1.33:1 Fullscreen

Dame Edna Experience – The Complete Series Two

Posted in Disc Reviews by David Annandale on October 15th, 2004

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Synopsis

The most enduring creation of Barry Humphries (recently the voice of the shark inFinding Nemo), Dame Edna is a “megastar housewife” and this series is “her” version ofa talk show. Guests include Jane Fonda, Douglas Fairbanks Jr., Tony Curtis, Dolph Lundgren,Grace Jones, Princess Michael of Kent, Lauren Bacall and so on. An eclectic bunch, you’ll admit.The interviews are really much more about Edna than they are about her guests: she barely letsthem get a word in edge…
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Wire — The Complete First Season, The

Posted in 1.33:1 Fullscreen, Box Set, Disc Reviews, Dolby Digital 2.0 (English), Dolby Digital 2.0 (French), Dolby Digital 2.0 (Spanish), Dolby Digital 5.1 (English), DVD, HBO, Television by David Annandale on October 13th, 2004

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Synopsis

The setting is Baltimore, and the characters are on both sides of a battle between the cops anda drug-dealing ring. The narrative is that of one long mini-series, with the story spread over all 13episodes, rather than having self-contained units. The principles include Dominic West as thecop determined to bust the ring (though his reasons for wishing to do so are rather self-interested), and the prime target is Larry Gillard, Jr., a mid-level dealer who, after getting off a…
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Lost in Space – Season 2 (Volume 1)

Posted in Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on October 7th, 2004

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There were a lot of changes to Lost In Space in Season 2. The most significant was the decision to begin filming in color. There’s no question the show just looks so much better in color. The second drastic change was the overall mood of the show. Season 1 was much more serious and atmospheric. By the time the second year rolled around it became obvious that the trio of Smith, Will, and the Robot was what was drawing in the viewers. From that point onward most of the stories would revolve around that relationship. Th…
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Barbie As The Princess and the Pauper

Posted in Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on October 7th, 2004

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“Long ago and far away…”

So begins the latest direct-to-video CGI-animated Barbie movie, Barbie as the Princess and the Pauper. Based on Mark Twain’s classic tale, this video/DVD is a modern-retelling of the story. It’s Barbie’s first musical, and it does a fantastic job of both entertaining kids and giving them something to think about.

At the same moment, two identical baby girls were born. One, Princess Anneliese, had everything, while Erika, born to a poor village family, lived a li…
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Aileen Wuornos: The Selling of a Serial Killer

Posted in Disc Reviews by David Annandale on October 6th, 2004

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Synopsis

Nick Broomfield’s first documentary about Aileen Wuornos is a mixture of media clips andinterviews Broomfield conducted with Wuornos and the major figures in her trial, notably heradoptive mother and her unbelievably sleazy and incompetent lawyer (his “Dr. Legal” ad markshim as the legal equivalent of Dr. Nick Riviera). Then there’s the issue of police corruption. Allin all, essential viewing, especially in conjunction with the later film (which shows that, at thevery least said la…
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Ghosts of Edendale, The

Posted in Disc Reviews by David Annandale on October 6th, 2004

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Synopsis

A young couple (Stephen Wastell and Paula Ficara) move from the East Coast to LA withdreams of writing screenplays. Their new house is on a hill that was once part of Tom Mix’sHollywood studio, and all their neighbours are in the movie business in one way or another.Ficara is recovering from a nervous breakdown, and when she begins to see ghosts, she assumes,at first, that she is having a relapse. But then Wastell not only becomes inhumanly productive,banging out a script i…
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War Room, The

Posted in Disc Reviews by David Annandale on October 4th, 2004

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Synopsis

This is a fly-on-the-wall documentary that follows Bill Clinton’s presidential campaign fromDemocratic primaries to the White House. This piece also made stars of sorts out of campaignmanage James Carville and communications director George Stephanopoulos, with the formerbeing an especially larger-than-life character. There is no narration, and pretty good knowledgeof how the American political system works is helpful, not to mention a sharp memory of thecon…
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Breakin’ all the Rules

Posted in Disc Reviews by David Annandale on September 30th, 2004

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Synopsis

Dumped on the night he was to announce his engagement, Jamie Foxx turns his pain into abestselling breakup manual. When his cousin, Morris Chestnut, thinks his girlfriend GabrielleUnion is going to break up with him, Foxx is enlisted to help, which leads to a massive chainreaction of mistaken identities and misunderstandings.

