JFK - A New World Order - Standard Edition

JFK - A NEW WORLD ORDER
PROS.... A good amount of unseen photos and usually unseen segments of famous speeches (*unseen meaning "I" haven't seen them in any previous docs I have seen and I have seen quite a few, but not all). Good overview of the administration.
CONS....too few interviewee's (only 3 in whole series) and those that are did have a remote connection to firsthand knowledge of the events... not the most dynamic or engaging doc on this subject... not too fussy about the narrator....very little pre-presidential coverage...reuses same stills/footage throughout series. Not crazy about the actual title of the series itself.
If you have seen many previous Kennedy docs then this might be a disappointment. If you have little knowledge of the Kennedy administration then it is informative. If you are going to have only one or very few Kennedy docs in your possession, there are better ones out there to pick from.
*The bonus disc is worth the price of purchase: it contains:
- a vintage...

Wrong Info on Amazon Website
I thoroughly enjoyed the 8 segments (27 minutes each for a total of 215 minutes) of JFK's private and political life. However, the info on the Amazon website stated that the length of this dvd was 583 minutes, which, I discovered later, turned out to be incorrect, as it contained only 215 minutes, meaning that 368 minutes were missing! I contacted Amazon & explained this & was able to return my dvd & was not charged for it.(Thank you, Amazon!) I will reorder the combination dvd/blue ray which DOES include the missing minutes. The extra info that totals up to 583 minutes is described ONLY on the dvd/blue ray site. When I ordered the dvd version, none of this info was there, which led me to assume that the 8 segments themselves would total 583 minutes. This info needs very much to be corrected! For anyone interested in seeing all 583 minutes, order the dvd/blue ray combination. The dvd does not have even half the minutes of the blue ray version. I'm so disappointed that dvds are now...

Not The Best
With all the attention being paid to the 50th anniversary of JFK's passing, many products will be on the market. This Blu-ray did have an interesting supplementary section, including a Secret Service re-creation film and scenes of the funeral. The main body of the Blu-ray was very disappointing - utilizing very poor period video and lacklustre commentary. A very poor effort.

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Dance Academy: Season 1, Volume 2

Great second season!
Dance Academy gives you a somewhat romanticized look into the lives and struggles of students at a prestigious ballet school in Sydney. In the second season, the stakes are higher because of a big international competition that is the ballet equivalent to the Olympics. The characters grow and change and there are some surprises towards the end that you didn't see coming! I watched the entire first two seasons over a week on Amazon Instant Video. Just couldn't stop!

Back Into The Fray: The Second 13 Episodes Of Season One For This Australian Teen Drama
The popular Australian teen import "Dance Academy" has been discovered and embraced by North American audiences after its run on TeenNICK and its availability on Netflix. Its first two seasons are getting an official DVD release, however, for those that want to add it to their permanent DVD collection. I always have to question the marketing thought process behind the decision to split television seasons into different products. I understand, perhaps, if the season airs over two distinct time periods and you want to rush the first batch of episodes to market. But in this case, these are all ready to go. And instead of Season One and Season Two sets with all 26 episodes present, we're getting each Season in Two Volumes of 13 episodes. Truthfully, it doesn't make it any less expensive to the consumer. Are there a bunch of viewers that are going to say "I loved the first half of Season Two, but who wants the second half?" Doubtful and especially so when they are released on the same day...

Excellent show - great dancing, plot, acting - suitable for whole family
This show is great quality - set in Australia. The ballet dancing is real and good. The plots are interesting and dramatic without being too soapy. The characters change over two seasons and it's fun to follow those stories. I was most surprised by how much I like it as an adult and how current it seems without being too edgy. It's a pretty clean show from what I recall. So glad to see good ballet technique from good actors.

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Funny Money

Not so funny
I am a fan of Chevy Chase and he is good in this movie. Miller is good too. All the acting is good. The problem with the movie is plot. It is his birthday, he finds the money, his wife gets "discovered" as an artist, and the wife is having a surprised birthday party for him. So many small things to wrong in the movie to keep the certain characters in the plot, it makes the whole thing uncomfortable. It is like a "Fawlty Towers" episode on steroids without the laughs. There a few chuckles in the movie, but it just doesn't justify the frenetic pacing. Penelope does the best she can with a strange role. She plays a depressed drunk for most of the movie. Chevy hits his part just right, but he isn't given much to work with. Even before I read that it was a movie made from a play, I knew it was a movie made from a play. It had a claustrophobic feel. Most of the action takes place within the house.

