Austin Movie Reviews

This is not a bad play, but it feels tight. I wanted to see it to compare with the 1978 version with Helen Mirren (just about impossible to find - try Ambrose Video and sit down for the price). The setting is forcefully lush, but feels plastic. My general view is that Shakespeare needs to be "slowed down", performance-wise and most old movies (40-50 years) seem rushed.

"As You like It" is one of Shakespeare's most produced plays, and its also one of the slightest... And with its light tone, it makes for fun viewing. This film, however, has to many detractions to make it anything beyond good. As with many of Will's stories, a female character dresses in 'drag; for a large chunk of the story. The german Elisabeth Bergner has to do so and is extremely unconvincing as "Rosalind". Even if you forget about her soprano quality voice, she doesn't even remotely resemble a man and her actions are nothing short of female. One of Shakespeare's ironic twists is to have Rosalind (known as 'Gamymede') pretend to be 'Rosalind" so she can still be courted by Laurence Olivier. But, this device falls flat with the weak performance. there are a couple weird moments, like the suggestive appearance by a snake and a lion for a couple seconds of film. The film itself moves along at a brisk pace thanks to simple direction and a great adaption by PETER PAN creator, J M Barrie.

This version of "As You Like It" has not aged well. The modern approach to Shakespeare, with more natural dialog and realistic costuming, has left the tight-wearing overly theatrical players of old looking a bit foolish. They strut around the stage with obvious gusto and verve, but they just never connect.

With that in mind, "As You Like It" can be fun. The play itself is a bit silly, and the actors even sillier. The director made no attempt to disguise the feminine status of Elizabeth Bergener. She remains a pretty girl in boys clothes with a screeching soprano voice. To his credit, Olivier plays it as straight as an oak, and never for a minute doubts her ill-conceived charade. Jacques is in full motley, making his presence in Arden forest even more absurd.

Lacking any other version on DVD, "As You Like It" contains a certain charm. Just be prepared. Your "willful suspension of disbelief" has never been so sorely tested.

These two Dan Curtis productions are well worth watching, particularly Dracula which features a great performance by the underrated Jack Palance as the Count. However....

The reason I have given this such a low rating is because of the appalling quality of the transfers. Dracula starts out so dark that you can't see anything. My VHS copy (not from MPI but a UK tape) clearly shows a lake, Castle Dracula, and a pack of dogs running to the castle. Here, we hear the dogs but the screen is almost pitch black. Things don't get any better later on as brighter colours bleed (no pun intended) into each other, particularly reds. There's barely a moment in the film where I wasn't distracted by the lousy transfer.

Jekyll and Hyde's problems lie with the source material and is marginally more watchable. It was filmed on videotape and looks like a second or third generation copy. This is more forgiveable considering that the original print may have been in poor condition, but no restoration work has been performed which is a shame.

Hopefully Dracula will get another DVD release sourced from the same print used for my VHS copy. It's not perfect, but at least it's more watchable than MPIs terrible DVD version. I have no idea what the later single MPI DVD release of Dracula is like, but I'm assuming it's of exactly the same appalling quality as this one.

The seventies were the decade when Dracula on screen came to a full and complete apotheosis, and then faded away for good. In the seventies we had Frank Langella, Klaus Kinki and Louis Jourdan adding to the list of actors who played the undead count in important versions. Christopher Lee also gave two last interpretations for Hammer, the worst of his seven draculas, and another with Jess Franco, purporting to be faithful to the Bram Stoker novel. Lee succeeded in approaching the legend from another angle. And among the seveties draculas, we have Jack Palance's. After that, no more draculas were available but for derision or parody -notably hateful is the Coppola version-.

I had read about this Jack Palance/Dan Curtis version, the official line being that it is rather disappointing. So I balked for a time, and decided to purchase it only when it has come with Doctor Jekyll, to make good the money I spent on it.

And I must tell to every Dracula fan, that this one is an extraordinary screen version, really worth seeing. And this is for the following reasons:

*This is a TV production but it was theatrically released, and it has beautiful and cratfy prohography, both for interior and exterior settings. Many close-ups and zooms show nevertheless its TV biases. Its art style makes you think of the early Hammer
Dracula pictures, with Gothic arches and cleverly deviced color patterns.

