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The Haunting of Sorority Row

Posted in Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on December 13th, 2010

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The Haunting of Sorority Row has one of those titles that, when you first hear it, you immediately make assumptions about. My initial assumption was that the movie might very well feature a house full of hot young girls in various stages of undress, acting all catty between pillow fights and being menaced by a supernatural entity of some kind. And then I looked down to the bottom of the dvd case and noted that this was produced by Lifetime. Wait, I thought, isn’t a horror movie by the Lifetime Network akin to Spike TV producing a Jane Austen film festival?
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Peanuts Holiday Collection (A Charlie Brown Christmas / It’s the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown / A Charlie Brown Thanksgiving) (Blu-ray)

Posted in Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on December 8th, 2010

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I grew up on the Peanuts creations of Charles M. Schulz. Most of us have, in some way or another. His newspaper comic strip is one of the longest running and most successful strips of all time. The work has been translated into every language currently spoken on the planet. The images of Charlie Brown, Snoopy, Linus, and the rest of the Peanuts gang have appeared on just about any kind of product imaginable. Our pop culture contains too many references to the strip to mention briefly. For me, it was the television specials starting in the mid 1960’s that brought the gang into my life. The classics are running annually, still after nearly 50 years.
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TV Sets: Christmas Treats

Posted in Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on December 7th, 2010

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This single DVD contains 9 Christmas episodes of CBS’s most endearing comedies. All were influential to those that came after. These weekly shows offered that much-needed relief from the pressures of whatever decade they appeared in. The stars are names that everybody knows, even those that appeared 50 years or more ago. Celebrate Christmas with these classic moments in television history.
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Perry Mason: Season Five, Volume 2

Posted in Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on December 6th, 2010

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Erle Stanley Gardner wrote crime fiction, and while many of his 100 or so works are unknown to most of us, he created a character that has become as identified with criminal lawyers as any other in fiction. It was in these crime novels that Perry Mason first faced a courtroom. He developed a style where he would investigate these terrible crimes his clients were on trial for. He would find the real killer, and in what has become a Hollywood cliché, reveal his findings in a crucial moment during the trial.
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Have Gun Will Travel: Season Five, Volume One

Posted in Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on December 6th, 2010

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“’Have gun, will travel’ reads the card of a man. A knight without armor in a savage land…”. Those words ended every episode of Have Gun Will Travel, sung by Johnny Western in a time that such words could be sung without irony. Outside of Richard Boone’s black-clad, craggy Rhett Butler gone-to-seed gunfighter, that song was all I could really recall about this venerable Western from television’s golden age.
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The Fugitive: The Fourth and Final Season, Volume One

Posted in Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on December 6th, 2010

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“The man is Richard Kimble and, not surprisingly, the man is tired. Tired of looking over his shoulder, the ready lie of the buses and freight trains. Richard Kimble is tired of running…”

The elusive “one-armed man” is one of the best known television icons of all time. The plight of Dr. Richard Kimball has been the subject of numerous imitations and even a feature film staring Harrison Ford as Kimball and Tommy Lee Jones as his pursuer. Tim Daly left the ranks of comedy to fill the shoes of Kimball in a very short-lived revival series.
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Fantasia / Fantasia 2000 (Blu-ray)

Posted in Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on December 2nd, 2010

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“How do you do? My name is Deems Taylor, and it’s my very pleasant duty to welcome you here on behalf of Walt Disney, Leopold Stokowski, and all the other artists and musicians whose combined talents went into the creation of this new form of entertainment, Fantasia. What you’re going to see are the designs and pictures and stories that music inspired in the minds and imaginations of a group of artists. In other words, these are not going to be the interpretations of trained musicians, which I think is all to the good.”

Just three years after Walt Disney introduced the world to the animated feature in 1937, Uncle Walt was already experimenting with the idea.
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Bill Moyers: On Faith & Reason

Posted in Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on November 30th, 2010

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Written by Diane Tillis

One hundred writers gathered together at the PEN World Voices Festival in New York to discuss faith and reason. PEN is a literary and humanitarian organization that is composed of poets, essayists, and novelists. Its chief concern at the festival was the threat to freedom of speech and conscience from religious extremism. Writers from diverse backgrounds and perspectives came together in an open forum to discuss their experiences with faith and reason.
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The Real National Treasure

Posted in Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on November 25th, 2010

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When I first put this dvd into my player, I had no idea of how much information and research the Library of Congress was responsible for. I, like most people, assumed that it’s a big building where members of Congress go to conduct research. This may be so, but there is so much more to the Library that it practically boggles the mind, which is the ultimate goal of The Real National Treasure.
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The Chronicles of Narnia (BBC)

Posted in Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on November 22nd, 2010

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“Things never happen the same way twice.”

