Posted in: Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on May 12th, 2011
"Once upon a time in the projects..."
Eddie Murphy co-created this controversial situation comedy that aired first on Fox and was later picked up by the WB. It was quite an original undertaking. The show was made using stop-motion. The process was very much like the traditional claymation process that brought such classic favorites like Gumby to life. But since the models were made of foam instead of clay, the process was dubbed foamation. There's a bit of a coincidence at play here since Eddie Murphy often played a version of the Gumby character on a regular basis during his stint with Saturday Night Live.
Posted in: No Huddle Reviews by Gino Sassani on May 12th, 2011
"Beyond any terror ever known, The Black Sleep, it wakes the dead, plunging you into a reign of terror."
London, 1872. Dr. Cadman (Rathbone) has discovered an ancient drug that mimics death in every way. It puts the person in a deep sleep he refers to as the black sleep. He considers it to be an important step in his surgical experiments. He needs a capable assistant. Dr. Ramsay (Rudley) has been convicted of killing a man. He is about to be executed when Cadman uses his drug to help the condemned man escape the noose. Now using the alias of Dr. Gordon he is taken to Cadman's secret laboratory. There he discovers that Cadman has been experimenting on unwilling subjects and turning them into deformed creatures he keeps chained in a dungeon. Cadman believes that anything is justified in the name of science, particularly when he's trying to learn all that he can about the functions of the human brain so that he can cure his wife, 8 months in a coma brought on by a brain tumor. Ramsey wants no part of the hideous work and tries to escape with the help of Cadman's young assistant Laurie (Blair).
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Michael Durr on May 12th, 2011
Sometimes I miss the days of my youth. Huddled in front of a thirteen inch color television set with the knobs you had to turn but not too quickly (or else you were forced to break out the pliers) to your desired channel. It seems like I watched so many sitcoms back then. Silver Spoons, Different Strokes, Facts of Life, etc. But I do seem to remember a show about a small child named Emmanuel Lewis who would play Webster. It was awfully cute back in the mid eighties, I wonder if it holds up today.
If you missed the first season of Webster, well all came to know Emmanuel Lewis as the little boy with a big heart that everybody loves. His original parents get killed in a car accident and then he is taken in by the Papadapolis’. The new parents are made up of George (played by Alex Karras), an ex-football player and Katherine (played by Susan Clark) who is just your average high maintenance socialite.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Michael Durr on May 11th, 2011
The real world will try to teach us many things. It teaches us that only two things are certain, death and taxes. Unfortunately, one of the things that is not always certain is the wonderful mystery of love. Sometimes, it lasts for a lifetime but more often than not it can be a cruel device and become fleeting. The movie, Blue Valentine deals with this difficult subject and explores one such relationship that is clearly on the ropes.
Frankie (played by Faith Wladyka) screams for her daddy. She yells again. The girl makes her way back to the house and crawls inside using the window. She finds her dad, Dean (played by Ryan Gosling) asleep on the couch. Frankie wakes him and they go outside and we realize that their dog, Meagan is gone. They go back inside and try to wake the mother, Cindy (played by Michelle Williams). She resists but eventually stirs.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on May 11th, 2011
Of all the straight-to-video titles I didn't expect to see, Street Kings 2 would be high on the list. The original film was a predictable film with bad pacing. The box office was no better. That film pulled in about $26 million and quickly faded into obscurity. But here we are two years later and the title has been attached to a direct-to-video release from Fox. None of the original characters or actors are found here. The title merely suggests a similar story, this time in the Motor City, Detroit.
