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DVD

Lennon Naked

Posted in Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on December 9th, 2010

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In December of 1980, John Lennon was gunned down by a crazy man who was trying to get the attention of yet another celebrity. In 2010, the BBC assassinated the man’s character in this dreadful television film called Lennon Naked. I had such high hopes for the film. I rather like star Christopher Eccleston. I enjoyed his take on The Doctor from Doctor Who. He was also quite good in the zombie thriller 28 Days Later with a run as a man who can become invisible on Heroes. What made such a fine actor stoop so low as to take a gig like this is beyond my understanding.
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Avatar (Three-Disc Extended Collector’s Edition)

Posted in Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on December 7th, 2010

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Written by Diane Tillis

The world of Avatar has been a part of James Cameron’s dreams for over a decade. When he initially approached studios to pitch the concept, they denied him the opportunity, citing the huge budget that would be necessary to create the film. Thus Cameron had to wait for technology to catch up with his vision. Flash forward a decade with the advancements in capture-motion cameras and 3D technology; Cameron finally saw his opportunity. With an amazing crew of visionaries, Cameron broke several boundaries in the film industry and created a cultural phenomenon.
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Hoarders Season Two: Part One

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

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“Compulsive hoarding is a mental disorder marked by an obsessive need to acquire and keep things, even if the items are worthless, hazardous, or unsanitary. More than three million people are compulsive hoarders. These are two of their stories.”

The reality television craze has entered its second generation. In the beginning, shows merely found folks who were willing to put themselves in odd circumstances for the chance to earn some big payday.
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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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Californication: The Third Season

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

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In the first season of Showtime’s Californication, we were introduced to David Duchovny’s character, bitter yet upbeat writer Hank Moody. Hank, after moving to Los Angeles on the heels of his first novel – a critical darling entitled “God Hates Us All” – has recently lost his long-time love and, by extension, his daughter, to a straight-arrow bore who makes his girlfriend Karen (Natascha McElhone) feel safe.
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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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Deadland

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

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Written by Diane Tillis

Deadland is about a man searching for his wife five years after an apocalyptic event has changed the world.

Deadland is an independent post-apocalyptic film that also incorporates a love story, action/adventure qualities, social/political themes, and supernatural elements. Sean Kalos (Gary Weeks) was trying to return to his wife in Georgia when the nuclear strikes of World War III began. Five years later the United States is divided into thirteen provinces, and brutal soldiers uphold martial law.
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Leaves of Grass

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

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Leaves of Grass, the latest film from writer/director/actor Tim Blake Nelson, is one of those rare films that defies both description and expectation. While marketed as a violent stoner comedy along the lines of Pineapple Express, Leaves of Grass is far more difficult to categorize. Yes, there is comedy, though not as much or of the type one would expect. And yes, there is violence, but a far more realistic and less cartoony variety than you would think. But there is much more to this little film – there is thought and reflection and philosophy and poetry behind every piece of dialogue, and you get drawn into it so that, halfway through the film, it doesn’t even strike you as odd that you just watched Keri Russell recite Walt Whitman while gutting a catfish.
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Velvet Revolver: Live in Houston

Posted in Disc Reviews by Michael Durr on December 6th, 2010

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Supergroups generally don’t last very long. In one album and out the next, it is usually a case of too many egos trying to co-exist. A favorite band of mine can certainly be described as a supergroup: Velvet Revolver. The lineup is made up of powerhouses from such great bands as Guns n Roses and Stone Temple Pilots. It is grandiose power rock and a whole lot of awesomeness.
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Lie to Me: Season Two

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

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“Cal Lightman sees the truth. It’s written all over your face. It’s also in your voice, your posture, the words you choose. Give him five minutes and 20 questions and he’ll know whether you went off to Argentina to cheat on your wife, lied about a well-timed stock sale, or murdered a one-night stand.”