The structure is clearly and consciously that of a classical farce. Though the film neverachieves the proper frenzy requires of a farc…
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You Bet Your Life — The Best Episodes

Posted in Disc Reviews by David Annandale on September 30th, 2004

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Synopsis

Groucho Marx hosted this popular game show for 14 years, and this set collects 18 episodes.The way the game works is as follows: a paired set of contestants comes out, and Grouchobanters with them, having fun with whatever way these people are unusual (and they frequentlyare). Then they are asked a series of questions. If they get four right, they win a thousand dollars,and have the opportunity to return at the end of the show to risk the money for a bigger pr…
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Felicity – Junior Year DVD Collection

Posted in Disc Reviews by David Annandale on September 24th, 2004

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Synopsis

Season Three is the junior year for Felicity, and her initial plans to move in with twogirlfriends take a turn when, on the spur of the moment, she rents a run-down apartment for herand Ben. Other storylines revolve around Richard’s sexuality (is he gay or just very shy?) andSean’s medical condition (which reaches a climax in the episode titled, with macabre humour,“One Ball, Two Strikes”).

In retrospect, what with the flood of box sets hitting the market, a series …
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Garfield – The Movie

Posted in Disc Reviews by David Annandale on September 24th, 2004

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Synopsis

Garfield goes about his happy existence, scarfing lasagna, tormenting the neighbourhooddog, and taking advantage of fellow cat Nermal’s stupidity. Chaos arrives when Jon (BreckinMeyer), hoping to impress vet Liz (Jennifer Love Hewitt) adopts Odie the dog. Garfield doesall he can to remove Odie from the home, but when Odie actually is kidnapped by an evil animalshow host, Garfield heads off to the city on a perilous rescue.

Other than Garfield’s look and an appropria…
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Lost Treasure

Posted in Disc Reviews by David Annandale on September 22nd, 2004

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Synopsis

An art-museum heist leads to the discovery of a map pointing the way to a treasure hiddenby Christopher Columbus. Two groups wind up on a remote island, racing each other and aferocious storm for the treasure. One group is a collection of criminals and crooked cops, eagerto kill our heroes in the second group (Stephen Baldwin, Nicolette Sheridan, and assorted comicrelief).

The director of this dead duck is supposedly someone named “Jay Andrews,” but withinmoments it is pa…
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Law & Order – The Fourteenth Year

Posted in Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on September 21st, 2004

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This box set has restored my faith in television. I actually don’t have cable or satellite or anything, and if you ask anyone that knows me, they’ll tell you that I’m a steadfast refusenik when it comes to watching TV. Law & Order, however, is intelligent, well-cast, and has very high production values – all the ingredients of a winning series, as its ridiculously long run (14+ years) is testament to. Each episode has a well thought-out plot, usually with some sort of twist – and generally without any glaring plot ho…
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Everwood – The Complete First Season

Posted in Disc Reviews by David Annandale on September 20th, 2004

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Synopsis

Treat Williams is Dr. Andrew Brown, a high-powered NYC neurosurgeon. When his wife iskilled in a traffic accident, Williams re-evaluates his life, and the fact that he had put his familyvery much on the backburner with reference to his career, and on the spur of the moment movesthe family to Everwood, Colorado, a small town he was once told was idyllic. So begins a newlife, an effort to avoid making the same mistakes, and an effort to re-connect with his alienatedteenaged s…
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227 – The Complete First Season

Posted in Disc Reviews by David Annandale on September 20th, 2004

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Synopsis

The scene is a middle-class apartment building in Washington, DC. Our characters are Mary(Marla Gibbs), hard-nosed mother; her best friend and gossip-buddy Rose (Alaina Reed); big-time flirt Sandra (Jackée Harry) and the relevant husbands and offspring. It’s the expectedcollection of wisecracks and Issues Moments in an utterly typical, and I would have thoughcompletely forgotten, sitcom.

Audio

The 2.0 sound may be stereo, but it has no surround pres…
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Love Comes Softly

Posted in Disc Reviews by David Annandale on September 20th, 2004

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Synopsis

In a typically golden-hued television version of the 19th Century, Katherine Heigl is movingout to the Western frontier with husband Oliver Macready. They have barely arrived at the site oftheir future homestead when Macready gets himself killed in a horse-riding accident. Widowedand alone, Heigl accepts a proposal from widower and single father Dale Midkiff: to have aplatonic marriage with him in order that the two might help each other out until the followingspring, at wh…
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Dawson’s Creek – The Complete Fourth Season

