Posted in Disc Reviews by David Annandale on February 4th, 2009
Hedda and Neal (Lydia Lunch and Don Bajema) are a couple whose relationship needs work. They have retreated to an old plantation house for precisely that reason, but then Hedda invites over her former lover, Jackson (Henry Rollins). The inevitable triangle that occurs is intercut with flashes of other events from the house’s past.
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Posted in Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on February 4th, 2009
I was first introduced into the somewhat twisted world of Dave Barry in 1986 when I moved to Florida. The Tampa paper carried his Sunday column, and all I can remember is that it had something to do with dinosaurs on the beach and that I couldn’t stop laughing. For years afterward both my wife and I made the column regular Sunday reading. As years went on other things fill one’s life, and I only occasionally read the material until he disappeared almost completely from the Central Florida scene
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Posted in Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on February 4th, 2009
Who says no one likes a guy who’s negative all the time? Becker has got to be one of the most cynical, grumpy, and negative characters to grace our sit-com screens. He’s a guy you probably love to hate, and he’s also hilarious. Ted Danson spent over a decade behind the bar at Cheers and could have easily called it a career. You know, stop while you’re ahead. Instead he climbed right back into the television saddle and reemerged as Dr. Becker.
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Posted in Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on February 4th, 2009
The second season of The Invaders saw a shift in the show’s focus. Vincent has started to get his message out there, and some of these people are organizing. There’s no doubt, that if left to continue, the show might have taken on a more resistance center much like Kenneth Johnson’s V mini-series. If you’re looking for a conclusion, you won’t really get it. Vincent’s still out there, and so are the Invaders.
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Posted in Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on February 3rd, 2009
In America, he is wanted. In France, he is desired. Worldwide, his films are praised for their ethereal, disturbing, and sometimes humorous qualities. But his life overshadows his accomplishments. He survived a concentration camp. His parents did not. He found Hollywood success with films such as Rosemary’s Baby, The Tenant, Repulsion, and The Fearless Vampire Killers. His marriage to wife Sharon Tate ended in a brutal homicide that took both her life and the life of their unborn child.
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Posted in Disc Reviews by David Annandale on February 3rd, 2009
Director Rene Daalder is best known in cult film circles as the man who gave us Massacre at Central High. But now Cult Epics has released a pair of his films (this and Here Is Always Somewhere Else) that seem more in keeping with his real interests. A long and twisting road led to this effort, starting with an abortive collaboration with Russ Meyer and the Sex Pistols, which brought Daalder into the world of punk rock. In that field he met Tomata Du Plenty, vocalist for The Screamers. After funding for their proposed collaboration Mensch collapsed and Du Plenty’s HIV-positive status became apparent, they put together the present film out of a mixture of footage from the abandoned project, plus new elements. The striking result is Du Plenty as the last survivor of nuclear holocaust, holed up in his bunker, declaming/singing poetic rants about the history of the United States, all the while surrounded by a phantasmagoria of bizarre sights. Whether the result is compelling or pretentious (or both) will depend on one’s sympathies with respect to the art scene from which it emerges, but that it is a work that rigorously works out its conceptual and artistic premises all the way to the end cannot be denied.
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Posted in Disc Reviews by David Annandale on February 3rd, 2009
This is another of Cult Epics’ entries in their new Rene Daalder Collection. His most recent film, it’s a documentary about conceptual artist Bas Jan Ader. The brief body of work he left behind is best known for using gravity as a medium (so, for instance, he did a number of filmed pieces of himself or objects falling). He was lost at sea in1975 while attempting to cross the Atlantic in a minuscule boat as part of a piece to called “In Search of the Miraculous.” Daalder’s 68-minute film retraces Ader’s life, but does so in part through the filter of Daalder’s own parallel experiences as an expatriate Dutch artist. The film is very interesting, though I would have like a bit more analysis of Ader’s work, in order to have a better understanding of exactly what it was doing, and Daalder’s speculations about what Ader’s final thoughts might have been are a little too definitive. Still, a strong documentary.
