Disc Reviews

“I’ve always advocated, and I still will advocate until the day I close my eyes and die, that there should be a national holiday honoring Jackie Roosevelt Robinson, so then all people will know who this man is.”

That statement by fellow Brooklyn Dodger Don Newcombe illustrates just how important Jackie Robinson was, not just to baseball, but to professional sports as a whole and the civil rights movement. When Robinson strode onto Ebbets Field in 1947, he shattered a color barrier that had been in place since professional baseball began.

Many small unheralded horror films are produced, and they easily slip through the cracks. The Frankenstein Theory is one. It has an interesting premise, though. In 2012, Professor Jonathan Venkenheim takes a film crew to the Arctic to document the attempt to prove that Mary Shelly's Frankenstein was a true story based on his great, great, great grandfather's letters. Venkenheim is a highly educated, nervous, and nerdy academic who is obsessed with this possibility. The documentary crew and Venkenheim's own girlfriend think his obsession is driving him a little mad, but they want the job, and Venkenheim will not be deterred. The engine that drives the professor’s obsession is the belief that his family name should be credited with the greatest scientific discovery of all time.

The film crew seems a little immature and unprofessional and adds an air of silliness to the initial attempts to get footage as they go on a journey through Canada. The professor's nervous intensity is also somewhat comedic. A welcome gravitas comes from the stern guide who will guide them through the north country. After a while the guide seems more and more like Quint from Jaws. In this case Jaws might be the Frankenstein monster. Most of the cast is relatively unimpressive except for the guide, played by Timothy V. Murphy, who has a very recognizable face from film, TV, and commercials.

It is truly amazing the career that Tom Green has had when you really sit back and think about it. Tom has made a career as an oddball whose antics would either make you laugh hysterically or raise a brow with suspicion of his mental state. His personality has taken him to many heights, from a Canadian Public Access show to MTV, MTV to the silver screen, but it wasn’t until he got in front of the camera and documented his battle with testicular cancer that many people would stand up and take notice of Hollywood’s strangest man. Speaking of stand-up, it appears that after tackling television, film, and rapping (seriously!), Tom is turning towards stand-up for his first comedy special Tom Green Live.

Before this DVD found its way to me, it had been years since I heard the name Tom Green. To this day I can’t think of him without imagining some of his crazy antics, like the scene from Road Trip where he put a live mouse in his mouth, or practically any scene from Freddie Got Fingered (a film that to this day remains the most surreal experience I ever had watching a movie). However, as I watched him enter from the crowd and take the stage, I immediately felt a change. If this had been years ago, perhaps around the time of Freddie Got Fingered, I would have been entertained, but sadly I’ve matured since then, and it appears so has Tom.

Just how much appeal can a show have when it’s about two directionless twenty-something’s who are groundskeepers at a local park; oh yeah, and they happen to be a raccoon and a blue jay?  It came as more than a little surprise how much this show not only had me laughing but I’m certain will have heavy replay value in this household. For those that believe it’s simply a kids’ show, be warned. Though it may not be filled with the raunch one would expect from Family Guy, Regular Show does dip its paw into indecency but never seems to cross the line.

For some cartoons and many shows in general, targeting a younger demographic each episode seems to attempt to deliver a message of some sort.  I don’t know if this is out of obligation to the younger viewers, but often enough the message seems to be forced and the show suffers in return.  Where I tip my hat to Regular Show is that it manages to deliver a message in a way where the viewer may not even realize what life lesson may be handed to them.  In Stick Hockey, Mordecai and Rigby find a used stick hockey game and the two become obsessed with the game, believing it to be the greatest game to ever cross their path.  Their boss threatens to take it from them unless they finish their work, but when the boss goes back on his word and gets rid of the stick hockey game, Mordecai and Rigby go through the motions of hunting the game down and wind up finding more trouble than they could have hoped for.

Mystery Science Theatre is an acquired taste. For me, I’ve really got to be in that certain mood to watch it. That’s the beauty of these DVDs. You pop them in when you’re ready. The idea is pretty whacked. Depending on the season you’ve got, Joel or Mike is trapped in space on the “Satellite of Love”. Doomed to spend his life watching very bad films, our hero makes the best of a bad situation. He uses his resources to construct a few robot pals. There's Crow T. Robot (Beaulieu), Tom Servo (Murphy), and Gypsy (Mallon). Part of an experiment together, they watch the films from the front row, constantly ranting throughout. If you’re like me, you’ve invited a few friends over to watch a schlock festival. The movies weren’t as important as the banter you created while watching. That’s exactly what you see here. The silhouettes of our host and his robots dominate the lower portion of the screen, where they provide alternative dialog and sometimes witty commentary on the action. The two evil station owners/mad scientists send them a new bad film each week to observe their reactions to the bombs. The films are broken up by off-the-wall skits and fake commercials to alleviate the tedium. The collection includes three Mike and one Joel episode.

This collection features three really bad movies, even by MST3K standards, but one that is quite better than the films usually riffed here. The inclusion of The Mole People is a bit of a mystery itself. The film is a Universal property which goes against the normal usage of public domain or small studio titles that wouldn't cost a heck of a lot in royalties. Remember that the show was a cable public access show for a while and even under Comedy Central there was not a huge budget to do these films. No question that the inclusion of The Mole People makes this one of the better sets to be offered of the show.

Timing is everything in life; being in the right place at the right time could mean great fortune. Of course the other side of that coin is that being in the wrong place at the wrong time could mean great misfortune; want to guess on which side the coin landed in Stand Off? (Hopefully you guessed misfortune; otherwise stop reading now.) Brendan Fraser leads the comedy about a botched robbery which eventually transformed to an even bigger mess. I’ve been a Brendan Fraser fan dating all the way back to Encino Man, and I was especially excited when he achieved action hero status with the The Mummy franchise (the final film excluded of course), but every now and then, it’s nice to see an actor return to familiar territory.

Fraser stars as Joe Maguire, a South Boston antique seller hiding out overseas after a hit is put out on his life by his mob boss father-in-law. While hiding out, Joe meets Sophie (YaYa DaCosta, Tron: Legacy), the store owner across the street from his cousin’s shop, and the two strike up a relationship. As a romantic gesture, Joe decides to make dinner for Sophie. Upon returning to from the market Joe witnesses the same suspicious character who has been lurking around the store going inside. Unsure whether the man plans to rob the store or collect on the contract out on his life, Joe brandishes a firearm and prepares to enter unaware that a copper (how they refer to policemen or policewomen across the pond; doesn’t that sound cool) has seen him remove the weapon, but we’ll come back to that.