Ray Griggs attempts to show with I Want Your Money how exactly the different political parties view their relationship with their citizenry. Using speeches from Ronald Reagan and Barack Obama, there are a number of differences that are shown. While there is a full hour and a half to this DVD, I still feel as if there could have been more coverage presented. What results in I Want Your Money…
I was a little antsy when I learned that A&E was branching off into drama rather than continuing to solely focus on reality television shows. The Glades premiered last year, and ties together a number of up and coming actors with established television personas. Matt Passmore plays Detective Jim Longworth, a transplant to the area from the Windy City. Longworth takes a position at the FDLE – the Florida Department…
It is rare to view a film that has so many nods to different genres. In the case of Payton Collins Serial Rapist, director Toby Ross is able to blend horror, thriller, and erotic elements into what ey calls darkotica. It is this ability to move seamlessly through these different genres is why the film becomes inviting, but the roles turned in by the different members of the cast is…
Despite the disparity of the material that is covered during Wartorn 1861-2010, the film unites the different actions through the sheer effect that they have on the people that fought them. While the idea of post-traumatic stress disorder is a relatively new one, the symptom has been present in the warrior’s mind throughout the time period covered by Jon Alpert here. The most interesting information obtained in this documentary has…
A Matador’s Mistress is a film set in 1940s Spain, where the love between Manolete (a famous bullfighter, played by Adrian Brody) and Lupe Sino (an actress with a fiery political streak, played by Penelope Cruz) is whipped up into a tremendous scandal. The film is important also in that it was actually finished in 2005, but the political content of the title made it a difficult commodity to successfully…
With the sheer amount of films that are being re-released onto the Blu-Ray format, I feel that there is a good chance that a number of them will be completely missed. While there is a good reason for this for some films, I content that Lorber’s re-release of a number of films from the Sophia Loren vaults should be viewed. This collection (which includes Sunflower, Marriage Italian Style, and Yesterday,…
You’d be excused for thinking Shot in the Dark, the new HBO doc from Entourage’s Adrian Grenier, was little more than a predictably sappy tear jerker aimed at the Lifetime crowd. That’s certainly what I was expecting, so I was pleasantly surprised when the film turned out to be a sincere look at Grenier simply searching for answers about the estranged father he grew up without. Out on DVD just…
Killer Yacht Party is an absolutely absurd flick, but that is not a bad thing. Where a great deal of horror movies end up taking themselves too seriously, Killer Yacht Party is able to intersperse humor with horror in a highseas whodunit. The film starts off innocently, with a party being held on a yacht. As things begin to reach a fever pitch, deaths start occurring. Keeping things varied, the…
There have been a tremendous number of different pieces, works, and other films done since the advent of television that looks to provide a decent amount of coverage of America’s Civil War. However, due to time restrictions or ideological leanings of the work’s creator, a great many of these collections have been limited in one sense or another. Questar has created a DVD set that looks to solve a great…
There will always be limitation with the source material that an older film is pulled from. However, in transferring 1961’s The Hustler from its original reel, Fox has imbued a sharpness to it that is hard to deny. With the crisp video print and corresponding sharp audio track, I cannot help but imagine that this is what moviegoers saw back in 1961. The film stars Paul Newman as a pool…
I am pretty surprised that I missed out on Party Animals when it first aired, on BBC Two in 2007. The show, which featured Matt Smith, Andrew Buchan and Shelley Conn, was only greenlit for the course of one season. However, BFS Entertainment has found it and has given it a new lease on life with this DVD set release. Party Animals showcases the sometimes hard to believe lives of…
After Monk ended its run, I really did not think that USA was going to have any sort of show to fill the void. After watching the first season of White Collar, I believe that I was wrong – White Collar shows that there are cable shows that (at the very least) can approach the quality of writing and acting of network shows. Lead actor Matt Bomer (Neal Caffrey) still…
This DVD captures the final season of the Stagate phenomenon, and was the final season broadcasted of Stargate Universe. The show was stuck between a rock and a hard place, though – it broke free of the limitations that previous seasons of Stargate had placed on itself while keeping things fresh. Where there was a shift to a more character-driven (rather than storyline-driven) episodes, the show seemed to contain some…
Adua & Her Friends (DVD) / 2011 Rarovideo / 129 Minutes / http://www.rarovideo.com I had thought with the advent of the Blu-Ray, that DVD-making companies would gradually die off. However, there are some companies that are putting out some impressive DVD-only content. Rarovideo is one of these companies, and Adua & Her Friends (Adua e le compagne) is an example of one of these films. The film is only one…
I love the fact that, after about twenty years of having an intimate connection with Japan and the different anime showing there, that Section 23 can dig up such a great title. Ghost Sweeper Mikami is a show that originally aired from April of 1993 until March of 1994, with 45 episodes (and 1 hour-long film) that aired soon after. The show itself has an interesting premise – the rapid…
While I have heard much gnashing of teeth about the irregular schedule that Spongebob Squarepants and other Nickelodeon cartoons have, I feel that this allows the creative team to keep the shows fresh without experiencing burnout as rapidly as other children’s show. Nowhere is this better seen than in Heroes of Bikini Bottom, the Spongebob DVD that is touching down on June 14th. The 88 minute-runtime of this DVD gives…
I keep pretty abreast of the different DC comics’ cartoons, but I have not (until this 2-DVD set) really had the chance or the ability to properly get into the different Marvel franchises. If you are in a similar boat as me, there is no reason why you should not search out both volumes of The Avengers: Earth’s Mightiest Heroes. This release hits on all cylinders, beginning with the unique…
Kung Fu Dunk is one of those otherworldly types of movies that will ultimately turn out to be a great popcorn muncher. In Kung Fu Dunk, Fang Shijie (Jay Chou) is trained at the highest caliber by the best masters of kung fu. After being removed from eir schooling, Fang is required to make something of eirself. To do this, ey takes a spot on a college basketball team. Where…
Heaven & Hell was a supergroup beyond even Black Sabbath’s wildest dreams. Consisting of past and present Sabbath members, their run at the top was only cut short by Ronnie James Dio’s untimely demise. The quality of Heaven & Hell: Radio City Music Hall – Live! Is nothing less than impressive. Where many concert videos seem to be lacking a truly visionary camera direction, this release ensures that every important…
Bhutto is a properly-paced telling of the life and times of the Bhutto family, in a fashion that is not completely dissimilar to coverings of a political regime like the Bush, Clinton, or even Kennedy family. While this is ultimately a documentary about the titular leader, the story easily rivals fictional accounts – Bhutto’s story is tremendously interesting and hard to believe at points. In order to properly educate viewers,…