Wholesale and Distribution Movie Reviews

This video sucks first and foremost and the fact that some white guy named Joe Francis is going around trying to make money of the black man and women is completely ludicrous and bullsh*t

This is the first Girls Gone Wild video to feature beautiful black women. This dvd goes into clubs, hits the beach and streets, and includes a hot tub party thats off da hook. If you liked other girls gone wild tapes and you love to see fine black and latina women, you'll enjoy this tape

Got to my house within 2 days after it was shipped.

Leering butlers. Eyes in the window. Secret passageways. And yes...fog all around...A group of people are invited to a remote Florida island by the owner, Leo Grainger. He wants to punish the person responsible for murdering his wife. At the spooky mansion, with it's booby traps and hidden skeletons, the visitors are killed off one-by-one....A direct remake of 1941's "Horror Island", "Fog Island" is PRCs low-budget version of "10 Little Indians". Fans of horror-film stars George Zucco and Lionel Atwill will relish the over-the-top performances. Zucco and Atwill appeared together in only three films. Lionel Atwill was a Broadway star in the 1920's. Entering movies, he co-starred in Warners' 1935 "Captain Blood". But a messy personal scandal in 1942 left him employable by only Universal Pictures and lowly PRC. Lionel Atwill's climactic scenes in "Fog Island"'s watery finale are almost grisly. Just one year later, Atwill died of cancer and pneumonia while shooting the serial "Lost City of the Jungle". 1945's "Fog Island" also features Hollywood veteran Jerome Cowan. IMDB lists "Fog Island" at 1.37:1 aspect ratio 35mm. But this brand new DVD is closer to a 1.33:1 16mm source. Digital filtering has produced a generally crisp, clean transfer. But the source print contains blotches, clips, and a sub-par soundtrack. ("What did he say?") The DVD has 6 skimpy chapters and a catalog. Movie fans of Zucco and Atwill will take the boat-ride to murky "Fog Island". But for the rest, an enticing title brings very few shocks and frankly, litte interest.

Ultra-low budget production company PRC managed to create real atmosphere thanks to decent sets and a uniformly excellent cast, toplined by Zucco and Atwill. Even the romantic leads are not wooden, as is so often the case. The storyline, although a bit over the top, none the less zips right along, holding one's interest until the darkly happy ending.

Based on the play "Angel Island" by Bernadine Angus, Fog Island is an interesting but somewhat problematic suspense thriller from 1945. Leo Grainer (George Zucco) has retreated to the isolated confines of the aptly named Fog Island after being released from prison. As the movie begins, he is accompanied by his step-daughter Gail (played by the lovely Sharon Douglas), whose mother was murdered during Grainer's time in jail. Grainer blames five of his former partners and employees for framing him for embezzlement and then killing his wife in an attempt to find the loot they are sure Grainer has hidden somewhere. He now invites these individuals to the island, convinced they will come in hopes of finding the loot they still seek, but Grainer is not planning on showing his guests a delightful time. These guests include three men, his former secretary, and a female psychic; in place of one invitee is the deceased man's son who comes mainly to renew his acquaintance with Gail. Grainer provides each guest with a clue to what they suppose to be the loot, and a night of sneaking around, mutual spying, arguing, distrust, and malice ensues. I had trouble following the story at a few points; a great deal of the action takes place in the dark, and the print of the movie is so bad that I often had trouble seeing what was going on. I am happy to say that I was not let down by the ending, although things did not go quite the way I had expected. There is really nothing frightening here, but the movie does generate a decent level of suspense; your mind will be engaged throughout just trying to figure out what the heck is really going on. Lionel Atwill and George Zucco are familiar names to fans of classic horror of the 30s and 40s, and their contribution, combined with Sharon Douglas' obvious appeal, do much to make Fog Island an enjoyable viewing experience still today.

Girls Gone Wild brings you what you'd expect -- real women, and in a believable New Orleans setting. But the camera spends way too much time on Snoop Dogg and not in a way that's at all interesting...

Doggy Style is a totally wild T & A video hosted by the man of pimping himself, SNOOP DOGG. The honeys in this are hot and young. I liked this as much as I did America's Wildest Bachelor Parties.

I've seen several of the other girls gone wild dvd's, This one has snoop dogg as the host, he smokes alot of chronic and narrates most of the action. 90% is all flashing, there is about 2 girlongirl action scenes.. And 5 or 6 kitty shots..

