Another Glorious Resurrection from the Studio Vaults
Posted in Brain Blasters by David Annandale on December 14th, 2007
As I’ve indicated in this space before, one of the joys of the DVD age is the chance to see, at long last, films that one might have heard about since childhood, but that were unavailable until now. A recent addition to Fox’s Cinema Classics line is a case in point. Fox Horror Classics consists of three movies directed by John Brahm, and the one I want to talk about today is The Undying Monster (1942), which I first read about over thirty years ago.
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Ten things I learned from action movies…
Posted in Random Fun by Archive Authors on December 14th, 2007
I’ve seen thousands of movies in my time and today I’m sharing the ten most important things to learn from action flicks. Jump to check it out.
The Eroticist
Posted in Disc Reviews by David Annandale on December 14th, 2007
Lando Buzzanca plays Senator Puppis, a telegenic young politician on track to become Italy’s next president. He’s been groomed for the part practically from birth by the Vatican, which plans to re-exert social control over the country through its presidential puppet. But plans go badly awry as Puppis suddenly develops an uncontrollable urge to fondle women’s buttocks (Stephen Thrower has aptly described the character as a “repressed heterosexual”). Even as he seeks help for his condition, various parties around him begin to panic, as the police think Puppis is planning a coup without telling them, the military think they are being left out of the loop by the police, and the Vatican, along with its Mafia catspaws, starts whacking everyone in sight in a desperate attempt to keep everything from completely unravelling.
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12 Days of Contests! Day 2: Pearl Harbor!
Posted in Expired Contests by Archive Authors on December 14th, 2007
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Ho HO HO!! Welcome back to the 12 Days Of Contests, Day 2 Edition! Yesterday (well, this morning) we opened up for entries on one copy of ALIEN SEIGE. Now you’re probably wondering how we could top the raw festiveness of a blood devouring alien rampage – well, how about 2 copies of the Ben Affleck fueled interpretation of Pearl Harbor in Glorious Blu-ray Vision!
In all seriousness: say what you will about this movie and Mr. Affleck, the December 7th attack on Pearl Harbor was a truly infamous day: it saw the death of thousands, the end of America’s perceived aloofness, and the true beginning of World War II. You can read all about the attack on the National Geographic special site.
Again, say what you will about the movie, it does include a spectacularly harrowing recreation of the attack which I imagine would shine in a high-def format. We reviewed the Blu-ray Pearl Harbor release here.
So – enter away below by commenting! Contest draw date is Tuesday, Jan. 1st – the same for all of the 12 Days contests.
Day 1: ALIEN SEIGE
Day 2: PEARL HARBOR – Enter below!
Day 3: Stay tuned!
By the way, since you’re here: do you like watching trailers? We’ve got 29 good ones in our Action Films category – enjoy!
Gomer Pyle, U.S.M.C. – The Third Season
Posted in Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on December 14th, 2007
Gomer Pyle began life as a one of the down home residents of Mayberry, where Andy Griffith held court as the sheriff and Don Knotts blundered his way to fame and fortune. It’s no small task indeed to find a way to shine as a minor character who wasn’t even there from the beginning; he replaced Floyd after the second year. But shine he did. Much of the character’s charm and success has to be given to Jim Nabors. The shy naive Gomer worked as an auto mechanic in Mayberry, but for his own series he appeared in one of the most unlikeliest of places, the U.S. Marine Corp.
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Frasier – The Tenth Season
Posted in Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on December 14th, 2007
Frasier was another one of those unlikely hits. Frasier started as an intended one-off character on the hugely popular Cheers. Kelsey Grammer made the most out of it, and before long he was one of the regular barflies inhabiting a stool at Sam’s. In Cheers the wit worked because Frasier was so unlike his fellow characters. He was a sophisticated, almost snobbish psychiatrist with a taste for fine art and high class entertainment. Instead of a ballgame, Frasier was more at home at the opera or an art opening.
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12 Days of Contests! Day 1: ALIEN SEIGE! Ho Ho Ho!
