Don Movie Reviews

The final season begins, and nearly the entire cast shows up in this volume(except for Kodachi and Dr. Tofu, who didn't disappear like in the manga). All of the episodes are original stories not based on the manga, but they're all still pretty funny, well except for the second episode. The first one has Kuno becoming the substitute principal when his father takes some time off, and naturally, he opts to take Ranma out, and both Gosunkugi and Nabiki are working with him! Can Ranma, Akane, and Ukyo get the two on their side and get rid of Kuno? The second episode is a bit more serious, as Ranma competes in a martial arts festival, where if he fails, he'll never be able to become a true martial artist! Although the humor doesn't show up until the end(no, I'm not spoiling it), I do think it's also a nice way of seeing exactly what makes Ranma tick. The third episode, arguably the best, features the Jusenkyo guide heading to Nerima, as it seems he's found an extension of the Spring-Of-Drowned-Man! Which means Ranma, Ryoga, Mousse, and Genma can be cured! Of course, don't expect things to go as expected(or else the series would end!). Nevertheless, this episode is pretty funny, my favorite scene being the part with Ryoga and the explosive Akane doll(you'll have to see that for yourself!).

A great trio of films with the BEST cowboy EVER. Being a Brit who grew up going to Saturday morning pictures,its great to be able to see some of his films in SUPERB clarity and pretty good sound. A nice touch was the Roy Rogers Club short which is also the great thing about DVD, you get a lot for your money. All in all, a great deal and good films. Please keep them coming!

Being a fan of vintage instructional films like those featured in the EDUCATIONAL ARCHIVES collection, I had to buy this DVD when I learned that it included several "facts of life" movies from the 1940's. As it turns out, those short films are only a small part of the attractions on this very interesting disc. If you've always thought of exploitation films as schlocky productions with bad scripts and terrible acting, the movies included in this double feature will be a pleasant surprise. Be forewarned, however: there's some very graphic footage here, even by today's standards, showing stomach-turning close-ups of the effects of venereal disease and a step-by-step view of a Caesarean section being performed. Most of the images are in black & white, but it's still pretty strong stuff.

The first film on the double bill, STREET CORNER, is an effective little drama about a young woman from a "respectable" household who finds herself alone and helpless when she becomes pregnant. With nowhere else to go, she makes a visit to the wrong side of town in hopes of solving her problem -- with disastrous results. The cast is quite good in this film, and I think the story would hold up very well even without the educational material presented near the end. It's definitely an above-average production. Film buffs will note that the main character is played by Marcia Mae Jones, a wonderful actress who gave an unforgettable performance as one of the schoolchildren in the 1936 drama THESE THREE.

The second movie, BECAUSE OF EVE (The Story of Life), requires a bit of an explanation. If the prelude is to be believed, there were evidently three short educational films produced in the 1940's (one on VD, another on the biological details of reproduction, and a third on childbirth) that were incorporated into a conventional feature film with the goal of "getting the message out" to a larger audience. Thus we're treated to the story of a young couple engaged to be married who visit their friendly doctor. The doc almost shatters their wedding plans by revealing some shocking information about their past indiscretions, but everything turns out okay after he shows them some spirit-lifting sex education films. Again, though, this isn't just another throwaway exploitation picture. The plight of the couple is believeable, and the content of the educational films is actually quite bold and straightforward.

This DVD edition also features a short movie in color that takes things a step further by showing the birth of TRIPLETS as well as a circumcision (ouch!). The rest of the supplemental material is comprised of movie trailers and audio commentaries by noted exploitation producers. One of the producers, David Friedman, supplies a reasonable facsimile of the hygiene lecture/book pitch that was given during the intermission when the films were originally screened. If I had prepared this DVD, however, I think I would have opted for a simple voice-over of the speech accompanied by still photographs from the era. The modern color video sequence, inserted in the middle of the black & white movie, sort of disrupts the vintage feel of the story.

As mentioned earlier, there are some surprisingly explicit scenes in these movies, so I wouldn't recommend this DVD for the squeamish. However, if you're interested in history, forties pop culture, or if you simply enjoy educational material from a more innocent time, these entertaining films offer a fascinating peek at a period when America was undergoing some significant social changes.

Video Kart came out with 4-double feature/discs featuring the Eddie Dean, Bob Steele, and Lash LaRue B Westerns. All are good but this is the best of the group - not so much as to the selection but more so as to picture quality, especially Driftin'River. The other black and white features had very intense contrast- so that the night and dark scenes were essentially black and white with hardly any shades of grey in between, which makes it difficult to appreciate the finer details. But this is not so with Driftin River which somehow come off well. The Bob Steele feature- Thundertown was also much better than the previous two releases by Video Kart.The features appear to have been cleaned-up versions of the originals but not actually full blown restorations. These are better than some of those B westerns transferred to DVD but were merely copied from the VHS EP versions. Let's hope Video Kart comes out with more of these westerns - especially those Cinecolor team-ups of Eddie Dean and Lash Larue.