They do a good job but i think the main seller for this one was ment to be snoop himself, and he's not my type of college chiq :)

Not a bust, Definantly a girls gone wild production. Check out Dorm room fantisies for the hardcore.

...

The cartoons in this DVD are for the large part relatively unknown. They are generally enjoyable (although not entirely "politically correct" with some "Sambo" references to blacks, but such were the times). This DVD would have rated higher if it were not for the extremely poor transfer. It appears that these cartoons were transferred from a video source (not the original film). Focus is very soft, with some cartoons being so poorly defined that it's hard to make out details. There is noticeable frame jitter in several, and 2 of the cartoons actually have momentary frame jumping, like when you're watching a film projector and the film becomes misaligned so you have the picture split with the bottom half of one frame on the top, and the top half of the next frame on the bottom! Absolutely unbelievable. It's like pressing a CD from an old record that skips when you could have used the studio tapes. Ordinarilly, DVD's are mastered by digitizing each frame, one frame at a time. They obviously didn't take the time or expense to do that, and it shows.

The sound is no better. It is extremely harsh, and you'll have to turn down the treble on your system to be able to comfortably watch this DVD. There is also some occasional warble on the sound, too.

I find it hard to believe that this was the best they could do.

"A Cute Cavalcade of Classic Christmas Cartoons" is exactly what the title says it is, a nostalgic look at some of the cute Christmas cartoons made in the 30's and 40's.

There are eleven cartoons in all, with many being depression-influenced, showing sad-eyed orphans and poor kids lusting for Christmas treats, only to have Santa deliver. The real standouts of the collection are the Fleischer Bros. cartoons, and Ub Iwerk's spooky "Jack Frost." The Russian cartoon Nobozodhee is a real oddball in this collection, but interesting.

Definitely for lovers of old cartoons only, or very young children who don't mind the different styles and slightly odd characters.

The DVD is of poor quality, which is expected for such ancient cartoons. Restoration takes money, and this collection of public domain prints is just to get them out there. Nothing fancy, but nice to have in any format.

The eleven cartoons are:

The Shanty Where Santy Claus Lives (Hugh Harman/Rudolf Ising, 1933)
Christmas Night (Oscar E. Soglow/Jim Tyler, 1933)
Jack Frost (Ub Iwerks, 1934)
Christmas Comes But Once a Year (Dave Fleischer, 1936)
Somewhere in Dreamland (Dave Fleischer, 1936)
Santa's Surprise (Seymour Kneitel, 1947)
Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer (Max Fleischer, 1948)
Hector's Hectic Life (Bill Tytla, 1948)
Snow Foolin' (Izzy Sparber, 1949)
Gift Wrapped" (Warner Bros. 1952)
The Candlemaker (John Halas/Joy Batchelor, 1957)
Nobozodhee (Russian, 1959)

This is a classic holiday collection that is worthy of any persons DVD library. It is right about this time of year that I start checking around the various DVD sites for DVDs just like this. I was lucky enough to find this one a year ago and love it.

Just as it says from the description, it has 11 cartoons from the 30's, 40's and 50's. I'm not sure why these cartoons put me in the Christmas spirit more than any others, but they do. It takes you back to a simpler time before Christmas so such a commercialized event. (This being said by a person who was born in 1980.) I can remember these cartoons when I used to watch them on those $3 videos my parents would buy for me at the grocery store. As others have mentioned, the transfer looks like it may have come from these same cheap VHS tapes. Still, I don't buy this for the video and audio quality, or lack there of. Buy it for the storys themselves.

This DVD doesn't get 5 out of 5 stars for two reasons. First off, the quality is somewhat lacking. This has to be put in perspective because this DVD is not going to break any kind of sales records. It has it's market and it is great that any company would put them out on DVD. The second reason is that there is another DVD that came out about 1998 that has even more cartoons on it. Cartoon Crazys Christmas is the name and contains 6 of the same cartoons as Cute Cavalcade does, with 7 more. The menu's on Cartoon Crazys Christmas were much better and it actually had some extra features. They have a history of each of the cartoons on the disc which is great. Even IMDB didn't have as much information as this DVD did. They also have Dolby Digital, Dolby Pro Logic and Stereo sound modes which are much better than the Dolby Digital Mono that Cute Cavalcade does. I know this makes Cute Cavalcade seem like less than 4 out of 5 stars in comparison, but good luck finding Cartoon Crazy's. I know I have a copy and have since tried to get another as a gift and have had no luck.

