Wholesale and Distribution Movie Reviews

Contains three tracks:- Are You Growing Tired..., Technicolour Dreams, and Spinning Wheel Blues. - from German TV 1968~9, totaling about nine minutes. The B&W / colour picture quality is fine; although the sound is 5.1 DD / DTS, it is remixed / enhanced from mono sources.
The disc also contains twelve minutes of previews for other discs in this series; and a DVD Jukebox featuring ten live performances from various artists' live dvd's

I enjoy the IMAX movies but this one was boring. I expected the usual IMAX thrills which they could have/should have done with helicoptors zooming down, speeding, etc., and there was very little of. It appears they are trying to make them "G" rated. Big disappointment.

This movie is ok...considering Yuen Biao is the star. At times when the film becomes interesting it becomes choppy because somebody did a real bad editing job. The film is not that bad except you can definitely see the actors strapped to the wires in some of the action scenes. This movie left me really dissapointed in the producer and director for not getting a better editor.

Contains four tracks:- Ride a White Swan; Jeepster; Life's a Gas; and 20th Century Boy ( totaling around 12 minutes ) - All taken from German TV shows in the early 70's, thus the picture quality is pretty good altho' they tended to use psychodelic colours and patterns for this type of artist. Contains switchable on/off "pop-up" information 'bubbles' about the artist; and fairly extensive previews for other titles in the series; plus a DVD Jukebox featuring ten live tracks from various artists live dvd's.
The sound is 5.1 DD / DTS remixed / enhanced from mono sources.

5 tombe per un medium directed by Massimo Pupillo, is a lackluster spaghetti horror (as in spaghetti western?)! Also known as Cemetery of the Living Dead, this Italian chiller thriller benefits largely from the presence of the stunning queen of horror flicks Barbara Steele. Generally a bunch of nonsense about a terrible plague, in which the victims are then summoned from the dead by an idiot for some vague reason. The transfer is good, but then film was dodge and dubbed to begin with so beware. Still for Steele fans, a nice treat at this price.

The only reason I'm giving this 3 stars instead of 5 is because the company who mastered this to DVD apparently did a lousy job. The audio trails the video by about a full second which kind of gets annoying after a while. I went out and got a second copy and it had the exact same problem so I'm assuming they're all like this. (I didn't feel like going out and buying them all as there's seems to be only a couple of copies in my area) Dan, Tom and the rest of the band plays great. They have a geat selection of material covering many different styles of music for which Danny was known for. I couldn't find any imformation on the manufacturer on the cover, so if anybody out there knows how to get in contact with them, I'd like to know because I'd love to get a clean copy of this.

Nobody made Westerns like Republic. In "Under California Stars," Roy Rogers portrays a singing cowboy movie actor. Truly inspired casting. Roy discovers that evil horse hunters are trapping wild horses on his Double R Ranch. Roy frowns on this bad behavior. He beats up creepy bad guy House Peters, Jr. to stop him from abusing a captured horse. After Roy makes it plain that wild horse hunters are not welcome on his range, the outlaw gang kidnaps Trigger and holds the smartest horse in the movies for $100,000 ransom. The crooks in this little flick are dumber than usual. These B Westerns, filmed in TruColor, were Roy's last series of films before moving to TV in the 1950s. The Sons of the Pioneers pad the script with several musical numbers. Pre-Jingles Andy Devine is the comic relief ranch foreman, Cookie Bullfincher. He inflates the ranch payroll by hiring his lookalike, country bumpkin relatives. Triva Note: Michael Chapin is Lauren Chapin's brother. She was "Kathy" on the "Father Knows Best" TV show. Low-grade VHS editions do not help this film's technical qualities. Regardless, the movie is "G" rated fun for kids and nostalgia collectors. Saddle up and ride, pardner. ;-)

Ah, the joys of Frankie Darro and Mantan Moreland. Darro was among Monogram Pictures' biggest drawing cards in 1940, before The East Side Kids became the studio's resident little tough guys. Frankie Darro often played jockeys and villains in major-studio movies, but his Monograms gave him more opportunities for his acting skills and comic flair (Monogram held on to him, in one capacity or another, for another 10 years).

