Hardware: 2-Disc Special Edition:
Director Richard Stanley concocts a world on the edge of social, financial and environmental collapse. Perhaps Stanley riding right up to post-apocalypse without going past is down to Mad Max and sequels casting too large a shadow on genuine post-apocalyptic Australian cinema. Nevertheless, Stanley's chemically corrupted society-on-the-brink provides a warm feeling for enjoyers of claustrophobic, dystopian futures, bowing to the altars of Blade Runner, Max Headroom, Alien, Brazil and others such as it does. And then an evil robot starts killing folks, pleasing gore-hounds, too. As the blood-red sun sets on another grimy day, Hardware provides derivative, counter-revolutionary fun.

Life isn't good in Stanley's modern world, a cesspit of pollution, decay, corruption and despair. The government's talking about eugenics...Read the entire review

The First Season

Flashpoint is a Canadian based television drama about a police department's Strategic Response Unit (SRU). The SRU is a special weapons and tactics unit that is responsible for handling out of the ordinary police matters, such as hostage negotiations. This review covers the DVD release of seasons one (all nine episodes) and two (first four episodes) as aired on CBS. The episodes in this set are billed as season one. For a police drama, Flashpoint is not like common police procedural series. There are no case investigations or time in court. Instead, each episode focuses on an intense situation where one small mistake could lead to someone dying. The SRU team must use every tactic from psychological to physical to ensure that maximal lives are saved.<...Read the entire review

Jinki:Extend originally came out in 2005 and when it found its way to America, it wound up in the hands of ADV. They released it a couple of times and it eventually was put into the form of a thinpack collection in the latter part of 2007. Now that ADV has changed its name and lost the license, FUNimation picked up the pieces and have brought the show back out of obscurity. The question remains though, is it really worth digging this one out again?

If you have never heard of Jinki:Extend then you're not alone. This series slipped under the radar for many otaku and to be quite honest I'm not at all surprised. The components that make up the plot should be considered clich by just about every means possible. I mean, the series features young girls piloting giant robots while a secret organization is poised to fight off an alien invader. It doesn't take...Read the entire review

The Film:

Released just last year in Japan, Blassreiter is the latest effort from Gonzo and the newest release by FUNimation. Presented as a boxed set containing the first 12 out of 24 episodes, Blassreiter: The Complete Series, Part 1 was something I wasn't expecting. I knew very little about the show going into it and the only knowledge I had was that Gonzo was involved and the cover looked pretty cool. Needless to say the hype machine about this show was very quiet, but is that necessarily a bad thing? Sometimes there are sleeper hits that fly under the radar, and dare I say, this is a fine example of that.

Blassreiter takes place a decent ways into the future, though the specific time period is not disclosed. Technology has advanced to a certain degree and there's a lot of emphasis on motorcycle racing. Sometimes it seems as though a two-wheeler is t...Read the entire review

Long before I started reviewing for DVD Talk, I was a regular reader who anxiously clicked on the reviews of Francis Rizzo III, among other talented writers. His ingenious "In Ten Words or Less" capsules and "Reviewer's Bias" charts are an unforgettable trademark, something I wish I had thought of first (I never would have, so it's a healthy jealously). Not only do they make me laugh (and sometimes get me fired up: no way is Andy more annoying than Dwight on The Office!), they also put his reviews into perfect perspective.

It's an observation I wanted to point out for my take on The Proposal, because my bias has clearly influenced me. You see, I &a...Read the entire review

A Christmas-themed episode of The Judy Garland Show, The Judy Garland Holiday Special, as it's being sold here (though the actual onscreen title is The Judy Garland Christmas Show), is one of the best Christmas variety shows ever, an alternately poingnant and bittersweet last hurrah for its troubled star, one of the century's great entertainers. The absolutely no-frills disc is clearly designed for those disinterested in the rest of Garland's problem-plagued but often outstanding short-lived show.

