Posted in: Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on May 19th, 2007
Synopsis
I’d like to think of Amanda Bynes (She’s the Man) for being part of a smaller second wave of teen female performers. Nobody’s really sure of who she is, but she appears to stay out of trouble and certainly not emulate the Lohans and Spears of the world. She had an already established name among the Nickelodeon demographic, but soon moved to grown up television, joining television veteran Jennie Garth (Beverly Hills, 90210) in What I Like About You.
In the show, Bynes ...
Posted in: Disc Reviews by David Annandale on May 15th, 2007
Synopsis
Here we go: all 30 episodes of the first season, wherein we follow the adventures of Flipper, a dolphin owned by youngsters Bud and Sandy. All three are watched over by their father, Chief Ranger Ricks of Coal Key Park. The formula for each episode generally sees either someone who needs rescuing (from drowning, shark attack, that sort of thing) and Flipper must help out, or the boys and the dolphin wind up in trouble after poking their noses somewhere they shouldn’t. It’s all very familiar,...
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on May 8th, 2007
Beverly Hills 90210, although I never watched this growing up, I knew a lot of people who did. Often compared as The OC of the 90’s, the show does in fact share a lot of similarities with The OC; two popular primetime soap operas based around the posh lives of rich teens. The main difference between the two shows is the fact this 90210 lasted 9 seasons and 10 years on air, which made for a vast array of storylines and ever developing characters. Some people might not remember the show all ...
Posted in: Disc Reviews by David Annandale on May 4th, 2007
When Just Jaeckin's glossy exercise in softcore, Emmanuelle, earned boffo box office in 1974, imitators piled on, and no imitators anywhere were as shameless as the Italians, who began the Black Emanuelle series (note the missing "m"). Laura Gemser starred, and Joe D'Amato directed many of the entries (though not the first). This set offers three.Both the double-"m" and single-"m" series were characterized by the heroine having sex in exotic locales, and the travelogue aspect is most dominant in Emanuelle in Bangkok (1977).
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on May 3rd, 2007
The Drew Carey Show originally aired its pilot episode in 1995, focusing on a simple group of friends living their simplistic lives. Known for its everyman characters and situations, the show enjoyed a 9-year run on ABC, getting yanked from the schedule in 2004. Drew Carey and Bruce Helford, who both continued to write for the show in the following seasons, created the show with the premise of Drew Carey’s life if he hadn’t become a comedian and pursued a different career. I wasn’t even aware that this show wa...
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on April 22nd, 2007
Synopsis
The first thing that surprised me when I did some minor research on The Addams Family was that as a show, it was barely on for a cup of coffee, lasting two seasons. Maybe because it was on around the same time as The Munsters shortened its shelf life. However three decades later, the film (and its sequel) helped propel it into fan appreciation.
At least as part of the preservation effort, the shows themselves are starting to appear on DVD shelves, and Volume 2 is the latest ...
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on April 18th, 2007
Planet Earth – The Complete Series presents the original U.K. broadcast version with narration by David Attenborough, not the version airing on Discovery narrated by Sigourney Weaver.
Have you ever sat back and wondered about the sheer size and shape of our world, its diversity of habitats or the incredible variety of life we share it with? It’s hard to get your head around it all, especially when most of us are living out our existences in one tiny slice of the place, with the only the odd vacation ...
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Michael Durr on April 16th, 2007
Synopsis
When the original Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles series came out on DVD, they decided to go the 12 episodes on one disk Volume approach. Sure it was only $10, but when you are looking at near 200 episodes and realized that it would 16+ volumes to make it complete, it was a bit overwhelming. Add that to the fact they were only releasing a new volume every 4-6 months, you were looking at well over 5 years to get all of the episodes. Plus some major shelf space. Thank ...
Posted in: Disc Reviews by David Annandale on April 12th, 2007
Synopsis
Lloyd Nolan stars in this quartet of films about Michael Shayne. Less hard-boiled than he was in other media, here he’s an inveterate wisecracker and the films are sometimes more comedies than thrillers. Our boy takes his first bow in <>i>Michael Shayne, Private Detective (1941), where he’s hired to keep an heiress (Marjorie Weaver) out of trouble. But when one of the dubious people she’s been hanging out with turns up killed, apparently by Shayne’s gun, the detective must stay one step ...
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on April 11th, 2007
It seems unbelievable to me that Scooby Doo was just on for three seasons. Undoubtedly there were individual cartoon tie-ins created all along the way, and there are new episodes being created even today. No, I’m talking about the original classic program. Just three short seasons were produced, the final one of which is now available on DVD.
What is there to say about this series, these cartoons that were such an integral part of my childhood? You would have to be living in the mountain caves of Afgha...