Posted in Expired Contests by Archive Authors on December 13th, 2007
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Merry Christmas, readers all! In celebration of the season, UpcomingDiscs is going to merrily subject you too… 12 DAYS OF CONTESTS! Its a little holiday-themed fun, a way to put something in your stocking in early to mid-January (mail is slow, sorry), and our festive “thank-you” to the readers that make up our community and keep things lively.
As an added (stupendous) twist, were actually tying the prizes to the days: the first day gets a single disc release; the second day’s contest – two discs. By the 12 day (wait for it…) 12 DISCS ARE BEING GIVEN AWAY. Now – by the end, we might be talking about one box set with 12 discs, or a tasteful collection of 12 individual titles – but rest assured, that’s a no-foolin’ massive quantity of material coming your way.
So without further preamble…
December 12 (ok, this one is a day late, so were going to cram in two today, of which this is the first…)
What could be more festive, than the Sci-Fi Essentials release of ALIEN SEIGE, which comes to you with the merry tagline of “They’ve come for our blood!” Why aliens could possibly need liquified humans to save their planet is beyond me, but then again, I believed in Santa Clause until I was 16, so I’m willing to suspend my disbelief for this one too and embrace what appears to be a decent sci-fi romp.
As always, please enter by commenting below, don’t post your address, etc. And stay tuned for contest number 2, coming later today!
Contest is open to residents of the U.S. & Canada only, and will conclude on Tuesday, January 1st. Winners to be announced shortly thereafter.
Please – only one entry per person per contest!
Dare to Play the Game
Posted in Dare to Play the Game, News and Opinions by Michael Durr on December 12th, 2007
Arkadian Warriors rocking to XBLA, No Rockband for Christmas in Canada, and Games of the Year? – Welcome to the column that promises to rock as much as possible but we have to be in bed by 9:00pm known as Dare to Play the Game.
Welcome to another edition of Dare to Play the Game. As promised, a lot of FirePro Wrestling was played. I actually got down the timing system. Once I did that, I was able to figure out the little things and it made for an enjoyable experience. Be sure to read the review at your leisure. It was good to review a Playstation 2 game and I would expect there will be a couple more before we say goodbye to the system. Neo Geo Battle Coliseum released this week and the World Heroes compilation released sometime next year would be likely candidates.
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Pathfinder (Unrated)
Posted in Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on December 12th, 2007
There is a certain audience that really gets into what I call “mythic combat”. Zena and Hercules on TV, and movies like Reign of Fire, Conan and Dragonslayer all fit into this category for me. While I typically don’t enjoy this type of faire, I am a sucker for the more popular versions, such as the Lord of the Rings trilogy and 300. After seeing a very promising trailer in the theater, I had high hopes for Pathfinder. Unfortunately, the final film did not live up to the potential of its marketing.
Lost – The Complete Third Season
Posted in Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on December 12th, 2007
When Lost began its third season last fall I was beginning to feel a lot like the castaways must have felt; namely I was getting pretty lost watching Lost. There’s been a lot of mostly fair criticism about how ABC has handled the show last year. The first mistake was to air a small portion of episodes in the first couple of months and finish the season after the New Year. While this broken season plan works well for some cable shows like Monk, it does a serious disservice to Lost.
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Black Night
Posted in Disc Reviews by David Annandale on December 11th, 2007
Belgian filmmaker Olivier Smolders, after a successful run of gorgeous and disturbing shorts, here makes a feature debut that is just as gorgeous and disturbing. Strongly reminiscent of the works of David Lynch, but far darker overall, the film is set at a time when the world is shrouded in the night of a perpetual eclipse. Day only comes for 15 seconds at 12:23 pm each day. Oscar (Fabrice Rodriguez) is a museum entomologist haunted by traumatic dreams involving the death of a sister who might or might not have every existed. He returns home one night to find a dying and pregnant African woman in his bed, a woman who is somehow linked to his father’s colonial past.