I'm a fan of George Zucco, but I found this movie exceedingly tedious. For one thing, I couldn't see what was going on half of the time; a significant part of the action takes place either in darkened rooms or outside in the pitch black rainy night. This also contributes to a problem I had of keeping a couple of characters straight, especially the criminal types who spend most of their time hiding or stomping around huddled in rain gear. There was also very little character development-we just get one-shot glances at some of the individuals, and this lack of depth gave me little with which to distinguish some of them in my mind. One guy's a criminal who has broken out of jail in order to get revenge on Zucco's character "the Raven," (whose shadiness of character is never quite clear, particularly in terms of the past and the present). Another guy is apparently on the run after having been sold out by his own crooked boss. Then you have the stereotypical little guy who is sick of being treated like the cowardly runt he is and has embezzled fifty thousand dollars. The only half way normal people we meet are a man and woman whose plan of eloping to Canada has been delayed by the storm outside. Her father, some kind of criminally inclined businessman himself, tracks his daughter to the Raven's hotel, thus setting the stage for the night's drama. He is murdered, the embezzled money disappears, and the incompetent sheriff doesn't have the time or desire to actually investigate a crime, especially since it's so much easier to just pick somebody out and pin everything on him. The plethora of killings that follow each of his arrests greatly annoys him. The second half of the film basically consists of different people, often unidentifiable to me because of the darkness on screen, running around the house hiding from, ridiculing, and basically annoying each other. Perhaps if I had been able to actually see what was going on, I would have enjoyed this movie. Even George Zucco didn't seem to have his heart in this film. His cinematic get-togethers of either invited or unplanned guests are usually interesting, but this is an exception.

George Zucco plays Bradford the owner of a country inn and Glen Strange playing as a bumbling oaf. On a stormy night "The Black Raven" is visited by a convict with a grudge against Bradford, a bank teller who has stolen $50k, and a couple that are eloping.

The atmosphere is excellent i.e., an old dark house on a stormy night!

Glen Strange is the one that played Frankenstein the last three "Frankenstein" movies House of Frankenstein, House of Dracula, Abbott & Costello Meet Frankenstein, and of course he played Sam on Gunsmoke.

The 1943 PRC effort "The Black Raven" is an interesting mix of "old dark house" stories and a slight dash of film noir.

George Zucco is great as Amos Bradford, the owner of The Black Raven Inn, a stopover on the edge of the Canadian border. Bradford is also known to the underworld as a contact man who can help crooks escape across the border to safety. Add a thunderstorm, several crooks, a pair of young lovers, a timid banker, and a bumbling handyman to the mix, and the stage is set for murder, mystery, and mayhem.

Serial fans will want to keep and eye out for the Sheriff, played by Charles Middleton. Middleton is probably best known to fans as Ming the Merciless in the Flash Gordon serials.

I saw this picture in the theatre many years ago and remember not liking it, though I didn't recall exactly why. Seeing it again, it is quite obvious: with one glaring exception, it consists of the most unrelentingly awful choreography I have ever seen in a company of any nationality...... that it is the Bolshoi adds insult to the injury.

Ravel's Valse Nobles are set to consistently incongruous choreography ..... 19th century dance steps (preparation and all, à la Petipa) to 20th century music which epitomizes chic ..... More than any other part of this film, it shows the aesthetic isolation of Soviet ballet, even in 1967. There is a serious disconnect between music and dance that is never resolved. For a good example of masterfully apt choreography to this music see Balanchine's La Valse which incorporates the Vales Nobles et Sentimentales in its first part (I believe it was choreographed in the 1940's).

Paganini is an absurd contraption with long haired male dancers fiddling away on imaginary violins. At least one can close one's eyes and listen to Rachmaninoff.

Ravel's Bolero is another atrocity. Imitation bad pseudo-Spanish smoothed-out flamenco dancing with long walking steps and tourist-book hand movements, no .... this is meant to be descriptive, not valuational. I wish it would at least have been funny. The only interesting choreography of this music I have ever seen was by Bejart, ironically with the great Maya Plisetskaya dancing up a storm on a stage-within-a-stage round table surrounded by an ever-more-excited male corps. When Jorge Don took over the Plisetskaya role it created a dynamic the '67 Bolshoi would have rather died than portray .....

