Posted in: Disc Reviews by David Annandale on July 29th, 2009
This was Lucille Ball's follow-up to I Love Lucy, and the first season is, apparently, the most highly regarded one. Here Ball is a widowed mother of two, sharing her home with best friend Vivian Vance, who is a divorced mother of one. All the other members of household are, of course, faced with the disasters triggered by Lucy. I screened this set immediately after viewing its close contemporary, Petticoat Junction, and the difference between the two was instructive. There are plenty of hoary gags and situations on The Lucy Show, but there is an enormous difference between the shows thanks to the comic genius of Lucille Ball. Her energy fills each episode, her timing is spot-on, but there is also her commitment to a type of physical comedy that to this day remains pretty much the exclusive domain of male performers. Not only does she make this style her own, she grounds it in a female reality. There is a reason she was so beloved a performer, and why her work still stands up today.
Posted in: Dare to Play the Game, News and Opinions by Michael Durr on July 29th, 2009
Iron Man Lessons Learned, DS Piracy, and EA Tramp Stamping? - Welcome to the column that would tattoo their logo on their body but it would just end up being the butt of the jokes every other week known as Dare to Play the Game.
Well, one positive thing to come out of this week and that is I’m done with Warcraft for a little while. I finished my rep grind with Timbermaw and got my epic trinket for completing the task.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by David Annandale on July 28th, 2009
Once upon a time, there was an age of TV where hit shows where women in their 20s played high school students, and an entire episode could revolve around the burning crisis of whether the dog that followed one daughter home could stay. It is from this era that Petticoat Junction hails. This series about a widowed mother and her three daughters tending the Shady Rest Hotel ran for seven years, and begat both Green Acres and The Beverly Hillbillies, in that characters from all three series would interact with each other.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Michael Durr on July 28th, 2009
The Green Lantern character has always been one of my favorite DC comic book heroes, right after the likes of Batman and the Flash. As far as Earth-born GL’s, Hal Jordan has always been first in my heart and even though the John Stewart was shown predominantly in the cartoon series: Justice League Unlimited, it was hard wrapping my head around him as the Green Lantern. I was excited to see that due to recent success with other characters, the people at DC decided to release a direct to disc release for the Green Lantern sub-titled: First Flight.
![Green Lantern: First Flight (+ Digital Copy) [Blu-ray] dvd cover art](https://upcomingdiscs.com/ecs_covers/green-lantern-first-flight-digi-large.jpg)
Posted in: No Huddle Reviews by Archive Authors on July 23rd, 2009
According to the Chinese calendar, during the seventh month of every year vengeful spirits are allowed to break free from hell and mix it up with mortals. Throughout this month, there are precautions that need to be taken in order to avoid any terrifying contact with these demons. It is during this month, that housekeeper Alyssa (Marina Resa) decides to take a job at a wealthy Chinese family’s home in the desert and the thrills begin.
Posted in: News and Opinions by Gino Sassani on July 22nd, 2009
Like many of the people who visit these pages, I am a fan of television and films. I am particularly drawn to genre projects. Like most science fiction fans, I have been a long time subscriber to Starlog Magazine. For a lot of years they have been the definitive source to information on just that kind of entertainment. I still own every issue going back more than 15 years. Second only to Famous Monsters, I have long enjoyed the rich tradition the magazine established.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on July 22nd, 2009
Since the events of 911 there has been a lot more appreciation, at least publicly, for the real life heroes who populate fire and police stations all over the country. Few jobs offer so little reward for such high risk all in the name of protecting our society from harm. It’s likely no coincidence that while Third Watch began a couple of years before those events, it reached its peak in popularity in the months and years that followed. A better than average procedural drama, Third Watch offered a look at both police officers and firefighters along with their paramedics.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on July 22nd, 2009
I grew up on the Peanuts creations of Charles M. Schulz. Most of us have, in some way or another. His newspaper comic strip is one of the longest running and most successful strips of all time. The work has been translated into every language currently spoken on the planet. The images of Charlie Brown, Snoopy, Linus, and the rest of the Peanuts gang have appeared on just about any kind of product imaginable. Our pop culture contains too many references to the strip to mention briefly. For me, it was the television specials starting in the mid 1960’s that brought the gang into my life.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on July 22nd, 2009
The third season of Matlock brought more of the same. If you’re a fan, that’s very good news indeed. What is that, you ask? Imagine Sheriff Andy Taylor older and now an attorney, and you pretty much have the setup for Matlock. Forget for a second that both characters were played by Andy Griffith. That’s not all they have in common. Matlock is every bit the “southern gentleman” that Taylor was. He might be a little smarter, but he walks and talks like Andy Taylor.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by David Annandale on July 22nd, 2009
This, the final season of the series, opens with Samantha (Elizabeth Montgomery) and Darrin (Dick Sargent) on a European tour. This means stock shots of various European landmarks before we return to rather unconvincingly dressed-up studio backlots. There are a few two-parters in the mix, including the opening episodes, where Samantha is zapped back to the court of Henry VIII, and a late-season adventure where the time travel goes the other way, and George Washington is brought forward to the present. Special note should be made of Episode 3, where the Loch Ness Monster shows up, in all his googly-eyed, man-in-a-costume glory.
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