Posted in: Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on December 3rd, 2008
December 3, 2008 11:07 A.M.: Dear Diary. Today I had a very harrowing experience. I think this event has left me feeling rather shaken, and I’m not sure if I’ll be able to forget the horrors I have just witnessed. It all started when I decided to watch the new direct to video horror film Zombie Diaries. I just couldn’t wait. As I picked up the box and read the interesting description, my heart just went pitter patter in my chest. The box promised the best zombie film since 28 Days Later, maybe even the best zombie movie ever. Well, I’ll tell you what, dear diary, that was something I just had to see. So, without hesitation, and maybe shaking somewhat in unbridled anticipation, I placed the disc into my player and watched restlessly through the start-up screens. When I was finally presented with the play option I nearly dropped the DVD remote, I was so eager to press play. It took some effort, but I was able to calm myself enough to work the small buttons of the remote. That FBI warning came on, and as I watched with baited breath, it happened.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on December 3rd, 2008
One of the hardest parts of reviewing DVD’s for this site is getting dropped in to the middle of a show I neither followed nor cared to follow and being told to judge fairly and objectively. Getting one’s bearings can be the toughest part of such a task, but this I will attempt to do with Seventh Heaven – The Seventh Season. As if playing catch-up with only one season to go on isn’t enough, the series hurls character after character at the unsuspecting viewer at a furious pace. It’s the type of show one should really get in on at the ground floor to get the most out of it, and I am keeping this in mind as I say most of these characters are profoundly obnoxious.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on December 3rd, 2008
While many of us think that President-elect Obama might have more important things to be concentrating on right now, I don’t know, like maybe the economy, we’re hearing a lot about his search for a new doggie. Of course, with a child who is allergic to dogs the search is complicated by the need for a hypoallergenic dog, if such a thing exists. No matter; it is certainly a tradition among most occupants of the White House to have pets. Most, of course, were dogs, allergies included.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on December 2nd, 2008
What kind of woman could possibly make the oh-so-tough Arthur Fonzarelli fall hopelessly in love? We find out in the three-part opener of Happy Days – The Complete Fourth Season in one of the great names of the small screen, Pinky Tuscadero. Pinky (a stunning Roz Kelly) shows spunk as a female version of Fonzy (Henry Winkler in his career-making role), and it’s surprising she wasn’t used more in the series run. Perhaps CBS felt fettering Fonzy with a regular gal-pal took away from his enigmatic qualities, which he would eventually lose anyway in the show’s eleven seasons.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by David Annandale on December 2nd, 2008
Another cheery bit of nonsense in this release, consisting of a half-dozen SpongeBob cartoons. The disc gets its title from the first episode, “What Ever Happened to SpongeBob?” In this story, our hero, rejected by all his friends for his consistent screw-ups winds up, after an amnesia-inducing bonk on the head, becoming the hero of a crime-ridden metropolis. Weird and funny stuff, and the same is true for the other pieces. That said, there's even less of a connection than usual between the pieces, not even a hint of a thematic commonality that has usually been the case with these releases. What we have are six apparently randomly chosen episodes, adding up to 78 minutes of silliness.
Audio
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Michael Durr on December 1st, 2008
My experience with the UFC is more of a classic one. I remember watching various pay per views on DVD and VHS of the old matches back when they had 1 night tournaments and everybody was either talking about Gracie, Shamrock or Severn. Recently, I had started watching random fights on the Spike Network to pass the time when I wasn’t interested in WWE or TNA wrestling. However, the one thing that got me most interested in UFC or MMA as of late is one man. No, not Kimbo Slice. That man would be Brock Lesnar. The man who would came to UFC to prove he was a true fighter and put away of those rumors that existed about wrestlers and not really being able to compete. UFC 87 featured Brock vs Heath Herring and a Welterweight championship fight among 8 other matches on the card. Was it time for the “Next Big Thing”?
UFC 87 Seek & Destroy -August 9th, 2008. This event took place from the Target Center in Minneapolis, Minnesota. Ten matches were on the card leading to a packed evening of fights. Many matches highlighted the card. In Lightweight action we had Kenny Florian against Roger Huerta. Huerta prior to the fight looked unstoppable and a force to be reckoned with. In heavyweight action we had Brock Lesnar who had suffered a loss to Frank Mir in a prior ppv due to mostly inexperience. He was facing the “Texas Crazy Horse” Heath Herring who had been coming off a victory against Cheick Kongo. Kongo incidentally was also on the card against Dan Evensen, fresh off some wins in BODOG.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Michael Durr on December 1st, 2008
TNA Wrestling is currently a very exciting place in the world of wrestling. Two factions have formed: Main Event Mafia and the Frontline. MEM is five former & current world champions and they are a deadly combination not seen since the heyday of the NWO. They want to teach respect to the other faction known as the Frontline, composed of TNA Originals and young upstarts who have worked their tail off and believe that the MEM should step aside and pass the torch to them. However, one forgets what led to these two factions forming. Three pay-per-views that happened from July 2008 to September 2008 laid the groundwork of the current state of affairs in TNA. Victory Road, Hard Justice and No Surrender.