Though Christmas shows for television are often filmed months in advance, The Judy Garland Christmas Show was taped on December 6, 1963, just 16 days before it aired, and a genuine holiday spirit permeates the studio atmosphere. Deviating somewhat...Read the entire review

Adult Swim, which takes over late nights from Cartoon Network, has spent the last decade carving out a very particular niche market with an insanely inspired, eclectic approach to programming. Although Adult Swim broadcasts new and classic anime on selected nights, their original programming is what makes the program block stand out. Beginning in 2001, Adult Swim officially launched with programming only a couple of nights a week - new episodes of Space Ghost Coast to Coast, Home Movies, and a lot of reruns. After a year or so, the network began to expand original programming with shows featuring the surreal humor and visual styles Adult Swim is now known for. These "early" Adult Swim shows included Sealab 2021, Harvey Birdman: Attorney at LawRead the entire review

The Conspiracy To Rule The World: From 911 To The Illuminati:
Reality Films and Reality Entertainment once again implore viewers that 'reality is what you make it.' It's good advice as far as approaching your life goals, and as far as acidheads are concerned is either a gospel truth or complete fallacy. Somewhere in between these two dynamics lies Conspiracy, a documentary hodgepodge capitalizing on conspiracy theorists' need to find answers never-to-be-revealed. As human nature goes, the need to create mysteries and answers is universal; one of those aphoristic answers is, 'if you want to find the truth, follow the money.' Based on their offerings, I suspect not a ton of dough will be spilling into Reality Films coffers. You can then come to your own conclusions as to what level of truth you will find in this compelling yet short-handed DVD.

Conspiracy follows the same bluepr...Read the entire review

I didn't have a huge amount of choices on Saturday mornings growing up, because I was only limited to 60 minutes of television time. So I had to be choosy about which shows I watched. Ruby-Spears' Plastic Man (formally The Plastic Man Comedy/Adventure Show), which ran from 1979 to 1981, was one of the few programs I really looked forward to each weekend. When I saw Plastic Man, it was in reruns shortly after its original broadcast, and it was one of my earliest encounters with a superhero character. Although Superman (1978) was the very first feature film I ever saw, I did not really connect with superheroes as a kid. So Plastic Man represents a first exposure to a Justice League character, and even though it did not lead to a sustained in...Read the entire review

With the ADV brand going through something of an evolution (they're known as Section 23 now), it's nice to know that some of their old licenses are still available. While the publisher lost some of their titles to FUNimation when a contract went sour, they still have a plethora of Grade A material. One of the best is easily RahXephon; an outstanding science fiction anime that rivals some of the best in the giant robot genre.

Back when the show originally came out I basically chalked it up to a Neon Genesis Evangelion rip off before even seeing it. Because of that I kind of dragged my feet on my way to checking it out. A couple of years ago when the thinpack collection became available to me I picked it up reluctantly. Imagine my surprise when I fell in love with the show and found my preconceptions totally shattered. RahXephon was wholly origi...Read the entire review

The Movie:

Some people remember where they were on 9/11, or the birth of their first child, life-changing events where you're able to recall the day's events. While watching Mitch Fatel may not be considered life-changing perhaps even to Mitch Fatel, I can say that I remember where I was when I watched his most recent concert on DVD. Now, after seeing it, I've got to admit that Mitch Fatel Is Magical does deliver on its "truth in advertising" concept.

As one who was unfamiliar with Fatel's material, I was surprised to learn that not only was he an intern on the Howard Stern radio show for a brief period, but he also did some work as a correspondent on Jay Leno's Tonight Show. This is, of course, excluding any stand-up appearances he did on the late night circuit. I thought, without any research that Fatel was another comic in the mold of a Dane Cook, someone whose superficial ...Read the entire review

Mutants and Monsters Double Feature: Uninvited/Mutant:
Greydon Clark's eighties schlockfest Uninvited mostly earns its titular status, as after a while you'll wish you'd never let it into your DVD player. But, like a vampire, once you've invited it in, it's free to do as it chooses, and in this case Uninvited, like a vampire, sucks. It's no small blessing then, that Uninvited is so monumentally off its nut that it's quite enjoyable - in a forehead-slapping kind of way.

