Archive for the ‘Dolby Digital 2.0 (English)’ Category
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Disc Reviews by Michael Durr on March 11th, 2010
In my lifetime, I’ve really only liked five zombie movies. There is Shaun of the Dead, the three Resident Evil movies, and Zombieland. Most of the other zombie type films either belong in the “Way too Gory” or “Nonsense” designation. So, naturally when I receive a zombie movie like Dead Snow, there is some apprehension. However, in this case I can say that this movie belongs in both of those designations and delightfully so.
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Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on March 11th, 2010
There was a new Cowboy in Dallas, and he wasn’t throwing touchdown passes. But Walker was almost gone before he could really get started. After just four episodes the show’s production company suffered financial collapse, and the show was rescued at the last minute by CBS Productions, who would continue to run the show for its nearly decade-long run. For nine years Chuck Norris brought us the ultimate Texas Ranger in a formula cops and robbers show. The show often became a parody of itself, but maintained a solid viewer ship throughout
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Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on March 11th, 2010
The fourth 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 David Annandale on March 11th, 2010
Laurel & Hardy. Abbott & Costello. Martin & Lewis. And now… Harold & Kumar? Perhaps the comparison is a bit forced, but that latter day pair certainly follows the classic set-up: best friends who are also polar opposites (Kumar is the confident, slacker stoner; Harold is the shy, conservative stoner); one has mad schemes (Kumar); the other (Harold) suffers for those schemes, and so on. At any rate, here we have the complete oeuvre of these two characters (and since Kal Penn, who plays Kumar, has subsequently gone on to a couple of season of House before taking a job for the White House, I think it safe to say that we are unlikely to be seeing any further episodes).
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Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on March 2nd, 2010
“Hoorah! Semper Fi! Do or die! Hold ‘em high! Gunnery Sergeant R. Lee Ermey here. Listen up! Ever wonder how warriors on the battlefield went from throwing rocks to this? Then this is your lucky day.”
You’ve seen R. Lee Ermey in several movies and television shows over the years. He pretty much plays the same character, most notably Gunnery Sergeant Hartman on Full Metal Jacket. He always does a fine job with these roles, but there’s a good reason for that. Ermey was, in fact, a Gunnery Sergeant in the Vietnam War. Not much acting required out of the man.
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Disc Reviews by William O'Donnell on March 1st, 2010
The ice caps have melted, leaving only 10% of the world livable, according to the opening narration of this adventure/disaster film. Salvaging relics from “lost” cities is a means of making money for our heroes, a boat crew that comprises of James Brolin as a Captain with a secret connection to the Vatican, and his two sons. As they pick up goodies to trade or sell they also search for clues towards a grand solution to the global flooding problem that the Vatican is housing.
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Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on February 23rd, 2010
Night Court appeared on the docket at NBC in 1984 and was to last 8 seasons. If you thought it looked and sounded a lot like Barney Miller, you won’t be surprised to learn that a number of key people, including creator Reinhold Weege, came from that classic cop comedy. Several key elements of Miller can be found in Night Court. The themes are almost identical, with both beginning with an easily identifiable bass run. The most important imported element from Miller was the constant parade of the kookiest and craziest criminals this side of the Cuckoo’s Nest.
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Disc Reviews by David Annandale on February 22nd, 2010
Eddie Sutton (Russell Hornsby) is an idealistic police officer, dreaming of making a real difference. His family (nurse wife and three kids) is currently living in a too-small apartment. The chance to kill two birds with one stone comes up with a program that encourages officers to buy homes in depressed neighbourhoods, and so Eddie moves his family into a spacious former crack house in the titular LA district. Things, as one might expect, are not easy. Eddie discovers (to his unaccountable surprise) that his new neighbours are suspicious of the police. His son is bullied in school. The girls have their own problems fitting in. And crime keeps rearing its ugly head. But as the series progresses, Eddie and his family make of their new house, and its neighbourhood, a real home.
