diabolikdvd.com.jpg

1.78:1 Widescreen

Dollhouse: Season One (Blu-ray)

Posted in Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on August 6th, 2009

Buy at Amazon.com

“Nobody has everything they want. It’s a survival pattern. You get what you want, you want something else, something more extreme, something more specific, something perfect….”

A Joss Whedon universe is always a strange and fantastical place to visit. It doesn’t matter if it’s populated by vampires and demons or space cowboys. If Whedon’s name appears anywhere on the credits, you know you’re going to be in for one hell of a ride. It’s been a little while since Whedon’s been back in the saddle. His most recent series, Firefly, was fraught with problems with the network. It was very badly handled, and the show died an undeserved swift death after just a few episodes.
Read More

Torchwood: Children of Earth

Posted in Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on August 5th, 2009

Buy at Amazon.com

“There’s one thing I always wanted to ask Jack back in the old days. I wanted to know about that Doctor of his, the man who appears out of nowhere and saves the world, except sometimes he doesn’t. All those times in history where there was no sign of him, I wanted to know why not. But I don’t need to ask anymore. I know the answer now. Sometimes The Doctor must look at this planet and turn away in shame.”

It all started some decades ago with the BBC’s immensely popular television series, Dr. Who.
Read More

Labor Pains (Blu-ray)

Posted in Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on August 5th, 2009

Buy at Amazon.com

As a kid, I was a huge Lost In Space fan. We loved Dr. Smith in particular and would go around our neighborhoods moaning, “The pain, oh the pain” in some mock imitation of the deliciously bad character. I think I finally know what he was talking about. I’m a man, and so I won’t even begin to pretend that I can understand what labor pains feel like. I believe it when I’m told there’s no worse suffering in the human experience, except for one. Yes, my gentle female readers, no matter how much torture childbirth might be for you
Read More

Shark Week: The Great Bites Collection (Blu-ray)

Posted in Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on August 3rd, 2009

Buy at Amazon.com

It just wouldn’t be summer without The Discovery Channel’s Shark Week extravaganza. What started back in 1988 as a themed week of specials has turned into the longest running annual series of programming on cable. Every year The Discovery Channel gives up its normal collection of educational shows to concentrate on that feared predator of the deep. Man’s always had a rather natural, and healthy, fear of sharks, but it was perhaps the 1975 film Jaws that brought all of those primordial fears bubbling to the surface of our pop culture. Since then sharks have taken an almost mythic position in our culture. They invade our fears, but more importantly they fascinate the heck out of us.
Read More

Leverage: The First Season

Posted in Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on August 3rd, 2009

Buy at Amazon.com

“Corporations… They have all the money. They have all the power and they use it to make people like you go away. Right now you’re suffering under an enormous weight. We provide the Leverage.”

I remember seeing like a million ads for this show toward the end of the last football season. If memory serves it was heavily promoted during the Super Bowl. In any case, I had made a mental note to catch it, but it was still several weeks away and I ended up forgetting about it by then. Fortunately, the release of the first season on DVD has given me a second chance for a first look at this intriguing series.
Read More

The Middleman

Posted in Disc Reviews by David Annandale on August 1st, 2009

Buy at Amazon.com

Running for a single season in 2008, this ABC Family production is a humorous pastiche of superheroics and Avengers-style adventure. Natalie Morales plays Wendy Watson, a struggling artist making ends meet as a temp. When she demonstrates incredible unflappability when a monster is unleashed at her current job, straight-arrow superhero the Middleman (Matt Keeslar) recruits her to join him in the fight against all sorts of bizarre menaces. A sampling of titles gives the flavour of the series: “The Boy-Band Superfan Interrogation,” “The Palindrome Reversal Palindrome,” “The Flying Fish Zombification.”
Read More

Green Lantern: First Flight (Blu-Ray)

Posted in Disc Reviews by Michael Durr on July 28th, 2009

Buy at Amazon.com

The Green Lantern character has always been one of my favorite DC comic book heroes, right after the likes of Batman and the Flash. As far as Earth-born GL’s, Hal Jordan has always been first in my heart and even though the John Stewart was shown predominantly in the cartoon series: Justice League Unlimited, it was hard wrapping my head around him as the Green Lantern. I was excited to see that due to recent success with other characters, the people at DC decided to release a direct to disc release for the Green Lantern sub-titled: First Flight.