*It includes a particular interpretation of the myth, penned by the remarkable writer Richard Matheson -a very skilled and imaginative author, very good at fantasy and terror-. Love moves the count, a love that transcends death itself. This is the gist of the script.

*Jack Palace comes out as one of the best draculas ever, barely second to Chris Lee. His Dracula is strong, temperamental and passionate. He looks like a force of the nature, providing a sense of real menace, and a redoutable presence. Nigel Davenport is a good Van Helsing.

*This is a real HORROR MOVIE, that's to say, it tries to evoke and play with feelings of fear and of the uncanny, not like John Badham's Dracula, who gave a romantic interpretation and a semi-parodic one. After the seventies, Dracula became unfortunately a joke, audiences preferred slasher and chainsaw massacres, an enterely different -though legitimate- approach to the genre.

As bonus material we have an interview with Dan Curtis and another with Jack Palance. Curtis was a great adapter of the late Victorian classics for the TV. Very interesting his idea of Dracula as being fascinating because for all his unreality, he is "conceivable", unlike werewolves or assorted other monsters. A human being, not quite dead, who plays between life and death, who leads an evil and peculiar sort of "life" feeding on other people's blood... departs only slightly from our experience as to be, as he says "conceivable". So it has the same uncanny quality that makes a wax museum frightening: the figures could come to life at any moment, or at least, this is the trick that our imagination plays on us.

Interesting, too, what Jack Palance says. He felt disturbed and even frightened by his character, and wanted to finish shooting as soon as possible. He has seen many draculas, but he has never wanted to see his own... He felt as if the "real guy" were somewhere and and impending showdown were at hand! Cool! Palance is and excellent actor and was offered the part again several times, but turned it down. If ever a character existed that can make you typecast for ever, this is Dracula (witness Chris Lee).

Two serious flaws, however: some of the costumes look as belonging rather to the Romantic age, and not to the late Victorian age, in which the action is set (1897). And the scenes with Dracula's brides attacking Harker are not very convincing.

As to "Doctor Jekyll and Mister Hyde in this presentation", it is a worthy version of Stevenson's book. Palance is good both as the shy doctor -a remarkable achievement considering the compelling presence of the actor- and the reckless Hyde. This one is clearly an all-out TV production with its ensuing reduced
visual interest, but still, one of the best for this work.

This DVD, then is highly recommendable to every Dracula fan. You won't be disappointed, this could be one of the best on all accounts. Don't let it be lost on you.

This 2fer disc is definietly worth it's weight in gold. Produced by Dan Curtis (the man behind Dark Shadows) these 2 movies originally aired on television in 1968 and 1972. The Dracula was improvised making the woman Dracula goes after as the reincarnation of a lost love (ala Barnabas Collins and Josette Dupres). I would love to know Jonathan Frid and Kathryn Leigh Scott's opinions of this movie. The Jekyll/Hyde was shot live on tape in the same way Dark Shadows was. In fact several of the sets and music can be recognized from Dark Shadows. Definitely an improvement over the VHS releases of both which were included with commentary by Elvira, which if you ask me was a waste of time and energy. Important note: to anyone who buys 2 sided discs by MPI Homevideo. The feature usually listed as being on side A is usually on side B and vice versa. In other words, the side labeled as Dracula is the side with Jekyll and vice versa. I've had this experience with 2 sided MPI discs before and have already emailed them about this. Although they replied with gratitude of pointing this out, I don't know if they rectified newer copies. Buy this disc by all means, but watch out for this.

A little bit too much dry ice lurking around the soundstage but as atmospheric as you could get on a shoestring. Full of terrific imagery not least the hammer and sickle as the two cockney gravediggers walk through the graveyard. A key scene, I think. Watch for the shovel getting caught by a shrub's branch and marvel at the anti communist symbolism. I believe the film is clearly saying at this point that there's more to fear from the living...ie communists....than the dead. Maybe they're the same thing. A riot.