C.S. Lewis created an incredibly imaginative world when he wrote his Chronicles Of Narnia. The stories were an escape, of sorts, from a war-torn Europe. They integrated elements of Christianity in an effort to provide a semblance of hope in the form of a children’s fairy tale. And like all such tales, the world of Narnia was first and foremost a place of magic and bewilderment. It was a place where fantastic creatures of both good and evil thrived,
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Beverly Hills 90210 — The Final Season

Posted in Disc Reviews by David Annandale on November 17th, 2010

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The teenage soap opera sensation of the 90s came to an end with this, its 10^th season. As one would expect, in a season all about wrapping up storylines, along with various assorted crises, romantic and otherwise, weddings are in the offing. One is supposed to be between Kelly (Jennie Garth) and Matt (Daniel Cosgrove), but is complicated by the brooding presence of Dylan (Luke Perry). Will Kelly and Dylan sort out how they feel about each other (and I note with amusement that the jacket copy describes the relationship between these two twenty-somethings as “age-old”)?
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Still Small Voices

Posted in Disc Reviews by William O'Donnell on November 17th, 2010

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A 911 operator returns to work after suffering the loss of her child during delivery, only to start suffering what seems like hallucinations of a lost girl and a menacing man. Obsessed with what she sees, she starts a journey from New York to Pennsylvania to discover the truth behind her visions.
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Mystery Science Theater 3000: Vol. XIX

Posted in Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on November 15th, 2010

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This series from Comedy Central began as a low-budget film hosting show in a small television station in Minnesota. It was the brainchild of Joel Hodgson. It ended up running for 11 years and a feature film version.

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 DVDs. 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
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Trailer Park Boys – The Complete First Season

Posted in Disc Reviews by William O'Donnell on November 11th, 2010

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The Trailer Park Boys are household names in Canada; the central characters even more than the show itself. The mockumentary TV series has been a cult sensation since its inception in 2001, right through its seven seasons and two feature films. Here is the introduction to Ricky, Julian, Bubbles and other charmers from the Sunnyvale Trailer Park.
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Madeline’s Christmas And Other Wintery Tales

Posted in Disc Reviews by William O'Donnell on November 9th, 2010

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As was the case for my two previous Madeline reviews (http://upcomingdiscs.com/2010/07/20/madelines-great-adventures/ plus http://upcomingdiscs.com/2010/09/21/madelines-halloween-other-spooky-tales/#more-13938) there is little more I could say about the general premise of Madeline. But as I slowly become a connoisseur of this particular character (as this website feels I should be, it seems) I have a few more insights brought on by this Christmas themed edition.
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Scooby Doo Where Are You: Season One V.4

Posted in Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on November 4th, 2010

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Written by Diane Tillis

Jumping Jellybeans! Scooby Doo deserves mention in any article that discusses the best and most-loved animated television series in history.

Scooby Doo has been chronicled in several different media from live-action films, direct-to-DVD films, and the popular 1969 animated series. The earliest material from 1969 – 1970 tends to be the more highly regarded season of the series to date. If you are like me and grew up watching reruns of these episodes on Saturday mornings, the earliest material is also the most loved of the series.
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Dog the Bounty Hunter: Wild Ride Megaset

Posted in Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on November 4th, 2010

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In 2004 DOG the Bounty Hunter first took to the airwaves. On the surface it looked like yet another one of those reality cop shows where camera guys followed the men in blue as they took down the bad guys. Dog wasn’t a cop; in fact he’d spent a part of his life on the other side of the law. Still, he was decked out in a Kevlar vest with a badge hanging from a chain around his neck. The cameras followed him around as he kicked in doors and stalked his criminal prey. But this isn’t really quite your typical reality cop show.
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Colin