Combining those age-old horror tropes - Wall Street criminals trying to shelter funds, and a poisonous mutant cat - Clark wins the prize for most coked-up horror concept of 1987 - not that I'm in any way trying to imply drugs were involved in this production. It's just the surfeit of pink-and-black polka-dotted bikinis, Lacoste shirts, yachts and so on have me strongly flashing back to Miami Vic...Read the entire review

THE MOVIE:

I make no secret of my love of the Who and their album Quadrophenia. This site alone has multiple testaments to such, with my reviews of various live shows and of the outstanding documentary Amazing Journey. The latter looms large whenever looking at something like the unauthorized The Who, the Mods, and the Quadrophenia Connection. What can you show me that I haven't seen before?

Very little, as it turns out. One would hope that the focus of a documentary like The Who, the Mods, and ...Read the entire review

THE PROGRAM

Anyone who has ever read my review of educational programming, might have recognized I can be very critical of flash over substance. The Discovery Channel has devolved over the years into reality themed programming. It all started with "American Chopper" a show about a family of custom motorcycle designers and builders. I found the show fascinating, until the focus quickly shifted from the building element to the "drama" in the shop. I haven't watched an episode of the series (now on TLC) for a few years because frankly, I have better things to do than watch grown men bicker.

"Doing Da Vinci" set off some quiet alarms from the premise alone: a group of engineers and craftsmen come together to bring some of Leonardo Da Vinci's most famous inventions to life. I was drawn to the program after having recently visited a museum exhibit titled "Da Vinci- The Genius" where m...Read the entire review

A&E's The Complete Series - Dr. Quinn, Medicine Woman is a re-repackaging of the cult 1993-98 Western series, with all 150 episodes and two TV-movies, some 120 1/2 hours worth (!) packed onto 42 (!!) single-sided DVDs, in a sturdy, phonebook-heavy box. The show was originally released to DVD a season at a time, then made available as Dr. Quinn, Medicine Woman - The Complete Series Megaset one year ago in fake leather/faux photo album packaging. This new set is more compact and about 35% less expensive than that earlier release. Substantively though, it appears to include the same transfers and extras.

This reviewer never caught the show when it was new and, needless to say, I didn't get to watch all 150 episodes in the three weeks since it arrived at my doorstop, but having sampled representative and well-regarded shows from all six seasons, I think I have a pretty fair grasp of i...Read the entire review

The Collection:
When the series Homicide: Life on the Street first debuted in January 1993, I was watching. I watched most of the original nine episodes that made up the abbreviated first season, but when the show went on hiatus for nine months, only to return for an even more abbreviated second season consisting of four episodes, I was through with the show. By that time, I was hooked on NYPD Blue, and as a consequence, I never really got into Homicide, and figured I probably never would. Then along came the HBO series The Wire--arguably the best series in television history--and suddenly I was interested in Homicide.

For those of you that don't know the connection between The Wire and Homicide, both began with David Simon. A reporter for The Baltimore Sun, Simon was the series creator and producer for The Wire, and it was his ...Read the entire review

THE FILM

It appears the trilogy is now complete. After creating starring vehicles for his characters Ali G (2002's "Ali G Indahouse") and Borat Sagdiyev (2006's smash "Borat"), the time has come for Sacha Baron Cohen to allow Bruno an opportunity to carry his own picture. "Bruno" will likely be welcomed by an adoring audience fully equipped to endure the traditional blast of Cohen-approved smut and merciless social commentary, especially after "Borat" turned his obscure antics into box office gold. However, don't hold sudden international success against Cohen's superb modus operandi, who once again tears into a clueless world seeking to mock, celebrate, and disgust anyone who will welcome him.

