Extras – The Complete Second Season
Posted in Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on July 15th, 2007
Synopsis
It’s no big secret that I enjoy Extras, and found my way to it through the first episode of the second season, which included a guest appearance by Orlando Bloom (of Pirates of the Caribbean lore). And now that I’ve seen the first season, and rabidly followed the second season on HBO, while it’s a bummer to see Extras fade away after a dozen episodes, and just like The Office, it’s not going to soon forgotten.
Both shows were written and directed by Ricky Gerva…
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Die Hard Collection
Posted in Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on July 15th, 2007
Synopsis
I’ve gotta say that when the first Die Hard was released, I was in a position where I hated, absolutely despised Bruce Willis. In my opinion, the world honestly didn’t need another loudmouthed movie star who was from New Jersey and didn’t hesitate to say so, and that whole schtick about him and the Bruno persona would allow him to release music albums reeking of self-promotion and another money grab. And when he hooked up with Demi Moore, my initial reaction was “good, they’ll have mongoloid…
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Powerpuff Girls, The – The Complete First Season
Posted in Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on July 15th, 2007
Synopsis
Is it wrong that I kinda sorta liked The Powerpuff Girls? Don’t get me wrong, I’ll join the scores of those older male online reviewers who feel a bit of guilt in that statement, and wonder when Chris Hanson and the Dateline NBC crew will come barreling down my door, but God help me, I found it charming.
The show was created by Craig McCracken, and takes a trio of harmless little girls whose father is a scientist who, in his quest to create the perfect girl, accidentally spills “Ch…
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Brain Blasters
Posted in Brain Blasters, News and Opinions by David Annandale on July 13th, 2007
A few years ago, Blue Underground released a spiffy edition of The Final Countdown. At first glance, the move seems counterintuitive. The premiere specialist in grindhouse flicks putting out a special edition of an big-budget effort with major stars? What’s going on here? In fact, the release makes sense in more ways than one. In the first place, the associate producer is none other than Mr. Troma himself, Lloyd Kaufman, here involved in a film whose budget probably exceeded that of the entire Troma catalogue….
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Dare to Play the Game
Posted in Dare to Play the Game, News and Opinions by Michael Durr on July 11th, 2007
Obligatory Oblivion GOY, PS3 Price-Cut & Booth Babes gone? – Welcome to the column that believes you can never get enough hot women promoting video games known as Dare to Play the Game.
Welcome to another edition of Dare to Play the Game. This week I give you a little insight into my soul (be afraid). For those of you who might not believe it, I am a pretty quiet person in real life. Sure if you are a friend or loved one and I’ve known you…
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Music and Lyrics (HD DVD)
Posted in Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on July 10th, 2007
Although romantic comedies aren’t my forte, I have admitted to liking a few in the past, and surprisingly a good number of the ones I have found tolerable or even likeable star Hugh Grant. So I go into watching this film with an open mind and hopefully we’ll see some results out of Music and Lyrics.
Alex Fletcher (Hugh Grant, Nine Months) is a founding member of the hit 80’s pop group appropriately named PoP! And although he surmounted to a considerable amount of fame during his prime, he is no…
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Highly Defined – The World of High Definition
Posted in Highly Defined, News and Opinions by Archive Authors on July 9th, 2007
Happy belated fireworks day for everyone in the US, happy belated Canada day to everyone up north, and all that jazz. And my thanks to all for indulging me last week about my gripes with DirecTV. As I lube up the ole’ bunghole and prepare to get screwed out of another service call, I celebrate the news, notes and announcements of the past week’s high definition forum.
The big news this week is that Samsung started to leak out some more news about their dual format player, including a release date sometime i…
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Happy Hooker Trilogy, The
Posted in Disc Reviews by David Annandale on July 8th, 2007
Synopsis
Whoah. MGM if really digging into the vaults to bring us these. Xaviera Hollander is not much more than the answer to a trivia question today, but for a while in the 70s, she had enough profile to warrant three films based first on her book, then more generally on her persona. Lynn Redgrave (!) plays her in The Happy Hooker (1975), which follows her arrival in the States and cheerful discovery of the life she was born, it seems, to lead. Mysteriously rated R, this is a film that could…
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Tales from the Crypt — The Complete Sixth Season
Posted in Disc Reviews by David Annandale on July 8th, 2007
Synopsis
Stephen King wrote, in Danse Macabre, back in 1981, something to the effect that horror on TV ranged in quality from the ridiculous to the workmanlike. This was, of course, before he became rather too involved with the medium himself. Things have improved since the, of course, but horror has yet to achieve the truly sublime on television, and this series certainly wasn’t that. It was, however, on the upmarket end of workmanlike, and some of these 15 episodes are pretty neat little eff…
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Hills Have Eyes 2, The
Posted in Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on July 6th, 2007
It’s no secret that horror films these days severely lack originality and overuse violence and gore instead of actually scaring the audience. Sometimes this works and when coinciding with an actual story can make for a good movie. The Hills Have Eyes remake from 2006 wasn’t half bad because there was a tiny amount of depth in the story, combined with the violence that audiences have come to love. But ultimately for me, it didn’t hit the mark, it was just another typical horror movie. I really don’t think the s…
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Robin Hood Season One
Posted in Disc Reviews by David Annandale on July 6th, 2007
Synopsis
Robin of Locksley returns to England from the Crusades to find the home he had left behind has taken a drastic turn for the worse under the tyrannical Sheriff of Nottingham. He is forced to take up an outlaw life, fighting for justice for the common man. Marian, fending off the advances of Guy of Gisborne, is his mole in the houses of power.
