Posted in: Disc Reviews by BABY on September 7th, 2010
Gino likes to listen to some guy named Warren Zevon who says that all of the werewolves are in someplace called London. He also sings a song that says "Don't knock on my door, if you don't know my Rottweiler's name". Well ... I ain't no stinkin' Rottweiler, and you know my name; it's Baby. But I wouldn't knock anyway, 'specially if you are trying to deliver more of these movies. I don't know what the Rottweiler's planning to do, but I promise I'm not going to lick you, and that spells B I T E. Don't you guys know we got too many movies in here already? How am I going to get any playtime in if you keep bringing more movies over here? Gino says that if you stop bringing the movies, he might not make any money. He says if they don't make any money, he can't buy any more treats. He calls that a catch 22. But the problem is while he's in there watching movies, my ball stays where it is, and I'm not catchin' anything. Since beggin' is beneath me, I guess I'm just gonna have to let somebody have it one of these days, and that spells O U C H.
Hey everybody. Baby, back again to bring you yet another dog movie from a dog's perspective. Ever since I was a little puppy I liked readin' those funnies in the paper. For some reason there was a lot of those things layin' around the place for a while. Since a dog's gotta do what a dog's gotta do, I would take a look at the comics while I took care of some business. Now what that business was, is none of your business, and that spells W E T. One of my favorite strips was this one called Marmaduke. Now, that dog is one funny cat, and that spells B I G. He was always gettin' into some kind of trouble or other. I always figured we'd get along great, because I get yelled at all the time, too. Anyway, the strip's been around since 1954. That's a whole lot of dog years ago. It was written by a guy named Brad Anderson. That means a lot of those comics were written, and a lot of fans must be out there. So now they've decided to create a whole movie based on Marmaduke. And, guess who got to watch it. That's right. Me, Baby.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on September 7th, 2010
NCIS was a spinoff, of sorts, from the popular military lawyer show JAG. You could say that NCIS is the Order to JAG’s Law. The NCIS is a real government agency that deals with criminal activity inside or involving the US Navy or Marine Corps. The show has proven even more popular than its parent series. Today that means branching out like the CSI and Law & Order franchises have done so well in the past. The next step in the ladder is NCIS: Los Angeles.
The series was previewed in a two-part episode of NCIS entitled Legend. A dead Marine in Washington led to a terrorist cell in LA, where Gibbs and McGee join the LA branch to bring down the bad guys. Here we meet the new characters and get a chance to get comfortable with them. However, by the time the show aired its first episode, there were some pretty major changes for the show already. It's not uncommon and the Legend episode was really a back-door pilot. The location would be completely scrapped. The show would get new digs in a covert building that appears to be a condemned water plant on the outside. I'm not quite sure why a public agency needed a secret hideout, but there it is. The show retained its high-tech look. They have a Minority Report-style computer system which remained the centerpiece of their operations room.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on September 7th, 2010
”A philosopher once asked, ‘Are we human because we gaze at the stars, or do we gaze at them because we are human?’ Pointless, really…’Do the stars gaze back?’ Now that’s a question.”
They do more than gaze in Stardust, a quirky, enjoyable film that’s not the epic tale it’s made out to be. The film adaptation of Neil Gaiman’s graphic novel of the same name, Stardust is a tale about a young man from a small English village who gets caught up in a magical adventure in another realm. With evil witches, fratricidal princes, and a cross-dressing sky-pirate, there’s a lot of fantasy in Stardust, but director Matthew Vaughn’s penchant for Lord of the Rings-style sweeping cinematography creates a canvas much too grand for this simple fairy tale.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Michael Durr on September 7th, 2010
Black Label Society formed officially in 1998 and released their first album Sonic Brew in late October. At first, the record was only received in Japan but later they found an American label in late spring of the following year. They would go on to produce many albums, tour the world and basically generate rock n roll and mayhem wherever they went. Eagle Vision decided to bring concert footage to Blu-Ray from their European Tour in 2005. It is simply called Doom Troopin Live.
