DVD Review - Frighteners (Unrated Director's Cut)

Customer Review

The BEST Peter Jackson film that showcases what he does best: horror and comedy

I can remember the scene as if it were yesterday. My older brother, father and 13 year old self hit the movie theater, pumped to see another Michael J. Fox/Zemeckis teaming that we have long since loved since the days of 'Back to the Future'. It's the day after the film opened and the theater was filled with about 10 people (my brother, dad and myself included). The movie rolls and, by the end, I was jumping with how incredibly cool and fun the movie was. And to this day, the same holds true: This is one of the best horror comedies of all-time, if not THE best, and is Jackson's best film to date.

I'm sure, by now, you now the premise of the film based on the reviews prior to mine, so I wont bore you with all the babble of what the film is all about. I will, however, give my input as to why this film rocks!!! For one, it has Michael J. Fox. It had been a while since I had seen him in a film (I believe the last one I saw before 'The Frighteners' was 'Life With Mikey') and he was fantastic in this. His portrayal of a ghost hunting con man is a personal favorite of mine. No matter how he acted in the film, whether it was serious or downright goofy, he managed to keep his character extremely likeable...as always...and interesting. It seems as though he had a blast with this film. Another reason why this film was so cool was the lack of EXTREME gore that Jackson had used and was known for in his prior films ('Bad Taste', 'Braindead'). Instead, he relied more on story and character development, along with creating some of the best ghost effects ever seen. He did all of this without having to sacrifice a great story with incredibly gory effects. Also, when was the last time you saw a ghost...bleed??? But these aren't the only reasons why you should see this movie. Here are ALL the other reasons why you shouldn't miss this film:

-The awesome and strange Jeffrey "Yes I am, I'm an ass****...with an oozie!" Combs ('Re-Animator') in a GREAT, GREAT...GREAT performance.

-The very talented and always sweet Dee Wallace-Stone ('The Howling', 'The Hills Have Eyes') in a very creepy performance.

-Another incredibly brilliant, atmospheric and moody score from the great Danny Elfman ('Batman', 'The Nightmare Before Christmas').

There were also ALOT of great surprises in this film:

-R. Lee Ermey (`Full Metal Jacket', `Willard') in a classic spoof of one of his own characters, from another film. An amazing touch.

-John Astin (Gomez, 'The Addams Family' TV show) in a very good performance as the coolest looking ghost of all: A rotting Judge (they don't call him the hanging judge for nothin').

And a surprisingly good Jake Busey (`Starship Troopers') as a serial killer. (You will never see teeth as perfect and as white in another film until you see Jake's when he is killing people. They are very Looney Tunes-ish...which was a very nice touch to make his character extra creepy.) All of this, along with a cool, afro-sporting, funkadelic 70's ghost of Chi McBride (`Boston Public'), an underrated Trini Alvarado and not to mention the awesome script, makes this a film that should be on your "TO WATCH RIGHT NOW" list if you haven't seen it already.

* If anything, watch this film for the final half, especially when our two heroes enter the old, abandoned Hospital. Some cool, cool stuff. *

With the LOTR films, I'm sure there are a lot people who have either seen or have yet to see this film solely because of those fantasy epics, which is sad because this is a wonderful film all by itself. I'm proud to say that I saw this film when it opened, in the theater, and that I have been a fan of this and many of Jackson's earlier (and much better) films for a looooong time now.

I am just as pumped for this new unrated directors cut as I was that day at the movies when I was 13. I'm anxious to see what kind of extra footage is in this version. I'm hoping, like many others, that they will have the complete documentary on this film because that would just be the icing on the cake. All that we fans can do now is wait and watch the calendar for the day this DVD arrives.

Visually stunning and atmospheric, very funny, very spooky (at times very serious) but ALWAYS fun, THE FRIGHTENERS has everything you need for a night of great movie watching.