I can't carp about this little 40's spooker with LUGOSI playing Dracula again (finally) even if it IS low-budget and has a funny-looking werewolf/assistant. It's still a curio and features a wartime setting as well as the lovely Nina Foch (in an early role) as a potential victim. It's goofy and weird and not all that bad, really. At least it was a major studio that released it and not one of those hideous poverty row junkfests that were churned out by the truckload around the same time. The class shows through with the acting,camera-work and story coherence. It could have been much worse but it's not and it sits proudly with my other DVDS as an old fashioned reminder of what going to the movies used to be about and how thankful I am that some of these old chestnuts are still around to be appreciated.

The definitive movie vampire, Bela Lugosi, stars in this entertaining Columbia production. Although mired in a downward career spiral of poverty row clunkers, Bela, ahem, rises to the occasion. Among the familiar vampire cliches, we find a unique character in Andreas (Matt Willis), the wolf man familiar that serves the vampire. This guy looks like Lon Chaney, Jr. in full makeup, but he does not go around howling at the full moon. Instead, he shows great restraint and is quite articulate as he speaks rather than growls. His fiendish appearance tells of the soul's evil and the vampire's spell. After a prologue, that shows the vampire's 1918 horror and dispatch, Andreas escapes the dark side with help from a kindly lady scientist (Frieda Inescort). He falls back into dreadful habits after a WWII bombing raid unearths Bela. The scenes in the London cemetery inflicted with bomb damage are surreal images of foggy darkness and the children of the night. The script suffers from some B picture limitations, but not enough to matter. Lugosi's character, Armand Tesla, is merely Dracula, winking at legal copyright infringements. He catches Nina Foch in his alluring web of unholy desire. The climax in the bombed-out church is done well, and covers a multitude of unlikely plot developments. Character actor and former Mack Sennett star, Billy Bevan, plays Horace, the comic civil defense worker who utters the above immortal dialogue. Some viewers may recognize Bevan as the hapless Whitby policeman, Albert, in Universal's "Dracula's Daughter." Atmospheric sets and a veteran cast add to the enjoyment. Great fun for genre fans and collectors. ;-)

"or to put it in terms you might understand,
'The sword of damocles is hanging over pandora's box'..."

This film is more proof that Wisdom and Intelligence are not the same thing. Trixie isn't very bright or well educated, but what she lacks in book-learning she makes up for in street smarts and good morals. She's not unnattractive, just rather plain.
Cute, but not beautiful. Chews gum alot.
Sort of a female "Columbo" but even dimmer.
Just judging from her looks on the box cover
of the VHS cassette, I don't know why, but I just assumed
she was British. She looks stereotypically British,
and I was surprised to hear a sassy Chicago accent come
from those lips and not some kind of Cockney or other London accent...then again, the last feature film I watched was
THE LIMEY, so maybe that's still in my head subconsciously.

You have to get used to the title character's dialogue...I found it rather painful on my ears...and you will start talking like Trixie if you're not careful, with all the mangled metaphors!...I'm not sure it's really believable someone could talk that way so consistently, regardless of educational background...I'm sure the actress had to spend a lot of time working on her lines to get them so perfectly screwed up...sounds more like a foreigner whose first language is not English speaking that would be more believeable.
Some of it is mildly amusing, I'm sure some people howl with laughter the whole way through...but I didn't. I think Trixie would have been/could have been just as good a movie without the speech impediment...a "female Columbo" is not a bad idea for a movie, but they could have done it more effectively by studying Peter Falk's methods. Or if they insisted on the language schtick...I still say what dissapointed me most is that Trixie just looks so BRITISH. If Zellweger can pull of a Brit accent and Aussies can pull of US accents, this film would have worked nicely in London..."Trixie" could have taken lessons from Brad Pitt's Irish gypsy character in SNATCH, for instance.

Nick Nolte does a good job playing a bad guy. The female actress in the supporting role, the 16 yr old vixen, was
a positively disturbing character.

still, this was worth the cost of the rental.

Trixie is a uneducated and seemingly naîve, but surprisingly effective cop, who basically speaks in mangled metaphors and expressions.

"I believe in taking the bull by the tail and staring him right in the eye."

"No, you can't have a drink, you are not drinking yourself into Bolivia."

