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Dolby Digital 2.0 (English)

War of the Worlds (1953)

Posted in Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on November 23rd, 2005

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Aliens have sent super machines to Earth. The intent is obvious. They want to remove the human infestation and relocate from their own dying world. Independence Day, right? Wrong. Almost 50 years before Rolland and Emerich pitted mankind against killer aliens, George Pal brought us a wonderful interpretation of the famous H.G. Wells novel, War of the Worlds. Although not as faithful to the source material as a Wells fan might have hoped for, Pal created a classic film with groundbreaking f/x for the 1950’s.
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Dark Corner, The

Posted in Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on November 23rd, 2005

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Synopsis

Mark Stevens is a PI recently out of jail after having been framed for manslaughter by his former partner. He is trying to make a new start in a new city, and the good news is that something might be developing with his new secretary, Lucille Ball. The bad news is that he’s being followed, and it turns out his treacherous ex-partner, Kurt Kreuger, is in town and making life hell for him. Or is he? In fact, obsessive gallery owner Clifton Webb is setting Stevens up for another frame.

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Catch Me If You Can

Posted in Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on November 22nd, 2005

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Synopsis

One of the first scenes in Out of Sight was the main character robbing a bank using only his words. That same kind of knack for thinking quickly under pressure is employed in Catch Me If You Can, which tells the story of Frank Abagnale Jr. (Leonardo DiCaprio), who, after witnessing the end of the marriage of his parents (Christopher Walken and Nathalie Baye), decides to flee, and begins to bounce checks. Not only does he bounce over $2 million in checks, but he also impersonates a tea…
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Kiss of Death

Posted in Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on November 22nd, 2005

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Synopsis

Victor Mature is an ex-con driven by financial desperation to take part in a jewel heist. The job goes wrong, and he is nabbed. He’s sent to prison, and agonizes over his family. When he’s double-crossed by his lawyer, he agrees to DA Brian Donlevy’s deal and testifies against psychotic hoodlum Richard Widmark. He gets out, and starts his life over, but then Widmark beats the wrap, and is on the prowl for revenge.

Mature is the star, and Coleen Gray is the eternally patient love in…
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Womb Raider

Posted in Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on November 22nd, 2005

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Cara Loft (geddit?) is enticed by Dr. Scrotus (har!) to complete her dead father’s quest, and travels through desert and jungle in the quest to reunite “the legendary womb idols of creation.” she is shadowed by Natasha, an equally hot-bodied spy who (surprise, surprise) has the hots for her.

I can’t believe a summary was necessary. Anyway, this looks like what would happen if writers of fan fiction were given a camcorder and a travel budget. Lauren Hays can pass visually for Lara Croft, and kudos for a real attempt at creating a sense of exotic locations and sets.
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War of the Worlds (2005)

Posted in Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on November 19th, 2005

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Ray Ferrier (Tom Cruise) is a middle-aged divorcee with a blue-collar job and a rundown home in the New Jersey suburbs. When his ex-wife unexpectedly drops his estranged kids—ten year old Rachel (Dakota Fanning) and sixteen year old Robbie (Justin Chatwin)—off for the weekend, Ray is less than pleased. He’s always struggled with his parental duties, but now finds it increasingly difficult to communicate with his children. However, events beyond his control are about to force Ray to come to terms with his responsibili…
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Coach Carter

Posted in Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on November 18th, 2005

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In the poor area of Richmond, California, Ken Carter takes charge as a basketball coach, and fights his way to transform a team of rowdy boys into a team of accomplished men. Based on a true story.

There are way too many problems with COACH CARTER to call it great, but it certainly has its heart in the right place at the right time. The very first immediate problem is the script of the film. A lot of the dialogue feels like it has been overly simplified for its audience. Almost all of the actors play stock…
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Bridge Too Far, A

Posted in Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on November 18th, 2005

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Synopsis

Operation Market Garden is the most famous Allied defeat in the Second World War. An audacious plan scuppered by bad luck and worse decisions, it is recounted in this visually spectacular film. The goal is to seize a group of bridges across Holland, culminating in the brdge at Arnhem. Everything imaginable goes wrong. Richard Attenborough’s film stars just about every big name actor under the sun, and his re-enactment has so many extras and so much hardware that one feels he could have convi…
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Broadway’s Lost Treasures III

Posted in Disc Reviews by David Annandale on November 17th, 2005

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Synopsis

Subtitled “The Best of the Tony Awards,” this is a collection of 23 performances from the Awards show broadcasts. The net is cast pretty wide here as far as the years are concerned, so you get to see a young Jerry Orbach (for instance) performing “Promise, Promises” from 42nd Street. Carol Channing, Robert Goulet, Tommy Tune and Harvey Fierstein are the hosts. Fans of musical theatre should expect miracles here, but this is of considerable archival interest.

