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Venture Bros., the – Season One

Posted in Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on May 27th, 2006

The Adult Swim series of shows from Cartoon Network are sometimes amazingly hilarious, sometimes overly bizarre, but always creative. While some of the shows, such as Robot Chicken are roll-on-the-floor funny, others are just too strange for me. Lucky for me, The Venture Bros. falls into the first category. While not a constant source of laughter, this show is always clever and contains a few big laughs in each episode.

The Venture brothers are the sons of a moderately-successful scientis…
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Penn & Teller: Off the Deep End

Posted in Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on May 25th, 2006

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I’ve never met anybody who doesn’t like Penn and Teller. I’m not saying that those people don’t exist, I’m just saying that I have never met them. Penn is loquacious and amusing, Teller is the ultimate straight man, and their magic almost always catches the viewer off guard. Many times, the understood premise of the trick itself actually turns into something different by the time the performance is over.

Unfortunately, this disc has some problems that makes it one of their worst performances. The concept is a…
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Chappelle’s Show – Season 2 Uncensored

Posted in Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on May 24th, 2006

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Dave Chappelle and I are the same. Well, he’s a year younger than me. And he’s black. But we’re both from Washington DC, but I live in the suburbs, and usually never go into the downtown area unless someone dared me. But he’s a lot funnier than me, and Comedy Central decided to give him a 12 episode commitment on their network after seeing him in such films as Half Baked, Screwed and Undercover Brother.
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NewsRadio – The Complete Fourth Season

Posted in Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on May 24th, 2006

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There really was (and still is) no justice in the world when a show like NewsRadio was perennially ignored so often during the mid and late ’90s. I mean seriously, get a comic mind from Canada’s The Kids in the Hall (Dave Foley), another from the States Saturday Night Live (Phil Hartman), and yet another from the dark comedy Ben Stiller Show (Andy Dick) and give them some sitcom material to work with, and the result can be nothing but laughs.
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Mystery Science Theater 3000 Collection, Vol. 9

Posted in Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on May 22nd, 2006

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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 DVD’s. 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 couple of robot pals. Together they watch the films from the front row, constantly ranting throughout.
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Lost in La Mancha

Posted in Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on May 20th, 2006

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Before we get into it, just a quick recommendation to check out “Making Movies” by Sidney Lumet, the director of Network, Dog Day Afternoon and 12 Angry Men. While it’s a quick read at 220 pages, it talks about dealing with the actors, rehearsal, a day on the set, and other various forms of a production, and includes stories that happened on his sets also. It’s an intriguing book, worth checking out at your local bookstore. A “Ryan’s Book Club” pick, if you will.
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Hill Street Blues – Season 2

Posted in Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on May 19th, 2006

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In the first season review of Hill Street Blues I talked about the Steven Bochco family tree of producers and show runners that got their start on this show. This season does a lot to remind us that a great many actors made their mark with this program. Such future stars as Danny Glover, David Caruso, Brent Spiner, and Dennis Dugan all made their first heavy mark on Hill Street Blues. Dugan’s Captain Freedom episodes are some of the most remembered shows of the series run. This particular arc is a great example of how the show could be funny, emotional, and action packed, and still have more heart than any show on at that time.
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Wings: The Complete First and Second Seasons

Posted in Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on May 16th, 2006

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What’s a boy to do when he is called into work and has to work a graveyard shift and is virtually disallowed to access the internet? Why, watch the first and second seasons of Wings of course, and thoroughly enjoy the wild antics of the folks in an airport on Nantucket Island. You have Joe (Tim Daly, Return to Sender), the uptight anal retentive serious one, along with his younger brother (and general goofball) Brian (Steven Weber, At First Sight). Together they own and operate Sandpiper Air, a sleepy small airline with one plane.
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Wildboyz – The Complete Second Season

Posted in Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on May 16th, 2006

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Perhaps the folks at MTV thought that Wildboyz was doing so well, that they figured that maybe they should fly the boys out to even more remote locations, but that they should include some old Jackass members also. And sure enough, in the second season of Wildboyz, both Wee Man and Johnny Knoxville show up for guest starring roles and accompany the boys as they travel to Indonesia, Africa, Brazil and Costa Rica, to name a few places.
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Dinosaurs – The Complete First and Second Seasons

