Anzio
Posted in Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on November 12th, 2001
Intro
‘Tis the season of bangs and booms it seems, as the release of big war movies of the past continues. This isn’t one of the best, but, produced as it is by Dino De Laurentis, it is big.
Synopsis
Robert Mitchum headlines as a war correspondent accompanying the Allied landing at Anzio, Italy, in 1944. The initial landing goes well, but then the opportunity to advance to Rome is missed, and the Allies find themselves encircled. A ferocious, months-long battle ensues.
Audio>
The audio is in mono only. While I have no huge objection to this, a number of other (and older) war films have been remastered into stereo, and Anzio is not exactly an untouchable classic, and so could have benefited from that treatment (except, that is, for the atrocious Jack Jones song that accompanies the opening credits – you’ll be glad for the mono then). As it stands, the mono is serviceable, clear and clean. Nothing spectacular, but nothing to complain about either.
Video
The video is, for the most part, very, very nice. The film dates from 1968, but the print has barely aged a day. There are occasional (very, very rare and sparse) speckles. There does seem to have been some slight problem in the transfer in the form of a slight skip about seven minutes in. Otherwise, the quality of the image itself is beyond reproach. The colours are deep and rich, truly wonders to behold. The film comes in both 2.35:1 widescreen and full screen formats.
Features
Not much in this department: a silent and still menu, and trailers for Anzio, The Guns of Navarone, The Bridge on the River Kwai and Lawrence of Arabia.
Closing Thoughts
This is another very basic disc. Still, the quality of the picture justifies the format – this still looks much better than any VHS release.
Special Features List
- Theatrical trailer(s)
Business is Business
Posted in Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on November 10th, 2001
Intro
Here’s a unique opportunity: the chance to see director Paul Verhoeven’s very first theatrical release. We’re a long, long way from Total Recall and Starship Troopers here, but perhaps not so far from Showgirls, at least as far as subject matter is concerned.
Synopsis
This film has a plot only in the loosest sense of the term. This is really a series of short comic vignettes set in Amsterdam’s red light district, centering around a no-nonsense prostitute named Blonde Greet. Event…
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Ginger Snaps
Posted in Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on November 7th, 2001
Intro
From the haunting soundtrack to the career-making performances from the Robin Cook’s superb cast, Ginger Snaps defines what a modern horror film should be: its artfully crafted reality skirts the edge of the mundane while maintaining an edge of surrealism through progressive applications of noire, violence, and the supernatural. The movie thoroughly involves the audience in a gruesome mockery of teenage evolution. Ginger (Katharine…
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Monty Python and the Holy Grail
Posted in Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on November 4th, 2001
Intro
CTHE has managed to squeeze yet another release out of the Monty Python franchise, this time in the form of a Holy Grail two-disc Special Edition. A single disc version with 2.0 sound streeted in September of 1999. While the discs are loaded with a mountain of extras and the video and sound are definitely better than the 1999 version, I would recommend this set for first time Holy Grail purchasers and suggest that current owners needn’t upgrade. This disc has regrettably bumped into the limitations…
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Sopranos: Complete Second Season
Posted in Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on November 1st, 2001
Intro
In terms of Box Sets, HBO has impressed with the Sopranos DVD Collection. Season One was a pure treat on DVD. From the packaging, the layout, the quality, and the content, the First Season was a beautiful DVD release. HBO has pleased again with the release of Season Two. The quality standards have remained impeccable, and the content is as good as ever…
Synopsis
“In its second season, The Sopranos sustains the edgy intelligence and unpredictable, genre-warping narrative moment…
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Star Trek: The Motion Picture
Posted in Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on November 1st, 2001
Hoooo boy! I bet you had forgotten what movies were like in 1979, right? Let me sum it up for you then: slow moving, and brown. The contrast in cinematic styles alone is shocking – this movie is full of long, long, long 20 second shots accompanied by ear-straining orchestrals; contrast this to the frenetic pace of today’s movies where camera angles change every three seconds and you’ll see how film styles have evolved in the 20 years since this movie was made to match waning attention spans. The highlight of this fil…
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Guadalcanal Diary
Posted in Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on October 29th, 2001
Just in case you thought war propaganda was incompatible with good filmmaking, here’s this release in Fox’s War Classics series.
Synopsis
The film literally is a diary, narrated by Reed Hadley, a war correspondent covering the US assault on Guadalcanal. Every step of the way the men are up against not only the Japanese enemy, but the natural enemies of terrain, weather and disease as well. The film was made smack in the middle of the war in 1943, and was rushed into production after the book of the…
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Wing and a Prayer
Posted in Disc Reviews by David Annandale on October 29th, 2001
Intro
Weary of 24-hour CNN war coverage? Want to see a more emotionally satisfying version of war? Then look no further than this 1944 Oscar nominee.
