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Call Me Madam

Posted in Disc Reviews by David Annandale on April 9th, 2004

Synopsis

Inspired by a real figure, Call Me Madam is a good-nature political satire, which seesEthel Merman appointed ambassador to Lichtenberg (i.e. Luxembourg). The government of thetiny dukedom is hoping for a massive US loan (which will make possible the marriage betweenVera-Ellen and a neighbouring country’s cold fish nobleman). Merman, however, has nointention of granting that loan, until she meets General George Sanders (sporting a silly MittleEuropean accent). Sanders…
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Walk Like a Man

Posted in Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on April 8th, 2004

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The 80’s were full of fun, campy comedies. Weird Science, The Money Pit… even Funny Farm had a certain charm. Unfortunately, for every Stripes there were as least six films like our feature presentation.

Walk Like a Man stars Howie Mandell, the 80’s version of Carrot Top. He’s an annoying hack, yet somehow he remained in the public spotlight. The film’s plot is a simple one; Bobo (Mandell) is a boy that was raised by wolves, and now he must learn to fit into society, or el…
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Meet Me in St. Louis

Posted in Disc Reviews by David Annandale on April 1st, 2004

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Synopsis

The story begins in summer of 1903, some seven months before the World’s Fair arrives inSt. Louis. The film is then divided up into the seasons as we follow the life of the Smith family.At the centre is Judy Garland as Esther Smith, backed up by a very young Margaret O’Brien aslittle sister “Tootie.” In terms of plot, nothing much happens: Garland falls in love, and there issome tension when it seems that the pater familias has landed a job in New York and the familywill ha…
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Kung Fu – The Complete First Season

Posted in Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on March 30th, 2004

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JULES – “That’s what I’ve been sitting here contemplating. First, I’m gonna’ deliver this case to Marsellus. Then, basically, I’m gonna’ walk the earth.”

VINCENT – “What do you mean, walk the earth?”

JULES – “You know, like Caine in KUNG FU. Just walk from town to town, meet people, get in adventures.”

These words, spoken between John Travolta and Samuel L. Jackson in Quentin Tarrantino’s amazing film Pulp Fiction, marked the first time that I ever heard of …
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Roxie Hart

Posted in Disc Reviews by David Annandale on March 28th, 2004

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Synopsis

Amoral would-be dance star Roxie Hart (Ginger Rogers) is convinced by her agent and areporter to take the blame for a murder. The thinking is that no woman has ever been convictedof murder in Chicago, and the attendant publicity will do wonders for her career. Truer wordswere never spoke, as the cynical dance of lawyers and media begins.

Many readers will, of course, have seen this story recently in the musical Chicago.Here you get the story with none of the …
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High Wind in Jamaica, A

Posted in Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on March 28th, 2004

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Often, the success of one film in theaters will bring on a wave of classics on DVD with a similar theme. In this case, the new films are Pirates of the Caribbean and Master and Commander. These modern box office successes have prompted 20th Century Fox to release some classic films about the high seas onto DVD. One such film is A High Wind in Jamaica.

There are quite a few problems with this film, but most of them lie within the narrative. The technical aspects are all handled well, wit…
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Vintage Erotica Anno 1950

Posted in Disc Reviews by David Annandale on March 24th, 2004

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No surprise that in Master and Commander and Pirates of the Caribbeanwould trigger the re-release of older pirate movies. And oh look: those two hits are the firstthings mentioned on the blurb!

Synopsis

The title is self-explanatory. What you have here is a series of 15 short film from France. Thelonger vignettes is the expected bag of tricks: straight, lesbian, bondage, threesome, etc.Interspersed amidst the hardcore are short burlesque dances. The case boasts…
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Pirates of Tortuga

Posted in Disc Reviews by David Annandale on March 23rd, 2004

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Synopsis

Bloodthirsty pirate Henry Morgan (Robert Stevens) is starving Jamaica by seizing almostany ship that tries to make it there. He seems impregnable in his fortress on the island of Tortuga.Privateer Captain Bart (Ken Scott) arrives to find some way to defeat Morgan. His journey to theCaribbean is complicated somewhat by the presence of stowaway Meg (Leticia Roman), aspririted…er… wench… who has dreams of being a lady.

You always thought My Fair Lady would…
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Pink Panther Collection, The

Posted in Disc Reviews by David Annandale on March 22nd, 2004

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Synopsis

Though not Blake Edwards’ best films, these are the movies with which he is most stronglyidentified, and the role of Inspector Clouseau was a career-defining move for Peter Sellers. Attheir best, the movies are fine exemplars of inspired slapstick.

