The theatrical trailer included in this DVD release of Merrills Marauders, touting its depiction of “World War IIs most fabulous jungle fighters (as) they showed the world what the American soldier can do,” makes director Samuel Fullers 1962 film sound like jingoistic propaganda, but its considerably more than that. The year is 1944; the U.S. Armys 5307th Composite Unit, a 3000-strong outfit under the command of Brigadier General Frank Merrill (Jeff Chandler), has al Read more…
Review
“Required Watching” –New York Magazine
Produced by Blackside, Eyes on the Prize tells the definitive story of the civil rights era from the point of view of the ordinary men and women whose extraordinary actions launched a movement that changed the fabric of American life, and embodied a struggle whose reverberations continue to be felt today. Winner of numerous Emmy Awards, a George Foster Peabody Award, an International Documentary Award, and a Te Read more…
Tags: 19541965, America's, Civil, Eyes, Prize, Rights, Years
For anyone who views holiday gatherings with equal parts joy and dread, The Family Stone offers plenty of comedy to identify with. Writer-director Thomas Bezucha’s slapstick premise begins when Everett (Dermot Mulroney) brings his fiancé Meredith (Sarah Jessica Parker) home to meet his family for Christmas. It’s an instant disaster when parents Sybil (Diane Keaton) and Kelly (Craig T. Nelson) agree with their gay, deaf son Thad (Ty Giordano, who is actually hearing impaired), p Read more…
Tags: 2005, Edition, Family, Stone, Widescreen
Intriguingly scaled more along the lines of a good sci-fi short story than a steroid-enhanced action picture, Surrogates proposes a variation on spectatorship-run-amok. In the near future, human beings need no longer leave their homes: mechanical surrogates, similar in appearance (but younger looking, fitter, with fewer wrinkles and more hair) can move about in the world on the user’s behalf, following commands and absorbing physical wear and tear. A cop (Bruce Willis) begins in Read more…
Tags: 2009, Surrogates
Los Angeles Daily News, October 20, 2000
“The computer maestros at Pixar Studios are working at the top of their game, but just as importantly, so are the screenwriters.”
Andy heads off to cowboy camp leaving his toys to their own devices. Things shift into high gear when an obsessive toy collector named Al McWhiggin (owner of Al’s Toy Barn) kidnaps Woody. At Al’s apartment, Woody discovers that he is a highly valued collectible from a 1950s TV show called Read more…
Tags: 1999, Bluray, Bluray/DVD, Combo, Edition, Packaging, Special, Story, TwoDisc
![Inglourious Basterds (2-Disc Special Edition) [Blu-ray]](http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/51P-OVFu7AL._SL500_AA240_.jpg)
Although Quentin Tarantino has cherished Enzo G. Castellari’s 1978 “macaroni” war flick The Inglorious Bastards for most of his film-geek life, his own Inglourious Basterds is no remake. Instead, as hinted by the Tarantino-esque misspelling, this is a lunatic fantasia of WWII, a brazen re-imagining of both history and the behind-enemy-lines war film subgenre. There’s a Dirty Not-Quite-Dozen of mostly Jewish commandos, led by a Tennessee good ol’ boy named Aldo Raine (Brad Pitt) Read more…
Tags: 2009, 2Disc, Basterds, Bluray, Edition, Inglourious, Special
Michael Moore’s didactic documentary style is actually a source of inspiration in Capitalism: A Love Story. This film, which explores the history of incongruence between American capitalism and democracy, is evidently a culmination of Moore’s lifetime of research into this topic: he begins the movie by admitting his longstanding interest, rooted in childhood experiences in Flint, Michigan. As a result, the film displays an expertise that is less irritating than in Moore’s earlie Read more…
Tags: 2009, Capitalism, Love, Story
Director Spike Lee’s When the Levees Broke is the definitive document of the unmitigated disaster that was, and is, Hurricane Katrina. It’s also a contemporary manifestation of an ancient tradition: an oral history, told by the people who lived it, with no narration and only the occasional use of archival cable and broadcast news footage in addition to Lee’s own film. And a grim tale it is, an “American tragedy” subtitled “a Requiem in Four Acts,” each of them about an hour long Read more…
Tags: 2006, Acts, Broke, Documentary, Four, Levees, Requiem, When
This DVD video contains over 30 minutes of live action sing-a-longs for kids. The use of Closed Captioning allows the viewer to see the lyrics on the screen. Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star
The Ants Go Marching
God Said It
Boom, Boom, Ain’t It Great To Be Crazy
Baby Bumblebee
When the Saints Go Marching In
Little Cabin in the Wood
I’ve Been Working on the Railroad
Hush!
Two Little Blackbirds
Over in the Meadow
Hinges
John Brown’s Baby
Bill Grogan’s Goat
I’m Gonna Wor Read more…
Okay, lets get one thing straight right off the bat: Family Guy is not, never has been, and never will be, The Simpsons. Nor is it South Park, King of the Hill, or any one of a number of other shows on Adult Swim. But yes, it is in many ways a rip-off of those other shows (especially The Simpsons; lets not even pretend otherwise). But so what? By now, you either think the shows funny, or you dont, and the derivativeness either bothers you, or it doesnt. Volume 4 is li Read more…