Disc Reviews

Do you believe that a numbers wizard can predict the most random of human actions with mathematical equations so accurately as to know where and when such a person will be? If so, then I suggest you put down that letter you are writing to Santa, finish eating that egg a bunny left for you, go to your pillow and pull together all of the loot you got from the tooth fairy, and plunk it down on season three of Numb3rs. No, that’s not a typo; apparently they believe that letters aren’t good enough to stand on their own, so they inserted a 3 where the e should be. Aren’t they so clever? Not. In the fairy tale world of Numb3rs, all you need is an almost obsessive knowledge of math, and the crooks don’t stand a chance. It’s almost unfair, isn’t it? Those poor criminals go about their carefully plotted crimes, unaware that everything they do is controlled by math. They live their lives oblivious to the fact they are at the mercy of a diabolical equation which forces their every move. In fact, I suspect some clever attorney somewhere is already preparing the “math made me do it” defense at this very moment. Soon our justice system will be forced to account for this undeniable force on our very destinies. I would go on but I can’t… must… fight… numbers…

Don Eppes (Morrow) is a decorated officer in charge of a unit of the local field office of the FBI. His brother Charlie (Krumholtz) is a math professor at CalSci. His brilliant mathematical mind is called upon to help the Feds track killers and rapists. No matter how complicated the trail gets, when the going gets rough, these guys call on Charlie. The FBI office is also manned, or womaned as the case may, be by Agent Megan Reeves (Farr), who is the profiler of the group, Agent David Sinclair (Ballard), the smart tough guy, and Agent Colby Granger (Bruno) the young upcoming agent. Charlie has Professor Larry Feinhardt (MacNicol) to guide him through his struggles. Both of the geeks are socially inept, and we are “treated” to their constant struggles to relate to others, particularly women. Why can’t they write an equation to fix that? Navi Rawat is Amita, a student of Charlie’s who remains to take a job at CalSci, possibly to remain near Charlie. Judd Hirsch is the father to the Eppes brothers. The show is produced by brothers Ridley and Tony Scott, who have had far better luck on the big screen.

A New York city homicide detective is haunted by the night when her mother was murdered by two gunmen, who themselves were killed by a mysterious being. A decade after that night, she finds out that the mysterious being is still around. As this “Beauty” and her “Beast” finally meet, they start investigating the truth behind their secret ties to each other. The similarities between this adaptation of Beauty and the Beast and any others begins and ends at the title. Originally slated as a reboot of the 1987 series that starred Ron Perlman and Linda Hamilton, this series trades the romance and battle of misfits for crime investigations and military conspiracies.

The “Beast” of this series is one of the most troubling elements. Instead of a monster (or anything remotely beastly) we have a man who was transformed by a super soldier serum that makes him have super strength and super senses when made mad. As you can already tell, this show is really trying to be a combination of Captain America and The Incredible Hulk. When the Beast goes into mad mode, the only physical change is he gets just slightly uglier…just…slightly. For anyone who recalls the vampire transformations in the Buffy and Angel series….it’s less than that.

Voodoo Black Exorcist (Vudú sangriento), is a bizarre choice to distribute once more in high definition. Some of the imagery in the film is most certainly impressive; however, it doesn’t quite make up for the poor dubbing, editing, and nonsensical story. The film is about ninety minutes long, and realistically, it only demanded my attention for about ten of those minutes before I sank into boredom. Perhaps my greatest disappointment was that it wasn’t really a movie I could have fun with: it was not laughably bad. So where I would normally put some effort into poking fun, I ended up remaining abnormally critical of this old horror film.

Voodoo Priest Guedé Nibo (Aldo Sambrell), is revived accidentally on a cruise ship. As he wanders the ship in the shadows, he is haunted by images of his past: the killers of his lover, the ritual that got him mummified in the first place. Soon he becomes enthralled with the beautiful Sylvia (Eva León) who is the spitting image of his deceased lover, Kenya (Eva León in black face). Nibo continues his path of destruction and, oddly enough, persuasion, to finally reunite with his late lover.

It’s not often that a show can come along that impresses me with its talent in front of and behind the camera; then when the show premieres, it is just bad for a couple of episodes and then manages to bounce back.  There are just so many options that if you don’t come out swinging, your show is going to be passed up for something else. I still feel like we’re in the Golden Age of television despite some of the best series in the past decade having already been retired from the airwaves (Breaking Bad is sorely missed despite Better Call Saul).  There is still so much out there that sometimes good stuff gets overlooked, and it’s not till DVD rolls around that you can discover a show, and that is the case for the new series Ice.

I love a good crime series, and when Ice became available as a title to check out at Upcomingdiscs, well, I felt the need to jump on it. When you have heavy hitters like Donald Sutherland and Ray Winstone headlining the cover and then throw in the vastly underrated Jeremy Sisto, I got even more excited for the possibilities. Then throw in director  Antoine Fuqua (Training Day) directing the pilot, and seriously, what can go wrong?

"Just give us those good old songs."

Last year Eagle Vision released four discs that were collectively known as The Frank Sinatra Collection. But when a man's been singing for nearly 70 years, you can't hold a career like that on just four discs. There was always going to have to be more. The more arrived in the shape of three more DVD's brimming with Sinatra vintage shows. But that still wasn't going to be enough. Now there are two more discs that bring us the classic Frank Sinatra Timex specials. This was a series of four specials that aired in 1959/1960. Each had a theme that carried through the broadcast hour.