"Up in the Air" is one of Darro's better outings and a typical Monogram feature, with presentable but not lavish production values, and a serviceable supporting cast dotted with some familiar faces. When a difficult diva dies mysteriously, radio-station pageboy Frankie and his pal Mantan keep one step ahead of the cops and try to identify the killer. The mystery is interesting enough, but there is a good deal of comedy and music to help the proceedings along. Marjorie Reynolds sings, the pop-eyed Moreland clowns and dances, and when Moreland goes into his famous "incomplete-sentence" comedy routine, his partner is none other than Frankie Darro in blackface, doing an extremely good imitation of Freeman Gosden (of "Amos 'n' Andy")! Serial fans will enjoy seeing Tristram Coffin and Lorna Gray (a/k/a Adrian Booth) in supporting roles.

Picture and sound are very good, from a fine 16mm print. This is a good one from Alpha's budget-price video line (the graphics on the packaging are superb), and B-movie fans and late-late-show viewers with long memories should enjoy this.

Alright, this movie started out as a straight-forward sci-fi epic about the first ship on venus. Filmed in eastern europe (I've heard it was made in hungary, poland, czechaslovachia, and / or russia; take your pick) in 1963 or so, Roger Corman got a hold of it, brought it to america, and "fixed" the film for american audiences. Some "dull" scenes were removed and scenes with Faith Demergue (floating in a spacestation) and Basil Rathbone (at a moonbase) were added. Both performers seem as bored as they are boring. This "new" movie was called VOYAGE TO THE PREHISTORIC PLANET. Next, in about 1967, Corman removed the Demergue / Rathbone scenes, turned over the camera to Derek Thomas (aka: a young Peter Bogdanovich), and inserted Mamie Van Doran and a host of scantilly-clad uber babes. Thus, the confoundingly confusing mess, VOYAGE TO THE PLANET OF PREHISTORIC WOMEN was born! Instead of a venusian adventure, it's a playboy bunny sunbathing contest, with a few astronauts and a robot running around! Unfortunately, there's a load of unnecessary narration in this one that's only slightly less painful than swallowing a porcupine. I'm not really complaining. I mean, I enjoy this type of hyper-schlock. If you like babes in seashell bras (and who doesn't), then this one's for you...

This is a unique DVD. I don't spend enough time in rowdy bars and beer joints, so I need to get my street fighting action through the TV.

This DVD has lots going for it:
* The fights are fantastic, real and brutal
* The announcer is hilarious (he adopts the tone and mannerisms of a narrator for a nature show as he describes the fights)
* The reactions of the spectators for these fights are a riot

Think of this DVD like old-style Jerry Springer on steroids and amphetamines.

However, if you look at the web page of the company that makes this DVD, they claim there's 70 minutes of footage. In reality, there are 45 minutes of footage and another 15 minutes of the company promoting their other products for a total of 60 minutes (not 70). And of the 45 minutes of "real" footage, I'd estimate about 5 minutes of it is advertising and clips for their "Ghetto Brawls" DVD and 10 minutes is of Playboy-video type topless women frolicking with garden hoses and the like.

So I was disappointed that the company promised 70 minutes of footage when in reality, you get more like 30 minutes of actual street fights and 30 minutes of advertising and topless women.

Also, I didn't like the editing. Many of the street fights ended with the narrator saying, "And this guy is out of steam--the fight's over." I would have preferred to see the two guys settle the dispute or see one of them capitulate or shake hands or cuss the other guy out or whatever.

All told, this was an entertaining DVD if you like madness and chaos. Just understand that you're paying...for 30 minutes of (excellent) fighting footage and not the 70 minutes like the ads say.