Posted in Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on May 15th, 2006

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Jim Henson was a creative genius. Who among us hasn’t grown up with his immortal Sesame Street characters? In the years leading up to his untimely death from pneumonia, The Henson Creature Shoppe had begun to expand out of its Muppet roots. The Dark Crystal was an amazing breakthrough in puppetry technology. One of Henson’s last ideas was about a family of dinosaurs. Sadly, Henson passed before his vision could be fully realized. Fortunately for us his son Brian has continued the Henson tradition, beginning with Dinosaurs.
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Freedomland

Posted in Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on May 15th, 2006

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Synopsis

Her hands covered in blood, a distraught-beyond-coherence Julianne Moore wanders into a hospital with a story of being carjacked in a predominantly black housing project area. Detective Samuel L. Jackson, assigned to the case, learns from her that her young son is apparently still in the car. Given that her brother is a cop in the adjoining white area, all hell breaks loose and racial tensions threaten to send an explosive situation into terminal meltdown. But the question is whether there i…
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Closer, The – The Complete First Season

Posted in Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on May 13th, 2006

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Like it or not, you can’t talk about this show without talking about the C.S.I. phenomenon. The extreme popularity of that single show has launched an entire genre of hour-long police investigation shows that are showing up on every network, every night. There are now three different C.S.I. programs on the air, as well as military crime programs, FBI profiler programs… even a mathematical approach to crime solving with Numbers.

The latest show in this trend is The Closer, a TNT …
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Life Goes On – The Complete First Season

Posted in Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on May 10th, 2006

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Sam: Hey, I recognize you.

Andrew: Oh, did you go to Columbia High?

Sam: No, not from high school, from TV. Didn’t you play the retarded quarterback?

Andrew: Yeah.

Sam: Are you really retarded?

Andrew: No.

Sam: Ooh, great job man! I really thought you were retarded. I mean, you’re better than that Corky kid and he’s actually retarded. If there was a retarded Oscar you would win, hands down, kick his ass!

– G…
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If Only

Posted in Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on May 10th, 2006

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If Only is a romantic drama, which too often goes for the cheapest emotional reaction out of its viewers, without incorporating logic or common sense into such decisions. Jennifer Love-Hewitt and Paul Nicholls star as a couple of young lovers, who represent the prototypical female and male, with very little surprises in their characterizations. In the beginning, we see Nicholls is a bit invested in his work, and, while adoring his singer-songwriter girlfriend, he instinctively keeps her and the rest of the wor…
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Short Films of David Lynch, The

Posted in Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on May 9th, 2006

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Synopsis

Spanning 1966 through 1995, these are six short features covering David Lynch’s career from is very beginning to his current position as one of the most important voices in American cinema. The shorts are, in order: “Six Men Getting Sick,” “The Alphabet,” “The Grandmother,” “The Amputee” (two versions), “The Cowboy & The Frenchman” and “Lumière.” As one might expect from Lynch, there is a pretty heavy nightmare quotient here. The first three films have a lot of animation, and the result is n…
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Nanny – The Complete Second Season, The

Posted in Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on May 9th, 2006

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Fran Drescher, the nasally, whiny-voiced beauty we all either love or hate, returns in The Nanny – The Complete Second Season, and the show hits its stride, if you’re of the belief it ever had one. With mileage out of the mutually aloof Fran Fine-Maxwell Sheffield (played by Charles Shaughnessy) relationship, The Nanny does manage a few chuckles, even from someone such as myself. Let’s make things clear right out of the gate: I’m not a Nanny fan. If I had free reign to decide on everything that w…
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Big Momma’s House 2

Posted in Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on May 3rd, 2006

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Synopsis

FBI agent Martin Lawrence has given up the dangers of field work because of his family responsibilities. Now he’s a safety mascot. But when his first partner is killed, Lawrence surreptitiously dons his Big Momma persona gain, posing as a nanny in the family of the chief suspect, a man who is developing software that could compromise national security.

