DVD Review: Dorothy Mills

Remember when watching a foreign film meant sub-titles, out-of-synch dubbing, and plots that make little to no sense at all? The artsy films out of Europe seem to be fewer and further between, because I‘ve seen some really good films in the last few months and the quirky Dorothy Mills is no different.

Blu-ray Reviews: The French Connection I & II

The 1971 Academy Award winning film The French Connection pulled in not only Best Picture, but four other Oscars for that year, including Best Director, Actor, Editing, and Writing in its category. The French Connection also won three Golden Globes and a host of other awards.

In 1975, it’s underlauded sequel The French Connection II premiered. Now you can own them looking, according not only to ComicsOnline, but also to Director William Friedkin who said so of the first movie, the best that anyone’s ever seen them on their new Blu-ray format.

One important thing to note is that these were made in 1971 and 1975, meaning cultural sensitivity had not yet been invented. Our heroes use racial epithets in a harsh and hurtful way because they can. The violence may not be as graphic by today’s standards, but there is plenty of reason to take the R Rating seriously.

DVD Review: The Gene Generation

The Gene Generation is the story of jaded assassin who gets pulled into trouble with a variety of bad people by her brother’s gambling problem. When he steals a dangerous tool used for genetic manipulation, she must destroy the object before it falls into the wrong hands. This all takes place in the seething underbelly of a city doomed to lose its remaining atmosphere and filled with dangerous “DNA Hackers,” murderers who steal and alter their victim’s DNA in order to get a ticket out of the city.

Movie Review: Watchmen (Spoiler-free)

Who watches the Watchmen? 300 lucky people at WonderCon 2009, that’s who! ComicsOnline was there to bask in the glorious film at the Metrion Theater in downtown San Francisco.

Now there are several questions that everyone wants to know. Without spoiling, we’ll answer at least two:

1. Does it live up to expectations? Yes.

2. Did Warner Brothers do it justice? Oh most certainly yes.

This is the most faithful adaptation of any book and or graphic novel to screen that I have ever seen. Yes there are some minor changes. We’ve all heard how they changed the ending a bit and how they removed the Black Freighter and Under the Hood interludes…but honesty, the film didn’t suffer as a result. Even with the slightly changed ending, the point of the story definitely gets across.

DVD Review Feast III: The Happy Finish Unrated

In the first movie we spent a night in a bar with a faceless Jason Mewes, Henry Rollins as a motivational speaker in pink sweat pants, a decreasing number of patrons and staff, and couple of big horny monsters and a couple of baby horny monsters. A few people survived to see the sun rise.

DVD & Blu-ray Review: Madagascar Escape 2 Africa

Marty: This is not crackalackin’.
Alex: Definitely lacking on the cracking, my friend.
Gloria: Is this place great or what?
Alex: I’m going with “or what”.

Remember how funny Madagascar was? Didn’t you love the trailer for Madagascar 2? You know, where it’s got that great elevator intro building up to the “I like to Move It-Move It” song, then Julien the king lemur pops out of the cake in drag, then the penguins fly the plane and… Yeah, after that? well…

Blu-ray Review: Little Miss Sunshine

“There’s two kinds of people in this world, there’s winners and there’s losers. Okay, you know what the difference is? Winners don’t give up. “

The Academy Award Nominated Film Little Miss Sunshine is now available to own on Blu-ray!

Story

DVD Review: Tales from the Darkside, The First Season

Idyllic country scenes, lush fields, serene forests, babbling brooks “Man lives in the sunlit world of what he believes to be reality, but, there is unseen by most an underworld, a place that is just as real, but not as brightly lit, a darkside”, as the ending scenes turn to the photographic negative.

And so begins each episode of Tales from the Darkside, a half-hour horror anthology series in the vein of The Twilight Zone. The First Season contains 24 episodes, the pilot (1983) and 23 episodes in the first season 9/30/1984 – 8/4/1985), on three discs.

The episode line ups are:

DVD Review: The Wizards of Waverly Place: Supernaturally Stylin’

Like anything found on the Disney Channel, The Wizards of Waverly Place is a series that is appropriate for all ages, but with its high degree of goofiness, this series in particular shows itself to be solidly among the masses of tween-centric shows out today in that it’s actually a show that only those with patience for light unrealistic morality comedies will likely enjoy.

Blu-ray Review: Friday The 13th 1, 2, 3-D Deluxe Editions

The modern horror classic, Friday The 13th 1, 2, and 3-D has been re-mastered, re-mixed, and re-released for our viewing pleasure. That’s right, Paramount is releasing the tales from Camp Crystal Lake in a Deluxe, Uncut Edition.

The first 3 volumes of this long running franchise have been re-mastered in High Definition, re-mixed in 5.1 Surround Mix, and a load of new special features.

DVD Review: Phineas and Ferb vol. 2 The Daze of Summer

“There’s a hundred and four days of summer vacation, and school comes along just to end it. So the annual problem for our generation is finding a good way to spend it. LIKE MAYBE…”

So begins every episode of Phineas and Ferb. Each episode contains 2 stories, so while this DVD only contains 5 episodes, you get 10 cartoons.

DVD Review: Death Note II: the Last Name

Death Note II: the Last Name is the sequel to the phenomenal hit live-action movie Death Note, based on the hit manga series written by Tsugumi Ohba and illustrated by Takeshi Obata. The Death Note live-action DVD, released in September 2008, was ranked as #1 in Japanese Films in North America and #34 in the Live-Action category. As the sequel of Death Note and once again directed by the renowned monster filmmaker Shusuke Kaneko, Death Note II: the Last Name concludes the titanic battle between the two geniuses Light and L. The DVD is distributed in North America by VIZ Media.

DVD Review: The Naked Gun: From the Files of Police Squad! (1988)

Paramount brings you another classic movie in their “I Love the 80’s” on DVD series.

“It’s the same old story. Boy finds girl, boy loses girl, girl finds boy. Boy forgets girl, boy remembers girl. Girl dies in a tragic blimp accident over the Orange Bowl on New Year’s Day.”

“Goodyear?”

“No, the worst.”

DVD Review: Choke

Choke is weird: a personal quest of self discovery through worlds of sexual addiction and delusion, occasionally hilarious, occasionally heartbreaking, and absurd throughout. It shares several characteristics with Fight Club, most notably the author, Chuck Palahniuk, who wrote the novels that inspired both films. Choke drips with Palahniuk’s style: it has a clever yet mentally deranged protagonist who constantly makes snarky observations about human nature while surrounding himself with other deranged individuals; it examines the ugly underside of human nature; it has a twist, which managed to surprise because it provides a moment of reality in the midst of complete absurdity.

DVD Review: Coming To America (1988)

Paramount brings you another classic movie in their “I Love the 80’s” on DVD series.

Remember back when Eddie Murphy movies were funny? Need a minute? I’ll wait….

Before he started churning out hot crap like “The Adventures of Pluto Nash”, and the celluloid abortion known as “Norbit”, Eddie Murphy had an incredibly successful (and funny) standup and movie career. Toward the end of this great streak, which included such classics as “48 Hours”, “Trading Places”, “Beverly Hills Cop”, and “The Golden Child”, there came along a more family friendly movie called “Coming To America”.