Posted in: Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on April 12th, 2006
Time travel has always been a favorite staple in the Star Trek franchise. Since the days of Kirk and Spock, through the Temporal Cold War of Enterprise Federation, officers and their ships have traversed both past and future. It’s no surprise that the two most popular Trek films: The Voyage Home and First Contact happen to be time travel tales. In this collection, Trek fans have voted for their favorite temporal excursions from the first four versions of the show. Unfortunately some fine Enterprise entries are not ...ncluded. While all of these episodes are to be found in their individual season sets, this is nonetheless an impressive collection.
From the Original Series comes perhaps its greatest episode. Harlen Ellison’s “The City On The Edge Of Forever” features a compelling guest stint by a then very young Joan Collins as the ill-fated Edith Keeler. When McCoy escapes into the past enraged by an accidental drug overdose, he changes the past and strands the landing party on a dead planet. Kirk and Spock travel to Depression era San Francisco, where to Kirk’s horror he finds he must allow Keeler to die. To complicate matters, he appears to have fallen in love with her along the way. This classic is accompanied by that show’s Tomorrow Is Yesterday.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on April 12th, 2006
Cecil B. DeMille’s The Ten Commandments hits store shelves in a new three-disc special edition, just in time for the release of the new made-for-TV mini-series. While the film classic is no stranger to DVD, it has yet to be released with this kind of gusto. At over three-and-a-half hours long, the film is simply too much for one disc to hold. The first disc contains the first 140 minutes, while disc two finishes up with the last 80. Plus, as a bonus, we get the original 136-minute silent version (also a DeMill... picture) on disc three. Since the later version is the most famous – and the centerpiece of this release – I will treat the inclusion of the silent version as a bonus feature.
Unless you’ve been living under a pyramid for the last 5000 years, you’re probably familiar with the story. Moses (Charlton Heston) grows up in the Egyptian palaces as a brother to Ramses (Yul Brynner). He discovers his true heritage as a Hebrew and forsakes all the riches and comforts of his childhood for the harsh life of a Hebrew slave. After killing an abusive Egyptian overlord (Vincent Price) in defense of a fellow Hebrew, he flees into the wilderness for about thirty years, until God decides it’s time for Moses to deliver the Hebrews from their plight. At first reluctant, Moses embraces the task at hand, and boldly marches back to Egypt for the famous showdown with the man he once called “brother.” Of course, the film takes certain liberties with the source material, but not so much to fall beyond the realms of reason. Moses really did grow up as an Egyptian, or so historians tell us, and so he must have had some deep ties to that people. DeMille does a fine job of honoring the text, while parlaying it into a compelling story of a house divided.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on April 12th, 2006
Wonder Showzen is either the most brilliant post modern art piece that I have ever seen, or it's the work of a group of complete head cases. No matter what side of the fence you fall on, this show is undeniably offensive, creative, hilarious, disgusting... did I mention offensive? When I first heard that this show was a kids show parody for adults, I built up this image in my head of something between Pee Wee's Playhouse and South Park. I really couldn't have been more wrong. In fact, the show is...much more like what would happen if The Electric Company was created by a brain trust of some of the most offensive and secretly brilliant comedians on the planet. I have heard about shows that know no boundaries before, but this is by far the most boundary-free product I have ever seen. Honestly, I'm not sure if that's a good thing or not. I am all for comedy without limits, but this show is way, way over the line
Regular segments on the show include kids answers to inappropriate questions, disgusting and disturbing vintage footage, and a puppet who berates the public. One segment features a kid dressed as Hitler. Another shows a child drinking blood in a butcher shop. While this program is unquestionably fascinating and bizarre, and most definitely has some hilarious moments, that's not to say that it is always a pleasant thing to watch.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on April 11th, 2006
It’s rather stunning to discover that My Neighbor Totoro was made way back in 1988, long before the days of CG and all automatic illustration. And perhaps that animation does detract from the overall experience from the film, but if that’s the only reason that it would be a problem, then people simply need to get their taste in order.
