Don Movie Reviews

Three of the four stories in this DVD deal with war... and the one that doesn't is the best of all. In "Judgement Night" (Season 1) a passenger on a war-time ship has a premonition that the boat will sink at certain hour (cast includes James Franciscus). "A Quality of Mercy" (Season 3) is a powerful story about the horrors of the war, where a young liuetenant (Dean Stockwell) suddenly finds himself as a soldier on the enemy side, looking at things with a whole new perspective (the episode also features Leonard Nimoy). "The Obsolete Man" (Season 2) stars Burgess Merdith as a librarian in a society of the future that considers him obsolete - a great episode -. Finally "The Purple Testament", another war story, shows us an officer with the peculiar ability to know who is going to die in battle (this chapter could be a reference for "Clyde Bruckman's Final Repose", one of the best episodes in another Sci-Fi Classic TV Series, "The X-Files").

Four episode that are exceptionally well acted, superbly written and brought to life by some of the most brilliant actors of the period, with the best episode ever filmed: THE PURPLE TESTIMENT stars the underrated and gorgeous William Reynolds (The Gallent Men, FBI) and Dick York. Reynolds suddenly has acquired the unwanted ability to see look in a man's face and tell when he is going to die. JUDGMENT NIGHT stars the great Nehemiah Persoff as a man trapped on a ship doomed to be torpedoed, with no one listening to his warnings. (A very young James Fransicus, of Longstreet fame, appears at the end with a terrible German accent!). In the OBOSETE MAN you have the powerhouse pairing of the great actors Bergess Meredith and Fritz Weaver in a contest of willS where books have been banned and it is against the law to have them, with Meredith refusing to give them up. The last one QUALITY OF MERCY has super Dean Stockwell as a soldier who is suddenly forced to face the war from the body of the enemy.

CBS put out these episode at 4 per tape at nearly twice the price, so getting them on DVD at this low cost is a value no Twilight Zone Fan can pass up.

Volume 4 features the various twists and turns that made the Twlight Zone famous, but this DVD does not impress as much as others will. In "Mr. Dingle, the Strong," a saleman played by Burgess Meredith, realizes that he has been blessed with awesome strength (from Martians). The story fails, however, when the Martians take back the powers they gave only to give Dingle new powers that will lead to predictable results. "Two" is very interesting dramtically. Two survivors of a nuclear holocaust, Elizabeth Montgomery and Charles Bronson, find themselves alone in a barren town. Unfortunately, there is little conflict here, and while the Bronson and Montgomery do a fine bit of acting, there is not much story for them to perform; the ending is rather anti-climatic. In "A Passage for Trumpet," Jack Klugman plays a trupet player who learns what it is like to be dead. This is possibly the best episode of Vol. 4. Possibly the most disappointing episode is "The Four of Us are Dying." Arch Hammer is able to change his face at a moment's notice, but in the Twilight Zone, such "talent" brings unexpected consequences. The ending is somewhat predictable and there is little to care for in the characters.

Overall the stories on this DVD have potential, but one suspects that given more time, they could have been polished further.

When all of the reviews for several DVDs of "The Twilight Zone" disappear, should we be surprised? In "Mr. Dingle, the Strong," written by Rod Serling, Burgess Meredith returns to the Zone as a mousy little salesman who is given the strength of 300 men by a double-headed Martian as an experiment. When his super strength goes to Dingle's head the Martians abandon the experiment, which is not the end of the story. "Two," written by Montgomery Pittman, stars Charles Bronson and Elizabeth Montgomery as the last survivors from the two sides of a nuclear war. Bronson gets all of the dialogue except for a single word in Russian by Montgomery in this surprisingly realistic and gritty little tale of survival. There is also the wonderful reversal of stereotypes: the rugged Bronson is the pacifist and the lovely Montgomery who turns to violence. The first episode of the show's third season, this is a top-rate tale.

Another familiar face in the Zone, Jack Klugman, plays Joey Crown, a down on his luck musician who decides to commit suicide in "A Passage for Trumpet," written by Serling. However, after throwing himself in front of a truck, Joey discovers he has a second chance to choose which way to go. This episode features a nice turn by John Anderson as "Gabe." Finally, we have "The Four of Us Are Dying," written by Serling from an unpublished story by George Clayton Johnson. Arch Hammer (Harry Townes) can make his face change into a trumpet player (Ross Martin), a murdered gangster (Phillip Pine) and a boxer (Don Gordon), all in order to take advantage of people. But this is the Zone and Fate conspires against Hammer in a most satisfactory manner. Volume 4 of "The Twilight Zone" DVD series has at least one outright classic episode with "Two," while "Mr. Dingle, The Strong" and "A Passage for Trumpet" are well-above average and even that last episode has some nice moments, as when Hammer's face changes while he is shaving. As a rule of thumb anything in the series with Meredith or Klugman is worth having and this disc has them both.

to see if you will too. I am putting this review in 2 parts(A and B). The A category is the "buy it if....." category. And B is the "don't buy it if...." category. So here goes!

(A) Buy this DVD if....1.YOU LIKE KEI MIZUTANI. I mean come on. What more can you ask for. Her naked in every chapter! 2.YOU LOVE NUDITY. Because that is what the whole DVD is about. This one beautiful woman.
(B) Don't buy this DVD if....1.YOU LIKE PLOT. There is no plot. And I am not being mean either. The back of the box says there isn't. It is just a whole bunch of shots of Kei. 2.YOU CAN'T STAND TEASE. There is a whole lot of this in the movie. You will see Kei's breasts a lot, and her butt some. But if you want to see "other" areas......well you are not in luck. A couple times she pulls her underwear down dangerously low, but you will not see "it". Guess you will have to go with hardcore for that. 3.YOU LIKE A WIDE VARITY OF NUDES. Sorry this movie is all about Kei! She is the only living being in it.