The film opens with a drug bust gone horribly wrong. Detective Marty Kingston (Liotta) is injured in the violence and spends his recovery at a desk and playing a department crime dog mascot at elementary schools. When his partner turns up shot and killed, Kingston injects himself into the investigation led by a green detective Sullivan (Hatosy). At each turn the investigation appears to paint an ugly picture of the deceased detective. He was as dirty as they come and mixed up in all sorts of seedy deals. It seems hard to believe that Kingston wasn't aware of his partner's dirt. Then other cops implicated in the corruption end up killed, and soon we understand Kingston's motives for being a part of the case.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by William O'Donnell on May 11th, 2011
Lesser know than the Loch Ness Monster, Chupacabra and many other crypotzoilogical monsters is the Mongolian Death Worm. This SyFy production gives the mythological beast the Tremors “graboid” treatment and makes them desert prowling beasts with extending tongues/second mouths. Being compared to Tremors is a high summit to reach., as this film is outclassed by that film in all aspects.
Things are shaky right off the hop. The opening title has the same size and font as the text used to detail the characters' location, making it seem as if Mongolian Death Worm is the name of the setting. Such things are not monumental problems, but there are enough of these lofty mistake to mark sloppy composition and lack of care by the filmmakers.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by William O'Donnell on May 11th, 2011
Based on actual Old Bailey court records from the 18th Century, Garrow's law tells the true story of William Garrow, a young barrister you revolutionized the legal system. This first series may only be 4 episodes long, but with each clocking it an an hour long a piece, this series offers plenty of drama to invest in.
The first episode kicks off with Garrow's earliest attempt to be a proper defense attorney, with the mindset to stop “blood money” from influencing convictions, and to cease the casual executions and/or barbaric treatments of innocent people. The proceeding episodes each contain a highly tense adventure, as Garrow has to not only prove his clients' innocence, but must also fend off bounty hunters, judges and other callous opponents of what he views as true justice.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on May 10th, 2011
In the 1970's the critically acclaimed Upstairs Downstairs was a television mainstay in England. American audiences were soon introduced to the series through PBS broadcasts in the late 1970's and beyond. It was a unique kind of drama that served both as a period piece and an examination of the class lifestyles. The series began at the turn of the century and led up to the events of World War I and the period that soon followed. We were witness to the wealthy Bellamy family who occupied the estate at 165 Eaton Place. The family lived in the upstairs rooms, while the servants who kept the place in order occupied the rooms downstairs. Each episode would bring the dramatic events of the world to the doorstep of the home and we would see how they affected the two classes. We got to know members of both classes, and as the series progressed, observed the stark differences while also seeing the common humanity the two worlds shared. It was a huge hit and has lived on in syndication in all of the years since. The original series ran from 1971 until 1975 and covered the years of 1903 until the market crash of 1929 and the death of the patron of the estate. The whole thing had to be sold and the characters dispersed to their own lives from there.
Enter Heidi Thomas, who was eleven when the original series ended. The show stuck with her, and she made it a sort of life mission to bring the series back. In 2010 that's exactly what she did. The result is the three episode run that we have in this release.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on May 10th, 2011
"Only one creature has carved out a life for itself in every habitat on Earth. That creature is us. All over the world we still use our ingenuity to survive the wild places, far from the city lights, face to face with raw nature. This is the Human Planet."
Posted in: Disc Reviews by William O'Donnell on May 10th, 2011
I suppose there is something to be said about shows where we literally watch the main characters grow up. This season of Boy Meets World sees Cory Matthews (played by Ben Savage) and his cohorts enter their final year of high school. In some fashion, this is the season where the boy really is about to “meet the world,” but perhaps that is just a little too much poetry smeared onto this season of family friendly prose.
If you can somehow crawl past the horrendous theme song and opening title sequence, you will witness an acceptable Disney comedy, filled with cheesy smiles, over-acting supporting cast, madcap scenarios that have no edge whatsoever, and hearty doses of family oriented life lessons.
![Blue Valentine [Blu-ray] dvd cover art](https://upcomingdiscs.com/ecs_covers/blue-valentine-blu-ray-large.jpg)
![Street Kings 2: Motor City (Unrated) [Blu-ray] dvd cover art](https://upcomingdiscs.com/ecs_covers/street-kings-2-motor-city-unrated-large.jpg)