The star turns by the likes of Ekaterina Maximova are fleeting "visits" to the classroom performing a variation (less than a minute or so...) of classical ballet..... Laurentia, Giselle, etc..... but so short that if you look away for a minute they are gone. One does get a whif of the greatness of the Bolshoi, which adds to the irritation over the travesties being offered.

Now, to close with the one worthwhile dancing in this film: an excerpt from Prokofiev's Stone Flower with the ever engaging Raïsa Strukhova.... who performed with the Bolshoi several times in America. Here one can truly discern the expressivity, energy, flashiness which marked Bolshoi dancing at its best. In the absence on DVD of such films as "Plissetskaya Dances" or the first Bolshoi compilation (which includes a butchered ... by the film-maker.... yet priceless second Act of Giselle with Galina Ulanova), it is worth seeing the Stone Flower segment alone to get a glimpse of what exciting Bolshoi dancing could be like during the Soviet era. For this segment only do I give the film two stars.

This semi-documentary film about the Bolshoi Ballet has flaws, but there are enough good performances and interesting classroom scenes to make it fun to watch. Unfortunately, the scenes that supposedly document the offstage activities of the dancers and students are very staged and sometimes laughable, and I found the score that accompanied the choreographed classroom scenes irritating. It's also frustrating that the format isn't letterboxed, so in the excerpts of films the dancers occasionally disappear.

Several complete pieces are presented--"Ravel Waltzes," with Ekaterina Maximova, "Paganini," with Natalia Bessmertnova, and Ravel's "Bolero," with an ever-growing host of dancers stamping their way up and down stairs. For me, the best was the last: a Russian festival scene and gypsy dance from the ballet "The Stone Flower." The gypsy woman is performed by Natalia Kasatkina, one of the Bolshoi's best character dancers, the pas de deux features radiant ballerina Raisa Struchkova (who starred in the Bolshoi's filmed version of "Cinderella" in 1961), and there's plenty of Russian character dancing.

Compare this video with three documentaries about the Kirov, Russia's other famous ballet company: "Children of Theatre Street" (1978), "Backstage at the Kirov" (1984) and "The Leningrad Legend" (1989). There are also two full-length productions of "The Stone Flower," the Bolshoi version (1990) and the Kirov version (1991).

The right attitude: discipline, seriousness, concentration on the work with great love. The right use of music, the ability of dancers who know how to listen to music, through a great tradition of classical ballet. Dancing with the whole body from finger to toe, with full coordination, full involvement and full identification. These dancers have nothing to hide. I also like watching class of dancers who do not need to cover anything, not by customs, not by speed, not by effects. They have nothing to hide, they are responsible for every movement, and their honesty is convincing. The movements are very clean and precise, even the most simple one, as said in the DVD: "the simplest things are the most difficult and the most beautiful". I like the use of the camera and it's ability in Ravel's Bolero. I like the dance and it's original interpretation of the Crescendo with spanish dignity. This DVD shows the Bolshoi from a different point of view, and when we see what George Balanchine did with the New York City Ballet, adding to these materials the American spirit of freedom, we always have to remember the origins.

My excitement to find this DVD was quickly overcome by disappointment. Ferry was completely drowned out by the band. He labored throughout. This was the first show of a tour? I sold mine.

bryan ferry's voice is unique in certain musical genres and hauntingly unique in others. his look was always and still is very slick and suave.the musicians that he surrounds himself with are just so perfect! i have never had the privilige to see bryan ferry live and i'm sure that there aren't that many people who can say they did so, all i can say is that this DVD is the closest you will ever get to witness the bryan ferry experience. unfortunatly most of the tracks are from his 'as time goes by ' album. don't get me wrong , these songs are great renditions in respect to the era they were first recorded , but bryan ferry has an even greater repetoire that i hope will be made available
in the future. [i hope that it may be a little longer timewise]

To the people who gave this anything less than 5 stars: this dvd is not for you! This DVD shows Bryan doing a more jazzy/big band affair, guess what? It works!! His performance basically proves he can bounce to any genre and dominate it, not like Rod Stewart!!!!! It'd filmed beautifully, the sound is great, the band is amazing, Bryan does an amazing job. Highly recommended for the sophisticated Ferry/Roxy set. I have spoken!