Audio

And Now for Something Completely Hilarious! Collection

Posted in Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on November 14th, 2005

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Synopsis

And Now for Something Completely Different (1971) was Monty Python’s first theatrical release, and consists of remounted, often more elaborately staged versions of many of their most beloved TV skits. You want your Dead Parrot, it’s here. So is the Lumberjack Song, How Not to Be Seen, and so on. As a one-stop intro to Python, it’s hard to beat.

Funny as the above film is, it is eclipsed in most people’s hearts by Monty Python and the Holy Grail (1974), easily the most…
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Sex and the Teenage Mind

Posted in Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on November 14th, 2005

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Virgin geek Virgil (Jay Michael Ferguson) sticks up for hot girl Kellie (Allison Lange) when a teacher rips into her for cheating on her history exam. Thankful for his bravery, Kellie invites Virgil over to her house to thank him.

If you haven’t guessed it by now, Sex and the Teenage Mind is a complete rehash of just about every teenage sex comedy ever made in the last 25 years. Even the red bikini featured on the DVD cover will have you screaming Fast Times at Ridgemont High.

Ther…
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Undead

Posted in Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on November 8th, 2005

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Synopsis

A series of meteor strikes hits a small town in Australia, turning its citizens into ravening zombies. A handful of survivors gather in the home of a survivalist who has previously encountered zombie fish and been abducted by aliens. The fight to survive begins.

There is a bit more to the plot than the above would suggest, but it mostly kicks in during the last act, so I shall not breathe a word of it here. The tone is very tongue-in-cheek, and many of the characters are caricature…
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State Fair

Posted in Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on November 7th, 2005

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Synopsis

Things don’t get much more anodyne than this storyline, showcasing an impossibly idealized family and their trials of love and prize pigs as they travel to the eponymous event. This is strictly for the nostalgic and pure fans of Rodgers and Hammerstein (the songs generally are not as culturally engrained as those of Oklahoma!). There are two versions of the film here, and the 1945 take is easily the better of the two. The 1962 remake (and the third film by this name, a non-musical ver…
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Oklahoma!

Posted in Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on November 4th, 2005

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Synopsis

You don’t really care about the plot, do you? Gordon MacRae is romancing famr girl Shirley Jones, but thuggish Rod Steiger also has designs on her. And so on. But it’s the songs that matter: “Oh, What a Beautiful Morning,” “The Surrey with the Fringe On Top,” “I’m Just a Girl Who Can’t Say No.” And one could go on for much longer. The list is of tunes that one is familiar with without even knowing it, so completely have they permeated the mass consciousness. Fred Zinnemann’s film is handsome…
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Slaughterhouse of the Rising Sun

Posted in Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on November 3rd, 2005

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Synopsis

Jennifer (Cheryl Dent) has just been released from a mental institution where she was incarcerated after a psychotic episode during which she clawed out the eyes of her co-star during the shooting of a porn flick. After being waylaid in the desert by a couple of thugs, she is rescued by a group of flower children, who soon turn out to be more dangerous yet. They head to house with a bad reputation, and then the murderous hippies start being killed off one by one. By Jennifer, or by something…
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Sacred Flesh

Posted in Disc Reviews by David Annandale on October 31st, 2005

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The Mother Superior of a medieval convent is tormented by visions. Torn by her own desires, she sees herself confronted by Mary Magdalen on a throne with a demon by her side. Magdalen challenges the nun’s beliefs that sex is bad, but this notion is reinforced by another vision, this one of a skeleton in nun’s habit. The poor nun’s torment is compounded by other visions of all sorts of carnal hell breaking loose.This is a real oddity. The writer/director is Nigel Wingrove, who, the case informs us, is the founder of Redemption Films.
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Girl in the Cafe, The

Posted in Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on October 30th, 2005

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The Girl in the Café is an interesting idea for a movie. It’s a blend of romantic comedy with a political agenda. The film doesn’t really work, but it’s nice to see something different. The romantic pair is played by Bill Nighy and Kelly MacDonald. Both are fine actors, and they have an awkward, engaging chemistry. Nighy plays a lonely civil servant and MacDonald plays a damn sexy woman. They “meet cute” in, you guessed it, a café, and they end up going to the G8 summit in Iceland (go figure). The scri…
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Sharks Flipper & Lopaka

Posted in Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on October 30th, 2005

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I love it when a DVD as advertised as a “hit series” on the back of the box, yet I have never even heard of it. Granted, I am not this product’s target market, but you would still think that I would have at least come across the title of this show somewhere. I am familiar with all of the products advertised on this disc, so I know I am not completely out of the loop.

