DVD

Dallas: The Complete Twelfth Season

Posted in Disc Reviews by Michael Durr on January 20th, 2010

As a kid, I was subjected to all sorts of soap operas whether it be during the day or during the night. During the day, it was a steady stream of Young & The Restless or General Hospital. At night, it was two shows as well. The first was Dynasty, which could better be described as a Joan Collins vs Linda Evans wrestling match. Then there was Dallas: J.R. & Bobby at the forefront of oil, cattle, deceit, and general debauchery. How sweet it is.

Read More

Damages: The Complete Second Season

Posted in Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on January 20th, 2010

Buy at Amazon.com

I made a huge mistake when I sat down to watch this release so that I could write this review. It sometimes happens that one in this business must watch a series from somewhere other than the beginning. In most cases, particularly with older more traditional shows, that isn’t very much of a problem at all. Once you get the premise down and learn who the important players are, you can sit back and watch without much concern at all about what you might have missed. Today, however, that is becoming a more and more difficult proposition
Read More

ER: The Complete Twelfth Season

Posted in Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on January 19th, 2010

Buy at Amazon.com

The series premiere of E.R on September 19, 1994 was preceded by the premiere of another medical drama, Chicago Hope, by one day. But one day didn’t seem to make much of a difference in the show’s longevity. E.R.ended after fifteen seasons on NBC in 2009. The show has seen a drastic change in cast members over the years—none of the original cast members were series regulars by the last season. We are, however, reunited with original cast members Dr. John Carter, played by Noah Wyle, Dr. Susan Lewis, played by Sherry Stringfield, and the underutilized Laura Innes as the stone-faced Dr. Kerry Weaver in season 12.
Read More

Breaking Point

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

Buy at Amazon.com

“The price of love is to expect the pain of loss. Maybe it’s some kind of divine punishment to have the ones we love pay the cost of our own sins. The real punishment is being alone the rest of our days hoping to forget and praying for change to come again.”

We’ve all seen our share of film heroes whose journeys are hard-fought paths to redemption. There’s nothing particularly original in the concept. Writers from Homer to Shakespeare have explored the material.
Read More

Robin Hood: Season Three

Posted in Disc Reviews by Michael Durr on January 18th, 2010

Buy at Amazon.com

Robin Hood is a fantastic tale, and one that can be re-told again and again without fail. The story begins with a man that steals from the rich and gives to the poor. This is a great way to give us a hero to cheer for and has worked for Errol Flynn and even Kevin Costner. This summer, Russell Crowe tries his hand at making the arrow stick for a successful box office run. But will Jonas Armstrong make a viable enough Robin Hood for a third season of this BBC series? We will just have to see.

Read More

Chuck: The Complete Second Season

Posted in Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on January 12th, 2010

Buy at Amazon.com

I’ll be honest, at first Chuck sounded like a pretty bad idea to me. I expected it to be a kind of modern Get Smart with a reluctant geek hero. And that’s pretty much what it turned out to be. Except it turned out to also be pretty darn entertaining as well. It all really starts with a solid cast and tightly written stories. Each episode manages to capture just the right blend of drama and comedy. I resist the trendy word dramedy, but if any series fits the mold, it would have to be Chuck.
Read More

Winnie the Pooh: A Valentine for You Special Edition

Posted in Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on January 12th, 2010

Buy at Amazon.com

“Now this might be the room of any small boy, but it happens to belong to a boy named Christopher Robin, and like most small boys, Christopher Robin had toy animals to play with. And together they had many remarkable adventures in an enchanted place called The Hundred Acre Wood. But out of all of his animal friends, Christopher Robin’s very best friend was a bear called Winnie The Pooh.”

“Oh Bother”A.A. Milne was quite an eclectic writer. He wrote murder mysteries that even appeared on Alfred Hitchcock Presents. From that fertile mind would also come a place known as the Hundred Acre Wood.
Read More

50 Dead Men Walking

Posted in Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on January 11th, 2010

Buy at Amazon.com

When an inside operation movie is done properly, the plot is ripe with suspense and suspicion. Who can the informer/plant trust? Have they jeopardized their family? What are they willing to do to stay undercover? Audiences have seen this play out many times before in films like Donnie Brasco and The Departed, but in 50 Dead Men Walking the setting is Northern Ireland in the late ‘80s during the Troubles—a period of violent ethno-political conflict between members of the primarily Roman Catholic nationalist community and the Protestant unionist community.
Read More

United States of Tara: Season One

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

Buy at Amazon.com

I’ve seen some dysfunctional families on television over the years. Haven’t we all. It’s fun to laugh at someone else’s flaws. Along comes Showtime, and it’s rather hard to classify the series The United States Of Tara. This one takes dysfunction to a whole new level. Tara (Collette) suffers from multiple personality disorder. Laughing yet? She has managed to control the problem by using medications and attending frequent therapy sessions. But the medication is sapping her creative ability. You see, Tara was once a gifted artist. She painted murals and was somewhat critically acclaimed. The meds put an end to all of that.
Read More