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Posted in Disc Reviews by David Annandale on January 31st, 2009
If ever there was a release whose title told you everything you need to know, this is it. Yup, the second part of season 5. There you go. Which is in no way a condemnation. Well over four hours of prime silliness is reason enough to pick this up. Unless, of course, you have picked up any of the other recent SpongeBob releases, in which case the curse of double-dipping will likely befall you. Many of these episodes have already been released on the shorter compilation discs. If you held off until now, though, this is a wonderful fix for nautical nonsense junkies.
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Posted in Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on January 28th, 2009
Mary Poppins was the subject of a series of books by P.L. Travers. Long before Harry Potter came on the scene, Mary was delighting children all over the world with her spectacular magical abilities. At the time Walt Disney was making a name for himself and his studio by bringing many of the children’s classics to the big screen. From fairy tales to Winnie The Pooh, the studio was providing the look and the soundtrack to the imaginative worlds already known and beloved by millions. It was a magnificent strategy, and it would pay off huge for the company.
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Posted in Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on January 28th, 2009
“You wanna be where everybody knows your name”
Cheers was that kind of place that songs have been written about. Billy Joel’s Piano Man describes such a place where the patrons are, for the most part, regulars, and pretty much family. In the days before huge screen televisions and satellite networks, Cheers would likely have been considered a sports bar.
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Posted in Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on January 28th, 2009
Humboldt County, the new independent comedy-drama from writers/directors Darren Grodsky and Danny Jacobs, sneaks on to shelves this month with a quietude as serene as its iZLER-composed musical score. Despite apt writing and direction, this slice-of-life piece simply fails to assert itself and leaves viewers with an indifference to the material.
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Posted in Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on January 28th, 2009
The Great Polar Bear Adventure is indoctrination pure and simple. Disguised as a warm and fuzzy nature show in the realm of Meerkat Manor and its like, this film has really only one theme.: Humans are very bad creatures, for the most part. It follows the plight of a family of polar bears who can no longer find the frozen ice river floes that provide them with tasty seal meat. The reason, of course, is what the bears call the two legs.
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Posted in Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on January 28th, 2009
Imagine waking up in the morning and opening your eyes only to be greeted by more darkness. You feel your way out of bed. Scoot your feet slowly across the floor to make sure you’re not bumping in to anything. You make it to the kitchen and feel around for cabinets.
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Posted in Disc Reviews by David Annandale on January 27th, 2009
Here we go with four more cruel experiments inflicted on Joel, Mike, Tom Servo and Crow T. Robot on the Satellite of Love. The Mad Monster is a 1942 proverty row epic with George Zucco as a mad scientist giving future Frankenstein Monster Glenn Strange transfusions of wolf blood, with predictable results. Manhunt in Space is a Rocky Jones, Space Ranger adventure – multiple TV episodes pasted together into one dreadful piece of SF idiocy. Soultaker has the unfortunate Joe Estevez, under the orders from Angel of Death Robert Z’Dar, tracking down four teens who are supposed to have died in a car crash. Finally, Final Justice sees Joe Don Baker as a Texas Ranger confronting the mob in Malta. But of course.
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Posted in Disc Reviews by Michael Durr on January 27th, 2009
On July 20th, 1973; Bruce Lee left our world. The world he left was never the same, but somehow his fans and directors carried on in their own way. The fans he left behind were hoping for a great martial artist that could be just as good as the late Bruce Lee. The directors he left behind were hoping to capitalize on the look of Bruce Lee and find one who not only looked like Lee but performed like him. What happened as a result of all this? A whole lot of bad kung-fu films known as Bruceploitation films.
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Posted in Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on January 26th, 2009
“This motion picture is principally based upon the book “Wallace” by Marshall Frady and other historical sources. Certain events, characters, and dialog have, nonetheless, been created or altered for dramatic purposes”.
In other words, this should not be taken as an historical record of the controversial George Wallace. If anything, the film attempts to soften his personality some. One of those created characters is Archie, a trustee attending to the needs of the residents at Alabama’s Governor’s Mansion.
