Posted in: Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on October 22nd, 2007
Meet The Robinsons follows the story of young orphan Lewis. He’s quite the young inventor but ends up with more failures and near misses than anything successful. His tendency to blow things up doesn’t help his adoption chances too much either. One day his life is changed when a kid from the future arrives to give him a boost of confidence. Back in the future Lewis is temporarily trapped, and the guest of the manic family Robinson. Each family member is a zany character unto themselves. Uncle Art, cleverly voiced by Adam West, is an intergalactic pizza delivery guy, and mom has trained frogs to become big band singers. Before long Lewis finds he has more in common with family patriarch Cornelius than he suspected. The villain is the mysterious Bowler Hat Man, bent on getting his revenge on Lewis and taking credit for his inventions. Armed with a catchy slogan culled from one of Walt’s own statements, Keep Moving Forward, and a new found confidence, Lewis sets out to create the future of his dreams.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on October 20th, 2007
The box art boasts that “You have never seen The Wonder Years’ Fred Savage like this before”. Right. And will you please all bow your heads and join me in prayer that we never see him like this again. Forget for the moment that I just can’t get the character of Kevin Arnold out of my head any time I see Savage, but watching him turn into some sex crazy maniac is like catching your sister on the toilet. The image is there forever burned into your corneas like some visage of Hell to torment you for the remainder of your natural life.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Michael Durr on October 15th, 2007
Do you know what happens when creative people get toys and wacked out people get a tv show? Robot Chicken happens. The first season was a great success on Adult Swim, so that meant two things. One, creators Seth Green and Matthew Senreich would be able to move out of their parent's house (okay, not really) and we would get Season 2. Robot Chicken for those who don't know is toy figures (or special sculpted toys) put to life in hilarious sketches and parodies with the use of stop motion capture technology. The show has gotten such fanfare that it recently produced a Star Wars parody sketch show that was even supervised by George Lucas himself. Unfortunately that was the start of Season 3, and isn't on this dvd (but there is the infamous Star Wars sketch included that led to the whole sketch show in this box set).
The amount of bizarre pop culture references in this show is staggering. From the Brady Bunch meets the Mr. & Mrs. Smith to Inspector Gadget meets Terminator 2 Judgement Day, the show goes everywhere and beyond. Sometimes it finds the references too obscure and depending on the audience might not get all of the jokes. One that is brought to mind is the Spy Hunter 11:00 News Sketch. Not everybody like me has played the game 40-50 hours and gets the "joke". I might be on the floor for it but the person next to me might have a totally blank expression. However, where one fails, the next ten might be gold. That is where the show really succeds. The other great thing about Robot Chicken is the amount of talent on the show when it comes to voices. One of the great things is that they go and get the original voice talent in what it parodies with their toys. From little guys such as Michael Winslow (Police Academy) to the Coreys (Haim & Feldman) to big stars like Charlize Theron. It adds realism and humor to the show in spades.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Michael Durr on October 11th, 2007
Box Sets that compile older titles usually just make me cringe. Think about it. Recycled discs, tired old movies, and a fancy somewhat new box cover. In other words, I get to sleep for 4-5 hours and then wake up in a cold sweat wondering what happened. Alright; so that just sounds like my first honeymoon. Anyway, I happened to get the Partying 101 Boxset (because I am a wild and crazy guy) which featured Bio-Dome, Back to School and PCU. These are the old MGM discs from 8 to 10 years ago. Be afraid.
Bio-Dome is the story of two losers ala Bud (played by Pauly Shore) and Doyle (played by Stephen Baldwin) who are wasting away in their life and not being very eco-friendly. Their girlfriends who are more than eco-conscious try to convince them to turn over a new leaf. Soon, Bud and Doyle find themselves trapped in the new and ecological utopian Bio-Dome after one of them has to find somewhere to take a piss (I'm not making this up). For the next year they are trapped in this bubble with other scientists studying the effects. Well actually Bud and Doyle just cause mayhem and the scientists pick up after them. Of course they have a moment and a happy ending. Of course, I also have a gag reflex.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on October 9th, 2007
Steve Carell is Evan Baxter in this “sort of” sequel to Bruce Almighty. He is a freshman member of the United States Congress about to start his first day. His campaign promise was to “change the world”. In the “be careful what you wish for” department, God (Morgan Freeman) gives him the chance to do just that. There’s just one catch, however. Evan has to build an ark…. You know the rest of that story. Suddenly animals begin arriving in pairs, and Evan makes a physical transformation into the traditional long bearded Noah. As you might imagine, this causes some troubles in his life as a Congressman. Try as he might, this modern-day Noah can’t escape his divine destiny. You’re probably thinking: “this sounds like funny stuff”. Wrong. This film meanders through a one-joke plot for most of its hour and a half. Steve Carell is no Jim Carrey and simply doesn’t have the chops to carry this off. The film resorts to mostly physical gags that are more gross-out than funny.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Michael Durr on October 4th, 2007