The movie frustrated me more than made me laugh. It just was not funny.

Two great actor, one bad film
This movie was developed from a stage play and shows it. Unlike most movies adapted from plays (think Harvey here) the director kept most of the action in a limited confine, the brownstone in New York.

I made it through the first 45 minutes or so then left it to play while I went and cleaned the kitchen. Nothing I heard of the remaining movie made me come in to watch anything happening on the screen. It became just background noise.

Chevy Chase and Penelope Ann Miller seemed to be trying their best to rescue this dog, but even good actors can't work with poor material! Bypass this and choose something else to see either of these stars.

Chevy Chase really does put the funny in Funny Money!
I was lucky enough to see this film shown before the public at the Sarasota Film Festival. I'm glad I got to see it with Chevy Chase in the audience. It was worth it. This movie is very funny! It is great to see Chevy Chase back on the screen. The film is well done for a low budget and full of animated characters that will have you laughing hysterically!

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The Miracle of the Bells [Blu-ray]

Why Isn't This Movie on DVD?
I watched The Miracle of the Bells for the first time this past December 2004 and I liked it. It is a sad movie but there are some very hartwarming moments in this that make it highly enjoyable! It is about a young woman on the verge of becoming a big movie star who dies and the man who loved her brings her back to be buried in her hometown. The movie stars Alida Valli as the actress and Fred MacMurray as her friend and they were both very good and the movie also stars Frank Sinatra as a young Catholic priest and I have read reviews saying that they just couldn't buy him playing a priest, I guess because of his bad boy Rat Pack image but I thought he was very good and I was able to forget about his later Rat Pack image and I just enjoyed his acting in this movie. Though this movie is thought of by many as a Christmas movie I feel that it can be watched anytime of the year, I mean just because it's set in winter and there is a miracle doesn't mean that you can only watch it during the...

The Miracle of the Bells
Undoubtedly one the finest performances by Fred MacMurry and Frank Sinatra, not to mention the superior supporting cast, Lee J. Cobb for starters. But because Sinatra isn't singing the "experts"; Maltin, Siskel, Ebert and Shalate overlook his REAL acting abiltiy. Sinatra is as pure a thespian as Olivier in this role as a priest (not even a church hymn from Frank's lips is hummed). Maltin's above review includes "ludicrous" plot-I'm sure the movie GHOST is on Leonard's his TOP 100 list. Trust no critic: see the this inspirational movie at once.

like molasses, a little slow but very sweet
Based on Russell Janey's novel, the Ben Hecht/Quentin Reynolds script for this film is sometimes sappy and often uneven, but it's also a nice sentimental story, told in flashback, by William Dunnigan (played in a somber manner by Fred McMurray), a press agent who was never a very happy guy, and is burying the woman he loved (but was never able to tell her so).
The real reason to watch this film is to see Alida Valli play Joan of Arc, in a "film within a film" segment. She is luminous and incredibly beautiful, and would have made a terrific Joan. Coincidentally, the lavish "Joan of Arc" production starring Ingrid Bergman was released the same year as this film.

Another reason to view "The Miracle of the Bells" is to see Frank Sinatra, skinny as a rail, in the unlikely part of a soft spoken priest; this was five years before his success in "From Here to Eternity", and he is surprisingly good, but far from great. He sings "Ever...

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Darker Than Black: Complete Season 2 Box Set (Blu-ray/DVD Combo)

Darker than black season 2
Watch the OVA before you watch this or you will be lost! This is a great addition to season 1.

Loved The First One, but...
this one didn't seem as good. It felt like there were fewer action scenes and more focus on character development. That may seem odd, because, who doesn't want character development? I sure like my characters fully rounded. What I mean by this is that the balance between action and character development that was present in the first series was off in this one.

It is also important to keep in mind that before you watch this second series, please note that this comes with the OVAs as well. These, in my opinion, must be watched first before the actual season is watched. They are kind of like a prequel that gives a frame of reference for the second season. Be warned, though, the OVAs are MUCH different from the first and even the second series as it is nearly all character development (with a love story..I think..maybe?).

Once I understood everything, this was a great second season. Again, much different from the first season, but not necessarily in a bad way. Just...