Posted in Disc Reviews by Michael Durr on November 4th, 2010

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For me, I’ve never understood the fascination behind zombies unless it involves Milla Jovovich (See Resident Evil). They are undead, lumber around, make strange noises and have a primal urge to eat brains. So, admittedly I saw Colin in my review pile and mostly shrugged. Another zombie movie, *twirl finger*. However, after reading the back jacket, I realized this one had something more: it was told from the zombie’s point of view.
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The Facts of Life — The Complete Fifth Season

Posted in Disc Reviews by David Annandale on November 3rd, 2010

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Season 5 of this most well-meaning of sitcoms finds a major change. With the cast now having aged to the point that not all the girls could reasonably be in high school together, Mrs. Garrett (Charlotte Rae) opens Edna’s Edibles, a bakery-slash-coffee-shop, and the opening two-parter establishes the new status quo (essentially doing whatever is necessary to keep the main characters together). Otherwise, things proceed as they always have, with each story combining standard sitcom hijinks with Important Life Lessons and forays into weighty subjects. So, for example, the friendship between Natalie (Mindy Cohn) and Tootie (Kim Fields) hits a rough patch when Natalie’s reaction to being asked out by Tootie’s cousin is perceived, by Tootie, to be racist.
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Empires Dvd Megaset

Posted in Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on October 26th, 2010

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A&E and History have combined for some of the best educational as well as entertaining programs over the years. Many of those shows have taken close looks at the various civilizations and empires throughout world history. Most of these shows take a look at these civilizations from the inside outward. We’re not talking the litany of facts and accomplishments that we’ve seen on hundreds of documentaries as well as our old high school textbooks. These programs look at the day-to-day life of these cultures and peoples. The accomplishments here are the ones that affected everyday life within these empires.
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Marcus Welby, M.D. Season Two

Posted in Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on October 21st, 2010

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Perry Mason did it for lawyers. Marcus Welby did it for doctors. From 1969 to 1976 and beyond, Robert Young was the face of the television doctor. The actor was so identified with his part that he dealt with fans and their medical questions his entire life following his portrayal of Marcus Welby. In those days there wasn’t a medical doctor on the planet, real or fictional, who was more recognizable than Welby. The show pretty much wrote the book on the television medical drama. It doesn’t matter if your a fan of House, ER, Grey’s Anatomy, or any of a hundred other medical dramas that have come and gone since that time, each of those shows owes more than a little of its existence to Marcus Welby, MD.
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The Mary Tyler Moore Show: The Complete Final Season

Posted in Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on October 21st, 2010

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This is the final seasons, so we are well into the series. Its groundbreaking nature (an unmarried professional woman as a central character) has obviously long since ceased to be a novelty, and the show is, by this point in its existence, what one might call a fixture. This is merely by way of observation, and not a criticism, because the writing remains as strong as ever, and the show has stood up well to the test of time. Not every joke is a winner, of course,
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Great Detectives Anthology

Posted in Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on October 19th, 2010

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A&E has brought together a collection of television episodes from three British series that have featured prominently on the network over the years. The shows each feature one of the greatest detectives in literature. The long-running shows have used the original literary works as the basis for most of the episodes. But long before they were played on television, we knew who they were. The exploits of Sherlock Holmes, Miss Marple, and Hercule Poirot have engaged the minds of mystery lovers for nearly a century now. For the first time, you have the wonderful opportunity to enjoy them at your own leisure,
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Gunsmoke – Season 4 Volume 1

Posted in Disc Reviews by William O'Donnell on October 15th, 2010

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Gunsmoke, in all of its 20 seasons, making it the longest running prime-time drama of all time, has such a strong legacy that it feels odd to review it. Thankfully the challenge is an enjoyable one as the show is at a full head of steam in its fourth season (it was ranked #1 at this time) and each episode is still as engrossing today as it was over 4 decades ago.
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The Maltese Falcon (Blu-ray)

Posted in Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on October 13th, 2010

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“In 1539 The Knight Templars of Malta paid tribute to Charles V of Spain by sending him a Golden Falcon encrusted from beak to claw with rarest jewels — but pirates seized the galley carrying this priceless token, and the fate of the Maltese Falcon remains a mystery to this day.”

What is not a mystery today is the significant role that The Maltese Falcon has played in cinema history. The film itself was a remake. In fact, it was actually Warner’s third attempt to film the Dashiell Hammett novel in a single decade.
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