In 2005, Black Label Society produced their sixth studio album entitled Mafia. It was a commercial success and sold over a quarter of a million copies. This would be the only record that the band would release under the label, Artemis Records. As per their usual promotion, they toured to sell the album to their die hard fans. This time they traveled to Europe and did a series of concerts. This disc focuses primarily on the Paris Chapter with a few songs from their infamous stop at the Astoria.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Michael Durr on September 6th, 2010
My taste in music is not exactly all over the place. I like rock, hard rock. Sure, I can listen to a country tune or two or dabble in some Mozart but if the bass is bumping and the guitarists are having seizures on the strings, I'm good to go. So when the owner of this site asked if I would do a few music blu-rays as a change of pace, I was worried and excited at the same time. Music in Blu-ray is an amazing experience but if I didn't like the music, not so much. But I was still eager when I opened the first one: Jane's Addiction: Live Voodoo.
It's Halloween. The night of October 31st, 2009. The place is the Voodoo Experience (also called Voodoo fest) in New Orleans. On the previous night, such acts as the Silversun Pickups and Eminem took the stage. The headline act for tonight is Kiss but there is one other band that needs to take the stage. Their name is Jane's Addiction. The band lineup is a little surprising but the sound is simply electric.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on September 1st, 2010
In the late 1960's three musicians came together with an idea. It was a somewhat unconventional idea. Roy Wood and Bev Bevan were part of the band The Move when they met up with Jeff Lynne from The Idle Race. The three hit it off almost instantly. So much so that before long Lynne would also become a member of The Move so that he could work with Wood and Bevan. But that wasn't going to be the ultimate goal. That unconventional idea that the three had involved combining rock and roll with classical music. Of course, other bands had done orchestral arrangements, most notably, The Beatles. But their idea was to fuse the concepts more integrally together. The idea was to have live violins and cellos as part of the actual band itself. Lynne would once describe the concept as picking up where The Beatles had left off. Together they invented a new way to rock "n" roll. That invention was The Electric Light Orchestra, or ELO to the fans.
The band started with a bang. The first album, while not a huge commercial success received more than its share of attention. But band squabbles would almost doom this ambitious project before it got off the ground. Roy Wood left the band to form his own and took some members with him. It looked bleak for the struggling concept. But that might have been the best thing that could have happened. Jeff Lynne would become the controlling force and the band would go on to enjoy commercial success to go along with those critical appreciations. The band's second album was called No Answer, but it wasn't really intended to carry the title. A secretary with the record company was assigned to contact Jeff Lynne to get the correct album title. He wasn't home. Naturally, the secretary made the notation "no answer". The notation was misinterpreted as the album title, and the mistake would be a permanent entry in the band's discology.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on September 1st, 2010
The longest running show in prime time doesn’t feature cops, doctors, or lawyers. It’s hard to believe that The Simpsons have existed as long as the Fox network. While the series didn’t really begin until Fox’s second year, the characters were part of The Tracey Ullman Show, which did start the first year of Fox. Who could have guessed that an animated short from an otherwise horrible and doomed variety show would explode into such a phenomenon? The Simpsons have not only dominated the pop culture; they have placed everything else into context with their show. Like Doonesbury, it could be said that the only thing worse than being made fun of on The Simpsons is not being made fun of on The Simpsons. With that said, you’ll understand my warm feelings and appreciation for this show.
This thing has been on forever. Still, it never gets old. The show has a charm yet edginess to it that can’t be beat. Let’s not forget that while kids might love the show, this stuff is intended for adults. We’re not talking South Park trash talk here; every episode is a veritable treasure hunt of subtle and not-so-subtle cultural references. Even after seeing an episode several times, it’s not uncommon for me to find something that I missed before.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on September 1st, 2010
"On October 6, the planet blacked out for two minutes and seventeen seconds. The whole world saw the future..."
