Posted in: Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on November 20th, 2004
Everybody’s favorite guy in a construction hat is back. No, not Sully from Sesame Street It’s Bob the Builder! He stars in Snowed Under: The Bobblesberg Winter Games. To join in on the fun, Bob has his favorite buddies along too, Lofty, Scoop, Muck, Roley, Travis, Spud, Wendy, Dizzy. And there’s even a new character to the crew, Benny. What trouble does Bob have to fix this time? Well…let me tell ya kids. It’s the Bobblesberg Winter games and the course is snowed under. And it’s up to Bob and h...s crew to fix and re-build everything before the opening ceremonies. Can he fix it?? Well…what do you think.
This is a full length Bob episode (just over 50 minutes). It’s about 5 times longer than a normal episode, so the kids might get restless. And there’s a feature where you loop the movie. So the kids can watch the same episode over and over again while Mommy can do the mommy stuff upstairs. Is it worth repeated viewings? The episode length is stretching it a bit. But there is an air of familiarity for the hard-core Bob viewers. The main characters are exactly like expected (even though Scoop seems a little more bossy than usual). But the alpine scenery, action and yodeling are enough to keep the kids attention.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by David Annandale on November 19th, 2004
Synopsis
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on November 19th, 2004
There have been umpteen movie adaptations of the Dickens classic, “A Christmas Carol”. Some of my favorites include the Alastair Sim version, the Henry Winkler version (yes, the guy who played Fonzie), the Bill Murray version, the Muppet version, and the Mister Magoo version. This 1997 version of A Christmas Carol is an animated feature featuring the voices of Tim Curry, Whoopi Goldberg, Ed Asner, and Michael York. It’s a story that we all know well.
But what makes this different from the other ve...sions? What sets this horse apart from the rest of the pack? Well, this version of A Christmas Carol has musical numbers, a child character as the ghost of Christmas past, and a sassy black woman Whoopi Goldberg type (voiced by Whoopi Goldberg) as the ghost of Christmas present. Oh…and they give Scrooge a dog. Finally! It’s about time.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on November 19th, 2004
Just in time for Christmas, and starring the Governator himself, we have Jingle All the Way with Arnold Swartzenegger. The story follows Arnold’s relentless pursuit to get a Turbo Man action figure for his son. This obsessive quest brings a lot of complications for our hero, from kidnapping, to stealing another kid’s toy, to a manic riot for numbered balls. Arnold even assumes the persona of Turbo Man at a parade and rockets around the city on a real turbo pack (Turbo rocket packs are real?). This all sound... like crazy fun and, for the most part, it is.
The cast is rounded out by Sinbad, as Arnie’s mailman nemesis in this quest, and Phil Hartman, as a sensitive dude putting the moves on Arnie’s wife (played by Rita Wilson). Swartzenegger gives his usual mugging comic performance. The movie climaxes with a lot of action, so it’s entertaining from that respect. But the message about the materialism of the holidays gets a little lost. Who needs a toy when you have your dad, right? But only if he dresses up as Turbo Man.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on November 19th, 2004
Taxi was a very funny sitcom that is most notable for the number of future stars it produced. Danny DeVito, Christopher Lloyd, Tony Danza, and Judd Hirsch all went on to bigger and better things when the Taxi ride ended. Andy Kaufman’s life and early death provided one of the more bizarre stories in Hollywood history. The truth is that season 1 was not quite that funny. Sure, Lloyd makes an appearance here, but the lovable Rev. Jim would not get behind the wheel of a taxi until the second season. We can only be glad ...hat Taxi came at a time in history when shows were given time to develop. Today Taxi would not have gone 6 weeks.
Synopsis
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on November 18th, 2004
Born Rich is a documentary about, well, rich kids. The subject makes it hard to sympathize with the piece (“oh those poor millionaires”). But the director and main character, Jamie Johnson (an heir to the Johnson & Johnson fortune), gives us interviews with other heirs from rich families - Ivanka Trump (Real Estate Heiress), Josiah Hornblower (Vanderbilt/Whitney Heir), Cody Franchetti (Textile Heir), S.I Newhouse IV (Publishing Heir), Luke Weil (Gambling Heir), and others. Johnson makes his subjects talk abo...t that taboo topic: money.
There are some revealing interviews, and we get taken inside a secret world, which is the whole point of documentary filmmaking. And the subject matter, obviously, satisfies people’s curiosity (remember Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous). But the problem with the film (an “official” selection at the Sundance Film Festival) is that we’re only scratching the surface here. It’s an interview based documentary, and the interviews aren’t nearly exciting to support an entire film. What about the clubs? The parties? The chi-chi stuff? We just get glimpses. The movie is only 67 minutes long and NOT the 81 minutes advertised on the DVD cover. Surely a rich kid could afford a little bit more budget?
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on November 18th, 2004
SCTV is back with Volume 2. We all know the players, Joe Flahrety, Andrea Martin, Catherine O’Hara, Eugene Levy, Rick Moranis, Dave Thomas, and John Candy. Martin Short wasn’t on board yet. But this volume has all your favorite characters, Bob and Doug MacKenzie, Count Floyd, Johnny LaRue, Dr. Tongue, Jerry Todd, Lola Heatherington, and I always loved the Hi-Q sketch.
SCTV’s kind of satire and parody is not biting like Monty Python. It’s more endearing, like wrestling match with a friend.... When not parodying real TV shows, the show also make gentle jabs at Russian culture, feminism, and Canadian tax shelter films. The jokes might seem a bit dated, but the talent of this septet goes with out saying. But I will say something anyway: SCTV sports one of the funniest casts to ever grace the sketch comedy stage (or tube).
Posted in: Disc Reviews by David Annandale on November 18th, 2004
One Christmas Eve, an infant crawls into Santa’s sack while the big man is visiting an orphanage, and isn’t discovered until Santa (Ed Asner) is back at the North Pole. Adopted by the Papa Elf (Bob Newhart), the baby grows into Buddy (Will Ferrell). Though Buddy does his best, he is enormously clumsy by elf standards. He decided to head off to New York City to meet his birth father (James Caan), the Scrooge-like editor of a children’s book publisher. Buddy descends on the big city with infectious naivete, and has no end of misadventures while he tries to inculcate the Christmas spirit back into his father.
This was a delightful surprise, infinitely better than the uninspiring trailers had led me to believe. Ferrell is the very incarnation of bouncing, wide-eyed, über-innocence, and his collisions with NYC realities are frequently side-splittingly funny. There are numerous extremely quotable lines, and the syrupy sentimentality that plagues most self-consciously Christmas-oriented movies is largely kept to a minimum. The forced perspective in the North Pole scenes is howlingly obvious, but the fanciful production design makes up for that flaw. The case has been made (convincingly, I think), that there have been no legitimate Christmas classics made since1983's A Christmas Story. It is, of course, far too early to tell how Elf will stand the test of time, but its mix of sharp wit and child-like whimsy makes it a serious contender. It is also entirely fitting that Peter Billingsley, the star of A Christmas Story makes a cameo here as the head elf.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by David Annandale on November 17th, 2004
Synopsis
Posted in: Disc Reviews by David Annandale on November 17th, 2004
Synopsis
National Velvet (1944) is one of the most beloved horse movies out there. A veryyoung Taylor wins a horse named Pie, and dreams not only of entering the horse in the GrandNational, but of riding him, too. Helping her achieve this dream is jockey Mickey Rooney. Alsoon hand is Angela Lansbury as Taylor’s older sister. This is innocent fun of the most perfectlycrafted variety, and it expertly tugs at heartstrings from the opening moments on.
