Pride and Prejudice (Restored Edition) (DVD Review)
Content Grade: A
Extras Grade: B
Specs:
US Release Date: 27 April 2010
Not Rated
Picture & Sound:
Working directly from original negatives, cutting edge technology has been used to create a picture that has been color-enhanced and completely digitally restored. The result is a hi-def picture that is cleaner and richer than ever before. Continue reading
Scarecrow and Mrs. King-Season One
Kate Jackson and Bruce Boxleitner starred in this light hearted 80’s spy show that has a huge following even now. No sooner than Warner released this first season that fans were asking for Season Two. The show was proving ground for Jackson, who had been on Charlie’s Angel’s and took on this role to show her acting talent in areas, such as humor. Continue reading
Ripley’s Believe It Or Not
Before there was Guinness World Records, Robert Ripley was drawing and recording bizarre and unusual facts, people and events. Starting out as an artist that appeared in hundreds of newspapers, Ripley eventually took his collection of the unusual to the local theater, producing a series of 24 shorts, each around 10 minutes long. Warner Archives has released the entire collection of these shorts in a two disc set. Continue reading
Alice In Wonderland-BBC
This 60’s black and white production from the BBC is a startling and original take on the children’s classic. Led by an outstanding cast that includes Michael Redgrave, Peter Sellers, John Gielgud, Peter Cook and Leo McKern help this surreal production’s credibility. Continue reading
The Boondock Saints II: All Saints Day (DVD Review)
Content Grade: B
Extras Grade: B
US Release Date: 9 March 2010
Rated R
It’s been ten years since we last saw The Saints. Connor (Sean Patrick Flanery) and Murphy (Norman Reedus) have disappeared from the public eye and are living the quiet life on a sheep farm in Ireland with their father (Billy Connolly) when they receive word that a priest has been brutally murdered in Boston. Moreover, the priest has been posed in death and pennies placed over his eyes. Someone is calling the boys out. The only problem with the plan, their Da says, is that it worked.
Back in Boston, there are some familiar faces and some new ones. Detectives Greenly (Bob Marley), Duffy (Brian Mahoney), and Dolly (David Ferry) are back on the case, unsure of where they’ll stand if their involvement in the courtroom climax of The Saints’ last spree were to leak. They’ve got a new FBI lead on the case, too: Special Agent Eunice Bloom (Julie Benz), a woman handed the torch by the late Agent Smecker (Willem Defoe). When the boys arrive back in town, they’ve also got a new recruit: Romeo (Clifton Collins Jr.), a scrappy Mexican who’s also a big fan.
If you’re not a fan of the first film, THE BOONDOCK SAINTS II: ALL SAINTS DAY isn’t going to pull out a wealth of new tricks to try to change your mind. Fans will find a lot to love, and it’s apparent in every frame that this movie is meant for the fans. The sequel mirrors the first film in much of its progression, ramping up the body count and cranking the film’s signature style up to 11.
Extras:
- Commentary with Writer/Director Troy Duffy, Sean Patrick Flanery, Norman Reedus, and Billy Connolly
- Commentary with Writer/Director Troy Duffy and Willem Defoe
- Unprecedented Access: Behind the Scenes – Wherein Clifton Collins Jr. compares Troy Duffy to Fellini. I kid you not.
- Billy Connolly and Troy Duffy: Unedited
- Merchandise/Games
- Previews: HARRY BROWN (red band), DEFENDOR, THE IMAGINARIUM OF DOCTOR PARNASSUS
The Brothers Warner
“The Brothers Warner” is a well done documentary about the four brothers that started the famous studio as told by friends and family. With lots of archival footage, Cass Warner , the granddaughter of Harry Warner, narrates this fascinating look at the brothers who started back in nickelodeon days and built it into a powerful empire in Hollywood. Each brother is carefully examined and family difficulties are not smoothed over by Warner, along with interviews from famous Warner aquaintances Debbie Reynolds, Dennis Hopper, Norman Lear, Sherry Lansing and others. Family members are also interviewed in this 94 minutes documentary. Excerpts from famous Warner films are also featured, as Warner Studios took risks; they introduced a lot of genres (gangster films)and political ideas(the first studio to produce an anti Nazi film) into film even though it wasn’t popular at the time. Other studios actually pressured Warner not to put out “Confessions Of A Nazi Spy” because they didn’t want to lose Germany’s box office funds.
This high interest documentary kept me riveted to my chair as it will for most film buffs. Recommended viewing. This DVD will be released March 9, 2010.
FlashForward Part One Season One
The first 10 episodes of this original show on ABC are released on DVD, before the return of the show on March 18th. I have found the show worth watching, and the show follows the calendar as the weeks go by. For anyone not familiar with it, a world wide blackout of humans occurs for 2 minutes and 17 seconds in the opening show and FBI agents Joseph Fiennes and John Cho must deal with the aftermath and try to find out the mystery behind it. During this blackout period, people experience a vision of their future, that have devastating results to relationships and the way people feel about life. The show deals more with these visions and the clues they contain then anything else. The audience discovers along with the characters when secrets are revealed. Continue reading
Glee, Vol. 1: Road to Sectionals (DVD Review)
Content Grade: B+
Extras Grade: B
US Release Date: 29 December 2009
Not Rated
When the pilot episode premiered months before the show’s actual season would get underway – scheduled to coincide with the “AMERICAN IDOL” finale and pull in what studio execs may have assumed would be its core audience – it was unclear whether “GLEE” would be the musical dramedy that could succeed where others couldn’t. (“VIVA LAUGHLIN” or “COP ROCK”, anyone?) But a bajillion* downloads of “Don’t Stop Believin’” and 13 episodes later, and it seems creator/executive producer Ryan Murphy (“NIP/TUCK”) has found the magic formula.
“GLEE” follows a misfit group of high school kids who come together when high school Spanish teacher Will Schuester (Matthew Morrison) takes the reins of the defunct glee club. The musical numbers (ranging from classic rock to hip-hop to country to Broadway and back again) are slickly produced, but not overly so; and I dare you to not have one song or another stuck in a giddy loop in your head after watching just one episode. But it’s the broad strokes and the slowly revealed intricate details of the cast of characters that keeps you coming back and, most importantly, takes the song bursts past gimmick and plants them firmly into the category of storytelling device. Continue reading
The Battle of Chile (Icarus Films)
In 1973, with the presidency of Salvador Allende facing fierce opposition from a variety of right-wing factions and outside forces, Patricio Guzmán and a skeleton film crew took their cameras the streets, factories and government buildings of Chile and recorded history as it happened. Only a few months later, Allende was dead, Augusto Pinochet took his place, and Guzmán was forced to flee to Cuba with his film stock to complete the most arresting piece of cinéma vérité ever created: The Battle Of Chile.
Bonekickers DVD Review
On paper, this seems like the perfect series for a television world that is packed full of procedural dramas and forensics experts solving crimes – as well as one where TNT’s popular Librarian movies captured the thrilling side of bookishness. Unfortunately, it manages to fail where so many of those programs have succeeded: making the intricate details of an investigation and an archeological dig seem positively tame and boring.
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