Like all of Rudolph's films, this was overlooked and poorly released. That makes perfect sense, as most critics have a hard time with movies that are hard to define/summarize and audiences want a lot of big dramatic moments, even if they exist in the absence of true, human moments. Rudolph is one of the best movie writers out there and if we could only get the serious literary crowd to see his movies, he might get the recognition he deserves. Anyway, if you're a fan of Rudolph or the actors, they're all at their best here (great comic performance by Watson, can't wait to see what she does in the new Paul Thomas Anderson movie). PS The world would be a better place if all of Rudolph's films were released on DVD (with a commentary). Somebody, anybody, take action, please.

Why is it that when they often have a Spanish actor, his parents, or siblings AREN'T Spanish too? Did they just choose Eli Wallach to be Antonio's dad because they liked him in another film?? NOTHING in this film works, and the actors try to hide that with silly over acting which falls flat at every turn. I expected to see some chemistry between Antonio and Melanie, since this is the movie where they met and fell in love, and yet there was ONE scene that was good, the rest was awful. Maybe the empathy came over dinners commiserating on their choosing this script. Save your money OR go buy 'Miami Rhapsody' instead, it actually IS a comedy.

Art Dodge (Antonio Banderas) would like to break off his engagement to fiancée Betty (Melanie Griffith), but her mob-boss ex-husband makes it impossible for him to say no to the wedding. Then Art manages to fall in love with Betty's sister (Daryl Hannah) and becomes entangled in an outrageous charade - inventing his own twin brother so he can date both women at once.

This movie doesn't require a college degree, isn't Oscar material, and won't make you wake up in the middle of the night pondering its 'true meaning', but it will distract you for a couple of hours and provide you with the opportunity to laugh.

Perhaps I find this predicament so humorous because I tried something of the same gambit when I was younger. Not in such detail, not to such depths (altar), and certainly not with such success. But remembering my antics provokes a good laugh and so did this film.

I loved seeing Antonio Banderas (OK, there could be a period right there, but...) in a comedic role. I find him believable in any role and...so easy on the eyes. He makes acting look so easy. What Billy Bob Thornton accomplishes with only a few choice words, Antonio can do with his eyes.

As for what he and Melanie Griffith may have discovered about one another during the filming, I couldn't say. I still don't know what they have in common, I just trust them to know their hearts. But in 'Two Much' the chemistry isn't required between THOSE two on the celluloid, it is instead between Antonio and Daryl Hannah. So if you don't see sparks between Melanie and Antonio, maybe it is due to good acting in their roles as 'lovers' who weren't in love (at least with each other).

Certainly the plot wasn't as deep as the well-utlizied pools and the laughs weren't the kind that get you in the gut (except perhaps for the morning race between bedrooms with an ever-present pool in between). So, maybe I go for cheap laughs. But I also go for entertainment. This movie provided that.

So watch it with a friend and a bowl of popcorn and let yourself be entertained for a rainy afternoon. It will temporarily erase the clouds and lift your spirits.

This is an uneven movie about shallow self-centered people. Ruffalo does a repeat of his character in 'You can count on me' except this time he is practically irredeemable. He cheats on his lover and later his live-in girlfriend, and never has the guts to communicate honestly about it with either one. The highlight of the film is Petra Wright who plays Claire (The live-in girlfriend). She is vivid as a beautiful, smart, self-possessed, kind, and gentle woman. And this is where the movie lost me, right at the end. There is no way a woman like this is going to forgive a coward who cheats on her, lies about it repeatedly, and basically has no respect for her. In real life, she would just walk away and find someone much better! I guess the director didn't really have the guts to end this movie realistically, but chose instead to go for the 'happy' ending, wherein the woman forgives the cheating man (again), and the cowardly cheating man gets away with it (again).

XX/XY is compelling because it initially makes extraordinary situations seem strangely commonplace as we are drawn into the lives of three confused soulmates. Then, it leaps forward into the future and we watch the trio reunite unexpectedly, with tension, relief, and ultimately grief. Ruffalo is mesmerizing.