Watching his success on German television taken away from him, fashion expert Bruno (Sacha Baron Cohen) is ready to make the leap to America. Traveling to Los Angeles with assistant Lutz (Gu...Read the entire review

In 10 Words or Less
It's like a Super Young Comedians Special

Reviewer's Bias*
Loves: Stand-up, several comics here
Likes: Several of the others
Dislikes: Surpringly, no one included
Hates: Short sets

The Show
When I used to have HBO, I loved watching the Young Comedians Specials on on-demand, as it was fun to see the big names when they were first starting out, along with the unfortunate souls who didn't enjoy the same break-out success. Some of them were still doing the same polished act decades later, while others had raised their game from rough, though promising beginnings, while still others have devolved into catchphrase-slinging hacks. (On a side note, I miss Dennis Wolfberg. What ...Read the entire review

The Film:

H.P. Lovecraft, one of the creators of horror literature as we know it, was a tall, skinny, long-faced racist/xenophobic recluse - a man who was demonstrably afraid of the world, and transmogrified that fear into stories of the uncanny that define "weird fiction." He lived in Providence, RI, for most of his life, often in long periods of solitude and seclusion. His stories pit protagonists of learning and science - often Providence-area natives - against unspeakably horrific creatures of godlike power and omnipotence. These creatures - who appear in a loosely connected group of stories known as "The Cthulhu Mythos" - observe humanity with utter dispassion, and Lovecraft's characters are powerless before them. In these stories, Lovecraft envisions a world where the ultimate terror goes hand-in-hand with the ultimate knowledge - the human confrontation with previously unknown powers that totally c...Read the entire review

If only Marco Zaror had been born two decades earlier the man would have found himself with a much more promising action career. As it stands now, there isn't much call for employment of hunky meatslab actors with martial and acrobatic skills. In the heyday of the 80's and 90's action boom, there was a place for guys like Zaror. I could see the him in a Bruno Mattei Nam shoot 'em up (imagine the boxcover tagline: Zaror Goes To War!), a gonzo Arizal Filipino action number, maybe Godfrey Ho ninja film, an Italian post-apocalypse or barbarian flick, and surely the doors of Cannon films would have been open to casting him as a thug or a monosyllabic lead.

Following Kiltro, Mirageman (2007) stands as the second film from the Chilean duo of star, Zaror, and writer/director Ernesto D az Espinoza. Its another low budget number and...Read the entire review

Most filmmakers fall into one of two camps: those who make films as art, and those who make films as entertainment. Me, I don't think the gap is that hard to bridge, but for some people, the idea that their work might cross over from the intended side to the other is just horrifying. Sally Potter's independent film Rage is a single-camera "interview" movie that simply seats each of its actors in front of a greenscreen (which changes several different solid colors in the movie) and lets them talk to the camera. This is the kind of premise with the potential to bridge that gap; artistically, it's minimalist, reducing the craft of the filmmakers to the bare elements (something that always excites high-minded auteurs), but many of these faces are familiar, and depending on their topics of conversation, there's nothing that says the end result has to be philosophical or intellectual.

Rage is...Read the entire review

Paramount has reissued the John Hughes comedy Planes, Trains and Automobiles in a Those aren't Pillows!" Edition that adds little more than a lenticular 3D slipcase cover to previous releases. Writer-director John Hughes passed away just three months ago, renewing interest in his stellar 80s string of box office hits. P,T&A teams the talented John Candy and Steve Martin in a frankly lazy comedy that Hughes admitted took him just a few days to write. Being a dedicated fan of Candy and Martin helps as the comedy here shows little of the sensitivity that Hughes brought to some of his earlier teen angst epics.