The Complete Love Comes Softly Collection

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

Buy at Amazon.com

It would appear that Michael Landon, Jr. is attempting to cash in on his late father’s Little House On The Prairie appeal. He is one of the driving forces behind this series of made for television films. He has directed several of them and serves as an executive producer on them all. He has also been involved with some of the writing on the series. They are based on a series of books written by Janette Oke. They follow three generations of women in the days of the Western frontier. When I say that Landon is spending on his father’s legacy, you need look no further than the common elements of the films themselves to understand how I come to that conclusion.
Read More

Kyle XY: The Complete Third And Final Season

Posted in Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on January 5th, 2010

Buy at Amazon.com

“Every story has a beginning. Every life has meaning and potential…”

Kyle doesn’t really know his story, and he’s beginning to understand his potential. But that was before. This year things are about to come to a conclusion for our adolescent boy without a belly button. For Kyle’s fans, this is your classic good news/bad news scenario.
Read More

Call of The Wild – 3D

Posted in Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on January 5th, 2010

Buy at Amazon.com

“When nature rules, beauty reigns.”

Ryan Hale (Gade) is on a winter break from school. Her parents are off touring Europe, so she has to leave her city life at Beacon Hill in Boston to spend some time with her grandfather (Lloyd) who lives in the wilderness of Montana. She might have been excited at first to see Montana, but soon learns that Miley Cyrus is nowhere in sight. Instead she is quickly bored with the seemingly unending parade of trees and snow. She becomes impatient with her grandfather’s appreciation for nature along with a lack of cable television. It all spells out a rather dull winter break until she finds a wounded wolf/dog.
Read More

Taxi: The Final Season

Posted in Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on January 5th, 2010

Buy at Amazon.com

Few television situational comedies have produced the stable of A-list stars that this one did. Every one of these cast members were relatively unknown at the time that Taxi was taking fares on our television sets each week. Not so today. The cast was so remarkable that it is here that I decided to spend much of my review. The episodes were often funny, even more often hilarious. But after all of these years, it is the characters that are most remembered by the fans. Yeah, we all have our favorite moments. Many of them in this release. And I’ll get to those moments, but first:
Read More

Paraiso Travel

Posted in Disc Reviews by David Annandale on January 4th, 2010

Buy at Amazon.com

The film begins in the middle of the story, at the end of one journey and the beginning of another. Marlon (Aldemar Correa) and Reina (Angelica Blandon) are illegal Columbian immigrants, and have just arrived in New York City. They are staying in a beyond-seedy hostel in Queens, and Reina has just spent their last coins on a fruitless phone call. Frustrated, Marlon hits the street, and after a panicky encounter with the police, winds up lost in NYC. So begins his second journey one that is both a search for belonging as well as his beloved Reina, that is intercut with flasbacks to the trip that brought Marlon and Reina to the city in the first place, beginning with their leaving the relative comfort of their lives in Medillin and tracking their increasingly nightmarish trek to the States.
Read More

Endgame

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

Buy at Amazon.com

On February 11th, 1990, Nelson Mandela was released from the Victor Verster Prison is often seen as the symbolic end of apartheid in the country of South Africa. However, the apartheid was not fully removed until the elections of 1994. Furthermore, the story was way more complex than the African National Congress leader’s freedom. The story that was more focused on Willie Esterhuyse, Thabo Mbeki and Michael Young. These names might seem foreign to most of us, but they are perhaps three of the most important names to the recent history of South Africa.
Read More

Parker Lewis Can’t Lose: The Complete Second Season

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

Buy at Amazon.com

Parker Lewis Can’t Lose as anyone could guess was heavily influenced by the cult classic Ferris Bueller’s Day Off. It lasted for three seasons and seventy three episodes. It actually did a fair amount of decent ratings (as far as Fox was concerned) during the run. The living cartoon as many have described it has kept its fans through the years. As a result, Shout Factory has decided to go ahead with the release of the 2nd season. Hopefully it still keeps its charm after all of these years.