This is a fascinating movie about the specifics of relationships, the details that are usually lost in most films. It is a rare treat, well acted, beautifully shot and production designed, artfully directed. It is one of those films that you wish you could see for the first time over and over again,

OK, so I didn't actually watch the whole thing, and maybe (just maybe) it got better at the end... but I just couldn't take it anymore! If what Woody was going for was a chaotic mess then he succeeded. It was filmed partially as a docu-comedy with a narrator and hand held camera (reminiscent of "Take the Money and Run), but without the character interviews. This shaky camera technique is difficult to watch, limits the possible shots, and detracts from your ability to "suspend disbelief." Am I supposed to think there's a guy there with a camera filming reality? If so, why don't the people notice it or talk to it? It would have been better filmed as the Broadway play it was written to be.

But that's just the start of the problems...

This movie lacked any sense of comedic timing! It was almost as if there had been no rehearsals at all (more of the docu-comedy technique?). Woody overpowered everyone in every scene he was in. Michael J. Fox looked like he didn't know what he was supposed to do or say next, but struggled along like a trooper trying not to do an impersonation of Woody Allen. Unlike Miyam Bialack, who showed she could stretch from playing "Blossom" by playing a female version of Woody. By the way, she also looked far too young for the role. Julie Kavner is always good, but there really wasn't anything for her to do but talk on the phone. And I was just embarrassed for Dom DeLouise who appeared to be adlibbing over the top while everyone around him tried to ignore him.

Don't Drink the Water is hysterical! I am a huge Woody Allen Fan and have seen nearly all of his movies. There are some movies by Woody that even I'm not that fond of BUT.....this is not one of them. This movie is entertaining and well cast. There is a lot going on and everytime I watch it I find something different that gets me going! Buy this movie and keep an eye on the subtleties. You won't be disappointed!

This movie is hysterical! I am a huge Woody Allen Fan and have seen nearly all of his movies. There are some movies by Woody that even I'm not that fond of BUT.....this is not one of them. This movie is entertaining and well cast. There is a lot going on and everytime I watch it I find something different that gets me going! Buy this movie and keep an eye on the subtleties.....you won't be disappointed!

An apparently titillating documentary such as this needs more than anything else to answer the basic question of why the otherwise normal Ms. Chong (as we are frequently reminded) chose to engage in compromising positions with over 250 virtual strangers in a matter of 10 hours. What was she trying to prove?

Off I went to find out with a very open mind willing completely to forward my sympathy to a woman who did something so maverick, if nothing else. Unfortunately, the answer never came.

For one thing, it would have helped the creators of this putative muss to have at least gotten their own act together. We are first told that the whole motivation behind this supposed expression of female empowerment was an "ultimate ego trip" ...to have all these men wanting to have sex with Chong.

A few minutes down the line, we find out more about her sordid past which included, lo and behold, a teenage sexual assault (gang r*pe) and drug abuse, the obvious implication being that this drove her into promiscuity.

Which is utterly unconvincing in its own right, but as though this were not bird-brained enough we are then presented with an interview with Ms. Chong on channel 4's "The Girly Show" (clearly a benchmark for intellectual debate now isn't it?) talking about how it was "a p*ss take on the whole western ideal of masculinity" or how she felt that it "was an artful expression".

Right. An*l hand-jobs and "triple penetrations" - how very vintage Da Vinci!

In the end, this 90 minutes of burlesque gibberish leaves the viewer sighing. This is NOT a look at sex or any offshoot thereof as seems to be promised from the title, but a look at the psyche of Annabel Chong and the only thing it ends up conveying is that she is one troubled human being. Playing neither the role of a defiant punk slut rebel or a vulnerable woman-child entirely convincingly, she ultimately comes across as a very confused young woman desparately scrambling for an identity. Whether through porn or (hopefully) some more respectable means, you can't help but hope she finds it.

There's no denying that the life of Annabel Chong is fascinating to observe -- from her life as a feminist scholar to porn-star celebrity to nothing and back to porn-star celebrity.

Unfortunately, with such great material the filmmaker doesn't do a good job. First of all, this documentary is just like an Annabel Chong Home Video collection done by the ex-boyfriend (which is what the director was). It follows all her through her daily and not-so-daily life and nothing more.