NOTE: If you're not a fan of gore, you're in luck. This film has very minimal gore. Yes, there is blood and some gory moments, but for the most part, it's VERY timid compared to Peter Jackson's older films that include some of the goriest scenes in movie history. (i.e. `Braindead'). It's enough to satisfy all you gore-hounds out there, but not so much that it will turn you non-gore fans away.

So if your "dying" to see a great, frighteningly funny and spooky film, check out THE FRIGHTENERS...before your number is up. Because, "When your numbers up...*SNAP*...that's it."

DVD Review - Robots

The delightful designs of William Joyce (writer/illustrator of such popular children's books as George Shrinks and Bently & Egg) make Robots a joy to behold. The round, bouncy, and ramshackle forms of hero Rodney Copperbottom and his computer-animated friends are part of an ornate and daffy
Fender providing assistance.

Rube-Goldberg universe of elaborate contraptions and gleaming metallic surfaces. Rodney (voiced with a hint-of-Scottish lilt by Ewan McGregor) is a young inventor who sets off for Robot City to work for Big Weld (Mel Brooks), the supreme inventor of the mechanical world. But upon his arrival, Rodney discovers that Big Weld has disappeared, and the slick, shiny Ratchet (Greg Kinnear, As Good As It Gets) is phasing out the spare parts that lumpen robots need to function and replacing them with "upgrades"--expensive and glistening new exoskeletons. Unfortunately, from this suitable beginning, the story degenerates into a series of action sequences that make very little sense, though some are kinetic and fun (though others are only there to serve the inevitable Robots video game). Most kids will enjoy the sheer visual pleasure of the movie, but compared to the narrative richness of Pixar movies like The Incredibles and Toy Story, that pleasure is pretty short-lived. Also featuring the voices of Robin Williams, Halle Berry, Jim Broadbent, Amanda Bynes, Jennifer Coolidge, and many, many more. --Bret Fetzer
DVD Features

Jennifer Coolidge returns as the voice of Aunt Fanny in a mildly amusing new short, "Aunt Fanny's Tour of Booty," which allows her to again be the butt of the joke. Fans of the characters will enjoy both a 17-minute discussion of the robots' creation as well as profiles of 11 of the bots, including early, almost unrecognizable conceptual sketches and brief interviews with the voice cast. The original short is fairly dull, and of the three deleted scenes, the most finished is an extended version of Rodney's initial meeting with Tim at the gate. One other is in sketch form only but does preserve another performance by Robin Williams. The kids' games are pretty good. There's a dancing robot that will perform eight routines on command or in random order. A memory game has a bit of replay value, and the build-a-bot segment takes some thought and investigation. The Xbox demo is a nifty little diversion that transforms one element (the transport-pod race) of the full-length, single-player Xbox game into a frenetic one- to four-player free-for-all.

In their commentary track, director Chris Wedge and producer-inspiration William Joyce have to remind each other to stop patting themselves on the back, but it is interesting to hear them talk about old games such as Mousetrap that played a part in developing the film. (Wedge's frequent references to a possible "director's cut" might not seem like a joke to DVD buyers who have gotten tired of DVD rereleases.) The commentary track by the Blue Sky technical team might be better, offering insights into the characters and the creation of the film without lapsing into too much techie-speak. --David Horiuchi

DVD Review - Buffy the Vampire Slayer - The Chosen Collection (40 Disc DVD Set) (Seasons 1-7)

From its charming and angst-ridden first season to the darker, apocalyptic final one, Buffy the Vampire Slayer succeeds on many levels, and in a fresher and more authentic way than the shows that came before or after it. How lucky, then, that with the release of its boxed set of seasons 1-7, you can have the estimable pleasure of watching a near-decade of Buffy in any order you choose. (And we have some ideas about how that should be done.)
First: rest assured that there's no shame in coming to Buffy late, even if you initially turned your nose up at the winsome Sarah Michelle Gellar kicking the shit out of vampires (in Buffy-lingo, vamps), demons, and other evil-doers. Perhaps you did so because, well, it looked sort of science-fiction-like with all that monster latex. Start with season 3 and see that Buffy offers something for everyone, and the sooner you succumb to it, the quicker you'll appreciate how textured and riveting a drama it is.