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Posted in Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on January 21st, 2009
Paramount has decided to standardize their DVD releases. This goes from everything to the DVD disc art, which is now just a two tone silver on all releases, to the cases. The new cases are a mixed deal. You get 6 discs inside of a single DVD space. That’s the good news. The bad news is that the disc holders are quite brittle and end up chipping and breaking. You save space but ultimately endanger the discs themselves. I hope someone at Paramount takes a look at the packaging and comes up with something a little better.
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Posted in Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on January 16th, 2009
“As the end of World War II drew near, Hitler’s Germany was not only waging a war on separate fronts but from within the Third Reich. This story is based on actual events.”
If any of that sounds familiar, it should. It’s the plot and historical source for Tom Cruise’s latest big budget film, Valkyrie. One can’t help but wonder if this 1990 made for television film would ever see the light of a DVD release if not for the hype surrounding the Cruise film.
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Posted in Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on January 16th, 2009
The second season of Matlock brought some change to the series. Matlock’s daughter was written out of the series when Purl left the series after the first season. In the 2 hour opening episode of the second season Matlock meets Nancy Stafford (Thomas) in London when he goes there for a case. The episode was filmed on location and marked a spectacular return for the sophomore series.
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Posted in Disc Reviews by Michael Durr on January 15th, 2009
In the review business, we often get films that we find to be distasteful or just plain rubbish. This is especially true when we receive a popular star’s directorial debut. Usually it is an egotistical pompous piece with no merit outside to try to drive the idea home that the actor is a well-rounded individual. However, once in a while we get a film that was directed by an established star that actually gave birth to his career. This is a self-promotional piece that got the world to know the person’s name. The name of this person I speak of? That would be Vin Diesel. The movie is called Strays.
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Posted in Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on January 14th, 2009
The show was created by the team of Link and Levinson, who later gave us the detective in the rumpled raincoat, Columbo. It was groundbreaking in so many areas. While it might not be remembered today as one of the top detective shows, there can be no argument about the impact Mannix had on the genre. A decade later one of my favorite television detectives, Jim Rockford, would borrow rather heavily from Mannix.
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Posted in Disc Reviews by Michael Durr on January 13th, 2009
Most people know the Chipmunks for three characters: Alvin, Simon and Theodore. This trio was known for a voice that sounded like too many rpm’s at the old record machine. However for the purposes of this disc, the six episodes featured were focused on a trio who was the equivalent of the Chipmunk “B” team. Their names were Brittany, Jeanette and Eleanor. They were known as the Chipettes. These are their stories. Dun Dun. (Cue Law & Order music).
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Posted in Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on January 9th, 2009
Kung Fu Killer is a sad attempt to take advantage of the two iconic roles that David Carradine has had in his life. There’s more than one reference or nod to the popular Kung Fu television show. The name of his character is Crane, instead of Caine. Here Crane is the master, and he has his own “Grasshopper” moment with his own student. There is a flute driven theme that could have easily been lifted from one of the television episodes.
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Posted in Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on January 9th, 2009
These Comedy Central Roasts are a bit of a crapshoot. I laughed my rear off during the William Shatner Roast. Unfortunately, I didn’t even crack a smile watching this one. It’s not like Saget’s a funny guy to begin with. Throw in a room full of other not-funny folks, and you get a real snore fest.
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Posted in Disc Reviews by Michael Durr on December 30th, 2008
The series known as Duckman can be explained in one phrase. Guilty pleasure. The series ran on USA during the 90’s before they decided to re-brand themselves as something more serious. Though for some reason they still tend to show the dog show every year. Anyhow, as I remember it came on right before another guilty pleasure of mine from the 90’s, Rhonda Shear and Up All Night. I miss Rhonda deeply, plastic never looked so good. Heck Tupperware was jealous. Duckman was a series like no other; full of debauchery and indecency just like Grandma intended. Grandpa will never be the same. Paramount has brought us forty-eight episodes over seven discs to compose season 3 & season 4. One has to wonder if it will hold up after all of these years.
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