I love the old Basil Rathbone and Nigel Bruce adventures. Actually, I own all of them on VHS, so when they were going to be released on DVD I quickly placed an order. To say that this is a disappointment is to put it mildly.

First off, the movie quality is incredibly bad. Sound and visual is all a mess. And in the "restoration" they have edited key scenes! A great example is in Terror By Night when they don't introduce us to Watson's friend (Who plays an important part later).

The VHS copies I have of the old films show that there are prints out there of high quality. It's too bad they just didn't transfer those prints to DVD as compared to this mess they created from the old stock.... If you enjoy these films, avoid these DVDs and head over to the VHS editions released by Key Video.

Basil Rathbone and Nigel Bruce will be forever remembered as "Hollywood's Holmes and Watson". This DVD gift pack (one hopes the first of many) recaptures the timeless duo in four adventures.

In "The Woman In Green", Holmes finds himself wrapped up in Ripper-like murders of young London women. When he investigates a beautiful woman who is also a master hypnotist, he finds he may end up dead. Features Henry Daniell in a wonderful performance of Holmes' most famous nemesis, Professor Moriarty.

"Sherlock Holmes and the Secret Weapon" finds Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson fighting Nazis in World War II. Loosely based on 'The Dancing Men', Holmes must locate and reclaim the secret plans of a devastatig weapon before the Nazis use it for their own evil purposes. The WWII Holmes films are excellent documents of the times. Many people don't remember the militarization of Hollywood during the 1940s when every film had to pass the litmus test of "How will this help us win the war?" Every film from an American studio was used to a degree as propaganda to help in the war effort. The Sherlock Holmes film series was no exception, and thus we find our beloved characters unaged in the then present day - without explanation, but still an enjoyable film.

Getting away from the War, we come to "Dressed to Kill" where Holmes finds that a music box is the key to an elaborate counterfeiting scheme. Patricia Morrison is great in this film and Rathbone and Bruce have their share of moments as Holmes and Watson.

Finally, probably my favorite, "Terror By Night" is a great Holmes adventure which has as much comic relief as intrigue. A murder has been committed on a train, and Holmes must find the killer before the train reaches it's destination. It's high adventure at high speed where Holmes finds himself reunited with bumbling Scotland Yard Inspector Lestrade, who has just the right amount of comic timing.

This is the first time these movies have been available in a format that's worth watching; until recently you could only purchase them in the low definition EP VHS format. Plus, the discs also feature a rare interview with Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, making the set a must have for both Holmes enthusiasts and classic movie buffs alike!

These films of an earlier age are everything a good modern film should not be. They are campy, over-acted, cliche-ish, over dramatised and poorly dubbed (with a british actor's voice for background speech).

In spite of all of that, there is no one else who can play Sherlock Holms and Dr. Watson as can Basil Rathbone and Nigel Bruce. And the bumbling Inspector LeStrade is priceless. These are classic and timeless films - great fun to watch - one can almost put them in a category with Charlie Chaplain. Very good entertainment value in spite of their short running time (each film generally only ran about one hour in length) and obvious age.

I'd managed to tape all 14 of them from the late night movies a while back; and now watch them whenever I'm in the mood for light entertainment. I'm thrilled that they are finally being released in the DVD format -- hopefully we'll see the entire set re-published.

If you're one of those who turn up their nose at older films because of a lack of action, effects and the like, this collection is not for you. But if you enjoy films of the 40's and liked the exploits of the world's most famous detective, this is a set to get. Get your coat, Watson -- the game is afoot!

~P~

I bought this DVD because it was a bargain and because of the review I read about it.

But I did not enjoy it much. The story is poor, even the action scenes are not that great.

It is, in my opinion, a poor imitation of another great movie of the genre: "Firefox", with Clint Eastwood, which I really recommend.

If you want an action movie and don't bother about the plot this is a good and cheap choice.

I rented this 'cause I like Sandra Ferguson. She looked great as usual and the plot was decent. I was really surprised that Cliff Robertson was in it too. The action was good and I wasn't disappointed I rented this movie.

I just finished watching this film and I'm still trying to catch my breath. This is without a doubt, the greatest movie ever made. I dare you to put this up against Citizen Kane or anything else in your library. It puts the rest of the world into context and forces the actions of the government to have a cause and effect role in society - something the real world doesn't often provide. Way to go UFO!