So how is it overall? Well, I think Kei is sooooo hot. And I love Asians in general, so it was a great buy for me! Hope this review helped!

if you are a Kei Mizutani fan - one of her better DVD

In volume #4 of The Abbott & Costello Show where Bud and Lou are down and out actors who live at the Fields Rooming House located at 214 Brookline Avenue along with their beautiful neighbor Hillary Brooke and are always joined with their regular cast of charactors, Mike the cop, Mr. Bacciagalupe, Mr. Fields and Stinky (Joe Besser of The Three Stooges)find themselves again in more very funny situations.
(The Drugstore) starts the show with the boys on stage doing the Jonah and the whale routine and then begins showing them taking a job at Mr Fields brothers drugstore. Lou is driven crazy by kids and turns ill by Stinky and then starts a crazy ice cream fight. (Square Meal) The boys travel to Mr Bacciagalupe's lunch counter where Lou's allergy to meatballs turns the owner completly into a basketcase and then find themselves in a cafeteria where there is a case of mistaken identity with two waitresse. The oyster stew is pure classic! ($1000 Prize) is my personal favorite on this volume where Bud and Lou go to Mr Fields apartment to fix his tv set and wind up answering his phone when he's away and winning the big prize, but only if they can get rid of Mr Fields when the prize is delivered. They also have to contend with ducking Mike the cop! (Wife Wanted) begins with Bud and Mr Fields taking advantage of poor Lou in a poker game but Lou's fate has a turnaround for the better when he will inherit $10,000 if he can find a wife to marry before his rich grandfather visits. Lou's old girlfriend Agnes may be the answer, but what about her jealous wrestler boyfriend?

Why 4 stars and not 5 stars? Because just like the Abbott & Costello fan club says... That's not even the best ones! It's great to see the Abbott & Costello Show going to DVD. I hope all (13) volumes will be released soon! Than maybe the cartoon series which features Bud Abbotts voice.

The four episodes on this DVD were great. Sitting alone in a hotel room watching this DVD on my computer I found myself laughing out loud. Really enjoyed it.

MGM's latest installment of the Midnite Movies gives us a double feature of late sixties biker films. In Angel Unchained, biker Angel gives up his colors to go on his own. On his way to finding himself he runs into A couple hippies hassled by some goobery dune buggy people. Of course he takes the hippies' side because one of them is a young Tyne Daly, and next thing you know, the fight over the lettuce patch begins at the hippie compound to the point where Angel's old bros need to be called in (note: in the pacing of the film he finds them awful fast... were they around the block pretending not to follow him, or what?). High points are the Aldo Ray scene as an older sheriff presiding over a parking lot brawl, and Daly as the love interest- she had that street smart timbre to her voice even back then which lends a credibility in the scene of her botched attack. Flippin the disc, we have Bruce Dern in "Cycle Savages", a much smaller and more soundstagey (read: cheap) film than "Angel Unchained". Dern hams it up to the point where I think that perhaps they told him the plot and he just impovised his lines- it's a fun thing to watch. This film is so bleak it would make Hubert Selby, Jr. drink Clorox. There is A likeable character in this film, and even he comes off as a dolt. A starving artist draws a bunch of biker sketches (hello:dum idea) and they decide to come up with a way to hurt him by having a mongolian cluster and raping a girl with an ice cream cone. (...no, excuse me. She's having an ice cream cone and they take her back and rape her. That would just be sick.) So, anyway, they come up with an idea for hurting him at the same time the bike gang's leader is using the downstair's neighbor as a tail for the artist because her sister is being sent down the road of brain control and depravity by the leader, but she's falling in love with the artist...you see where this is heading. So, "Angel Unchained" is a much better film of the two, but you'll like "Cycle Savages" if you like your soap operas with a good chain whupping time and again (I'd like to see that on "Days of Our Lives". Thanx.

The DVD version of this feature is the same as the video. The DVD is a better buy because the picture is marginally better and you can freeze frame Phyllis Haver while she's standing on top of the piano (an unparalled bit of 20's cheesecake). D.W. Griffith & Co. never imagined that 75 years later people could watch their movies frame by frame.

Another facinating Corman flick features basically a combination of Jackie Chan and hardcore action violence. It also features my favorite actor of all that had ever starred in these type of Corman movie, Rick Dean ("Carnosaur 2 & 3").

With its offbeat take on relationships and preoccupation with videotape, this movie is something like what Atom Egoyan might have come up with if assigned to do a screwball comedy. It was actually made by Spanish director Isabel Coixet, but the setting is somewhere in North America. (It was filmed in northwest Oregon and in Spain.) The story involves an oddball group of people whose paths tend to cross in interesting and sometimes romantic ways. In the lead role, Lili Taylor (I Shot Andy Warhol, Girls Town) tones down her usual psychotic screen persona to being merely odd and quirky and actually endearing.

This film is quite exceptional, because it is a study of the social climate of the last decade, with references to sex and death. The plot revolves around the dysfunctional relationship between the lead characters (a morgue worker and an ecstacy junkie), an aids victim, a guy with suicidal tendencies, a person obsessed with orgies and a guy with no love life. In this film, the director has done an excellent job in blurring the line between good and evil in a systematic way. Well worth watching if you are a fan of french cinema and can appreciate their somewhat sardonic view of life.