Posted in: Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on October 6th, 2009
“Welcome to The Hundred Acre Wood, where voices come together in joyful celebration and, the seasons gently turn like pages in a book. A time of giving, shared with good friends and a silly old bear named Winnie The Pooh.”
“Oh Bother”A.A. Milne was quite an eclectic writer. He wrote murder mysteries that even appeared on Alfred Hitchcock Presents. From that fertile mind would also come a place known as the Hundred Acre Wood. In that select place some of literature’s finest characters had the greatest adventures any boy could imagine. And adventures are certainly no fun on your own. Young Christopher Robin was joined by Piglet, Tigger, Owl, Rabbit, Eeyore, and, of course, Winnie-The-Pooh. Who didn’t fall in love with that silly old bear… Winnie-The-Pooh. OK, so maybe Dahmer or Bundy might have been exceptions. Still, anyone growing up in the last 30-40 years who isn’t a psychopath has had a love affair with Winnie-The-Pooh, all stuffed with fluff.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Michael Durr on September 24th, 2009
In 1996, the Mighty Morphin moniker was retired from the Power Rangers. Ever since, they have changed their cast, name, & plot every year and have been running for seventeen seasons. The most current incarnation is called Power Rangers: RPM and is being currently broadcast on ABC. In fact, there a couple of new episodes that should air this Friday (9/26). So, let’s catch you up on some of the earlier episodes on this DVD.
Three years before this series got started, a computer virus with intelligence named Venjix took over all of the computers on the Earth. All communication has become useless and worse yet, Venjix has sent an army of droids to take over the planet. The last place for humanity is the city of Corinth. But the people are surrounded by the evil forces and a large force field. Only the RPM Power Rangers can save the day as they protect Corinth from being destroyed.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on September 23rd, 2009
When the later cartoon series ran starting in 1983, the show from time to time spoofed many of the popular films of the time. Over the years everything from Star Trek to Star Wars received the Chipmunk treatment. Collectively these episodes have often been released under the title Chipmunks Go To The Movies and have even appeared with Roger Ebert. One of the best of these spoofs is the hilarious Star Wreck. Actually, the disc comes with three episodes, each spoofing a different film.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on September 23rd, 2009
“This is the Alvin Show, you’re positively gonna love the Alvin Show.
There's Dave Seville, and what is more here's the boy who giggles known as Theodore.
Now you see, on camera three, the brother known as Simon on the family tree.
And here's the star of the show… Alvin”
The hilarity continues with a second release: The Very First Alvin Show. This disc also contains three episodes. The spotlight piece here is the very first Chipmunk adventure ever from the 1961 series The Alvin Show. You’ll be amazed at just how little these guys have changed over the years. The three shows are:
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on September 15th, 2009
“England. August in the year 1940. Again – A time for valor. A time of whispered events, now faded with the passing years.”
In 1971 what had not faded in the 7 years since its release was the enormous success of Walt Disney’s Mary Poppins. With its charming story and characters and the breakthrough special effects that the studio had developed, the film was a milestone for the entire film industry. I suppose it isn’t too surprising that the folks at Disney would want to try to recapture that success all over again.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on August 31st, 2009
“Now this might be the room of any small boy, but it happens to belong to a boy named Christopher Robin, and like most small boys, Christopher Robin had toy animals to play with. And together they had many remarkable adventures in an enchanted place called The Hundred Acre Wood. But out of all of his animal friends, Christopher Robin’s very best friend was a bear called Winnie The Pooh.”
“Oh Bother”A.A. Milne was quite an eclectic writer. He wrote murder mysteries that even appeared on Alfred Hitchcock Presents. From that fertile mind would also come a place known as the Hundred Acre Wood. In that select place some of literature’s finest characters had the greatest adventures any boy could imagine. And adventures are certainly no fun on your own. Young Christopher Robin was joined by Piglet, Tigger, Owl, Rabbit, Eeyore, and, of course, Winnie-The-Pooh. Who didn’t fall in love with that silly old bear… Winnie-The-Pooh. OK, so maybe Dahmer or Bundy might have been exceptions. Still, anyone growing up in the last 30-40 years who isn’t a psychopath has had a love affair with Winnie-The-Pooh, all stuffed with fluff.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on August 26th, 2009
“A dragon. A dragon. You bet we saw a dragon. So big and brave he came to save a village in distress. He kept the ship from crashing when he heard the SOS. He faced a group of villains and he fought them with success…”
When Walt Disney Studios released Mary Poppins, the entertainment world was turned on its ears. The integration of live action footage with animation had never been done with such success before. The studio that nearly singlehandedly perfected modern methods of animation was also the studio that learned how to combine it almost seamlessly with real breathing actors. With the release of Pete’s Dragon many years later, audiences couldn’t wait for a peek at how far Disney had perfected the process in those years. While as children we got a big kick out of Pete’s Dragon, anyone looking for the latest in integration technology was in for a dragon-sized disappointment. The creature effects bore no resemblance whatsoever to that earlier technique. The animation itself was crude, by Disney standards at least, and never, not for a second, appeared as if it existed in the same place as the rest of the film. The beast’s green color would fluctuate in hue as well as brightness. There were many obvious mismatches where the two media connected. Even many of the actors’ sightlines were far off the mark. Walt Disney Studios took several steps backwards with the 1977 release of Pete’s Dragon.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on August 7th, 2009
Who doesn’t remember the original Witch Mountain films from Disney back in the 1970’s. They were clever family films. They were camp, to be sure. But, most of us remember them fondly, if not as particularly outstanding films. While Disney’s reimagining of the franchise doesn’t have a great deal in common with those earlier films, you can pretty much describe the reaction as being spot on. Race To Witch Mountain isn’t going to be breaking any box office records, but it is the kind of film you get a pretty warm feeling for, and like its predecessors, you’ll end up remembering it with fondness.