Read More

World’s Greatest Dad

Posted in Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on December 30th, 2009

Buy at Amazon.com

It seems to be commonly believed that Robin Williams’ acting career took an abrupt change from outlandish, eccentric comedic choices (Aladdin) to more dark, complex and satirical roles in the early ‘00s (Death to Smoochy). But Williams has always played both ends of the spectrum and roughly everything in between. He channeled a father willing to do whatever it takes to reconnect with his children in the 1993 classic Mrs. Doubtfire, a role that nabbed him a Golden Globe Award for Best Actor
Read More

Wizards of Waverly Place: The Movie

Posted in Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on December 30th, 2009

Buy at Amazon.com

Disney has a knack for turning television shows into profitable movie franchises– Lizzy McGuire, Hannah Montana, and now The Wizards of Waverly Place. Since the formula hasn’t deferred much, it should come as no surprise that its latest show has caught on like wildfire. In the wake of a Harry Potter-crazed nation of tweens, Disney’s latest show follows the Russos—former wizard father Jerry (David DeLuise), non-magical mother Theresea (Maria Canals-Barrera) and their three wizards-in-training.
Read More

Sticks and Stones

Posted in Disc Reviews by William O'Donnell on December 23rd, 2009

Buy at Amazon.com

“Inspired by a true story,” two youth hockey teams on either side of the Canada/US border find friendship and bond through their mutual love of the game while tensions rise between those that support and those that protest the Iraq invasion and assorted post 9-11 security fears.
Read More

A Christmas Proposal

Posted in Disc Reviews by David Annandale on December 23rd, 2009

Buy at Amazon.com

Tycoon Tom Arnold sends employee and all-signs-point-to-being-future-son-in-law David O’Donnell and daughter Sarah Thompson (a ghastly person who is clearly Ms Wrong) to O’Donnell’s home town in order to seal a real estate development deal. There O’Donnell comes up against former flame Nicole Eggert, who is fighting to preserve the town’s pristine self. And yes, all of this is happening over the Christmas holiday, though it could just as well be the Fourth of July. At any rate, based on this setup, if there is a single one among you who can’t anticipate every single turn of the story, allow me to be among the first to welcome you to the planet Earth.
Read More

One Christmas

Posted in Disc Reviews by David Annandale on December 23rd, 2009

Buy at Amazon.com

Eight-year-old Buddy (T. J. Lowther) likes living in the Alabama countryside with cousing Sook (Julie Harris in a tiny role), but circumstances dictate that he go to New Orleans for Christmas, there to stay with the father he has never seen (Henry Winkler). Old dad is, it turns out, a con artist with an inflated sense of self-importance, currently wooing Swoozie Kurtz, whose mother (Katharine Hepburn) recognizes Winkler for what he is. This being a Christmas movie, hard lessons and redemption will be called for.
Read More

The Merry Gentleman

Posted in Disc Reviews by David Annandale on December 23rd, 2009

Buy at Amazon.com

Kate Frazier (Kelly Macdonald) has fled her abusive husband and begun a new, solitary life for herself in Chicago, where she fends off the romantic interest of a number of men, and the curiosity of a great many people who all want to know how she received her black eye. One night, leaving the office, she sees a man about to jump from a building roof, and her scream startles him, breaking his suicidal trance. The man is Frank Logan (Michael Keaton), a contract killer. No longer interested in killing himself, he tracks down Kate, initially intending to kill her, since (though she doesn’t realize this), she saw him moments after a hit. He collapses with pneumonia before he can carry out his plan, and she helps him to the hospital, whereupon a most unlikely relationship begins to bloom between two wounded people.
Read More

Three Sheets – Season 4

Posted in Disc Reviews by Michael Durr on December 21st, 2009

Buy at Amazon.com

Here is an interesting fact for those reading this review. I don’t drink alcohol. In fact, the only time I’ve actually drank anything alcoholic is when somebody else spiked my drink (usually some kind of juice). So imagine my surprise when I receive a copy of a show based on alcoholic drinks to review. However, it might not be so bad when I realize it is in the style of all those “Travel to Destination A, show me all of the cool stuff that goes on there while making funny anecdotes” ones on the Travel Network that I actually enjoy.
Read More

Poker Run

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

Buy at Amazon.com

Two couples looking to cut loose at a biker rally blindly say “yes” to every proposal a pair of untrustworthy and visibly dangerous strangers make until they find themselves in a psychotic game where the women are abducted and their husbands must become killers in order to save them.
Read More

Stories from The Vault: Season Two

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

Buy at Amazon.com

Host Tom Cavanaugh takes us for a tour of the some of the lesser known or rarely seen corners and byways of the Smithsonian Institution. The tone is breezy and mildly irreverent, and the exhibits encountered are unfailingly interesting. The episodes this season are “Let’s Eat!”, “Top Secret,” “Nature’s Vault,” “Crystal Ball,” “Going, Going, Gone,” “Sex 101” and “Villains and Rogues.” The episodes are actually even less specific than the titles might suggest (and they already grant a fair bit of freedom to jump from topic to topic). Thus, “Villains and Rogues” looks at a couple of, well, rogues, and then having Cavanaugh refer to them as snakes is enough of a segue for the episode to suddenly shift its attention to – you guessed it – actual snakes.
Read More

«< 32 33 34 35 36 >»