Fox is one of the few companies that is currently producing Blu-Ray discs that really know how to push the disc to its limits. Take for example, the recently-released unrated version of Max Payne. Aside from having both the theatrical and unrated versions of the films present, Fox has filled this Blu-Ray release to the brim with additional features. This two-disc special edition is the end-all, be-all for anyone that…
I remember when Oliver and Company was first released; I was 6, and recalled wanting to see the film when it was first released. However, in the years that passed, the film has fallen out of my memory, until Disney announced plans that they were going to release an updated DVD for the film’s twentieth anniversary celebration. This DVD is what we hold in our hands, and it features a…
Cheers is one of a few shows that stayed strong, even as the show wound down in the 1992 – 1993 season. Cheers: The Final Season captures this and showcases another interesting thing. This is the fact that a typical show’s runtime was much longer season-wise then (23 episodes are present on this DVD set, where most shows sputter out in the 15-20 episode range). This 4-disc set ensures that…
This DVD set has a high value for fans of ambient or new takes on classical music. This is due to the fact that Brian Eno’s (and Bang on a Can All-Stars) “Music for Airports†is present, while Frank Scheffer’s “In the Ocean†operates as the B-side to “Music for Airportsâ€. Together, these pieces hover at about 105 minutes, allowing viewers to get deep into the heads of everyone associated…
Just barely missing the twenty-five year anniversary of the show, MPI has captured the 1983 mini-series Kennedy and released it this year. I was not aware of this series before receiving this title from MPI themselves: after investing six hours of my time, I soon realized that not familiarizing myself with the show before then was a folly. Martin Sheen captures all the mannerisms and idiosyncrasies of John F. Kennedy;…
The “Live At The Royal Albert Hall†DVD captures an ELP concert from 1992; this concert immediately followed the release of their “Black Moon†album, which marked the end of a 14-year break up. Where possibly interested viewers may think that the three members of ELP would be rusty after all the time spent apart, the first full track – “Karn Evil 9: 1st Impression – Part 2†– will…
Being There is a 1979 film; it was originally interpreted and created based on a work earlier in the decade by author Jerzy Kosinski. Chance The Gardiner (SellerS) is an individual that, for the entirety of eir life, has been charged with tending the garden of a well-to-do individual. When ey is put out onto the street, ey is hit by a car. The individual that hit Chance, Ben Rand…
Comedy Central has really stepped up their game when it comes to having some of the best up and coming comedians on the circuit. I remember back in the middle to late nineties, when Comedy Central seemed to show all the specials from the lower rungs of the comedy ladder; that is simply not how the current iteration of Comedy Central works. That is a good thing; “Red, White and…
Henry Poole is Here is a film that discusses the moving-in of a neighbor (Luke Wilson) after getting some morbid news from eir doctor. Instead of being seen as a charity case or someone to pity, Henry Poole looks to do nothing but spend eir remaining time trying to be left alone. Moving to the suburb seems to be the perfect way to go and do that, bringing Poole into…
With a run time that approaches 9 hours, the Pokemon Battle Frontier collects the first half of the titular series. For those individuals that do not know where exactly Pokemon Battle Frontier fits into the whole Pokemon storyline, the events that take place during this box set are stuck right between the Advanced Battle and the Diamond and Pearl Saga. For individuals that may have not had the chance to…
Unless individuals have had the chance to really plumb the depths of Soviet-era cinema from Russia chances are good that they may have only heard of Larisa Shepitko. This Criterion Collection release acts as the bookends for Shepitko’s career, collecting eir final work (1976’s “The Ascentâ€) with a 1966 piece (“Wingsâ€) that exists as Shepitko’s first post-college work. While there are a few other efforts that Shepitko released during eir…
National Lampoon has had a few movies that they have purchased the rights to that have fallen on their faces in the last few years, but Stoned Age is a movie that seems to right that ship. The film is set in the prehistoric age, and follows director Adam Rifkin as Ishbo, a caveman that wants to take the next step forward in development. Faced with a tribe full of…
The Deal is a film (based off an early nineties work by Peter Lefcourt) that has been floating around the nether for over a year before Peace Arch graciously picked it up and gave the masses of humanity a better chance to be able to find it. The movie surrounds Charlie Berns (William H. Macy) as a lost, both mentally in eir family life and where exactly ey wants eir…
The Day The Earth Stopped is an intense film that showcases two friends (played here by Judd Nelson and C. Thomas Howell as Charlie and Josh) that have to find heads or tails of a robot invasion of Earth. Robots take over four metropoles – London, Moscow, Paris, and Washington, D.C. and ensure destruction of these places unless the Earth cedes its collected authority to the invading forces. There are…
Does anyone remember the MTV show from the late nineties, Undressed? If so, they will find out that there is a show that blends the hectic sex and actions of the main characters of that show with the youthful indiscretions of a movie like Thirteen. However, unlike Undressed, the characters that are present in Skins are fleshed out and are not seen really as only vessels for gratuitous sex scenes;…
I know that the Legendary Performances series has been covered considerably by a number of different individuals over the last few months, but I feel that the series, and especially the Merle Haggard edition of the series, are worth a more critical view. For those individuals that may not have had the chance to view any of the series, they are essentially compilations of performances that one major individual in…
I still remember when Dr. Katz was first on. I guess I was young enough at this point to not really have the appreciation for the show that I now do, but I found the stand-up comedians on the show to be unfunny and the show overall underwhelming. However, in the years that have followed, I have paid attention to the careers of a number of those individuals that were…
I did not have the chance to watch the first movie in the Chronicles of Narnia story arc, but I was lucky enough to see the film in theatres. Saying that, the Blu-Ray transfer that Disney has created is simply stunning. The audio is as crisp and as clear as anyone could experience in the theater, while the video is rich and vibrant, showing the otherworldly allure created by the…
It has been a long time since we have had a chance to cover The Bloody Irish Boys. We had a chance to review and interview them when their CD “Drunk Rock†came out, and we just received the full retail version of their first DVD. Uniting a video component to the cuts of “Drunk Rockâ€, the first thing that viewers will be able to see with “Drunk Rock†is…
Pretty much everyone that I know went to see Kingdom of the Crystal Skull when it first came out, so I’ll dispense with a lot of the description of the film. Paramount has made one of the strongest cases that it could for the Blu-Ray format in its release of Kingdom on Blu-Ray, giving viewers a panoply of bonus features while providing a sharper picture and audio than could conceivably…