All of the above, of course, is mere pretext to set up all sorts of kute kid komedy as Big Momma tries to play nanny, and romantic …
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Mercenary for Justice

Posted in Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on April 30th, 2006

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Honestly, does the world really need another Steven Segal movie? I think what’s even more depressing than the thought of another Segal flick is the fact that he has attached himself to the project as an executive producer. Clearly, this is the failed actor’s latest attempt in an ongoing quest to regain the successful film career he enjoyed in the 90’s. Of course, his string of hits ended for a very good reason. Sure, there will always be a place for the big, dumb, mindless action movie. The thing is, even mindless ac…
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Dumbland

Posted in Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on April 29th, 2006

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Best guess, this is David Lynch’s way of showing how crude and tasteless many modern animated shows are. Maybe by creating one of these shows at the truly lowest possible denominator, Lynch is trying to make an artistic comment on what the American public freely accepts as quality entertainment. Shows such as Beavis and Butt-Head have been mocked for their poor animation quality. South Park has frequently been mentioned when strong language is the topic of discussion. This series hits an all-new low in…
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Adventure of Sherlock Holmes’ Smarter Brother, The

Posted in Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on April 28th, 2006

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The Adventure of Sherlock Holmes’ Smarter Brother has everything that Young Frankenstein had except Mel Brooks (although he does make a very brief vocal cameo). With the combined comedic genius of Gene Wilder, Madeline Kahn, and Marty Feldman, how could this film go wrong? Like Young Frankenstein, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s Sherlock Holmes offers a rich classical mythology to mine for material. A wonderful supporting cast featuring the likes of Dom Deluise can’t miss, right? No so elementary, my dear Watson. Focus. …
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Teddy: Live in ’79

Posted in Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on April 28th, 2006

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Teddy Pendergrass, one of the lesser known soul rebels of the seventies, comes to DVD in this lackluster edition, which purports to be 80 minutes – but that’s only true if you factor into the running time the one bonus feature. This fact could be a detriment to fans of Teddy’s music. For me, however, it was a relief to discover the actual concert only ran about an hour. There was nothing here to justify the man’s status as some kind of legend, as his audience interactions and movements on stage were limited in scope …
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Sentinel – The Complete First Season, The

Posted in Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on April 26th, 2006

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I must first admit that I never saw The Sentinel when it originally aired in the 90’s. I guess this one never made my radar. It’s basically a cop show with a somewhat sci-fi or maybe paranormal twist. It seems that Jim Ellison’s (Burgi)plane went down in the jungles of South America. While the crash killed his crew, he not only survived, but somehow obtained strange super powers. The idea is that this ancient jungle tribe develops a “sentinel” to be their guardian. For years Ellison protected the village before his…
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Be Still

Posted in Disc Reviews by David Annandale on April 26th, 2006

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Synopsis

Not much to is. This is one larger film and a series of shorter ones (though they are all of a piece) extolling the virtues of contemplative prayer, which, it appears, consists in sitting quietly and listening to God, rather than speaking yourself. The whole thing drips in every “inspirational” cliché you can imagine (lots of shots of parks, clouds, sunsets, gentle spring rains, and so forth). Oddly, for a piece that’s supposed to help viewers practice being quiet, some of the speakers here …
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Dr. Dolittle 3

Posted in Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on April 26th, 2006

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Dr. Dolittle 3 is yet another unnecessary direct-to-DVD sequel of a film, whose glory has long since passed. Young actress Kyla Pratt takes center stage as the next generation of Dolittle to inherit the gift – or curse – of hearing animals speak. At the outset of the film, she is ashamed of her gift, and her lineage. But when she is sent to an old family friend’s ranch for the summer, she begins to see that a talent is what you make of it. Along with telegraphed comedy, lightweight rivalries, and a budding rom…
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Dawson’s Creek – The Complete Sixth Season

Posted in Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on April 25th, 2006

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Dawson’s Creek follows the lives of Dawson Leery (James Van Der Beek) and his friends, as they struggle through their formative years and – in this final season – search for their places in the adult world. The first episode pulls a cruel tease in finally putting Joey (Katie Holmes) and Dawson together before the rug is pulled out from under their love affair the very next episode. Some might say it’s a decision from which the season never recovers – I say the show never had its footing to begin with. Plagued …
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