This show tells the adventures of Lopaka, a boy who has made friends with a dolphin with the original (?) name of “Flipper”. It seems that Flipp…
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Alfred Hitchcock Presents – Season One

Posted in Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on October 30th, 2005

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1955 was a very significant year in the life of filmmaker Alfred Hitchcock. He received his American citizenship and he changed the face of the young television industry forever. Alfred Hitchcock Presents came before all of the other classic anthology shows. The show combined Hitch’s trademark gallows humor with his unerring instinct for suspenseful storytelling. The show was the first overnight success, drawing millions of viewers with its first episode, no small feat for 1955.

Hitchcock was ahead of his time.
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Two for the Road

Posted in Disc Reviews by David Annandale on October 28th, 2005

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Audrey Hepburn and Albert Finney are a couple whose marriage appears to be reaching its end. They travel through France, which was the scene of so many other memories, and they (and we) experience, through interlocking flashbacks, the history of their relationship.From the moment the animated credit sequence and Henry Mancini score begin, one is clearly watching a Stanley Donen film from the peak of his career (the presence of Hepburn is yet another reminder of Charade from just a couple of years prior).
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Orchestra Wives

Posted in Disc Reviews by David Annandale on October 27th, 2005

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George Montgomery plays the lead trumpet for the “Gene Morrison Band” (the Glen Miller Band). As they set out on tour, he falls in love with, and marries, audience member and big fan Ann Rutherford, much to the displeasure of Lynn Bari. The film then uses the tensions between the various significant others during the tour to cobble together a plot that connects the various musical numbers.From the point of view of plot and character, this is nothing to write home about. But as a record of one of the greats of the Big Band era in action, it is a valuable document, and certainly manages to entertain, if not much else.
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Rains Came, The

Posted in Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on October 26th, 2005

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Synopsis

India, 1938. Dissolute ex-pat Brit George Brent is amused when old flame Myrna Loy, now married to an aging aristocrat, arrives, but is less amused when he sees her set her sights on Indian doctor Tyrone Power (all done up in dark make-up). Power is so decent that Brent doesn’t want him corrupted. But it soon turns out that Loy really loves Power, as she demonstrates by helping selflessly after the city is savaged by torrential rains, flooding and an earthquake.

The politics are ve…
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Gus Van Sant’s Last Days

Posted in Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on October 25th, 2005

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Synopsis

In his mansion and forested estate, a rock star (played by Michael Pitt and named Blake, but obviously supposed to be Kurt Cobain) wanders about in a terminal drug stupor. Hangers on, business associates, Mormons and salesmen besiege him, but his flees human contact, withdrawing completely into himself.

The movie plays out as if directed by its subject: quiet, mumbling, meandering. As with Gus Van Sant’s last two films – Gerry and Elephant – the tone is minimalist and…
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Lifeboat

Posted in Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on October 17th, 2005

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Synopsis

A merchant ship is sunk by a U-boat, but the submarine is itself destroyed by the ship’s shells. All of this happens prior to the credits. The survivors of the ship wind up in a damaged lifeboat, and they pick up a survivor of the U-boat. Is he a mere crewman, or the captain himself? What ensues is a tense drama of conflicting personalities, ranging from the plotting German to the hard-headed newswoman unforgettably incarnated by Tallulah Bankhead. Despite the claustrophobic setting, the fil…
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Mark of Zorro, The

Posted in Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on October 16th, 2005

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This release is identical in every respect but one (the colourization) to the previous Studio Classics edition, and so what follow below is the same review, with an additional note about colour.

Synopsis

Returning to California after some years in Spain, Don Diego (Tyrone Power) finds that his father has been deposed and that the region is ruled by a venal, corrupt governer under the thumb of tyrannical lieutenant Basil Rathbone. Pretending to be a useless fop by day, Diego dons mask and sw…
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