Earl Hamner, Jr.'s best script, "Jesse-Belle," one of the few hour-long Zones that actually succeeded, is the highlight of Volume 30 in "The Twilight Zone" DVD series. In the Blue Ridge Mountains young Billy-Ben Turner (James Best) proposes to Ellwyn Glover (Laura Devon), but Jesse-Belle Stone (Anne Francis) loves the boy too. So she visits Granny Hart, who is supposedly a witch, and gets a love potion. However, Jesse-Belle soon learns there is a price to pay for that potion: each night she turns into a leopard because now she too is a witch. After that, things get quite complicated in this backwoods love triangle. A unique episode because it does not end with Serling's narration, but with the folk song Hamner wrote for that is heard at the beginning of the show. In "Sounds and Silences," written by Rod Serling, John McGiver plays Roswell G. Flemington, who owns a model-ship company and who loves to play records of naval battles very loudly. When his wife finally has enough and walks out on him, Roswell thinks he can enjoy making all the noise he wants, but that night he discovers that suddenly every sound in the world, even the dripping of water, has become deafening to him. This episode did not appear in syndication because of a lawsuit from a writer who had contributed a script called "The Sound of Silence," about a man who could not hear sounds, to Serling a few years earlier. Jackie Cooper plays ventriloquist Jonathan West in "Caesar and Me," written by Adele T. Strassfield. The Caesar in question is Jonathan's dummy Little Caesar, who talks his human friend into turning to a life of crime to make some money. A minor episode, certainly not as memorable as Serling's "The Dummy." Hamner's classic tale of love and witchcraft is the only reason to pick up this volume of episodes from the Zone.

There is an interesting pattern to the episodes collected on Volume 10 of "The Twilight Zone" DVD series since the third episode essentially merges the first two together. But the key element here is obviously Time Travel. "The Last Flight," written by Richard Matheson, was sold to "The Twilight Zone" on the strength of a simple idea: a World War I pilot lands at a modern airbase. The pilot is Flight Lt. Decker (Kenneth Haigh), who fled during a dogfight, leaving his best friend surrounded by enemy fighters, doomed to die. After flying through a strange white cloud, similar to the Matheson employed in "The Incredible Shrinking Man" one would assume, Decker lands at a modern day American air field in France (you have to pretend we had them). There Decker learns that he might have a chance to redeem himself and more importantly, a reason to do so. "Once Upon a Time," also written by Matheson is a rare opportunity for outright slapstick in the Zone. The show features the great silent comedian Buster Keaton as janitor Woodrow Mulligan. Disgusted with the fast paced and high priced society of 1890, Woodrow steals a "time helmet" from the inventor who employs him, and travels to 1962. Of course, he is in for quite a bit of future shock. The 1890 sequences are down in silent fashion, with cards instead of dialogue, but the humor is trite rather than funny. Keaton is fine, but the gags are second-rate at best, which is really a surprise since the episode was directed by Norman Z. McLeod, who directed the Marx Brothers films "Horse Feathers" and "Monkey Business." This is just one of those cases were major talents come together and produce a small pop instead of a big bang.

Cliff Robertson stars as Christian Horn, traveling to a new life in California in 1847 in "A Hundred Yards Over the Rim," written by Rod Serling. Similar to "The Last Flight," this episode hinges on a pivotal image: while searching for water and food for his dying son, Horn walks "over the rim" to discover a paved highway, telephone poles, trucks and a diner. However, the conclusion of this episode ends up paralleling "The Last Flight" way too much to avoid eye brow raising. Still, the performance of Robertson makes this one work on its own terms. Finally, "The Trouble With Templeton," written by E. Jack Neuman, features Brian Aherne as Booth Templeton, an aging actor who longs for the happy days in the Twenties when his wife as still alive. Late for a rehersal of a play he finds himself back in 1927. Finding his wife Laura (Pippa Scott) alive at a local speakeasy he is stunned to find that while she is as beautiful as he remembers her, she is a vulgar little flirt. His perfect memories destroyed, he returns to the present at which point he makes a rather stunning discovery. I have a special fondness for this episode because I did not see the twist coming. Sydney Pollack plays Willis, the young director who is not happy with Templeton's commitment to his craft. This was Neuman's only Zone script, although he did write/produce several notable television series including "Dr. Kildare," "Mr. Novak" and "Police Story." This is an above average collection of "Twilight Zone" episodes helped alone by the thematic unity of the quartet of stories.

This is the story of a boy from another country (germany) growing up with a very strict father, and all of the other problems a 14 year old faces. He rebels, he fights, he cries...he has a little fun, too. a great story, a great plot, it's a movie for the whole family!