A flying saucer crashes in the Nevada desert near Las Vegas. The crash just so happens to coincide with the arrival of a huge UFO convention in Sin City. The Defense Department has secured the crash site. They quickly discover that the ship’s passengers have slipped through their perimeter. Now it’s a race to find the extraterrestrials before they can hatch whatever nefarious plan has brought them to our planet. The investigation is spearheaded by Henry Burke (Hinds). Meanwhile Vegas cabdriver Jack Bruno (Johnson) is busy ferrying the “nut jobs” to the UFO convention. Bruno was once a gifted race car driver as well as excelling in demotion derby driving. He had once worked a stint as a mob driver and has gotten out of the business. But, as we all know by now, you don’t just retire from the mob. So, there are some goons after him to “persuade” him to return to the job. All of a sudden a pair of teens appears in his car loaded with a huge wad of cash and a mysterious electronic device. The teens request to be taken to a remote location that appears to be being directed by the unknown gizmo. When his cab is assaulted by a convoy of black SUV’s, Bruno thinks it’s his old mob heavies, but it’s Burke and his ET hunters after the kids, who happen to be the escaped aliens. For the rest of the film Bruno and his unusual passengers, Sara (Robb) and Seth (Ludwig) try to locate a device that contains information that will stop an impending attack on the Earth. The kids must find the device, get their ship out of Burke’s hands, and return to their own planet before an all out invasion is launched at our planet. All the while the group is being pursued by the mob, Burke’s boys, and an alien bounty hunter with a ton of weapons at its disposal. They have two weapons of their own. First, the kids have some remarkable powers. Sara can move objects with her mind and talk to animals, and Seth can manipulate the density of his molecular structure, thus enabling him to pass through solid objects or withstand a head-on collision by an oil tanker. The second weapon is Dr. Alex Friedman (Gugino), an attractive scientist who speaks at these UFO conventions for a living, who happened to be one of Bruno’s earlier “nut jobs”. Together they race against time to save the planet, interacting with some peculiar characters along the way.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on August 7th, 2009
“Now this might be the room of any small boy, but it happens to belong to a boy named Christopher Robin, and like most small boys, Christopher Robin had toy animals to play with. And together they had many remarkable adventures in an enchanted place called The Hundred Acre Wood. But out of all of his animal friends, Christopher Robin’s very best friend was a bear called Winnie The Pooh.”
“Oh Bother”A.A. Milne was quite an eclectic writer. He wrote murder mysteries that even appeared on Alfred Hitchcock Presents. From that fertile mind would also come a place known as the Hundred Acre Wood. In that select place some of literature’s finest characters had the greatest adventures any boy could imagine. And adventures are certainly no fun on your own. Young Christopher Robin was joined by Piglet, Tigger, Owl, Rabbit, Eeyore, and, of course, Winnie-The-Pooh. Who didn’t fall in love with that silly old bear… Winnie-The-Pooh. OK, so maybe Dahmer or Bundy might have been exceptions. Still, anyone growing up in the last 30-40 years who isn’t a psychopath has had a love affair with Winnie-The-Pooh, all stuffed with fluff.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on July 22nd, 2009
I grew up on the Peanuts creations of Charles M. Schulz. Most of us have, in some way or another. His newspaper comic strip is one of the longest running and most successful strips of all time. The work has been translated into every language currently spoken on the planet. The images of Charlie Brown, Snoopy, Linus, and the rest of the Peanuts gang have appeared on just about any kind of product imaginable. Our pop culture contains too many references to the strip to mention briefly. For me, it was the television specials starting in the mid 1960’s that brought the gang into my life. The classics are running annually, still after nearly 50 years. A Charlie Brown Christmas and It’s The Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown are the most mentioned and certainly beloved by generations of children and adults. I thought I never missed an airing.
Now Warner Home Video has brought together a special collection of the cartoon specials that started it all. It includes those annual greats and a few that I don’t really remember so much. The two discs include the following Peanuts specials:
![Race to Witch Mountain (Blu-ray/DVD Combo + Digital Copy) [Blu-ray] dvd cover art](https://upcomingdiscs.com/ecs_covers/race-to-witch-mountain-blu-raydvd-large.jpg)