Never does the filmmaker ever ask "Why?" Why does she do this? How has her past trauma (being gang-raped) affect her (it barely even acknowledges the rape)? Why does she go back to porn after promising her humiliated parents to make it up to them? It just lazily notes these things and moves on to her going around and doing her daily tasks.

Worse, at times it misrepresents Chong. There's one scene where Chong is cutting herself without explanation. Wow. Screwy, right? Except in the BONUS MATERIAL, you learn that that's the scene when the director breaks up with her and SUGGESTS they take turns doing cutting themselves and films it.

The filmmaker may be incompetent but that's not to say the DVD isn't interesting. With a life as... complicated... as Chong's it's hard to make it boring. The most moving part is when she moves back with her parents in Singapore and they discover from strangers her secret life has having being the center of the world's biggest gang-bang.

So the documentary is worth the viewing, but don't have your expectations up there and you'll be fine. Also be forewarned: they do show clips of Annabel Chong uncensored.

This documentary profiles adult film actress Annabel Chong (real name: Grace Quek), who in 1995 broke new records in sexual history when she performed 251 sexual acts in 10 hours with 70 different men for the porn movie "The World's Biggest Gang Bang." This documentary, which included (the MILDEST of)actual footage from Chong's X-rated movie, was difficult to watch at times and, predictably, elicited gasps from the audience with its subject matter. However, the shock value of the film's central focus eventually wore off, and the filmmakers-- intentionally or not-- leave us with a portrait of a woman with a uniquely admirable quality: Miss Chong shows herself to be unapologetic about her passion for sex (incidentally, with both men AND women), is completely intergrated with the sexual side of her personality, and has no regrets about her astonishing act-- even though she faced an HIV scare afterward, and got stiffed (no pun intended) for the $10,000 salary that she was supposed to receive for her work in "The World's Biggest Gang Bang." Annabel Chong, of course, is not the first or only person in the world who has expressed her sexuality and sexual desires without apology. At the risk of portraying an adult film star as a role model, however, Miss Chong's comfort level with her sexual attitudes and activities is refreshing. Her honesty and freedom of expression form a sharp contrast in our society where even as we slowly break down barriers dealing with sexuality, confronting our sexual behaviors and activities still remain a potential source of conflict (both internal and external) to us. It's debatable over whether Annabel Chong's life warrants an 86-minute documentary-- but nevertheless, this is fascinating stuff.

As a serious fan of the Emma Peel era I was excited to find these "Cathy Gale" era videos on sale. Unfortunately, the production values of the episodes I've tried to watch (from Set 4) are just awful. Shaky hand-held camera work, unintelligible sound, dreadful sets, terrible acting by all but Macnee and Blackman. Save your money!

For all the fans of The Avengers familiar with the Emma Peel/Tara King era of the show, these early episodes featuring Cathy Gale and Venus Smith may come as something of a disappointment. In fact, fans of the later shows may find it hard to believe that they are even part of the same TV series!

After the initial run of 26 episodes featuring Police Surgeon David Keel and his cohort John Steed had aired in the UK in 1961/62, the producers of the program opted to bring Steed to the forefront of the action and give him a number of different "assistants." Thus, for season two, 26 further episodes were made and broadcast in 1962/63 featuring Steed abetted by Martin King, Venus Smith or Cathy Gale. Mrs. Gale turned out to be the most popular and successful foil for the suave agent, and the other characters did not return after season two. Unlike the later Peel/King stories which were all made on film, these studio based TV shows are much more reliant on dialogue and plot than visual elements, and can be somewhat heavy going as a result.

A&E is releasing these stories in a somewhat confusing order, and has started with season three. The first two sets released, Avengers 64 1 & 2, feature the LAST six episodes of season three. Next comes Avengers 63 sets 1 & 2 which comprises of the first half of the season. Next up in the release order is 63 sets 3 & 4 which precede 1 & 2 in running order and in fact feature the last seven stories from season two, plus the first from season three. Confused? Ultimately, it doesn't really matter, since thankfully there's no real reason to watch the stories in chronological order anyway.