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Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on February 16th, 2010
“In the 1940’s and 1950’s the juiciest roles for actresses in Hollywood were often in B pictures that explored the dark side of life, staring roles as cool, calculating girls who could stick a knife in a man’s back and make him like it.”
And so Sony collects 8 of these films as part of what looks like is going to be an ongoing series. But what exactly is Film Noir? You hear the term used from time to time, but what does it mean?
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Disc Reviews by William O'Donnell on February 15th, 2010
This film chronicles the career of Maurice “The Rocket” Richard, an NHL player for the Montreal Canadians, from his childhood days in a Junior hockey league, to the season in 1955 where his suspension from playing for the remainder of that season led to violent riots in Montreal. This film is more than just an examination of Richard as a French-Canadian citizen and legendary hockey player (many still argue as the greatest ever to play) but also a look at his impact as an icon and living legend to the people of Quebec.
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Disc Reviews by David Annandale on February 13th, 2010
Years after his wife’s unsolved murder, Norman Reedus has retreated within himself, carrying on a morose existence in a low-end apartment, gloomily taking part in unofficial greyhound racing. His neighbour, Emmanuelle Béart, is in love with him. Since Reedus is obsessed with solving the murder to the exclusion of any other human interaction, Béart decides to present him a solution. Based on the tiny bits of information Reedus has on the suspect, Béart picks cabbie Harvey Keitel as matching the profile well enough to make for a good target. She begins a relationship with him in order to put him in the frame and give Reedus, though murder, the catharsis he needs.
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Disc Reviews by Michael Durr on February 11th, 2010
Most people who call themselves friends of mine know that I absolutely adore the combination of John Carpenter and Kurt Russell. Escape from New York is my favorite movie of all time and I even liked Escape from L.A. as well. Now that my credibility is probably ruined, I was delighted to receive Elvis, a mini-series produced in the seventies that brought together this amazing duo for the first time. Kurt Russell is the King of Rock n Roll and I can’t help to enjoy watching.
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Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on February 9th, 2010
Just as JAG closes out its 10th and final year I really think the show was peaking. Most regular readers to the site will remember I was not much of a fan when I started with the 5th season set. I thought the stories failed to work on the action or courtroom levels. As the show evolved, or I did, I was drawn in with the clever and unique types of stories the series began to explore. By the time it ended here I was ready for more, but no more will be forthcoming. Of course, it lives on in the two NCIS spin-off shows currently on the air.
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Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on February 9th, 2010
By 1978 the television detective model had been nearly complete and possibly already a cliché. Dan Tanna might have well been the complete model as far as the formula goes. It was almost as if you could go down a checklist and, like Dr. Frankenstein creating a monster, you would check off the necessary elements. The scripts could then almost write themselves, and you let the show fly on autopilot for three seasons or so until someone decides to look behind the curtain.
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Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on February 6th, 2010
“One year ago, the MOD test system at Eskmeals confirmed radioactivity of above normal background levels at the Corry Reservoir, Craigmills, Yorkshire. The usual emergency procedurals were activated under NAIR arrangements, and the reservoir was shut down. An independent inquiry was set up under the chairmanship of Dr. Anthony Marsh.”
Edge Of Darkness is something of a classic to the British. It cleaned up in the 1986 BAFTA awards, taking almost every award they have with the possible exception of Best Coffee In Craft Services. The mini-series has apparently stood the test of time, maintaining such high regard for nearly 25 years.
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Disc Reviews by William O'Donnell on January 30th, 2010
This is the story of two young twins who are living completely different lives, one in a boarding school who is caught up in a child smuggling ring and the other is living with his struggling artist father, but are able to share their physical pain and emotions as if telepathically. Thomas, who is with his father, knows of Tom, the boarding school “orphan,” but everyone believes Tom is just his imaginary friend. Through a chance encounter the two are reunited and both must find a way to escape the smugglers who wish to take them sell them outside of England.
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Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on January 26th, 2010
I’m a huge fan of Roger Corman. Who isn’t, right? But these films are not the typical Corman offerings. Some of them have no apparent connection to the man himself. The ones that do are mostly as producer and not director. Some of the films might be notable for being an early film for this actor or that. But I would hardly classify any of these films as classics of any genre or good representations of the mastery of the B film that was Roger Corman’s signature.
