Disc Type

Dustin P. Anderson

As far as a synopsis for this movie goes, there isn’t too much to it. We are given a brief look inside the mind of a real-life serial killer. A psychopath has been given a conditional release from jail and is only interested in satiating his lust for killing. After some failed murder attempts, the killer finds an empty house and waits for the occupants to come home.  This movie has a lot to say, while being easy to summarize. The story is basic, but there is so much more to it than just the events that take place. It does a great job at making the killer seem more human when we see how clumsy he is at killing people. During the killer’s beginning inner monologue, he states, “this time he won’t get caught,” which, I thought meant he had some grand scheme in place to kill a bunch of people and never see the inside of a jail cell again. The killer actually has no plan; he gets caught up in his passion for murder and bumbles almost every one of his attempts; for instance, when he is caught untying his shoelace the shoelace is in the condemning position used for strangling someone. I also like that the inner monologue of our killer matches the person he is killing; it makes it seem like he is offering an explanation of why he is killing this certain person. When he kills a man in a wheelchair, he starts speaking of his father/stepfather; when he is tying up a young girl he is talking about his sister, etc. This movie is the closest thing to describing to the general public why certain killers do the things that they do, and it is the most disturbing thing I have seen in a while, which makes it an amazing horror movie.

"Looks like the crazy is starting."

Actually, it started three seasons ago. The creator of Dawson’s Creek and The Vampire Diaries, Kevin Williams, delivers a thriller that is a bold new entry in the crime drama for television. The Following was 15 episodes of nail-biting bliss that kept the viewer guessing and riveted long after its gut-wrenching cliffhanger season after season. For a while I was beginning to wonder if Williamson had lost his touch with the Scream series, but what you’ll discover here is that Williamson may just be the king of creating and penning one of the darkest serial killers on the small screen. 

Does anyone remember The Facts of Life? The show ran from 1979 to 1988, but then there was syndication and some reunion movies. So it had a long life and was consistently popular for its predominantly female cast. Where are they now? Blair (Lisa Whelchel) did very well on the 2012 season of Survivor, for one. They were all very young when the show started but were beginning to consider college and apartments in the final years, leaving behind the safe confines that Edna Garrett (Charlotte Rae) had provided. But over the years various cast members came and went. There is a young wise guy in this season who later became a big star. No, it wasn't Leonardo DiCaprio, because that was the series Growing Pains for the 1991 and 1992 seasons. It wasn't Molly Ringwald, because that was the first two seasons of The Facts of Life. The Facts of Life Season Seven is when a young George Burnett (George Clooney) was introduced in 1985. It was one of Clooney's first regular gigs. He also a semi-regular on Rosanne a couple of years later. Tootie (Kim Fields) was another cast member who was in all 201 episodes. Kim Fields went on to star with Queen Latifah in 118 episodes of Living Single. Natalie (Mindy Cohn) was also in all the episodes. Mindy went on to voice Velma in numerous Scooby-Do cartoons. Charlotte Rae (155 episodes) and Nancy McKeon (188 episodes) were the two other main cast members and worked erratically after the show concluded.

The show started with Edna heading a boarding school for girls, but as the years passed she started a shop called Edna's Edibles with the girls helping out. Season Seven starts right after Edna's Edibles burned down, and after dealing with that very special episode, they started a gift shop full of crazy collectibles. George is the contractor they finally hire to do the renovations. George had lived in the Middle East and frequently made light-hearted jokes about his stay there. That is a sign that it took place in the 1980's. Things were different then. Everybody had big hair and strange pastel-colored clothes. The music was full of synthesizers. That makes reissues like this like time capsules. It's not just nostalgia, but an examination of our shared past. Clooney is barely recognizable with his poofy, goofy black mullet and skinny frame. Clooney's future business partner years later, Grant Heslov (Good Night and Good Luck), makes an appearance in an episode as one of Blair's dates.