Darker than Darker than Black
The first season of Darker than Black (DTB) was a great noir, drama, comedy, super powered, sci-fi show. Can the second season top the first season? The first season's episodes were almost always two-parters, and then they would move on to another storyline. When you think that that episode didn't contribute to the overall plot, you would be proven wrong later on in the show. The second season is a story based series, rather than episodic. All the episodes are connected like most modern non-comedy anime.

This collection is distributed by Funimation, just like the first season, so all reoccurring characters have the same voices. Note that the 13 episodes are listed first on the DVDs, and then the 4 OVA episodes. I originally watched the set in that order, and was very confused because many plot points are explained in the OVAs. The OVA episodes take place before the second season episodes, so be sure to watch them first. The third DVD in the set has all the OVAs, then you...

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Gambler From Natchez, The

Dale Robertson and duels in post Civil War New Orleans
The Gambler From Natchez, Is Dale Robertson in his usual debonair style. Set in post Civil War New Orleans, Captain Vance Colby returns to see famous father Chip Colby, a notorious gambler. But on his trip home, he encounters an attempt on his life. After his arrival in New Orleans, he finds his father has died, killed in a duel, under dubious circumstances and from there the plot thickens. A great western but with flare. You'll enjoy it, I did and do.

Good film, Lousy video quality
Please see my review for Red Skies of Montana, just substitute the name of that film for this one, everything else applies, good film with what appears to be an old analog transfer, perhaps enhanced a little, and you guessed it from FOX Archives.

Entertaining adventure on the Mississippi river
A soldier (Dale Robertson) returning home to New Orleans after a four year stint in the Texas Army finds his father has been killed. He makes a promise to revenge himself on the three men (Kevin McCarthy, Douglas Dick, John Wengraf) who conspired to murder his father and cover it up. Why the film has Natchez in the title when the film's protagonist is from New Orleans is strange but that's neither here nor there. Directed by Henry Levin (WHERE THE BOYS ARE)), this diverting adventure with a touch of swashbuckle is quite entertaining. It never aspires to be more than a modest low budget time waster and it's better made than many an "A" picture. The film manages to have an authentic Mississippi river feel although it was made in Hollywood in large part to Leland Fuller's art direction. Lionel Newman did the underscore though his main title seems to have been "borrowed" from Sol Kaplan's theme to KANGAROO which came out two years earlier. With Debra Paget as a riverboat beauty, Lisa...

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Daimajin

A terrific fantasy film I loved as a kid.
A medieval Japanese village suffers a violent coup d'etats during a ceremony to placate the warrior god Majin, whose spirit is encased in a 20-foot stone statue that threatens to come to life and pummel the town to dust. The ceremony works all too well: the peasants endure ten years of forced labor and brutal taxation at the hands of an evil Warlord before the deity awakens from his slumber to destroy the tyrant and his army.

This movie rocks! (Pun fully intended.) The story moves at a brisk pace, as any good adventure should, and creates a fair amount of suspense along the way, despite the all but inevitable conclusion. The cinematography and set design are superb, effectively contrasting the beauty and mystery of the countryside with the back-breaking drudgery of the local labor camp. The special effects are also impressive, from the haunting opening shot of a giant eye superimposed on a gloomy mountainside to Majin's destruction of the villains and their...

The colossus of Japan.
Mixing elements of the jedai(samurai)film with elements of the kaiju(monster)film, Daimajin is a rousing adventure that is sure to appeal to fans of both types of films. Set in medievel Japan, the film follows the story of a boy and his sister, who are pursued by the man who had their father murdered and then took over his kingdom. Watching all of this is the giant statue of Majin, a powerful spirit that can be invoked to right wrongs and punish evil-doers. The story moves along well, aided by good performances by all of the actors, though it is perhaps a bit slow at first. Once Daimajin("dai" meaning giant, "majin" meaning spirit) revives, all hell breaks loose on the evil Lord and his men. The spfx are spectacular(immensely aided by the widescreen presentation). Functioning like a pounding funeral drum is Akira Ifukube's magnificent score, one of his best non-Godzilla works. This is a great film that is thankfully no longer obscure.

Samurai Meets Kaiju
If you enjoy the Samurai genre, this is an average film. If you enjoy Japanese monster films, this is an above average film. However, if you like bothe genres, this is an excellent movie. Great acting and special effects, as well as an appropriate and awesome score. Highly Reccommended!

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