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Anchorman – The Legend of Ron Burgundy (HD DVD)
Posted in Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on December 10th, 2007
Will Ferrell, arguably the last funny member of Saturday Night Live has picked some strange movies to be in since leaving the sketch comedy show. Appearing first as a co-star in Old School and then later in the kid-friendly (but cute) Elf, Ferrell took his time in getting to what fans wanted, a good PG-13 or better comedy for him to stretch his comedic talent.
Superbad (Unrated Special Edition)
Posted in Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on December 10th, 2007
So in a summer where a film directed by Judd Apatow and starring Seth Rogen made a truckload of money, another film released a couple months later where Apatow produced and Rogen co-wrote made almost the same truckload of money, yet both films were funny for different reasons.
Fire Pro Wrestling Returns (Playstation 2)
Posted in Game Reviews by Michael Durr on December 9th, 2007
Wrestling games are near and dear to my heart. From the first time I played Pro Wrestling for Nintendo or WWF Wrestlefest at the arcade, I knew I would be playing wrestling games as long as my fingers could mash the buttons. I’ve played some of the greatest wrestling games (Smackdown 2, Touken Retsuden 3) and some of the worst (WCW Nitro, ECW Hardcore Revolution). The Fire Pro series I’ve had a long relationship with. It’s been love/hate mostly. I want to love it but I find myself more often than not hating the interface and struggling to play it. I’ve bought all three import games for the Turbo Graphix 16 system and the Fire Pro (6 man scramble) game that was released for Sega Saturn. However, when Agetec announced that they would be releasing it for the stateside Playstation 2, I was very interested. Maybe since I didn’t have to import it, I would finally be able to see the menus in English and figure out the difficult interface. Every wrestling fanboy would tell me that it was the greatest thing ever. But what would I think?
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Transformers (HD DVD)
Posted in Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on December 9th, 2007
I must be one of the few people who despite hearing positive things, did not see Transformers in the theatre this past summer. The main reason being I’m just not interested in transformers, but then again so were most of the people I know who loved the movie. Regardless, here I find myself holding a copy of this summer blockbuster on HD DVD, I’m sure it’s going to blow me away, but only time will tell.
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Diagnosis Murder – The Third Season
Posted in Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on December 7th, 2007
Dr. Mark Sloan first appeared in The It Never Entered My Mind episode of Jake And The Fat Man. In that episode Sloan was accused of a murder, and it was up to Jake and Jason to prove his innocence. The character had a certain charm that appeared to carry with audiences, and two years later Sloan had his own show, Diagnosis Murder. Dick Van Dyke did for doctors what his good friend Andy Griffith did for lawyers as Matlock. Both traded on their earlier careers in trademark comedies to reimagine dramatic roles in their twilight years.
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Spiritual Excercises
Posted in Disc Reviews by David Annandale on December 7th, 2007
Olivier Smolders is a Belgian filmmaker with a sensibility as distinctive and challenging as his artistry is developed. Cult Epics has done North American audiences a huge service by bringing his films to Region 1 DVD release. This disc has ten short films. Each piece has its own distinct identity, yet they are all very clearly the work of a singular creative talent. The frequently disturbing shorts range from a tale of murder and cannibalism in “Adoration” (previously available on the Cinema of Death collection), to the heartbreaking “Mort à Vignole” (where Smolders narrates a family tragedy filtered through home movies made by his and his wife’s parents, along with his own family footage), to an extended yet elegantly filmed practical joke (“Point de Fuite”) to a most unusual adaptation of Sade with “La Philosophie dans le Boudoir.” The films are invariably gorgeous and clinical in the precision of their observations. The blurbs on the case invoke Lynch, Greenaway and Bergman, and the comparisons are apt, though Smolders is also very much his own man.
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Bad for Us, But Feels So Good
Posted in Brain Blasters by David Annandale on December 7th, 2007
So I was musing over the last couple of days once again on the nature of the appeal of what I’m (extremely) broadly defining as cult movies. I’m not explicitly looking for a Grand Unification Theory here, though I wouldn’t turn my nose up at one if it turned up. There are some easy answers, but they’re very much only partial ones.
