Posted in: Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on November 20th, 2013
"Space... the final frontier. These are the voyages of the starship Enterprise. Its continuing mission, to explore strange new worlds. To seek out new life and new civilizations. To boldly go where no one has gone before."
What a difference a couple of years makes. Rick Berman was pretty stubborn about wanting The Next Generation to live on its own without connecting to the original show, perhaps as much as the fans would have liked. There was, of course, the cameo by DeForest Kelley in the pilot, but he was never called McCoy, only Admiral. Yes, we knew who he was, and his interplay with Data was intended to remind us of his relationship with a certain Vulcan. The original Enterprise would be referenced in The Naked Now that first season. It was the only direct sequel of an original episode to air. When season 3 brought the return of Mark Lenard as Sarek, Berman was insistent that no mention of Spock or the original show be made. After a barrage of pleadings from the writers he relented... slightly. He decreed that Spock's name could only be mentioned once and no other connections be in the script.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by William O'Donnell on November 16th, 2013
In the Florida everglades, the Wedloe family have a 650-pound tame bear for a loyal pet. A very young Clint Howard stars as Mark, the son of a game warden (played by Dennis Weaver),who leads Ben around on several adventures and merry mishaps. Though “merry” may be the wrong word as Mark and Ben encounter their fair share of real life dangers.
Right off the bat, this show leaps into stories that are far more intense than one might expect from a family program from the 1960s. In the debut episode, the entire community faces a deadly hurricane. The characters spend the entire hollaring at eachother in the driving rain as things get torn apart around them. As the season continues, the high stakes hardly let up as members of the Wedloe family are threatened by poachers, wrestle with alligators, get trapped by wild fire, and square off against a huge number of malevolent hunters, voodoo doctors, and wildlife in every single episode. At one point little Mark is trying to help Burt Reynolds get out of a crashed plane while fighting away a tiger with a fire extinguisher...you read that correctly. Each tale was always moral and wholesome, but never exactly soft.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by William O'Donnell on November 13th, 2013
Charles Dickens' Christmas Carol is vastly re-imagined with characters from Dora. Swiper replaces Scrooge as the one who travels through time in order to learn the true meaning of Christmas. This special is twice the length of a normal episode.
Music and singalongs have always been a part of the Dora the Explorer experience but this particular special is formatted more like a typical children's musical. There are fewer moments where the characters do that unnerving pause in anticipation of the audience to talk to the television, and more time spent on songs. Sometimes they merge the audience participation/pausing moments with the music during a reoccuring tune about swiper not swiping. Repetition is a staple of children's programming...it can also be a device that forges madness in the mind of adult viewers.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on November 7th, 2013
"I like people to go away from a Queen show feeling fully entertained, having had a good time. I think Queen songs are pure escapism, like going to see a good film - after that, they go away and say that was great, and go back to all their problems" - Freddie Mercury
I had that very pleasure back in the late 1970's when I attended a Queen concert at the old Spectrum in Philadelphia. It was one heck of a show. Freddie was flamboyant as always. They were also quite good. I still remember an acoustic set they did in the middle. Take away the "plugs" and you really find out what kind of musicians you're dealing with. Apparently, pretty good ones.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by William O'Donnell on October 30th, 2013
There are five clans of Vampires that are secretly living amongst humans. Said secret is maintained by a code of conduct called the “Masquerade” which states that vampires can never reveal themselves to a human; nor can they “embrace” (bite and convert) a human without approval from the highest council. Defying this means that your lengthy life is forfeit. A detective discovers the truth about the Masquerade when his girlfriend loses her life after defying these very rules, and he sets out to reveal the entire realm of vampires in San Francisco.
The vampire clans resemble mafia crime syndicates. They operate in secret to both hide their supernatural identities, and hide their financial operations; many of which have spanned centuries. So the story of the detective seeking to uncover the vampire world operates on different levels; revealing the truth behind the murders and other crimes these groups are committing, along with the aforementioned exposure of their supernatural lineage.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by William O'Donnell on October 12th, 2013
Jenna Hamiton (played by Ashley Rickards) is looking to make a great impression in high school but things get off to a dreadful start. After breaking her arm in a bathroom accident (sounds less gross than it is), rumors spread throughout her new school that she attempted to commit suicide. She has plenty of attention but not the sort she wanted. Now her quest is to take the misunderstanding and turn into an opportunity to shine. Cris-attunity! (as Simpsons fans would say).
