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.
Black History Collection: Soul Of The Church (Infinity Entertainment)
In the mid-’60s, some NBC affiliates offered a Sunday morning celebration of music and spirit called TV Gospel Time. Filmed in Chicago, the show featured the kings and queens of black gospel at the time, giving valuable air time to such icons as Sister Rosetta Tharpe, Ernestine Washington, the Blind Boys of Mississippi and James Cleveland, as well as community church choirs from around the Midwest. Unfortunately for gospel fans and scholars, episodes of this show were fairly hard to come by, usually found only on bootleg videocasettes or what clips were available on YouTube.
While Infinity Entertainment have saddled this program with a completely different name for its first legitimate DVD release, all thanks and praise must be sent their way for finally giving these programs a chance at reaching a wider audience. The unfettered performances found on this two-disc set are positively soul-stirring, simply because they feature no overdubs. So, every flubbed note, off beat clap and rough patch are left out in the open. But the spirit they put behind every note – even the ones that are wrong – puts the sanitized sound of contemporary Christian music to withering shame.
Blackadder: The Ultimate Edition (Remastered)
If you are only familiar with Rowan Atkinson through his fine physical comedy as the long-running character Mr. Bean or his appearances in films like Four Weddings & A Funeral and Scooby Doo, you are missing out on one of the great comedic talents from the UK. He was a proto-Jon Stewart in the early ’80s with the parody newscast Not The Nine O’Clock News, and through his work in both The Thin Blue Line and Black Adder took the character of the put upon authority figure who botches every keen plot he devises out of John Cleese’s hands and improved upon it before passing it off to Ricky Gervais.
This six-disc set compiles all of Atkinson’s appearances as the title character, which took him through four complete series and a few added specials from 1983 – 1989. The series, which puts Atkinson in the title role through four important historical periods of British history (the reigns of The Tudors and Queens Elizabeth and Victoria, as well as the first World War), and in each, the mores and practices of the time are sent up with loving detail thanks to the shows fine writers: Atkinson, Richard Curtis (who went on to write Four Weddings) and Ben Elton (The Young Ones, Alfresco). Continue reading
10 Things I Hate About You – 10th Anniversary Edition
10 Things I Hate About You, which helped launch the careers of stars Heath Ledger and Julia Stiles, is a comedy for those of us who grew up in the late 90’s. Continue reading
ER: The Complete Twelfth Season
ER continues with its well written medical drama and adult drama situations in Season 12. Continue reading
RiffTrax Live!: Plan 9 From Outer Space DVD Review
The first RiffTrax Live release is a winner. Continue reading
The Sherlock Holmes Collection
Ostensibly, the release of this three-DVD set was timed to coincide with Guy Ritchie’s recent reboot of the Sherlock Holmes story. A perfect marketing decision on A&E’s part. But while this set does provide a healthy reminder of the more traditional depictions of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s most famous creation, there are some other interesting factors that bubble up when going through the five episodes of the series featured here. Continue reading
Fawlty Towers: The Complete Collection (Remastered)
When John Cleese joined forces with the other members of Monty Python, he was the most recognized face in the bunch, having made his name on shows such as The Frost Report, Marty and At Last The 1948 Show. And by the time he parted ways with Python, he was a bona fide star. As you would expect, the BBC were willing to do anything to keep their comic actor bringing in viewers. So in 1975, they gave him free reign to conceive, write, produce and star in a new series. Continue reading
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