For all intents and purposes, it appears just like any routine fall day throughout the world. People are busying themselves about their normal concerns. Suddenly everyone on the planet blacks out for exactly 2 minutes and 17 seconds. Just think about that part for a moment. Every human being collapses at the same moment. Think about all of the things that people are doing at any given moment. Driving cars. Flying planes. Performing delicate surgical procedures, or just walking across the street. Pretty much any activity is going to become dangerous as the blackouts occur. 20 million people worldwide die in the event.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on August 31st, 2010
Vampires are hot right now, at least that's what everyone keeps telling me. The truth is that everyone is absolutely wrong. Vampires are not hot right now. They've always been hot. Since at least since 1897 when Bram Stoker took the world by storm in one of the earliest examples of a horror novel. Of course, I'm talking about Dracula. Dracula, as a character, might have been based on the historical figure of Vlad the Impaler, but the vampire legend that Stoker perfected in Dracula is pure fiction. Still, it wasn't quite Stoker's novel that created the vampire craze, it merely lit the fuse. The explosion came just a couple of decades later with the Broadway production and Universal film based on the story. It was first on stage and then in the very first talkie horror film where Bela Lugosi would change Bram Stoker's rules and become the iconic symbol for vampires for nearly a century and beyond. Stoker's Dracula was a hideous, wretched creature who was not going to be seducing any ladies without his supernatural powers. It was Lugosi who delivered the vampire in the evening coat and cape. Here we see the cultured, handsome man who doesn't even need all of that vampire mojo to get the ladies. Of course, it doesn't hurt, and between the novel, play, and film vampires got hot, and they still are.
We've all seen the young girls out there swooning over the Twilight films and books as if the whole vampire idea had just been invented. It shouldn't come as too much of a surprise that the television networks and cable channels would be taking notice. No, it's not the swooning teenagers, it's the green being transferred from their pockets to their coffers. But vampires on television are not new either. Dracula itself was a series. In the 1960's and 70's there was Dark Shadows and the vampire Barnabas Collins. I rushed home from school every day to watch that show. Maybe that's why I missed so many homework assignments. I should have tried the "under a vampire's spell" excuse. Tim Burton and Johnny Depp are about to bring that franchise back to life. I can't wait. In the 1970's Kolchak began his monster chasing career going after a vampire or two. Then there was Buffy, and the craze reached another crescendo. The spin-off Angel only made the genre even hotter. Before that there was Forever Knight and The Hunger. I could go on for pages talking about vampires in television and movies. The Underworld franchise gave us Selene, and the sexy female vampire was reborn. Yeah, there were scary ones as well, but I was a bit distracted. HBO is mining vampire gold with yet another series of vampire books in True Blood. If you think this is going to end any time soon, you just haven't lived long enough ... yet.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on August 31st, 2010
Back in 2001 Larry Blamire and his troupe released The Lost Skeleton Of Cadavra. Blamire was obviously a fan of the science fiction films of the 1950's and decided to take many of those standard elements and pretty much have a blast with the material. The end result was an over-the-top spoof that left you laughing, not because the material was all that funny. You laughed because they sometimes hit those ludicrous devices so perfectly that you have flashbacks to your favorite Mystery Science Theater 3000 episode. The film had all of the clichés including special effects that were anything but special. And it was all done on purpose. It was a stroke of genius, really. They did a low-budget film with all of its deficiencies and made them out to be deliberate.
Now, Blamire and his wacky group of players is back at it ... again. Shout Factory is releasing two films that the team has recently added to the Cadavra legacy. Both films utilize pretty much the same amateur cast with a few seasoned veterans sprinkled in to keep things interesting. Both films are in black & white, for the most part, to maintain the intended atmosphere.
![Marmaduke [Blu-ray] dvd cover art](https://upcomingdiscs.com/ecs_covers/marmaduke-blu-ray-large.jpg)
![Stardust [Blu-ray] dvd cover art](https://upcomingdiscs.com/ecs_covers/stardust-blu-ray-large.jpg)
![Black Label Society: The European Invasion - Doom Troopin' Live [Blu-ray] dvd cover art](https://upcomingdiscs.com/ecs_covers/black-label-society-the-european-i-large.jpg)
![Jane's Addiction: Live Voodoo [Blu-ray] dvd cover art](https://upcomingdiscs.com/ecs_covers/janes-addiction-live-voodoo-blu--large.jpg)
![The Simpsons: The Thirteenth Season [Blu-ray] dvd cover art](https://upcomingdiscs.com/ecs_covers/the-simpsons-the-thirteenth-season-large.jpg)
![The Vampire Diaries: The Complete First Season [Blu-ray] dvd cover art](https://upcomingdiscs.com/ecs_covers/the-vampire-diaries-the-complete-f-large.jpg)