This shows sets itself up to resemble a teenage Sex and the City, with the main character's narration coming from her writing. Jenna has a blog whose name was “Invisible Girl” until she took an optimistic turn and renamed it “That Girl Daily” (by Season 2 she reveals her true name in the blog's name and continues to post with total exposure). This is the thesis for the show and the method in which it tries to be relatable. Teenagers do not want to be invisible, but they don't want to be an embarrassment either. Jenna is this statement in a nutshell. She lost her virginity at summer camp, but the boy she lost it to ignores her until she takes a stand (or a stage, more accurately) and owns her own awkwardness. From that point on she hurdles over and around the odd machinations of her friends, family and oddball guidance councillor.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by J C on October 10th, 2013
During his mid-20th century prime, Danny Kaye was one of the greatest entertainers in the world. He was a terrific actor, singer, comedian and dancer. Not bad for a guy who couldn’t read a note of music and never took a single dance class. On the Riviera is not Kaye’s best (nor his best-known) movie; that title belongs to White Christmas, The Secret Life of Walter Mitty or Hans Christian Andersen. However, this soufflé-light musical comedy — now making its Blu-ray debut courtesy of Fox — is a nice showcase for Kaye’s considerable talents.
Kaye stars as Jack Martin, a small-time nightclub performer on the French Riviera. The actor also stars as Henri Duran, a celebrated playboy pilot who just completed a record-setting trip around the globe. Jack notices the uncanny resemblance he bears to Henri and begins impersonating him during his nightclub routine. (The result is a showstopper, and the movie’s best musical number: “Rhythm of a New Romance.”) When Henri is forced to be in two places at once to preserve an important financial deal, Jack is hired to impersonate the famous French pilot during a pivotal dinner party. Can Jack maintain the ruse alongside Henri’s cynical wife Lili (Gene Tierney) while keeping his own girlfriend Colette (Corinne Calvet) happy?
Posted in: Disc Reviews by J C on September 23rd, 2013
“To begin with, all the incidents and characters in this story might be fictitious, and any resemblance to you or me might be purely coincidental.”
Right off the bat, the unseen, all-knowing narrator of A Letter to Three Wives lets her audience know the characters in the film aren’t the only ones who are about to have their heads profoundly messed with. That sort of smart playfulness is one of the many reasons you should check out this terrific romantic dramedy from legendary writer/director Joseph L. Mankiewicz now that it’s on Blu-ray for the first time.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by William O'Donnell on September 16th, 2013
Half of this story deals with a group of teenage faeries, who are smitten with some cute boys from a neighbouring magical kingdom, trying to connect with said boys. The other half deals with this same group of faeries and boys fighting against a trio of evil witches trying to steal all of the world's “positive magic.” In both halves there is a lot of girlish giggling, butterfly fluttering and sparkly colours....the enemy of any diabetic epileptic.
The plot wavers between flighty (pun sort of intended) teen romance, where the faeries focus their magical powers on obtaining cute-boys and cute-animal companions, and a action-fantasy filled with large scale battles with nightmarish monsters, complete with mass destruction of buildings, swordplay and vicious exchanges of energy blasts.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by J C on August 19th, 2013
All Best Picture winners are not created equal. Some of them achieve cinematic immortality, while others are viewed as outright travesties. Then there’s the group of Oscar winners who have arguably suffered a fate worse than the derision and mockery of movie fanatics: the forgotten Best Picture winners. Cavalcade — described in this Blu-ray’s commentary as “not a particularly well-remembered Academy Award winner” — certainly falls in that category.
“This is the story of a home and a family; history seen through the eyes of a wife and mother whose love tempers both fortune and disaster.”