Why season 3? Because it offers you a winning cast of characters who have fallen from innocence: their hearts have been broken, their egos trampled in typically vicious high-school style, and as a result, they've begun to realize how fallible they are. As much as they try, there are always more monsters, or a bigger evil. Despite this, or perhaps because of it, the core crew remains something of a unit--there's the smart girl, Willow (Alyson Hartigan) who dreams of saving the day by downloading the plans to City Hall's sewer tunnels and mapping a route to safety. There are the ne'r do wells--the vampire Spike (James Marsters), who both clashes with and aspires to love Buffy; the tortured and torturing Angel (David Boreanz); the pretty, popular girl with an empty heart (Charisma Carpenter); and the teenage everyman, Zander (Nicholas Brendon).

Then there's Buffy herself, who in the course of seven seasons morphs from a sarcastic teenager in a minidress to a heroine whose tragic flaw is an abiding desire to be a "normal" girl. On a lesser note, with the boxed set you can watch the fashion transformation of Buffy from mall rat to Prada-wearing, kickboxing diva with enviable highlights. (There was the unfortunate bob of season 2, but it's a forgivable lapse.) At least the storyline merits the transformations: every time Buffy has to end a relationship she cuts her hair, shedding both the pain and her vulnerability.

In addition to the well-wrought teenage emotional landscape, Buffy deftly takes on more universal themes--power, politics, death, morality--as the series matures in seasons 4-6. And apart from a few missteps that haven't aged particularly well ("I Robot" in season 1 comes to mind), most episodes feel as harrowing and as richly drawn as they did at first viewing. That's about as much as you can ask for any form of entertainment: that it offer an escape from the viewer's workaday world and entry into one in which the heroine (ideally one with leather pants) overcomes demons far more troubling than one's own. --Megan Halverson

DVD Review - Frasier - The Complete Seventh Season

Customer Review

So this is why "7" is a lucky number...

The seventh season of "Frasier" has some really good episodes in it, but then again, that's not really a surprise.

This season is probably my favorite, mostly because Niles finally finally FINALLY ends up with Daphne, after a highly-medicated Frasier tells Daphne how Niles feels about her. (This episode is really good, but its title currently escapes me.)
This season is also great because one of my very favorite episodes is on this set, and the episode is "Rdwrer". In this episode, Frasier, Niles and Martin go off in Martin's Winnebago (a. k. a. the "Road Warrior") for a new year's celebration in Idaho. However, during a brief stop during the trip, Niles accidentally enters the wrong RV, and a farce ensues.

I also like "The Apparent Trap", the episode where Lilith and Frederick come for Thanksgiving--particularly the part where Niles attempts to play a video game.

Anyway, this season is great, and I highly recommend it.

DVD Review - Madagascar (Widescreen Edition)

The penguins steal the show. In the sprightly Madagascar, a mid-life crisis inspires Marty the Zebra (voiced by Chris Rock) to escape from his lifelong home, a New York zoo. His equally pampered friends--Alex the Lion (Ben Stiller), Gloria the Hippo (Jada Pinkett Smith), and Melman the Giraffe (David Schwimmer)--then escape to bring him back. Unfortunately, their attempt at damage control persuades zoo officials that the animals are unhappy, so all four get shipped to an animal preserve in Kenya...only a squad of maniacal penguins change the destination to Antarctica.