This is DVD of a 1986 Salzburg Easter Festival live performance
and as such it has all the excitement and sense of occasion of a
real thatrical experience. Karajan, of course, controls the whole production, being his festival. The Berlin Philharmonic in the orchestra pit is something few recordings of this opera can compete with. Karajan conducts without a score in his usual transcendental manner. The total effect is crisp, powerful, dynamic, precise, tightly controlled and well detailed. His approach works especially well in the powerful climaxes, dramatic exchanges and the great assembly scenes. The finale of Act 2 (the Auto da fe scene) is superb.
The singers are what makes this performance so extraordinary and
memorable. The opera requires six top quality singers. Karajan,of course,hand picked them for the roles, using some of his perennial favourites and some newcomers.Agnes Baltsa and Jose Carreras plus Piero Cappuccilli are some of the perennials.
They are beyond praise. Baltsa probably "steals the show" with her wonderful voice and fire-eating, Callas -like dramatic and
emotional acting ability.Carreras, Karajan's favourite tenor, uses his voice articulately and with great inspiration. Cappuccilli,one of the great Italian lyric baritones of our time,
as Rodrigo, truly shines.
Ferruccio Furlanetto creates a deeply moving portrayal of Philip II. His great aria in the third act and subsequent exchange with the Grand Inquisitor are Verdi at his best and Furlanetto does great justice to it. Matti Salminen, the great Finnish basso, has
a stentorian voice and mighty presence-thoroughly frightening as the Inquisitor.
Finally, as the Queen, Fiamma Ozzo d'Amico, relatively lesser known, a young Italian spinto soprano, is equally at home in the
lyrical parts, but fully capable of dramatic outbursts. A beautiful woman, certainly looks the part. In her final duet with Carlo one can almost feel sparks flying between the two and
understand why the two were in love with each other.
Important note: This is the four act version, which has been used
successfully for over a hundred years. There are some minor cuts Karajan makes for the performance. E.g. Eboli's Song of the Veil is chopped in half, quite inexplicably-this way the song is incomplete and makes no sense at all! The CD set, however, is complete.
Not everybody likes Karajan. I personally prefer Giulini's more fluid and graceful style which gave him such resounding success in London. However, there is no video of Giulini that I know of.
Nevertheless, I can sincerely recommend this DVD, it will give
ample satisfaction. It comes on one disc, handsomely packaged with a well detailed booklet. The sound is first rate.

"Winds of Terror" is a wonderful despliction of the what-if question. It may not be a pretty movie, but the producers answer it in great detail. These events are similar to past disease outbreaks. The make-up team make the symptoms real looking. The actors and the crew are great. Though most of this film has been done before, it's still highly entertaining.

This sequel really threw me for a proverbial loop. I was going into it expecting Bill, Ted; you know maybe a cameo by Napoleon... When I saw Keanu I figured, "Alright, so he's goth now, that's cool." Then out popped his NEW friend Trinity, and apparently this Morpheus character took over for Ruffius (Did the actor who played ruffius die?). Anyway, I did like the substitution of the "Hovership" for the phone booth, a little more time-travel realism (After all, I've been in phone booths, and I've never time-traveled). And that first Bill and Ted movie must have made some !CASH! because they pumped this new one full of special effects! All in all, I liked it, but I think that they could have done a better job of connecting the plots of the 2 movies.

This sequel is full of non-stop action that - as they claim - lifts the bar on what to expect in movies of this nature. The Wachowski brothers and their team have definitely outdone themselves on that score. The fight scene between Keanu Reaves and the hundreds of Smiths has to be one of the best martial arts sequences on film (OK, maybe not). The special effects are crazy, with Neo (Reaves) gaining superman like powers that enables him to fly, and bounce off walls like Spiderman. That isn't new but there are more such sequences in the sequel.

The emotional attachment between Keanu Reeves and Carrie Ann Moss gets stronger and we see more of the human-side of Neo than we did in the Matrix. (I thought the sexual scenes in the film were unnecessary) Lawrence Fishburne doesn't fail to disappoint as the general with a dream who inspires the resistance. More characters are introduced like the twins with their crazy hair and ability to become temporarily invisible, the Keymaker, Jada Pinkett Smith (Morpheus' love interest) and the Chief architect...

The extras on this DVD are excellent, check out the MTV spoof with Justin Timberlake and that dude from 'Dude where's my car'. It's funny, especially the Chief Architect part, a definite must-see.

All in all, a great sequel, don't believe everything you read though...Watch it and decide for yourself.

When I saw the original Matrix, I was not impressed. I never even bothered to see the Mmatrix Reloaded until recently. I was missing out.

The Matrix Trilogy has a wonderful storyline, and Reloaded is the most important of them. While the original sets up the storyline and the finale is all about the war and Neos battle with Smith, Reloaded answers a lot of questions and creates even more. I mean, the Wachowski brothers did make some good plot twists.

Each character seems unique, and every one is there to serve a purpose. I feel like the Keymaker could of been more developed, and his role should of been much more important. The Merovingian and his wife Persephone are examples of new characters that are fantastic.

I do not really care about special effects, but these were grand. The freeway chase was visually pleasing, especially sequences with the Twins. Also, Neos fight with the 100 Smiths was fun to watch. I love the song they play.

The DVD has some fairly good extras, if you are into documentaries on how the film is made. It also talks about the Animatrix, the Enter the Matrix video game, and includes the MTV Movie Awards parody of the Matrix Reloaded.