The Pink Panther started it all off, and no one knew what a phenomenon Clouseauwas going to turn out to be. Edwards and Sellers (the trivia track informs us) rewrote the partlate in the game to turn the character i…
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Grapes of Wrath, The

Posted in Disc Reviews by David Annandale on March 15th, 2004

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Synopsis

Henry Fonda is Tom Joad, returning home after serving four years in prison for killing aman. He arrives to find the farms of Oklahoma devastated by drought, and all the familiesdispossessed of their land. He and his family become part of the great migration from the DustBowl to the Eden of California. There they face exploitation, persecution and misery, andFonda’s rage at the injustice grows.

John Steinbeck’s enormous novel found a stunning screen incarnation in th…
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Big Bounce, The

Posted in Disc Reviews by David Annandale on March 11th, 2004

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Synopsis

Ryan O’Neal, in a spectacular bit of miscasting, is a drifter with an explosive temper. He isback from Vietnam, moving from job to job. After getting himself fired from a cucumberplantation, he is taken on as a handyman at a motel. He is fascinated by the plantation owner’s“secretary” (Leigh Taylor-Young), and she is just a bad, bad girl. Her quest for kicks lead togreater and greater risk and danger, and O’Neal, smitten, follows along, getting in over hishead.

Th…
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M-3D The Movie / The Playmates

Posted in Disc Reviews by David Annandale on March 6th, 2004

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Synopsis

M-3D purports to be a parody of MTV, which is hardly likely, given that the film, inits original form, was made in 1976. Actually Lollipop Girls in Hard Candy, this is apainful slog combining aphrodisiac lollipops with extra footage involving ancient Greek soldiersdoing sad Three Stooges routines. No, it makes no sense. No, it isn’t funny. And with obviouscuts to the sex scenes, the waste of your life is complete.

The Playmates is even more resi…
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Take This Job and Shove It

Posted in Disc Reviews by David Annandale on March 6th, 2004

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Synopsis

Robert Hays is a rising corporate star at a major brewery. The company, headed by EddieAlbert, has just taken over some smaller competitors. Hays is sent to streamline one of them,which happens to be in his home town. The city mouse hooks up once again with all his oldcountry mouse friends, and sho’ nuff begins to transform, losing the will to be the corporate hitman he was sent to be.

Did anybody ever find this type of comedy funny? Somebody must have. Now it looks…
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Starsky & Hutch – The Complete First Season

Posted in Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on March 5th, 2004

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So many people believe the “buddy cop” routine started with Lethal Weapon, or maybe Running Scared. Truth be told, Starsky and Hutch was quite a breakout from the cop shows of the time. The studio was picketed for the amount of violence portrayed, which by today’s standards wouldn’t raise an eyebrow.

This is typical 70’s from the film stock to the wardrobe. The unique Ford Grand Torino was so popular that Ford ended up manufacturing a limited number of the replicas. David Soul and Paul Michael Glaser had s…
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Reefer Madness

Posted in Disc Reviews by David Annandale on March 2nd, 2004

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Synopsis

A hectoring principal tells his audience of concerned parents the story, in flashback, of thetragedy that befalls Bill and Mary. The All-American couple is destroyed through the actions ofa drug ring that seduces high school kids with the Devil’s Weed. Marijuana, as portrayed here,works like a combination of LSD, crack and Spanish Fly. When tragedy strikes, and Bill isbrought up on murder charges, the drug ring goes into hiding, but their own addictions threatento break the…
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Baby, The Rain Must Fall

Posted in Disc Reviews by David Annandale on February 27th, 2004

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Synopsis

Lee Remick travels to Columbus, Texas, so her young daughter can meet the father she hasnever known. Steve McQueen is but recently out of jail, and rather than settling down, dreams ofbeing a songwriter and singer. He is surprised to see Remick and daughter, but welcomes them.He is too volatile for life to be happy, however, and in spite of the best efforts of gentle deputyDon Murray to keep things in line, the situation grows every more dire.

Lee Remick is one of c…
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Grand Hotel

Posted in Disc Reviews by David Annandale on February 26th, 2004

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Synopsis

We are in a magnificent art deco hotel in Berlin. Here we come to know a disparate groupof characters: the world-weary ballerina (Garbo), the gentleman thief (John Barrymore), thedying man on a last spending binge (Lionel Barrymore), the scheming stenographer (JoanCrawford), and the unsavoury tycoon (Wallace Beery). These characters’ lives intersect andcollide over the course of a momentous night.