In another film from legendary Japanese film director Hayao Miyazaki (who made the Oscar-winning film Spirited Away), the film follows sisters Mei and Satsuki, w...o move with their father to the countryside, to spend more time with their mother. They do some exploring and encounter Totoro, a mystical being in the woods that can only be seen by children. Totoro helps the children experience a world of wonder that they never would have previously seen.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on April 11th, 2006
Synopsis
I like to consider myself both wild and out. Not knowing a helluva lot about Nick Cannon, other than he seems to be an entertainer that’s heavily produced to appear in movies and release the occasional rap/R&B album, kinda like a taller version of Bow Wow, with a little bit more emotional depth and a lot less charisma. The kind of guy that the ladies (that what I like to call them) take a fancy to, without knowing…what he’s famous for.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on April 11th, 2006
Godzilla is now a hero after being feared for so long? Did I miss something? Anyhow, Godzilla – The Series featured 39 episodes created by Roland Emmerich and Dean Devlin shortly after the big budget remake. The show was run off the air in 2000 after pretty poor results. This is probably because Emmerich and Devlin transformed Godzilla from a huge monster to a practical little pet we would want to own. The animated series is worth a watch for children as there are only 39 episodes, but don’t expe...t anything groundbreaking. The Monster Mayhem DVD contains 3 random episodes listed below
For a show made for children, I’ll admit that the Godzilla series is not totally awful. The shows are somewhat entertaining, but really can’t be taken serious at all. They kind of remind me a bit of The Mighty Morphing Power Rangers in that the show provides 20 minutes of excitement for children. Maybe if I was a kid I could enjoy the show more.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by David Annandale on April 10th, 2006
Synopsis
Laurel and Hardy’s career highs were all at Hal Roach Studios, and these three films are from their Fox period, in the twilight of their filmography. It is hard to call any of these classics, but there is still some very worthwhile comedy.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on April 6th, 2006
Ever since the original Survivor first became extremely successful, it seemed like every network was trying to get a piece of their own reality television fame. We had FOX give us The Chamber and MTV throw us the Jackass series. One had success while one crashed and burned very quickly. This proved that not every idea would make a successful reality show. Naturally FOX is not one to give up and knew what to do next. Coming off her, probably, un-welcomed fame, Paris Hilton was approached by FOX to...star in a reality series called The Simple Life. The show would team Hilton and her childhood friend Nicole Ritchie together while they live with one family in the middle of nowhere.
After two successful seasons of The Simple Life where Paris and Nicole stayed with just one family, the creators of the show thought it would be interesting to see how Paris and Nicole would react to staying with multiple different families dealing with multiple jobs.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on April 6th, 2006
Hmm. Another made for television sci-fi series. Most of the recent sci-fi made for television series have been quite disappointing mainly because they usually run too short, are horrible condensed forcing the creators of the show to either A. introduce characters very quickly, B. have extremely poor set design, or C. have another random plot that has been done a million times over. While The Triangle plot is nothing brand new, the director by Craig R. Baxley with production by Bryan Singer (X-Men) and D...an Devlin (Independence Day) help bring a bit of higher quality to the project.
The basic plot to this mini-series is; A team of specialists races to solve the mystery of why an alarming number of cargo ships are disappearing into the Bermuda Triangle. Made by Craig Baxley and genre veterans Dean Devlin and Bryan Singer, we naturally get scenes filled with tons of FX effects. One of the more surprising positives for this series was the cast. Boasting such actors as Sam Neill and Catherine Bell, the acting level is taken to the next level. The direction was quite surprising with a lot of the scenery and acting feeling top notch. The show, if you didn’t know it was a mini TV series, could have easily passed off as a film.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on April 6th, 2006
One of the great things about television today is the trend of extreme diversification. Where there used to be a specialized channel called ESPN, that has now been broken down into ESPN Deportes, ESPN2, ESPNews, ESPN U... the list goes on and on. Whatever your interest, there is a very specialized niche available that it fits into. The nice thing is, all of this specialization has allowed some truly creative (and bizarre) programing to creep out onto the airwaves. Robot Chicken is a great example of this trend... It is a wildly creative stop motion animation show created and produced by Seth Green that parodies pop culture using pre-existing action figures. One episode parodies The Real World by showing what would happen when characters such as Batman, The Incredible Hulk and Wonder Woman are made to live together in a house. Quite literally, if you name the pop culture reference, it is here, from American Idol to Kill Bill to Dawn of the Dead. There's even a Two Guys, A Girl and a Pizza Place reference here... and that's all packed into just the first episode!
I had never even heard of this show before I was sent this DVD set to review, but I am a complete and total convert now. I am sometimes amazed at some of the truly funny stuff that is out there that I have never even heard of. This show deserves to find a wider audience. Hopefully this DVD release will do for this hilarious series what it did for Family Guy and Firefly.