Synopsis
Don Ameche is the rigid, no-nonsense commander of a US aircraft carrier shortly after the attack on Pearl Harbor. The crew becomes frustrated as more and more time passes and they still don’t move into combat. Fate, however, has picked them to play a major role in the Battle of Midway and help turn the tide of the war.
Halls of Montezuma
Posted in Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on October 28th, 2001
Fans of Saving Private Ryan are hereby advised to look in to this 1950 effort, one of the original platoon films.
Synopsis
Richard Widmark is former school teacher (sound familiar?), now Lieutenant. He and his men (including such notables as Jack Palance, Robert Wagner, Karl Malden and Jack Webb) are part of a massive assault on a Japanese-held island. Stymied by Japanese rockets, the attack stalls. Widmark must lead a small group to capture Japanese prisoners in the hope of finding the location of…
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Butcher’s Wife, The
Posted in Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on October 22nd, 2001
Intro
We’re all pretty familiar with Demi Moore shorn of hair in GI Jane. But do you remember her with a blonde wig? No? Time to refresh your memory.
Synopsis
Moore is Marina, a fay North Carolina clairvoyant who has been waiting by the sea for her True Love. When, according to the signs, he shows up (or so she thinks) he does so in the round person of Leo Lemke (George Dzundza). Marina is a little thrown, but decides that fate is fate, and promptly marries him and moves to Greenwich V…
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Tomb Raider
Posted in Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on October 19th, 2001
Intro
Even though I expected a little more from this film, I must say that the DVD release is wonderful. Paramount has put together a jam-packed Special Edition, which should be enjoyed by all. For those who are not familiar with the Tomb Raider premise, here is a little synopsis for you…
Synopsis
“Lara Croft was born into wealth and groomed at the most elite schools. She travels to dangerous and mysterious locales around the globe in search of rare, lost crypts and lon…
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Fifth Element
Posted in Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on October 16th, 2001
I must say that upon learning about the SuperBit Series from Columbia-Tristar, I was very intrigued. I did not know what to really expect… no special features? I must say, that at least for Fifth Element: SuperBit, I am very impressed. Fifth Element was originally released on DVD a few years ago with no special features and very good video and audio quality… similar to the SuperBit ideology. Before I get into this disc, here is a bit about the plot…
Synopsis
“New York cab d…
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Bible, The
Posted in Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on October 13th, 2001
Intro
Here we have perhaps the most ambitious of all the biblical epics. John Huston’s film isn’t content with dealing with just one story from the Bible. Oh no. This is the first 22 chapters of Genesis. Needless to say, the scope is BIG.
Synopsis
Do you know your Book of Genesis? Then you know the plot. God creates the world, Adam and Eve screw up, Noah collects the animals, the tower of Babel is overthrown, and so on right up to Abraham’s sacrifice of Isaac. Huston gathered a big cas…
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Fawlty Towers – The Complete Collection
Posted in Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on October 10th, 2001
Intro
For you British comedy fans out there, do I have a treat for you? The BBC has released the complete Fawlty Towers collection on DVD, and it is a very nice 3-Disc set.
Synopsis
“John Cleese stars as Basil Fawlty, the sharp-tongued, short-tempered owner of Fawlty Towers, a hotel plagued by crisis, chaos and bizarre characters.”
Audio
Considering that this collection is a 22 year old television series, the 2.0 audio is pretty good. Sure, you won’t get any notice…
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Diary of a Sex Addict
Posted in Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on October 6th, 2001
Intro
This is an interesting film; not for the fact that it is a really good film, but for the fact that it was totally shot digitally. This method of filmmaking creates an interesting feel for the film, as if it was shot with a home video camera chronicling the life of the characters.
Synopsis
DIARY OF SEX ADDICT is the erotic and disturbingly arousing glimpse into the obsessive life of a sexual compulsive. By all outward appearances, Sammy Horn’s (Des Barres) life appears to be the …
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Life & Times of Hank Greenberg
Posted in Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on October 1st, 2001
Intro
Here’s a real treat for the baseball fans out there, but the appeal of the film doesn’t end with them. Anyone interested in the experience of the American Jewish community, or in the social history of the States in the 30s and 40s, will find this documentary absorbing.