"Find out what happens when cartoon characters stop being polite...and start making out in hot tubs". The legendary kiss between Clara and Foxxy highlighted Season 1 and with the recent release of Season 2 on dvd, the Drawn Together cast is back for more adult fun. Drawn Together is the cartoon show that parodies reality shows by using parodies of classic cartoon characters. There are characters like Captain Hero who is a parody of Superman and many other super hero types. Or Ling-Ling who is a spoof of Pikachu from Pokemon. But these aren't normal; they are very perverse, stereotypical, and deviant characters. For example; Xandir (a parody of Link from Legend of Zelda) is the very gay and effeminate one while Princess Clara (spoof of various Disney princess characters) has a multi-tentacled monster in place of her...ummm...ho-ho...(I just said ho-ho in the middle of a review; yup my career is over)
The show is flat out hilarious as it sounds. As long as you aren't offended by the explicit nature of what is going on; you will have a good time with the 22 minute episodes. The show's episodes as expected often have a gay or bisexual theme. However, once in a while (okay usually once per episode); they have a tendency of going too far. They make no apologies about crossing ethical or racist lines or even having common sense. It's basically about causing a ruckus for as long as possible and somehow come up with a plausible ending by the 20 minute mark. The cast of voice actors from Tara Strong (Toot Braunstein & Princess Clara) to Adam Carolla (Spanky Ham)to Jess Harnell (Captain Hero) and more represent a very elite group of vocalists.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on October 3rd, 2007
Family Ties is likely remembered most as the series that launched the career of Michael J. Fox. There’s no question that he owes a great debt to Alex Keaton. It’s almost a bit awkward now to watch him as this young, extremely conservative teenager after Fox has spent so much of his life as a liberal poster boy in the last couple of elections. Politics aside, it’s hard not to credit his performances in Family Ties and the Back To The Future films for launching him into a well deserved lucrative career. The Michael J. Fox issue, however, might hide some of the other assets the show had going for it in its time. For one of the first times parents were portrayed as humanly flawed, and families were not the perfectly functional institutions most of these shows described. Up until Family Ties, these households were either perfect little examples of American ideal or they were so dysfunctional that they could hardly be considered families at all. This show obviously went for a bit of realism.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on September 29th, 2007
Dirty Sanchez, the Welsh Jackass, or at least it’s something like it. Like Jackass, this little British show started on TV and has since made its way to the big screen, that of course is not where the similarities end. Dirty Sanchez, ‘They make Jackass look like the Royal Shakespeare Company.’ Well that’s what the say anyways, I disagree but they are definitely just as careless and insane as the Jackass crew. Dirty Sanchez features three buddies, Pritchard, Dainton, and Pancho as they completely disregard their health in any which way they can think. This film features several of these outrageous stunts in an uncut manner which boasts a lot of language, male nudity, and vomit. If you’re not interested in any of that you might as well stop reading here, but for those of you that can’t get enough out of watching people make an ass of themselves, please read on.
Right off the start I have to say that Dirty Sanchez contained a bit more talking than I would have liked, but some of the stunts were pretty outrageous. Well some of them like snorting wasabi, getting shot with paintballs, and Thai boxing have been done before by the likes of Steve-O, Johnny Knoxville, Ryan Dunn and crew there are a few here you wont want to miss. To start, have you ever wondered what it would look like to get liposuction without anesthetic? Well, I hope you haven’t taken the time to think about that, but you’re going to find out what it looks like anyways. How about having your good buddy drink the resulting ooze? These are just a few things that will be sure to captivate a younger audience and outrage the old timers.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by David Annandale on September 25th, 2007
Shout Factory has begun to release DVD editions of Elvira’s Movie Macabre, the cult hit TV show from the 80s wherein our curvaceous goth host makes off-colour jokes and pokes fun, during the commercial breaks, of the movies she’s showing. Up on the chopping block in this set are Gamera, Super Monster and They Came From Beyond Space.
The former was the last Gamera film until the revival in the 90s, and is a thoroughly weak entry. An evil spaceship (suspiciously resembling a Star Destroyer, but introduced to us through the excitingly cinematic technique of ILLUSTRATIONS) is heading towards Earth. Acting in our defense is a trio of superwomen and Gamera, who battles, through the miracle of stock footage, his former foes.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by David Annandale on September 20th, 2007
Since Mystery Science Theater 3000 came to an end, fans have been having to make do with various second-best replacements. The most obvious one has been Mike Nelson’s solo commentaries on the likes of Reefer Madness and House on Haunted Hill. Though his efforts have been amusing, they have like the lunatic fun generated when he had Tom Servo and Crow to bounce off. With The Film Crew releases, we have the closest thing yet to a return of MST3K, as Nelson is reunited with Kevin Murphy and Bill Corbett (who were the ‘bots). Playing themselves, they are a trio of working joes whose job is to provide commentary tracks to undeserving films. We don’t see their silhouettes, but we hear their exchanges over the course of the film. The result is pretty damn funny.
Killers from Space is a hilariously dismal 1954 SF opus from W. Lee Wilder (Billy’s singularly untalented younger brother). The boys give this tale of Peter Graves encountering aliens with ping-pong-ball eyes a deserved trouncing. Their work is easily on par with their MST3K days, and some of their post-film antics (which I will not spoil here) have me cackling even as I write these words. This really is the next best thing to MST3K.