Read More

Coco Chanel

Posted in Disc Reviews by David Annandale on July 20th, 2009

Buy at Amazon.com

In 1954, Coco Chanel (Shirley MacLaine) unveils her first collection in 15 years. The reception is disastrous. As she struggles to bounce back from the fiasco, she flashes back over her life. The bulk of the film then follows the young Chanel (Barbora Bobulova) and her love affairs, first with a callow playboy (Sagamore Stévenin), then with the Englishman (Olivier Sitruk) who will be the great love of her life. Along the way, we see a little bit of her development as a fashion designer.
Read More

Iron Butterfly – Concert & Documentary Europe 1997

Posted in Disc Reviews by William O'Donnell on July 20th, 2009

Buy at Amazon.com

Unless you were around for Iron Butterfly’s big boom in 1968, you might remember this band best as the composers of that song the organ player plays for 17 minutes in that episode of The Simpsons in which Bart sells his soul. Yes, this is how I knew them for much of my youth, and I thought of them best then too.
Read More

Dragon Hunters

Posted in Disc Reviews by David Annandale on July 9th, 2009

Buy at Amazon.com

In a mythical world, a series of apocalyptic prophecies are coming true. These events presage the awakening of a world-devouring dragon. Dragon hunters are needed more than ever, but all of the knights of yore are dead or insane. The only game in town is a couple of misfits: Lian-Chu, who still bears the trauma of the night his village was destroyed by the dragon, and his friend Gwizdo, a two-bit con artist. They are accompanied by Hector, a strange little scene-stealer who might be a rabbit or a dog. Zoe, the excitable niece of the decrepit and blind king, recruits the motley crew to defeat the evil, and off they go, journeying to the end of the world to face terrible danger.
Read More

Sea Beast

Posted in Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on July 7th, 2009

Buy at Amazon.com

“Believe me, that weren’t no shark.”

Sea Beast began life with the title Troglodyte, but I’m not sure what that had to do with anything on this movie. Perhaps someone just thought it was a clever name, but realizing they didn’t have a clever film to go with it, they decided on the more mundane Sea Beast. Whatever the reason and whatever the title, nothing can change the fact that this is one really bad horror film.
Read More

Tom and Jerry: The Chuck Jones Collection

Posted in Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on July 6th, 2009

Buy at Amazon.com

In the 1930’s and 40’s MGM was trying to get in on the lucrative animation game. The field was dominated at the time by Warner Brothers with their Loony Tunes shorts, and of course, the iconic cast of animated characters coming out of the Walt Disney Studio. For years they had failed to find the right property to take advantage of the market. It wasn’t until the team of William Hanna and Joseph Barbera approached the studio with their first project that the times did change, at least a little, for the fledgling animation department at MGM. The project was far from an original one even for the time. It was a very basic cat and mouse adventure featuring a cat named Tom and a mouse named Jerry.
Read More

Backwoods

Posted in Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on July 6th, 2009

Buy at Amazon.com

“Out here the rules are different.”

Corporate retreats have come a long way from the closed door seminars where you’re asked to fall backwards and trust your colleagues to catch you. Well… the backwards part still applies, but here that describes the locals at the isolated camp where 8 hapless video game company executives are planning a weekend of paintball and bonding. These locals are straight out of Deliverance. (Insert your favorite banjo lick here.)
Read More

Secret Diary of a Call Girl – Season 2

Posted in Disc Reviews by William O'Donnell on July 4th, 2009

Buy at Amazon.com

At first glance, it is quite easy to see why this show has been compared to Sex and the City by many critics, and is about to again by yours truly. Mainly this comparison occurs because of the shows’ similarly humorous approach to sex, never wavering from any sort of topic therein. The first similarly I noticed though was the meta-cinematic use of our heroine Hannah (who escorts under the moniker “Belle”) when she talks to the audience directly. This device was only utilized in Sex and the City’s first season but we still see a similar mix of voice-over narration (which would take over Sex and the City) and the viewer being acknowledged (used more often than not with Secret Diary…).
Read More

Everwood (The Complete Second Season)

Posted in Disc Reviews by Michael Durr on July 4th, 2009

Buy at Amazon.com

Everwood was a fairly long running show that started in 2002 and continued until 2006 for a total of eighty-nine episodes. It ran on the WB and was a casualty of the WB/UPN merger into the CW Television Network. Years later it has shown up on ABC Family and around the globe gaining fans here and there. It’s a serious drama that involves the medical practice of Dr. Andy Brown (played by Treat Williams). Set in the fictional town of Everwood, Colorado (in reality it was a few towns located in Utah), we find ourselves figuring out how a death can alter the lives of everybody in the town and how they struggle to cope.

Read More

The Secret Life of the American Teenager (Season Two)

Posted in Disc Reviews by Michael Durr on June 29th, 2009

Buy at Amazon.com

Teenagers go through a lot. They hit puberty and a multitude of decisions at the same time. Some of them take on adult decisions way too soon such as sex, pregnancy, drugs and just figuring how to fit in. ABC Family is the home of a teenage drama called The Secret Life of the American Teenager which is made by the same people as 7th Heaven which lasted 11 seasons. The show has gained more viewers episode by episode and a copy of the 2nd season showed up in my mailbox to review. We’ll see if the show is complete cheese or hopefully it has a good dose of story telling and family values.

