Posted in: Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on July 1st, 2007
Synopsis
Timothy Dalton might have endured a bit of grief for his short tenure as James Bond, enduring comments equating him to Connery and Moore plagued his two film run, with this one being the last. However, this one was quite the doozy, and almost in the area of “forgotten gem” status.
Written by Richard Maibaum (The Man With the Golden Gun) and producer Michael Wilson, and directed by John Glen (A View to a Kill), Dalton as Bond finds himself as the Best Man to the wedding of lo...
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on June 29th, 2007
As you might imagine, I am often asked for my opinion on the films I see. Inevitably I’m called upon to compare the film with some other work, which is at best quite unfair and at worst simply impossible to do. But I’ve gotten good at the game. So let us play it now. We’ll call Neverwas One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest meets Alice In Wonderland. Unfair, some might say, for they are actually the very same story. When you look at it carefully enough, they really are, although important differences do exist. My point i...
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on June 28th, 2007
Eddie Murphy has a ton of films under his belt. If you’re like most folks, his antics have long ago become tired and worn out. Come with me now to a time when Murphy was young and full of energy. Trading Places was really only Murphy’s second film after 48 hours. In Trading Places, we get vintage Eddie Murphy. You can tell he was still hungry. Today he simply calls too many performances in. Dan Aykroyd was also at a turning point in his own career. It hadn’t been too long since he lost his longtime partner Jim Belu...
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on June 28th, 2007
I’ll admit it. I was taken in by The Life and Hard Times of Guy Terrifico, for about five minutes. I’m not a follower of the country music scene, so it didn’t really bother me that I had never heard of Guy Terrifico before. The box art explained he came and went in the early 70’s, when I was just a kid myself, so none of this was the least bit suspicious to me at all. The film opens believably enough with Kris Kristofferson on stage dedicating his next song to this Guy Terrifico. When we get to that first interview...
Posted in: Disc Reviews by David Annandale on June 28th, 2007
Synopsis
This is an eclectic mix of SpongeBob shorts, with no real common theme. So there’s a humorous safety bit about boating with SpongeBob wreaking havoc on the streets, SpongeBob and Patrick trying to find the nerve to ride a terrifying roller coaster (this is a highlight), Squidward undergoing a personality shift, and so on. All good fun, but not as many hysterical home runs as on some other collections. There are seven pieces altogether, totalling 83 minutes.
Audio
T...
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on June 27th, 2007
Synopsis
In slowly but surely wrapping up my reviews of each and every Ultimate Edition James Bond title on DVD, coming to Thunderball, a sect of people say that this is the quintessential film for the man who quintessentially personified James Bond. So in his fourth outing as the man who likes martinis, cars and women, he encounters a large swath of them all over two hours.
Based on Ian Fleming’s story and directed by Terence Young (From Russia With Love), this installment in the se...
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on June 27th, 2007
It was the final hours of the Civil War, and incompetent Captain Parmenter (Ken Berry) gave off a sneeze and sent his men in the wrong direction. By sheer luck the enemy was there and forced to retreat, making Parmenter a hero of sorts. His reward was to be placed in command of the frontier outpost Fort Courage. And that’s the set-up for F Troop. In the first season this story was told in the opening credits, but these were cut short for season two and beyond. Westerns have not traditionally been good fodder for co...
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on June 27th, 2007
Mission Impossible didn’t really enter into its by now famous format until this, the second season. The IMF team was run by Daniel Briggs, played by Steven Hill. Hill was never really happy and left after the first season, citing a refusal to work on the Sabbath as his reason for leaving. While Hill was never bad in the role, his departure was our gain. Peter Graves immediately stepped up as the iconic Mr. Phelps, and Mission Impossible as we know it was born. I should add a word of caution and say this is really ...
Posted in: Disc Reviews by David Annandale on June 27th, 2007
Synopsis
There isn’t a lot that connects these films, other than the fact that they are all budget-conscious SF and were released in 1958. All are joys for fans of the genre, however.
The Giant Behemoth was director Eugene Lourié’s second giant-dinosaur-on-the-loose film, after The Beast from 20,000 Fathoms (1953) and before Gorgo (1960). It is also the weakest of the three, but not without its charms. Signs of an intensely radioactive being are proliferating on the Eng...
Posted in: Disc Reviews by David Annandale on June 25th, 2007
Synopsis
An undersea earthquake leads to the loss of an undersea lab. There is, however, no sign of the wreckage, and so it is presumed that the lab slid deep into a trench. In the faint hope that there might be survivors, the submersible Neptune descends into the depths, where it encounters all sorts of gigantic sealife.
In my review of Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea, I said it was the most idiotic sub movie out there. I stand by that, but The Neptune Factor keeps the...