Of course, you probably knew all of this, didn’t you? What’s new to this version of the Robin Hood’s adventures is a rather contemporary aware…
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Brain Blasters
Posted in Brain Blasters, News and Opinions by David Annandale on July 6th, 2007
I recently reviewed Warner’s first volume of the Cult Camp Classics box sets, and had a number of kind words to say about Attack of the 50-Foot Woman. I thought I would expand on those remarks, going on at a bit more length as to why this film is so oddly endearing.
First, to re-iterate the review: “I quote Jeff Rovin: ‘If Attack of the 50-Foot Woman was intended to be taken seriously, it’s the worst film ever made. If it was intended as a put-on, it’s one of the great science-fiction satires….
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Bulletproof (HD DVD)
Posted in Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on July 5th, 2007
Adam Sandler plays Archie Moses, a man who works for drug lord Frank Colton (James Caan). Rock Keats (Damon Wayans) is Archie’s best friend and, secretly I might add, an undercover cop who’s trying to infiltrate Colton’s business. Archie, as per the typical earlier Sandler role, is completely oblivious to anything going on around him and doesn’t suspect Rock. Keats is ready to infiltrate Colton, but is mistakenly shot in the head by Archie. Keats, after learning to walk again, realizes Archie must testify against Col…
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Dante’s Peak (HD DVD)
Posted in Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on July 5th, 2007
Disaster films are nothing new in Hollywood. While most disaster films tend to focus too much on destroying random objects, there’re are a film good disaster films that come around every so often that actual try to explain the film instead of giving us two hours of random explosions. One such film is 1997’s Dante’s Peak.
Harry Dalton (Pierce Brosnan) works for the US Geology Survey Team. Four years after experiencing a volcano eruption, Harry and a few other scientists are called to a town named Da…
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Dare to Play the Game
Posted in Dare to Play the Game, News and Opinions by Michael Durr on July 4th, 2007
Finding a Wii to take home, PSP Homebrew no longer brave, & Rainbow Six Vegas DLC free – Welcome to the column that believes that cherry pie is more american than apple will ever be (and tastier too) known as Dare to Play the Game.
Welcome to another edition of Dare to Play the Game. It’s the 4th of July, yours truly gets to host a patriotic U.S. edition of Dare to Play the Game. What makes it patriotic you say? Do I wave a flag and sing patriotic songs? Or do I just …
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Kill House
Posted in Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on July 3rd, 2007
Be afraid. Be very afraid, if you are even thinking about picking up this rather lame title. There is absolutely nothing redeeming about this film. The only way that Kill House has any chance of giving you nightmares is by putting you to sleep. If only I had been so lucky. Beth Dewey was the “mastermind” behind the whole thing. She wrote, directed, and acted as the killer in this piece of crap. Dewey ought to be arrested for grand larceny if even one person paid any real money for this picture. I would tell you som…
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Big Lebowski, The (HD DVD)
Posted in Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on July 2nd, 2007
I wrote a few weeks back that it’s an odd feeling when you finally see that film that everyone and their brother has been exclaiming about for years. That is the exact feeling I felt after seeing The Big Lebowski. I knew for years that this film would be great, especially after seeing Fargo before. Boy was I right as The Big Lebowski was a huge humor trip.
Jeffrey Lebowski a.k.a. “The Dude” (Jeff Bridges) is your run of the mill slacker. He doesn’t really do much with his life besides …
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Highly Defined – The World of High Definition
Posted in Highly Defined, News and Opinions by Archive Authors on July 2nd, 2007
Read on about a minor gripe with a major satellite provider.
I’m going to skip the usual news about what comes out this week because it’s The Untouchables, The Patriot and very little else, and tell you a story about how I, as a loyal DirecTV customer, have been trying to upgrade my equipment.
On/about 5/29, I set up an equipment upgrade appointment from the 3 LNB H10 setup to the 5 LNB H20, so I can get the new HD channels running through MPEG-4. I set up the appointment for 6/16 be…
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Licence to Kill (Region 2)
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…
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Neverwas
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…
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Brain Blasters
Posted in Brain Blasters, News and Opinions by David Annandale on June 29th, 2007
Okay, kaiju fans, there’s another real treat that recently hit DVD. While Classic Media has been releasing one definitive edition after another of the initial Godzilla movies, Tokyo Shock has stepped up with a non-Godzilla Toho effort: 1965’s Frankenstein Conquers the World. Present in the 2-disc set are the US release (so if you want to hear Nick Adams speak English, that’s the one to watch), the Japanese version, and the international release. These versions feature a rather different, and utterly bizarre, e…
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SpongeBob SquarePants Bikini Bottom Adventures
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
Life and Hard Times of Guy Terrifico, The
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…
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Trading Places: Looking Good Feeling Good Edition
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…
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Cult Camp Classics 1 — Sci-Fi Thrillers
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…
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