Posted in: Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on November 28th, 2007
Have you ever watched a recent Robin Williams film and yearned for the days when the actor wasn’t so full of himself and stealing every scene he was in? Well, you’re out of luck, because there was never such a time for Williams; however, you can journey to a time when at least he was hungry and wasn’t so over the top. OK. Even in the days of Mork and Mindy Williams was never capable of reining himself in. Still, I thought I would look back on these episodes with that warm nostalgic feeling I tend to get and just remember the good times. And yes, there were good times. But the more I watched this third year of Mork and Mindy I was becoming all too aware that in 35 years nothing has changed except that the routine has gotten old. Watching Williams prance around with his silly voices and wide eyed faces might have been fresh in the 1970’s, but honestly, haven’t we all had just a little too much of it by now? A television film about the show didn’t present either of the stars in a very positive light, and perhaps it is that image that has tainted the show for me. Whatever the reason, I just didn’t find this stuff nearly as funny as I did 30 plus years ago. Somebody’s matured, and it wasn’t Robin Williams.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on November 26th, 2007
In 1988 the original Land Before Time animated feature enjoyed moderate success at the box office. This is the 12th direct to video sequel in what Universal describes as a billion dollar franchise. A lot has changed since the original film. None of the voice actors from the feature remain. The animation is really Saturday morning cartoon quality and has none of the detail work that Don Bluth gave to the first film. It seems these little gems have been coming out about once a year since around 1994.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Michael Durr on November 26th, 2007
Remember Aquaman? You know, that guy who lived underwater and fought people who would dump hazardous waste in the ocean or people with big helmets named the Black Manta. No, not Charlie the Tuna. Let's try this description. He's King of Atlantis and has giant muscles and was a very popular super hero. Namor, the Sub-Mariner? *sigh* He's the one who sat behind the desk feeding the Justice League information cause simply he had nothing else better to do. Oh Aquaman, quite right. Well he had his own cartoon show in the late 60's that ran for a couple of years with the Superman/Aquaman hour of Adventure (which incidentally only ran half an hour). It featured Aquaman, Aqualad, and a vast array of exciting characters like Tusky the Walrus. I'm not making this up.
Ever sit in a cartoon show and wonder why you keep having a sense of deja vu? The series wasn't so bad, it was quirky and sported the classic 60's superhero feel. The good guys are just spending another day at the office which happens to be the ocean and the evil guys come and mess it up. Biff, bang, boom the bad guys are defeated and the world is good again. But it suffers heavily from using the same frame of animation over and over again. It's no Batfink but it's not very far off. Another thing that Aquaman did was borrow heavily from Batman, the live action show. If I hear "Holy Haddock" one more time or watch as Aqualad act as a complete copy of Robin complete with rather homo-erotic tendencies, I think I might scream. Outside of that, the stories while simple aren't so bad and it is one of those things that is fun; just in small doses.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by David Annandale on November 24th, 2007
In the vein of Underworld, here is another tale of warring supernatural societies. In this case, both sides are werewolves (the “skinwalkers” of the title). The good guys seek to protect a 13-year-old boy who represents a cure for lycanthropy. The bad guys, who like turning into monsters, want to kill him to protect themselves. The weapons of choice in this battle? Fangs, you guess. Nuh-uh. Guns.
Yep, also in the vein of Underworld, gunplay is much more popular than monster mashes, but this effort makes its inspiration look like a masterpiece. The big showpiece gun battle (anatomized at length in one of the features) is a spectacular example of unintentional camp, whose highlight is the Sergio Leone-style drawdown between chief nasty Jason Behr and the boy’s grandmother. You read that right. In a stunning bit of blazing originality, the boy is also asthmatic. Sigh. Add in painfully expository dialogue and an almost total absence of transformed werewolves (who, when they do show up, are in no way worth the wait), and what you have here is a waste of time, which, fortunately, only robs you of just under 90 minutes, and not the 110 threatened on the case.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by David Annandale on November 22nd, 2007
Severin unleashes three more entries from Italy’s long-running sexploitation saga, and the result is another fascinating collection. The quality of the movies themselves up and down, but the good stuff is very good, and the collective result is something that is completely fascinating. Exploitation fans should be over the moon.
