Tag: DVD

DVD REVIEW: Roman Holiday – The Centennial Collection

Roman Holiday is Audrey Hepburn film debut, she co-starred with Gregory Peck in a romantic comedy about a modern-day Princess and an American newspaperman who fall in love. It’s absolutely amazing that Hepburn won an Oscar for this role.

There are several extra featurettes about Audrey’s biography. All in all these extras will last a couple hours at most. One of the videos is carried over straight from the 2002 DVD release.

This collection includes:
Audrey Hepburn: The Paramount Years
Remembering Audrey
Rome with a Princess
Dalton Trumbo: From A-List to Blacklist
Restoring Roman Holiday
Behind the Gates: Costumes
Paramount in the ‘50s- Retrospective Featurette

This film is very enjoyable to watch. Some of the shots of Rome and its landmarks look fantastic. Audrey Hepburn was delightful, and this was one of Gregory Peck’s better films.

DVD REVIEW: Sunset Boulevard – The Centennial Collection

Sunset Boulevard is one weird movie. I mean that in a good way, this movie keeps you on your toes. You have no idea what is going to happen next.

The movie starts out with a dead man floating in a pool at a Sunset Boulevard Mansion. If that doesn’t immediately grab your attention than we’ve lost all hope for you. This tragic story is an inside look into Hollywood filmmaking.

Sunset Boulevard has one hell of a golden quote: “All right, Mr. Demille, I’m ready for my close-up.” Yeah it’s one of those quotes that you’ve heard before but never knew where it came from. Well now you know.

This movie defines a classic. It is surely one that most people will enjoy.

The DVD includes:
Commentary by Ed Sikov (author of On Sunset Boulevard: The Life and Times of Billy Wilder)
Sunset Boulevard: The Beginning
The Noir Side of Sunset Boulevard by Joseph Wambaugh
Two Sides of Ms. Swanson
Stories of Sunset Boulevard
Mad About the Boy: A Portrait of William Holden
Sunset Boulevard Becomes a Classic
Recording Sunset Boulevard
The City of Sunset Boulevard
Original Morgue Prologue
The Score of Sunset Boulevard
Behind the Gates: The Lot
Hollywood Location Map
Paramount in the ‘50s – Retrospective Featurette

DVD REVIEW: Futurama – Bender’s Game

I am a huge fan of Futurama- both in that I love the series, and I am a physically large fanboy. Bender’s Game is getting fantastic reviews, and is considered by most to be the best of the Futurama films released thus far.

However, I disagree. Continue reading “DVD REVIEW: Futurama – Bender’s Game”

Shrek The Halls – DVD review

Shrek being an ogre… knows nothing about Christmas. Welcome to “Shrek the Halls”, a short half hour X-mas special about learning the ways of the holidays. Shrek takes quick lessons about Christmas to try and give his family the holiday they deserve. Donkey and Puss in Boots show up to add to the fun and screw things up a bit. Its exactly what you’d expect when you think of Shrek + holidays.

This is the same holiday special that ran on TV a year ago, it runs a little over 23 minutes, but this time no commercials! The original cast from the films is back to reprise their character roles which is nice, since typically this sort of thing would feature a bunch of horrible sound-a-likes. The animation is pretty solid quality as well, almost on par with the films themselves.

Surprisingly, the DVD has a variety of features considering it is just a TV holiday special. There are several sing a longs, a couple interactive games, and a video jukebox. The DVD also features widescreen and fullscreen formats which is nice and 5.1 surround.

It’s worth a watch to get into the holiday spirit. However, being a holiday movie it’s really only good for about 2 months out of the year. Overall worth picking up for the Shrek fans in your family or just renting to have some Christmas cheer to pass the time.

DVD REVIEW: Tropic Thunder

All right lets cut the obvious, if you haven’t seen Tropic Thunder yet you missed out on one of the greatest summer comedies since Superbad. HOWEVER unlike Superbad this DVD does give you a chance to redeem your self.

If you buy purchasing the Director’s Cut DVD you will get about 30 minutes more footage than the theatrical “R” rated version. You also get access to an entire separate disk of bonus material with sweet featurettes like how they blew stuff up, extended and deleted scenes; and of course an alternate ending.

You also can see the entire “Rain Of Madness” series, that is the fake documentary about Tropic Thunder. Most of the episodes never made it on to iTunes, but it’s definitely worth a look if you enjoyed the movie or you simply have some time to spend laughing.

To keep it simple, this DVD is a great delight to a hysterical summer blockbuster. If you saw the movie over the summer, and laughed; pick up the DVD and get ready to hold your guts in, before you explode of laughter. If you never went out to see what the Thunder was all about, you owe it to yourself to quickly buy the DVD and experience this great satire!

O Ra!
– Steve Stifler

Blue Dragon (Vol. 1)

Blue Dragon began as a video game for the Xbox 360 that was supposed to usher in Japanese gamers to the console. The franchise has now expanded to a TV show with characters designed by Akira Toriyama, creator of Dragon-Ball Z.

The story follows a group of six friends as they attempt to stop an evil entity using their new ally, a legendary shadow monster- the Blue Dragon.

This disc is volume one in the series, and contains the first five episodes. Thankfully it has an MSRP price of $14.99 because there isn’t anything else on these discs.

If you’re a fan of the video game or of anime, I would definitely give Blue Dragon a look-see. However if you’re not, don’t bother.