This is not the best-written Hollywood production. The plot is implau…
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Gilligan’s Island – The Complete First Season

Posted in Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on February 22nd, 2004

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What happens when a maladroit lackey, an entrepreneur and his wife, a polymath, a store clerk from Kansas, a motion picture starlet, and a ship captain get stranded on a desert island? The next edition of Survivor, right. Okay…I didn’t fool you. It’s Gilligan’s Island. And the first season is on DVD, all 36 episodes (including the infamous pilot)! Is this cause for celebration? Perhaps for some…

Gilligan’s Island ran for 3 seasons, and close to 100 episodes, on CBS from 1964 to 1967. Th…
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Blow-Up

Posted in Disc Reviews by David Annandale on February 21st, 2004

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Synopsis

David Hemmings is a jaded photographer plying his trade in Swinging Sixties’ London. Outtaking pictures in a park, he shoots a series of pictures of a couple apparently having anargument. The woman in the pictures (Vanessa Redgrave) subsequently turns up at Hemmings’studio, wanting the pictures back. Even more mysterious is a shot Hemmings took sometimelater, after the argument. Is there a body in the picture? The more he blows up the picture,seeking the answer, the grainie…
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What’s Happening!! – The Complete First Season

Posted in Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on February 21st, 2004

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I came into this title completely blind. I almost always have some idea what I am going to be watching, but in this case, I truly had none whatsoever. I believe that I might have heard the title of this show before, but that’s about it.

Upon viewing this set, it might be a good thing that I didn’t know what I was getting myself into. Otherwise, I would have never taken this task on. Put simply, this is not a show that has stood the test of time. True laughs are virtually nonexistent, as almost all of…
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Raquel Welch Collection, The

Posted in Disc Reviews by David Annandale on February 20th, 2004

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Synopsis

A more unapologetic objectification of the female form would be hard to find than thiscollection. The camera all but drools over the form of Raquel Welch. For some, that’s reasonenough to check out these films. Fortunately, they are each worth seeing for other reasons too.(And in one case, worth seeing for all the WRONG reasons.)

A remake of 1940’s One Million B.C., Hammer Studios’ One Million YearsB.C. (1967) gave the world what is arguably the most iconic b…
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Great Ziegfeld, The

Posted in Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on February 20th, 2004

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MGM keeps rolling out the Best Picture award winners. A few weeks ago it was Mutiny on the Bounty, this time it’s The Great Ziegfeld . I think Ziegfeld belongs in the category of those Best Picture winners that aren’t necessarily the best films for that year (Driving Miss Daisy?? C’mon). I actually prefer Frank Capra’s Mr. Deeds Goes to Town and Gregory La Cava’s seminal screwball comedy My Man Godfrey (starring Ziegfeld’s own William Powell). The Great Ziegfeld al…
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Mrs. Miniver

Posted in Disc Reviews by David Annandale on February 18th, 2004

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Synopsis

Our story begins in 1939, just before the outbreak of WWII. The Minivers (Greer Garsonand Walter Pidgeon) enjoy an idyllic existence in a charming town where the biggest controversyis over whether the station master Henry Travers should be entering his rose against localaristocrat Dame May Witty’s in the flower competition. But then the war comes, and little bylittle, it reaches into the lives of the townspeople, wreaking ever more havoc. Through it all,Garson remains a tow…
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Hope, Gloves and Redemption

Posted in Disc Reviews by David Annandale on February 17th, 2004

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Synopsis

Mickey and Negra Rosario run an inner city boxing center in New York, helping youngpeople not only to do well in the sport, but also to turn their lives around. We learn about theRosario’s lives and courtship (and about Mickey’s time in a gang), and follow a group of theirproteges as they train for an upcoming amateur tournament.

An interesting piece, with a wide variety of voices and theories about boxing. (I particularlyliked what a ref had to say about the sport …
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Thorn Birds, The

Posted in Disc Reviews by David Annandale on February 16th, 2004

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Synopsis

In 1920s Australia, Father Richard Chamberlain (the king of mini-series) is lusted over byBarbara Stanwyck. He isn’t interested, but not because he is above temptation. Instead, he isfalling for Stanwyck’s niece, who grows up to be Rachel Ward. Love, lust, vengeance andVatican power politics mesh together into a pretty heady brew.

Granted, there’s nothing very subtle about any of this. Right from the get-go, every line delivered is in the servide of graphically mappi…
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