I’ve already gone on at length about Black Emmanuelle/White Emmanuelle (1976) elsewhere, so I won’t rehash everything again. Briefly, though, the set-up has Laura Gemser as Emanuelle (let’s stick to the single “m” version to avoid confusion with Sylvia Kristel), here a model instead of a journalist, arriving with SOB photographer boyfriend at the palatial home of some friends in Egypt. Much aristocratic ennui ensues, until Laure (Annie Belle) arrives to tear down everyone’s comfortable illusions. The most nicely shot and intelligently scripted of the films, there is something absolutely mesmerizing about the display of decadent self-loathing proposed here. Writer/director Brunello Rondi’s effort is emphatically a high point of the series, and invites repeated viewings.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on November 21st, 2007
Back in 2001 shortly after the release of the first Shrek I happened to be at a convention with Anne Francis of Forbidden Planet and Honey West fame. She had just taken a young one, I believe it was her nephew, to see the animated blockbuster. To say she was unhappy is an understatement. She was incredibly offended by the toilet humor and had some rather unflattering things to say about pretty much every aspect of the film. Here we are two films later, and I’d have to tell Anne that not much has changed. By my count the film never runs more than 9 minutes without a joke based on feces, farts, or butts. And the truth is it really is a shame, because Shrek is a property too full of talent and startling good CG animation to require that sort of pedestrian humor. I love almost everything about this franchise except the humor.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on November 21st, 2007
A remake of writer/director John Waters' 1988 cult hit, Hairspray is an exhuberant movie musical that builds off the smash-hit Broadway production to recreate the excitement on film for a new generation. Whether it's bigger and better than previous iterations, I can't say, because this DVD release marks my first Hairspray experience. What I can say is if Waters' original and the Broadway show are even half as good, they're definitely worth your time.
If that doesn't convince you, this Hairspray also presents John Travolta as an obese, middle-aged woman — a transformation that required plenty of make-up and, more importantly, allowed Travolta to finally reveal his true self for all to see.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on November 21st, 2007
A remake of writer/director John Waters' 1988 cult hit, Hairspray is an exhuberant movie musical that builds off the smash-hit Broadway production to recreate the excitement on film for a new generation. Whether it's bigger and better than previous iterations, I can't say, because this DVD release marks my first Hairspray experience. What I can say is if Waters' original and the Broadway show are even half as good, they're definitely worth your time.
If that doesn't convince you, this Hairspray also presents John Travolta as an obese, middle-aged woman — a transformation that required plenty of make-up and, more importantly, allowed Travolta to finally reveal his true self for all to see.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on November 21st, 2007
James West (Conrad) was a Union Army vet. He’s the kind of act first think about it later kind of guy. Artemus Gordon (Ross) was a typical con man. He could create the most convincing disguises and was also a master of sleight of hand. Together they worked for the Secret Service in the days of the western frontier. The two of them were the prototype of the future spy. They would use incredible inventions and Bond-like gadgets along with their own skills at trickery to investigate major Federal crimes, often plots against the
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on November 21st, 2007
Fans of classic Christmas films need not worry that their perennial favorites are about to be displaced by this third entry into the Santa Clause franchise. In fact, throughout most of the 92 minute running time of The Santa Clause 3: The Escape Clause I was looking for my own escape clause out of watching the film. However, in the true spirit of Christmas and with a feeling of total dedication to duty, I remained firmly affixed to my easy chair and watched every second of the film. It was all for you, my gentle reader, because I know how crunched your time can get around the holidays. I have made this sacrifice to save you an additional hour and a half to commit to your shopping or preparing cookies for the family. You don’t have to thank me. Just send a few cookies my way or raise a glass of eggnog to me this season. There are far too many truly great holiday films to waste on this tripe.