Read More

Lost: The Complete Second Season (Blu-ray)

Posted in Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on June 26th, 2009

Buy at Amazon.com

When the second season of Lost hit the airwaves, expectations were very high. The show enjoyed a very successful first year in the ratings, and many of us were looking to see if the show would suffer the all too common sophomore slump. Lost exceeded our expectations. The show changed dramatically, yet managed to keep us hooked with the same blend of mystery and solid storytelling that made the show such a huge hit to begin with.
Read More

Burn Notice: Season Two (Blu-ray)

Posted in Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on June 26th, 2009

Buy at Amazon.com

“My name is Michael Weston. I used to be a spy until, ‘you’ve got a burn notice’. When you’re burned, you’ve got nothing. No cash, no credit, no job history. You’re stuck in whatever city they decide to dump you in. You do whatever work comes your way. You rely on anyone who’s still talking to you, a trigger happy ex-girlfriend, an old friend who used to inform on you to the FBI, family too, if you’re desperate. Bottom line: Until you figure out who burned you, you’re not going anywhere.”

Burn Notice has all the earmarks of a really great television series. It has Bruce Campbell, and that alone should make it worth watching.
Read More

Lost: The Complete First Season (Blu-ray)

Posted in Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on June 24th, 2009

Buy at Amazon.com

It’s time to go back to the beginning and see how it all began. If you’re a fan, you’ve already seen these episodes, likely several times. You also probably have the DVD sets that have come over the last couple of years. You might be trying to decide if a television show is really worth your while to upgrade to high definition. The answer is a resounding yes. Lost is one of the most innovative series to arrive on network television in quite some time. In an age where the true quality appears to be dominated by cable stations anymore, it’s refreshing to know that there’s a show once in a while that can entertain, thrill, and make you think all at the same time.
Read More

Spinning into Butter

Posted in Disc Reviews by Michael Durr on June 23rd, 2009

Buy at Amazon.com

Racism seems to be one of those words that people like to throw around without a care to meaning or the concept of right and wrong. Many groups of people like to throw around this word for a variety of reasons but mostly to benefit themselves and not help the greater good. Spinning into Butter takes on the task of a white Dean of Students named Sarah Daniels who must examine her own beliefs when a black student named Simon finds racist notes that read “Little Black Sambo” and the aftermath that soon follows. It sounds like the premise for a rather simplistic race relations movie. However, what really comes next is something far different and has a couple of twists to boot.

Read More

Reaper: Season 2

Posted in Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on June 17th, 2009

Buy at Amazon.com

Back in 1998 there was a very promising television series on the Fox Network. Unfortunately, the network never gave it a fighting chance, and it was soon gone as quickly as it had appeared. It was called Brimstone. The idea was that a dead cop (Horton) went to Hell for killing his wife’s rapists. He gets a second chance when the Devil (Glover) offers him his life back if he would become Hell’s bounty hunter. He would capture souls who had escaped from Hell. I loved the show and even participated in its attempts to be reprieved.
Read More

Carnivorous

Posted in Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on June 17th, 2009

Buy at Amazon.com

“Don’t forget that at the end of the day, it’s just a snake, a big messed up snake”.

Boy, if one word of dialog ever summed up a film before, this one does a pretty good job of it. Carnivorous is a low budget answer to the Anaconda series. Throw in the plot from Pumpkinhead and you pretty much have the entire film down, without ever having to have seen it. I wasn’t so lucky.
Read More

The Cleaner: First Season

Posted in Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on June 15th, 2009

Buy at Amazon.com

“William Banks has saved 257 people from addiction to drugs, sex, and gambling. He’s not a cop. He’s not a superhero. He’s just a man with a calling. This is his story.”

What he is, is Benjamin Bratt, returning from the thespian dead as William Banks, better known to the show’s fans as The Cleaner. Bratt hasn’t been seen much since he left the gig at Law & Order. I almost didn’t recognize him here. But, he’s returned in style. The Cleaner has all the characteristics of a police procedural series with a lot more excitement. His methods are often harsh.
Read More

Mistresses, Vol. 1

Posted in Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on June 15th, 2009

Buy at Amazon.com

We’ve seen many instances of American television shows that have been inspired by or directly copied from British shows. This has been particularly true of comedy series and is not a new phenomenon. All In The Family and Sanford And Son from the 1970’s are great examples of American sit-coms based on British hits, Till Death Do Us Part and Steptoe And Son respectfully. Recently The Office has been a successful British import. In the inspired by category you have to include Mistresses. There’s no question that the show comes from a combination
Read More

Nature’s Most Amazing Events

Posted in Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on June 15th, 2009

Buy at Amazon.com

“The power of the Sun drives the seasons, transforming our planet. Vast movements of ocean and air currents bring dramatic changes, create some of the greatest wildlife spectacles on Earth.”

The Planet Earth series from the BBC brought with it critical acclaim and 11 hours of some of the most spectacular video footage from around the globe that we’ve seen on television. It was a particular treat to anyone who was fortunate enough to catch it on an HD broadcast.
Read More

«< 51 52 53 54 55 >»