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Disc Reviews by William O'Donnell on January 23rd, 2010
Many of the original talents behind the popular Mel Brooks’ spoof Spaceballs have not returned for this sort-of sequel, but its spirit of relentless parody and often corny schtick lives on. While it may not hold a candle to the original source material, this animated series has a few shining moments that will hopefully keep the diehard fans from being too offended.
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Disc Reviews by David Annandale on January 21st, 2010
It is the last month-and-a-bit of Delta Company’s tour of duty in Iraq. The IED disposal squad has just lost its leader, and he is replaced by Staff Sergeant James (Jeremy Renner), a brilliant bomb defuser who is also something of a loose cannon, prone to taking foolish risks. What follows is Kathryn Bigelow’s best movie to date, as finger-gnawing scenes of bomb disposal and combat alternate with portraits of men’s psyches being taken apart by war, both because of what happens to them, and because of what they must do.
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Disc Reviews by Michael Durr on January 18th, 2010
Robin Hood is a fantastic tale, and one that can be re-told again and again without fail. The story begins with a man that steals from the rich and gives to the poor. This is a great way to give us a hero to cheer for and has worked for Errol Flynn and even Kevin Costner. This summer, Russell Crowe tries his hand at making the arrow stick for a successful box office run. But will Jonas Armstrong make a viable enough Robin Hood for a third season of this BBC series? We will just have to see.
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Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on January 12th, 2010
“Now this might be the room of any small boy, but it happens to belong to a boy named Christopher Robin, and like most small boys, Christopher Robin had toy animals to play with. And together they had many remarkable adventures in an enchanted place called The Hundred Acre Wood. But out of all of his animal friends, Christopher Robin’s very best friend was a bear called Winnie The Pooh.”
“Oh Bother”A.A. Milne was quite an eclectic writer. He wrote murder mysteries that even appeared on Alfred Hitchcock Presents. From that fertile mind would also come a place known as the Hundred Acre Wood.
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Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on January 6th, 2010
It would appear that Michael Landon, Jr. is attempting to cash in on his late father’s Little House On The Prairie appeal. He is one of the driving forces behind this series of made for television films. He has directed several of them and serves as an executive producer on them all. He has also been involved with some of the writing on the series. They are based on a series of books written by Janette Oke. They follow three generations of women in the days of the Western frontier. When I say that Landon is spending on his father’s legacy, you need look no further than the common elements of the films themselves to understand how I come to that conclusion.
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Disc Reviews by Michael Durr on January 4th, 2010
Parker Lewis Can’t Lose as anyone could guess was heavily influenced by the cult classic Ferris Bueller’s Day Off. It lasted for three seasons and seventy three episodes. It actually did a fair amount of decent ratings (as far as Fox was concerned) during the run. The living cartoon as many have described it has kept its fans through the years. As a result, Shout Factory has decided to go ahead with the release of the 2nd season. Hopefully it still keeps its charm after all of these years.
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Disc Reviews by William O'Donnell on December 23rd, 2009
“Inspired by a true story,” two youth hockey teams on either side of the Canada/US border find friendship and bond through their mutual love of the game while tensions rise between those that support and those that protest the Iraq invasion and assorted post 9-11 security fears.
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Disc Reviews by David Annandale on December 23rd, 2009
Tycoon Tom Arnold sends employee and all-signs-point-to-being-future-son-in-law David O’Donnell and daughter Sarah Thompson (a ghastly person who is clearly Ms Wrong) to O’Donnell’s home town in order to seal a real estate development deal. There O’Donnell comes up against former flame Nicole Eggert, who is fighting to preserve the town’s pristine self. And yes, all of this is happening over the Christmas holiday, though it could just as well be the Fourth of July. At any rate, based on this setup, if there is a single one among you who can’t anticipate every single turn of the story, allow me to be among the first to welcome you to the planet Earth.
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