The situation is solid enough: Marketing man Neal Page (Steve Martin) wants to get home from a Manhattan meeting so as not to miss Thanksgiving, but his traveler's nightmare begins when a client (William Windom...Read the entire review

Documentaries in their initial concept and final form often diverge, but rarely more so than in filmmaker Kate Churchill's Enlighten Up! (2008). Churchill, a longtime devotee of yoga, intended to make a documentary about the transformative power of yoga. Her plan was to follow a yoga novice, 29-year-old unemployed journalist Nick Rosen, for six months as he sought out a spiritually transformative yoga practice. But that's not how things worked out. How Churchill's plan went awry and the theme which emerged to take its place, fortunately, make for an interesting story nonetheless.

Though yoga claims a pedigree that dates back to ancient India, its modern incarnation as practiced in the west is much younger. Virtually unknown here forty years ago, more than 16.5 million Americans now practice yoga regularly, with another 62 million interested in beginning a practice, according to a 2004 s...Read the entire review

The Movie:

The Beatles: Composing Outside the Beatles: Lennon and McCartney 1967-1972 is that rarest of independently made rockumentaries: It's actually very good. Smart, incisive and enthusiastic, the documentary is invaluable viewing for diehard Beatles buffs -- and informative for the casual fan.

Clocking in at 137 minutes, Composing Outside the Beatles drills deep into the solo work of John Lennon and Paul McCartney in the seven years that followed release of the Beatles' groundbreaking Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band. That album, as the film notes, signaled the beginning of the end of the Fab Four. McCartney and Lennon, the Beatles' principal songwriters, were moving quickly in different directions, both artistically and personally. By the time of 1968's The White Album, the Beatles were clearly becoming a band in name only. McCartney remained...Read the entire review

THE MOVIE:

When it was announced early last year that comedian Will Ferrell was going to be doing a one-man Broadway show as a send-off to George W. Bush, it sounded like a pretty good idea. The actor had played the 43rd U.S. President on SNL, and it became the impression to beat. By all reports, the resulting performance piece, Will Ferrell: You're Welcome, America - A Final Night with George W. Bush, was a success, earning good reviews and some Tony nominations. HBO taped one of the nights and aired it as a live special; it's that video document that is released on DVD.

You can hear the big "but" coming, can't you? When I told my friend, a devout Anchorman fan, that I had been assigned the DVD of Will Ferrell: You're Welcome, America...Read the entire review

The Movie:
Perhaps it was foolish to expect a film with the subtitle "The Island of the Pachyderms" to be anything but muddled nonsense. Perhaps it was too much to expect characters to react to the world around them and behave coherently from scene to scene. Perhaps I was simply supposed to embrace some sort of enchanted force while watching Jean-Jacque Beineix's IP5, but when characters aren't awed by the magic in front of them, it's hard for it to translate through the screen.

The title (whose Pachyderm subtitle is conspicuously missing from Cinema Libre's new DVD) refers to the tag-name of a graffiti artist and thief named Tony (Olivier Martinez), who lives in an unfashionable neighborhood of Paris and spends his days spray-painting elaborate designs on walls. He's taken under his wings a plucky poor boy named Jojo (Olivier Martinez), I guess to teach him how to be an ass.

I w...Read the entire review

THE MOVIE:

Sauna is horror for the arthouse crowd. With this film, Finnish director AJ Annila has crafted an atmospheric slice of grim terror. Revealing itself to be a slow-burner with a few surprising jolts along the way, Sauna will test the patience of horror fans looking for non-stop cheap thrills and kills. However viewers who are willing to go the distance will be amply rewarded with an intelligent and thoughtful rumination on guilt and redemption.

As the film opens, the year is 1595 and the 25 year war between Sweden and Russia has ended. One of the after-effects of the war entails the creation of a new border between both lands. The completion of this task has been assigned to two separate commissions. The film follows one of these commissions which include members from both countries. Erik and Knut Spore are brothers on the Swedish side of the commission. Eri...Read the entire review

THE FILM

"The Accidental Husband" is looking to perch comfortably on a fluffy, soft cushion of predictable romantic comedy machinations. This is not a taxing picture, settling on a checklist of routine comedy ideas and performance speeds that were established eons ago. It appears all that's truly missing is a healthy chunk of charisma.