I spent quite a few years as a detective. My specialty turned out to be in the interview room. When some of my fellow detectives had a suspect they couldn’t break, they often called me in.
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Cairo Time

Posted in Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on December 2nd, 2010

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Written by Diane Tillis

Vogue magazine editor Juliette (Patricia Clarkson) travels to Cairo to attend a UN function where she will meet up with her UN-official husband Mark (Tom McCamus). Mark is unavoidably delayed in Gaza, but sends a trusted friend and former UN official Tareq (Alexander Siddig) to keep Juliette company. Tareq and Juliette have known of each other for years, but this is the first time they have met face to face.
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Cher: The Film Collection

Posted in Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on November 30th, 2010

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As a kid who grew up in the 1960’s I remember Cher mostly for her musical career and the music and variety show she shared with then-husband Sonny Bono. When they split, it was a big deal in the time. We didn’t quite follow celebrities’, lives near as obsessively as is done today, but these guys were a power couple that had gained fame pretty much as a package deal. When they split Sonny wasn’t very successful at maintaing the same level as Cher was able to do.
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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 Gathering (2010)

Posted in Disc Reviews by William O'Donnell on November 25th, 2010

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A surgeon named Michael Foster, played by Peter Gallagher, has his world turned upside down when his wife disappears one morning without a trace. Initially he suspected she was having an affair and ran away with another man, but as strange evidence gathers he soon realizes that she has been a part of a strange coven of witches and her disappearance might not have been her choice.
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Suck

Posted in Disc Reviews by David Annandale on November 24th, 2010

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The Winners are anything but, being an undistinguished rock band playing to tiny, apathetic audiences in nowhere bars. Their time has not only passed, it never arrived. But just as they seem headed for the scrapheap, their bass player (Jessica Paré) is bitten by a vampire. Though her newly acquired taste for blood is a bit of an inconvenience, leading to some extremely messy murders to clean up, she now mesmerizes audiences, and the band catches fire. Leader Rob Stefaniuk is so desperate to catch a break that he is willing to turn a blind eye to just about anything.
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How I Met Your Mother: The Complete Season 5

Posted in Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on November 24th, 2010

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I don’t like referring to myself as a “fan” of anything. The word leaves a bad taste in my mouth; it suggests a kind of mindless devotion that doesn’t leave room for noticing any shortcomings in the subject of one’s devotion – The legions of Twilight fans immediately spring to mind. However, if being a fan means to regularly watch, re-watch, and enjoy a show for a period of years, then I can call myself a fan of How I Met Your Mother. The show has had its high and low points,
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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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Bones: The Complete Fifth Season

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

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I can’t help it. Whenever I see David Boreanaz I can’t stop seeing the brooding vampire Angel. It’s not really his fault. This character couldn’t be farther from the Angel character, but that’s what I see. It’s also true that Bones, now entering its sixth season has been around longer than Angel. It’s also very likely that he now has fans that aren’t even aware of that previous character. It has been quite a few years. I’m usually better at letting go of a character once the show has ended and the actor has moved on.
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Back From Hell: A Tribute to Sam Kinison

Posted in Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on November 22nd, 2010

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Dear Faithful Readers, Due to the nature of Sam Kinison’s work on stage and off stage, this review may contain foul but funny humor, bad but heeeeelarious language, and not so politically correct (but correctly off the wall) jokes. Please be aware before you continue to read. Yours Always, Noms
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Car Bomb

Posted in Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on November 18th, 2010

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“My name is Bob Baer. I used to be a CIA agent stationed in Lebanon during the Civil War. It was chaos. Bu, the real threat was always the car bomb.”

For most of us who are old enough to remember the 1980’s, there are a few moments and events that likely still stick in your mind. Lebanon was the scene for two of the biggest events of that era. Both involved car bombs that shook the world. A marine barracks was bombed on October 23rd, 1983, killing 241 American servicemen. Before that, on April 18th of that same year, another truck bomb destroyed the American Embassy in Lebanon
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Love Ranch

Posted in Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on November 18th, 2010

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Written by Diane Tillis

On the outskirts of Reno in 1976, a pink building complex is illuminated by neon lights that read ‘The Love Ranch’.

The Love Ranch is a popular brothel owned by scarred hustler Charlie (Joe Pesci) and his elderly wife Grace (Helen Mirren). Charlie is the typical gangster pimp who swears too much and smokes cigars wrapped in $100 bills. The ranch hosts several career prostitutes who bring in a lot of money. With the large cash flow, Charlie is able to seize control of the local law enforcement and keep a few politicians in his pocket.
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Life On Mars (UK): The Complete Collection

Posted in Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on November 17th, 2010

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“My name is Sam Tyler. I had an accident and I woke up in 1973. Am I mad, in a coma, or back in time? Whatever happened, it’s like I’ve landed on a different planet. Now, maybe, if I can work out the reason, I can get back home.”

I kind of did things a little backwards. I saw the single-season American version of Life On Mars quite some time before I managed to get my hands on the two seasons of the original British version of the show.
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