Victory Road 2008 – July 13th, 2008. In the blistering heat of Houston, Texas, two events were firmly on the minds of the TNA fans. The World X Cup and whether Samoa Joe could truly show he was a credible World Champion. Jay Lethal & Sonjay Dutt were also intertwined in a brutal war over their mutual love interest: So Cal Val. In the tag team division, LAX (Homicide & Hernandez) was trying to ward off Beer Money (Robert Roode & James Storm) for the gold. Taylor Wilde was fresh off beating Amazing Kong weeks before the women’s Knockout title and Christian Cage, AJ Styles & Rhino were busy dealing with Kurt Angle and Team 3d.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by David Annandale on November 26th, 2008
No, this isn't the Patrick Swayze vehicle. Instead, it's another golden opportunity for Richard Widmark to unleash his patented psycho act. Here he plays Jefty, playboy owner of the titular establishment. His right-hand man is Pete (Cornel Wilde), who is the serious-minded half of the partnership. Said partnership is strained when Jefty brings back the latest singer for the club, one Lily (Ida Lupino, in superb hard-boiled form). Pete thinks she's bad news, and she is, only not in the way any of the three suspect. Jefty decides he's in love with her, but she only has eyes for Pete, and he, despite misgivings, reciprocates. Jefty doesn't take rejection well. Not well at all...
The cast is terrific, bouncing cynical zingers off each other with aplomb. Wilde does well as the world-weary Pete, but Lupino and Widmark own the field, and their final confrontation is one for the books. Enormous fun for noir fans, and especially for lovers of Widmark as a terrifying nutjob.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on November 26th, 2008
It’s the final roll call for everyone’s favorite Marine. Gomer Pyle began life as a one of the down home residents of Mayberry, where Andy Griffith held court as the sheriff and Don Knotts blundered his way to fame and fortune. It’s no small task indeed to find a way to shine as a minor character who wasn’t even there from the beginning; he replaced Floyd after the second year. But shine he did. Much of the character’s charm and success has to be given to Jim Nabors. The shy naive Gomer worked as an auto mechanic in Mayberry, but for his own series he appeared in one of the most unlikely of places, the U.S. Marine Corps. There Nabors found the perfect comedic partner in Frank Sutton, who played his superior Sgt. Vince Carter. The chemistry and remarkable timing these two brought to the Andy Griffith spin-off made it an instant hit. Critics at the time were very skeptical of the move, and most of the predictions called for a swift end to Gomer Pyle U.S.M.C. But before you can say “surprise, surprise, surprise”, the series became as popular, if not more so, than the parent series, at least for a time. In syndication the show was always a hit.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by David Annandale on November 24th, 2008
Jean Gabin, in his American debut, plays Bobo, a French sailor who has been knocking around the States for quite some time in the company of Tiny (Thomas Mitchell). Their wandering comes to a stop when, the day after a night of drunken excess that he cannot remember, Bobo sees Anna (Ida Lupino) wading into the waves to commit suicide. He rescues her, and before long the two are living together on the bait barge where he is working, and fall in love. Dark clouds are on the horizon, however. A local man was murdered, and Tiny, resentful that his meal ticket has been taken from him, darkly hints to Anna that Bobo might be responsible, even though he doesn't know it himself.
Moontide was originally a Fritz Lang project, and as the accompanying documentary demonstrates, his influence is still felt in the finished project, notably during the climactic stalking sequence. Gabin, though a masterful presence, nonetheless seems almost as much a fish out of water as his character, and it doesn't really come as a surprise that neither he nor Hollywood wound up caring much for the other, and he would return to the greener pastures of France. Claude Rains is on hand as a wisdom-dispensing night watchman – hardly a stretch for him, but it's always a pleasure to hear his mellifluous tones. The real stretch, and indeed revelation here, is Thomas Mitchell – the man whose speciality was the cuddly, avuncular Irishman here becomes a twisted monster of childish, violent rage, giving us a real nail-biter of a denouement.