What is interesting is the development of the production standards. 63 sets 3 & 4, featuring the latter stories from season two, are far more rudimentary in terms of production quality. The sets are extremely small and sparse; The direction very slap-hazard; Camera work shoddy; Sound is extremely poor; and the acting is negligible. With no budget for editing or reshooting, all the actor's fluffs and goofs stayed in. Steed's character is far less suave and sophisticated then he became later during his familiar role alongside Mrs. Peel, and the relationship with Mrs. Gale in particular is at first downright hostile with very little warmth between the two. He seems to get along much better with Miss Venus Smith, a night club singer who he engages at various gigs to act as his eyes and ears. Venus is a very odd character, and played strangely, but enthusiastically by Julie Stevens. She looks about 12, sings like she's forty, and dresses like anything in between. She also seems extremely naïve and it's hard to imagine why Steed engages her to help him at all. The far more intelligent and elegant Mrs. Gale does eventually warm up to Steed, and in the season three stories where she is the exclusive companion to him, their relationship develops nicely and they become much warmer and closer to each other.

The production values on season three are also much better than the earlier episodes. The sets became larger and more elaborate. The direction, lighting and sound improved greatly and the acting was much less wooden. Some editing was clearly allowed on these later stories, whereas the earlier ones clearly were broadcast as if they were live. There's a terrific blunder in "Six hands across a table," where Cathy is called "Ros" in one scene, and both actors realize the mistake, but keep going.

The quality of the DVD's is somewhat disappointing, even accounting for the age of the material and the production values mentioned above. It may not be the case, but it certainly appears that A&E have made no attempt whatsoever to re-master the original tapes, and the flaws, jumps, scratches and sound blips are too numerous to mention. Virtually every episode on 63 sets 3 & 4 are hampered by picture and sound flaws and defects. Things do improve for 63 1 & 2 and 64 1 & 2, but the quality is still disappointing. Mind you, it appears they have done nothing to clean up the Tara King episodes either!

As a big fan of the series, I wouldn't even consider not having these episodes in my collection, but if you're looking for the wacky camp humor and the tele-fantasy of the Peel/King eras, these stories may not be for you.

This was the best DVD set that I ever bought! This set is a must-have for true Avengers fans. The picture is crisp and this will be a part of your collection forever.

For anyone who read David McCullough's excellent book, The Great Bridge, this film will be a disappointment. Obviously, there is only so much one can fit into an hour segment, but Burns could have done with more history and less noodling commentary from people on "what the bridge means to me." Unlike his excellent "The Civil War," "The Brooklyn Bridge" does not let the pictures and events speak for themselves.

Although parts of "Brooklyn Bridge" hint at the excellent work Ken Burns would demonstrate in later works, this particular film falters in its last twenty minutes.

The Brooklyn Bridge is many stories, but it's mainly the tale of how perseverance can make an almost impossible vision take form. The Bridge took many years and several million dollars to build. It faced political and social opposition. It weathered scandals and corruption. And when it was over, it stood as a monument to mechanical brilliance and soulful aspirations. Burns only spends forty minutes on the story of theBridge's construction. He spends the last twenty minutes focusing on what the Bridge means to various scholars, poets and citizens, and this is where the film lags. Admittedly, the Bridge is important as a cultural icon, not just for New York, but for America. However, if Burns was going to devote this much time to testimonials, then the film should have been at least ninety minutes, or better yet, two hours.

When the film concentrates on the Bridge's construction it shines. Burn has carefully selected photos, drawings, contemporary newspaper accounts and personal journals of key participants in the Bridge's construction to vibrantly tell this story. He just should have spent more time on his subject. The pace of this documentary is so hurried and awkward, you can tell where Burns is skipping key parts of the history to get to the testimonials. Now that Burns is an accomplished film maker, I wish he would go back to this subject and try it again. There's still more to tell.

When Ken Burns was starting to make movies for PBS, he started with a simple subject, the Brooklin Bridge. Based on the book by David McCullough, this movie was a great first entry in the Burns tradition of making good movies that can only be shown on PBS. Buy this DVD with pride and stay away from the cable and commercial networks. The only place left on the dial for good Television is PBS.