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The Devil’s Daughter
Posted in Disc Reviews by David Annandale on December 6th, 2007
Come with me, gentle viewer, back to the state of horror on TV, Anno Domini 1973. After her long-absent mother dies in mysterious circumstances, Belinda Montgomery attends the funeral where she meets Shelley Winters, an old friend of the family, or so she claims. Winters takes Montgomery into her home, and there our young heroine meets all sorts of strange people, and gradually realizes she is in the clutches of a Satanic cult who believe she is Satan’s daughter.
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O Lucky Man!
Posted in Disc Reviews by David Annandale on December 6th, 2007
Malcolm McDowell’s second collaboration with director Lindsay Anderson, after their triumph with If…, sees McDowell as an enthusiastic new coffee salesmen sent off to make his company’s fortune in an ever widening area of the Britain. In true picaresque style, he has one strange adventure and encounter after another, each more bizarre than the last, and the whole is intercut with studio performances of Alan Price’s songs that comment on the whole enterprise.
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Hudson Hawk (Special Edition)
Posted in Disc Reviews by Michael Durr on December 5th, 2007
The movie of Hudson Hawk was often panned by critics who thought the movie was the worst thing since George Bush Sr moved into office. Look where that has got us! Remember kids, bad presidents only birth worse presidents. Anyhow, Hudson Hawk which was billed as an action comedy and was thought of by many as sloppy, over-inflated movie making that took the cream of bad movie making. Was it a turd that sank like the Titanic?(both the movie and the ship) Was it a lemon like XXX? (both the movie and the scent of Vin Diesel’s Mr. Clean head)
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Gilmore Girls – The Complete Seventh Season
Posted in Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on December 5th, 2007
The fat lady has sung, taken her bows and waddled off to the after-party. Gilmore Girls, a show loved by many — and abhorred by some — was canceled in May, leaving fans without a true series finale. Here, in this DVD set, lie the final episodes, created without input from series creator Amy Sherman-Palladino, who left the show after season six.
This is not a fitting end for our Gilmore Girls, but unless a rumored movie becomes reality, it’s all we’re going to get. So if you’re looking for closure, this ain’t the place.
Dare to Play the Game
Posted in Dare to Play the Game, News and Opinions by Michael Durr on December 5th, 2007
Reviewer fired for bad review, Xbox 360 Dashboard Update, & the Wii being put up on Ebay for grand larceny? – Welcome to the column that is always honest and promises that Kane & Lynch is indeed a steaming pile known as Dare to Play the Game.
Welcome to another edition of Dare to Play the Game. Well as mentioned in the previous week, I finished Puzzle Quest and inadvertently started Carcassonne since it was offered free. To date, only Galaga has been easier for achievements. I finished the achievements on my own over the weekend. Easy 200 points, seriously.
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Pirates of the Caribbean: At World’s End (Collector’s Edition)
Posted in Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on December 5th, 2007
Avast ye mates, Jack’s back, and did ye ever doubt the return of Cap’n Jack Sparrow? Johnny Depp once again transforms himself like no other actor in
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Harry Potter HD DVD launches online cinema
Posted in News and Opinions by Archive Authors on December 4th, 2007
Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix launches today on DVD and HD-DVD. The HD-DVD consortium has revealed a new feature just for the HD-DVD release. This new feature ultilizes the standard network adapter included with every HD-DVD player. The gist of the feature is you can connect to a friends HD-DVD player and both of you can can simultaneously view the latest Harry Potter film fully synced up with message functionality.
From the official site:
Gather your own army of fellow wizards for a live community screening party. Invite other owners of the Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix HD DVD to simultaneously watch from their own internet-accessed players and text with your remote, PC or cell phone. When you host an invitation-only viewing, you control the film by pausing and playing the feature on everyone’s machine. You can chat live with your friends as you watch.
Now each session you create has a host and only the host can control the playback during the session. It isn’t said but is pretty much assumed that each party needs their own copy of the HD-DVD release for proper playback.