries as Giovanni Ribisi, Eric Roberts, Jennifer Beals and Lori Petty, and are based on tales by a pretty impressive line-up of line-up of writers: Poppy Z. Brite, Kim Newman, David J. Schow, Gemma Files and Ramsey Campbell, to name but a few.
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Disc Reviews by David Annandale on July 31st, 2010
In 1983, director Tony Scott wasn’t quite as prone to self-caricature as he is today, but he was already enamored of glossy, pretty surfaces, and if nothing else, his vampire movie The Hunger was glossy and pretty. The film arguably remains the most high-profile mixture of eroticism and horror, its place in libidinal history cemented by the love scene between Susan Sarandon, Catherine Deneuve, and Deneuve’s body double. The film’s lasting cult appeal resulted in a short-lived TV horror anthology series, presented by brothers Tony and Ridley Scott, and running two seasons (1997-8 and 1999-2000). Here we have Season 1, hosted by Terence Stamp.
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Disc Reviews by Michael Durr on July 26th, 2010
The Cartoon Network Hall of Fame seems to be expanding. Some of you might remember my review of Johnny Bravo Season One which was one of the first titles under this distinction. Courage the Cowardly Dog seems to be the most recent entry in this series and we can only hope that it is as good as ole JB, the king of people who sound like Elvis and excessive machoism.
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Disc Reviews by David Annandale on July 26th, 2010
As the name suggests, this is a collection of ten movies on LGBT themes. In chronological order, here’s what we have:
The Children’s Hour (1961): Shirley MacLaine and Audrey Hepburn are the headmistresses of a girl’s school, and their lives are turned upside down when one ghastly little child accuses them of being romantically involved. It is clear, though, the MacLaine would very much like to be. This was director William Wyler’s second stab at adapting Lilllian Hellman’s play, and this time was able actually to deal with the play’s central issue, rather than disguise it as he had to
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Disc Reviews by William O'Donnell on July 23rd, 2010
Several years ago comedian Doug Benson made a joke about wanting to parody the film Super Size Me, after watching it while high, by smoking pot continuously for 30 days. A filmmaker heard that joke and decided to make it a reality. Upon making the film, there was an added catch to Benson’s plan of 30 days being “Super High,” as he would have to be stone sober for the 30 days leading up to it.
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Disc Reviews by Jay Macdonald on July 22nd, 2010
American Pickers revolves around two “gifted” pickers: Mike Wolfe and Frank Fritz. The thesis of the show is that these two men comb the back roads of the Midwest searching for hidden treasures and collectible items. The people they encounter along the way are far from garden variety with the majority of them having stacks upon stacks of junk cascading out of their property. These two men barter and haggle over pricing on many different things with each item earning them a considerable profit. The question arises through these exchanges, does morality come into play?
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Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on July 20th, 2010
The fifth season of Matlock brought more of the same. If you’re a fan, that’s very good news indeed. What is that, you ask? Imagine Sheriff Andy Taylor older and now an attorney, and you pretty much have the setup for Matlock. Forget for a second that both characters were played by Andy Griffith. That’s not all they have in common. Matlock is every bit the “southern gentleman” that Taylor was. He might be a little smarter, but he walks and talks like Andy Taylor.
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Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on July 19th, 2010
This series from Comedy Central began as a low-budget film hosting show in a small television station in Minnesota. It was the brainchild of Joel Hodgson. It ended up running for 11 years and a feature film version.
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Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on July 13th, 2010
“Earth: a unique planet. Restless and dynamic. Continents shift and clash. Volcanoes erupt. Glaciers grow and recede. Titanic forces that are constantly at work, leaving a trail of geological mysteries behind.”
I saw a bumper sticker recently that read; “Geologists dig classic rock”. I should have taken it as an omen that I would be spending some quality time with a few geologists over these last couple of weeks
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Disc Reviews by Michael Durr on July 12th, 2010
Marvel Superhero cartoons come and they go. For every Spider-Man cartoon, there is an X-Men cartoon, or Wolverine or perhaps even Iron Man gets one. Some of them last more than one season but more often than not they are replaced by shows telling the same stories but in a different style. Marvel Superhero Squad show attempts to break the mold by providing fresh stories with a rather interesting and unique animation style.
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Disc Reviews by Michael Durr on July 8th, 2010
Swamp Thing the series was one of those shows that certainly be considered a guilty pleasure. Like the Incredible Hulk, Swamp Thing told the story of a scientist who is forced to live his life transformed as a mutated green monster. However, this particular green monster is not a drifter, he is forced to live his life in the swamp where the elements in turn give him great power. But in return, he must protect the swamp from people who would cause the ecological system harm.
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