The quartet end up on an island where, in addition to meeting some hedonistic lemurs, they learn about the food chain--and that Alex is a different link on the chain from the other three. Madagascar doesn't achieve the snappy perfection of a Pixar movie, but it tops most other computer-animated efforts; the collision of friendship and predator instincts makes for an unusually gripping conflict. The vocal performances of the central characters is serviceable, but Sacha Baron Cohen (Da Ali G Show) provides topnotch lunacy as the lemur king, and the penguins--voiced mostly by the animators themselves--are the best thing in the movie. --Bret Fetzer

DVD Review - The Devil's Rejects (Unrated Widescreen Edition)

Homicidal maniacs have a field day in Rob Zombie's The Devil's Rejects, an ultraviolent spin-off from Zombie's critically reviled 2003 debut, House of 1,000 Corpses. As Zombie continues to cultivate his name-brand variety of extreme horror and splatter-film homage, he definitely takes his place among connoisseurs of carnage. In the case of The Devil's Rejects, several characters from 1,000 Corpses return for another marathon of mayhem, as the murderous Firefly family (led by Sid Haig as the maniacal "Captain Spaulding") turn their bloody wrath against hostages in a fleabag motel, while the local sheriff (William Forsythe) plots revenge against them for the killing of his brother. Before their inevitable showdown, Zombie has plenty of fun--perhaps a little too much fun--indulging his penchant for sick, sadistic humor and gruesome atrocity. Clearly, Zombie fancies himself as horror's answer to Quentin Tarantino, but he lacks Tarantino's gift for riveting plots and escalating tension. Instead, The Devil's Rejects is just raw, rampant excess from start to finish, paying visual tribute to gruesome classics from the '70s and guaranteed to earn the cult status that Zombie is all too obviously aiming for. He's an unabashed horror buff who's carving a niche in the genre he loves, shamelessly satisfying a small but loyal audience of sicko-phants. --Jeff Shannon

DVD Review - Star Wars, Episode III - Revenge of the Sith (Full Screen Edition)

Ending the most popular film epic in history, Star Wars: Episode III, Revenge of the Sith is an exciting, uneven, but ultimately satisfying journey. Picking up the action from Episode II, Attack of the Clones as well as the animated Clone Wars series, Jedi Master Obi-Wan Kenobi (Ewan McGregor) and his apprentice, Anakin Skywalker (Hayden Christensen), pursue General Grievous into space after the droid has kidnapped Supreme Chancellor Palpatine (Ian McDiarmid). It's just the latest maneuver in the ongoing Clone Wars between the Republic and the Separatist forces led by former Jedi turned Sith Lord Count Dooku (Christopher Lee). On another front, Master Yoda (voiced by Frank Oz) leads the Republic's clone troops against a droid attack on the Wookiee homeworld of Kashyyyk. All this is in the first half of Episode III, which feels a lot like Episodes I and II. That means spectacular scenery, dazzling dogfights in space, a new fearsome villain (the CGI-created Grievous can't match up to either Darth Maul or the original Darth Vader, though), lightsaber duels, groan-worthy romantic dialogue, goofy humor (but at least it's left to the droids instead of Jar-Jar Binks), and hordes of faceless clone troopers fighting hordes of faceless battle droids.

But then it all changes.

After setting up characters and situations for the first two and a half movies, Episode III finally comes to life. The Sith Lord in hiding unleashes his long-simmering plot to take over the Republic, and an integral part of that plan is to turn Anakin away from the Jedi and toward the Dark Side of the Force. Unless you've been living under a rock the last 10 years, you know that Anakin will transform into the dreaded Darth Vader and face an ultimate showdown with his mentor, but that doesn't matter. In fact, a great part of the fun is knowing where things will wind up but finding out how they'll get there. The end of this prequel trilogy also should inspire fans to want to see the original movies again, but this time not out of frustration at the new ones. Rather, because Episode III is a beginning as well as an end, it will trigger fond memories as it ties up threads to the originals in tidy little ways. But best of all, it seems like for the first time we actually care about what happens and who it happens to.

Episode III is easily the best of the new trilogy--OK, so that's not saying much, but it might even jockey for third place among the six Star Wars films. It's also the first one to be rated PG-13 for the intense battles and darker plot. It was probably impossible to live up to the decades' worth of pent-up hype George Lucas faced for the Star Wars prequel trilogy (and he tried to lower it with the first two movies), but Episode III makes us once again glad to be "a long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away." --David Horiuchi