Synopsis
Hank Greenberg was the first Jewish baseball superstar. Though he was very much a Brooklyn native, the bulk of his career was with the Detroit Tigers. The film presents the story of his life through interv…
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Friday the 13th Part V: A New Beginning
Posted in Disc Reviews by David Annandale on September 25th, 2001
Intro
It’s amazing the effect that the passage of time has. It was hard to find a series that had a cheaper and nastier reputation than the Friday the 13th films back when they were first released. Now, in the wake of the slick postmodernism of Scream and its ilk, these slashers seem oddly quaint and innocent. Watching one is an exercise in Generation X nostalgia, and not at all an unpleasant one at that.
Synopsis
If you really don’t know what happens in a Friday the 13th flick, then you should be reading a different review. But for those of you who tuned in late, Tommy, who killed Jason at the end of Part IV, is now a seriously disturbed young man.
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Carrie
Posted in Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on September 17th, 2001
Intro
“If you have a taste for terror, you have a date with CARRIE.” So intones the original theatrical trailer for 1976’s “Carrie,” Brian de Palma’s cinematic adaptation of Stephen King’s identically named novel. This is a revenge story: Carrie is a high school student (at “Bates High” – yes this did come out after Psycho) who is tormented by her peers for her lack of physical prowess, weird family, homeliness, et cetera. Her contemporaries mysteriously overlook that fact that she is telekinetic and can…
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Terminator
Posted in Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on September 15th, 2001
Intro
Forget the “blue-lightning = naked guy” time transport system; you can do real time travel in your living room with MGM’s “The Terminator SE.” Step back to a time before Linda Hamilton started taking steroids, and before Arnold Schwarzenegger stopped. A time when guys (Michael Biehn = “Kyle Reese”) wanted to look like Sting, and CGI animation didn’t even exist. Yes, step back into the terrifying stop-motion world of James Cameron’s “The Terminator” in this superb re-release.
The…
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Blob, The (1988)
Posted in Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on September 12th, 2001
Intro
In the wake of the successful remake of The Fly came this retread of the 1958 B-picture classic.
Synopsis
A meteor crashes to the ground just outside the town of Arborville. An old man pokes at it, releasing a crimson blob that goes on the rampage, growing ever larger as it consumes every living thing in its path. Can the courageous high school kids, led by rebel biker Kevin Dillon, save the day?
Audio
In this day and age when mono films are being remixed into …
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Bride, The
Posted in Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on September 12th, 2001
Intro
This is something of a surprise: a rather nice presentation of a film almost universally characterized as misbegotten.
Synopsis
An non-horror remake of what many consider the greatest horror film ever made, James Whale’s Bride of Frankenstein (1935), this film sees Charles (Charles?!) Frankenstein (Sting) make a female creature, Eva (Jennifer Beals). Both Frankenstein and his male creature Viktor (Clancy Brown) fall in love with Eva. Both creatures struggle to establish their ow…
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Survivor Season 2
Posted in Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on September 11th, 2001
Intro
Everybody’s favorite reality based television show has come to video for the second time, courtesy of Paramount. Unfortunately this is not the complete second season of Survivor, only a “best of” compellation. We are introduced to the contestants that we have all come to either love (Elizabeth & Colby) or hate (Jerri & Kimmi), and are shown some of their footage from the show and the entry videos that the contestants submitted.
Audio
I would call the audio on this disc “made fo…
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Buffy the Vampire Slayer
Posted in Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on September 4th, 2001
Posted in Disc Reviews by Carly Peters
Intro
Can you believe that this film is the pre-cursor to the highly popular television show? It is really entertaining to compare the film to the t.v. show, but unfortunately this film did not receive a great treatment on DVD. I am sure you can figure out the premise, but here is the film’s synopsis courtesy of Fox…
Synopsis
“Blonde, bouncy Buffy (Kristy Swanson) is your typical high school cheerleader – her goal is to “marry Christian Slater and die” and nothing gets in her way …
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Kramer vs. Kramer
Posted in Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on August 30th, 2001
Intro
I have seen many fabulous restorations of old films in the past, and even though this restoration does not compare to that of Lawrence of Arabia or Gandhi, Columbia-Tristar did a really good job. Unfortunately, this Academy Award winning Best Picture did not get the DVD release it deserved. If you have not seen his film, here is a synopsis from the press release:
Synopsis
“KRAMER VS. KRAMER is a story of contemporary relationships, values and choices. Returning home late from w…
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Simpsons: The Complete First Season
Posted in Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on August 30th, 2001
Posted in Disc Reviews by Carly Peters
Intro
Everyone’s favorite dysfunctional family is releasing a box set of the season that started it all. The Simpsons: The Complete First Seasons includes 13 episodes on three discs and is filled with lots of goodies, including some never before seen footage of an episode creator Matt Groening wishes he could forget.
Audio
To me the audio was no great shakes. There were moments when sound effects were really clear and realistic, i.e. Homer banging his head against a metal pole, while…
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