Walt Disney was a dreamer. Some of his dreams were realized. Some were not. Disney built a kingdom. He built more than one, in fact. One of Walt's dreams that was not realized was the experimental prototype community of tomorrow (EPCOT). He did incorporate some of the ideas of EPCOT into the Disney World theme park, but it was a mere shadow of the original dream. One of the essential elements of EPCOT was, and is, Tomorrowland.  Disney was widely admired in the 1960's by urban planners for his visionary views about the possibilities of the future.
Unfortunately, Disney died in 1966, and the board of directors severely cut back Walt's original vision. Of course, Disney World wound up on 27,258 acres that is a short drive from NASA's main launch site, Cape Canaveral.

In the film Tomorrowland, Casey Newton (Britt Robertson) is the daughter of Eddie (Tim McGraw), who is an engineer at NASA. Unfortunately, NASA is not what it used to be, and Eddie is being phased out. In a separate storyline, years earlier in 1964, a young inventor shows up at the New York World's Fair (the time and place that Disney introduced many innovations) with a flying jet pack. That inventor grows up and is central to the story. That young inventor grows up to be grouchy malcontent, Frank Walker (George Clooney). David Nix (Hugh Laurie) is also important to the story, because he is the inventor of Tomorrowland, and Nix first meets Walker at the 1964 World's Fair. A magical young girl named Athena (Raffey Cassidy) is the final essential ingredient, because she is the catalyst for change throughout the story.

by Dustin P. Anderson

This DVD follows three standups, K. Douglas Tatum, Tone-X and Michael Colyer, as they perform for a live studio audience. We also follow Tommy Ford as he terrorizes the headquarters of Bossip, a gossip website. I would honestly love to tell you more in the summary of this DVD, but there is nothing more to it. A gossip website decided to release a DVD regarding comedy of some sort. This DVD was not good; entertaining such a notion that this DVD could be good should not enter any potential viewer’s mind. From the moment you play the opening credits, you can tell that this was made on a budget; more than that, it looks like it was made on a budget in the nineties. The small, unimportant things that fly by you while the names of the people responsible for this DVD come into view would not look out of place in a movie like Hackers. A lot of dated computer code graphics, a microchip (because technology?) and the sound used for almost every “computer working” moment in every TV show or bad movie (think Dexter’s Laboratory meets Ghost in the Machine). That’s just the first couple of seconds; then we are led into seeing how “The regular person feels about current events” by Tommy Ford. The interviews are overly cut with bad transitions, and lead us to one of my biggest problems with the DVD, the skits. These skits take up about half of the DVD’s run time, and none of them make me laugh or even remotely interested in the happenings at Bossip. I would say that I might not get it because I don’t frequent the Bossip site, but I was familiar with the stories talked about here just from looking at social media, and none of what they were saying was anything new or exciting.  The problem with a gossip column creating a DVD for public consumption is that I will never want to go back to it, since half of what they are talking about are things that have come and gone. It dates the material and makes this AT BEST something to rent. It’s the same problem that I have with movies like Date Movie or Meet the Spartans; the current humor used makes them a quick burn and severely limits the re-watchability.

A scary premise, but overall this quickly becomes a story about one family overcoming obstacles to find one another again. Heartwarming, granted; however, not very fear-inspiring. Earthfall features a global incident, which ultimately could mean the end of days. A meteor storm strikes the Earth, knocking it off its axis. Terrifying, right? Good foundation, but based on what I observed, clearly not the focal point of the story, which says to me that this story clearly did not have its priorities right.

Now before I receive a tongue-lashing from our family-friendly audience, allow me the opportunity to clarify. I am not suggesting that idea that the main characters’ primary focus was to locate one another was wrong; I am indicating that for that to be the focal point of the entire story results in a lackluster movie. The actual grim circumstance receives very little attention in comparison. My observation is that the catharsis achieved by being reunited will be short-lived given the dire situation. You may embrace long enough to register the end of the world.