When controversial radio relationship talk show host Dr. Emma Lloyd (Uma Thurman) convinces fireman Patrick Sullivan's (Jeffrey Dean Morgan) girlfriend to break it off on the air, the blue-collar New Yorker isn't going to take the humiliating rejection lying down. With the help of some clever internet hacking, Sullivan manipulates a marriage certificate to Lloyd as a gag, only to find the high-strung host horrified with this hiccup in her love life. Petitioning Sullivan for an annulment, Lloyd finds his brutish, spontaneous ways exciting, putting he...Read the entire review

The Film:

Lies And Deception: UFO's [sic] & The Secret Agenda:
I'd be wary about any DVD label with the moniker 'Reality Entertainment'. Reality is often entertaining, but when looking for hard facts, 'reality' and 'entertainment' seem an uneasy mix. When the DVD in question is titled Lies and Deception: UFO's [sic] and the Secret Agenda, the notion of reality becomes a bit fluid, so hopefully at least entertainment will be available. Yet, this padded, plodding documentary comes up a bit short in each department - and I'm one of those who wants to believe. Lies and deception indeed.

Constructed cheaply from the most basic doc ingredients, Lies fails to impress. Unattributed UFO photos dreamily float about in hazy seas of computer imagery, CGI aliens ominously spiral through the blackness, and New Age techno music enforces a soporific air. These graphics repeat ad absurdum, in...Read the entire review

The Movie:
One would think that a documentary entitled Elementary My Dear Watson: The Man Behind Sherlock Holmes would provide the viewer with much tasty information about Arthur Conan Doyle. Unfortunately, the said documentary is much more revealing about its writer and director, Philip Gardiner, whose fixation on the occult informs the film, sometimes to the detriment of the subject at hand.

To be sure, Conan Doyle was a student of the occult and spiritualism, believed in fairies and publicly advocated for related causes. However, Gardiner presents the occult as the defining element of Doyle's life, the primary impetus of all of his fiction, even such as the Sherlock Holmes stories, which are not concerned with anything outside of the workaday world. There are two films included on the disc: Elementary My Dear Watson and The Madness of Sherlock Holmes: Arthur Conan Doyle ...Read the entire review

When Ghost Hound came out in the latter part of 2007, I was stoked. Granted the show wasn't out in the States then, and I refuse to go pirate and download it. I was stoked simply because I knew the show wouldn't be long until it hit store shelves on our side of the pond. It may have taken a couple of years to do so, but Production I.G.'s latest work was everything I wanted. Just what makes this 22 episode anime so special though?

One of the best ways to answer that feeds directly to the well-educated anime fan. For starters it's Production I.G. I mean, they have a strong reputation and haven't really made a dud. Add to their involvement the fact that the series was also conceptualized by Masamune Shirow (Ghost in the Shell, Appleseed), directed by Ryoutarou Nakamura (Kino's Journey, Serial Experiments Lain), scripted by Chiaki Kona...Read the entire review

The Movie:

Held at the Staples Convention Center in Los Angeles on August 23, 2009, Summerslam 2009 was widely regarded as one of the best WWE events of the year, bringing together top contenders from not only the RAW and SMACKDOWN leagues, but from the ECW league as well for an eight match event that definitely delivered some really solid action.

Here's a look at the matches that make up the event, but without the winners revealed, so feel free to read on without fear of spoiling the event for those who haven't seen it.

Rey Mysterio Vs. Dolph Ziggler: The night starts off very strong with this opening match for the Intercontinental Championship title. These two really get the crowd pumped up from the get go, with Mysterio providing plenty of his trademark high-flying jumps and rope work and Ziggler countering with a more aggressive, traditional brawling style....Read the entire review