Posted in Disc Reviews by David Annandale on September 19th, 2004

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Synopsis

Here we go: it’s the senior year for Dawson, Joen, Pacey, Jen and Jack. Joey and Pacey haveto deal with how their new romance (which concluded the last season) is going to affect theirrelationship with Dawson. As before, we follow dreams crash or flower, and the same withrelationships. The writing is stronger than on many dramas, but sometimes is a little too pleasedwith itself — Pacey’s crack in the opening episode about “the land of poorly written melodrama”which also fo…
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Hi-5 Collection

Posted in Disc Reviews by David Annandale on September 18th, 2004

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Synopsis

There are three volumes under review here: “Color Craze,” “Music Magic,” and “GameTime.” Imagine a kids’ show taken over by a co-ed version of the Backstreet Boys, and you’llhave some sense of what these shows are like. A group of 5 young people sing and danceenergetically, and then, in individual segments, each host focuses on a different specialty (onedoes shapes, another movement, and so on). Other segments consists of more song, storytelling,activities, and so on. I won…
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Naked in New York

Posted in Disc Reviews by David Annandale on September 15th, 2004

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Synopsis

Naked in New York follows the ups and downs of the relationship between EricStoltz and Mary-Louise Parker. Stoltz is our narrator. He is raised by deeply neurotic singlemother Jill Clayburgh, and he works out his conflicted feelings about his family in some(apparently) promising plays during his college years. It is hear that he meets Parker, who hashuge talent as a photographer, but is very insecure and self-deprecating about her own talent.Their relationship is put…
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Sealab 2021: Season One

Posted in Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on September 14th, 2004

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Paul McCartney once implored John Lennon’s son Julian to “take a sad song and make it better”. The same basic concept is at work here, but the words “sad song” should be replaced with “bad cartoon”. Sealab 2021 is a clever show from Cartoon Network that takes a bad old show, Sealab 2020, and replaces the dialog track with something much more enjoyable. Think of it as the Mystery Science Theater 3000 approach to creating a cartoon.

Admittedly, the results are sometimes mixed. When a gag …
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Slacker

Posted in Disc Reviews by David Annandale on September 13th, 2004

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Synopsis

Welcome to Austin, Texas. Here, in a series of short, interconnected vignettes, we will meeta huge diversity of characters, who are variously eccentric, insane, disaffected, apathetic,coasting, and so on. Director/writer/producer Richard Linklater’s approach is not unlike RobertAltman taken to the next level. Plot, as such, finally disappears completely. Instead, the camerafollows one character (or set of characters) for a minute or two, then leaves them to trail someonewho…
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Chopping Mall

Posted in Disc Reviews by David Annandale on September 8th, 2004

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Synopsis

A brand new, draconian security system is installed in Park Plaza Mall: steel doors that smalshut at midnight, and roving armed robots who will immobilize any intruder. The night therobots are activated, a group of young folk (who might otherwise be at Crystal Lake, beingslaughtered by Jason), hold an after-hours party in the furniture store. An electrical storm friesthe robots’ circuits, sending them on a killer rampage (and somehow giving them lasercapabilities, it seems)…
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Alfred Hitchcock – The Signature Collection

Posted in Disc Reviews by David Annandale on September 7th, 2004

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Synopsis

Let’s start with the two biggest titles in the collection, which have a life outside thiscollection. North by Northwest is arguably Hitchcock’s greatest exercise in sheer roller-coaster thriller entertainment. As in so many of the director’s films, an insane chain of eventsis set in motion by the smallest of actions, in this case Cary Grant signalling a bell boy just asthe latter is calling out a name. Grant is thus misidentified by the villains, and he is suddenlyrunning fo…
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Miss Lettie and Me

Posted in Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on September 3rd, 2004

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Sometimes, when I am writing my review and I come to the “genre” section, I wish I could find an entry marked “crap”. If there was ever a serious film effort that deserved such an entry, this is it. Let’s be honest… made for TV movies have a bad reputation for a reason. For that matter, so do films that have child actors as their star. This film suffers from the unenviable fate of being both. Mary Tyler Moore and Burt Reynolds may be on the cover, but the kid is in nearly every frame of the film.

This is on…
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Wonder Woman – The Complete First Season

Posted in Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on September 2nd, 2004

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If you think about it, it’s a little surprising that Wonder Woman lasted for three full seasons. To my knowledge, there really hadn’t been any popular female super heroes before this show. Obviously there were a couple peppered around here and there in comics, but as far as movies and television go, it was pretty hard to find any kind of super female hero. Of course, Lynda Carter and that tiny patriotic costume may have had something to do with it.

Almost 40 years later, it’s a little more understandable wh…
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