DVD Collectors Online

Ray Harryhausen: Special Effects Titan, a review by GSyren

Title	Ray Harryhausen: Special Effects Titan
Year	2011
Director	Gilles Penso
Stars	Ray Harryhausen, Randy Cook, Peter Jackson, Nick Park, Phil Tippett and many others
Overview
My thoughts	If you don't know who Ray Harryhausen is, you need to buy this title. If you do know who Ray Harryhausen is you need to buy this title. Ok, maybe that's a bit extreme, but the fact is that Ray Harryhausen is an extraordinary person who has had a HUGE impact on visual effects. If you are the least bit interested in visual effects you should learn about Ray Harryhausen. Today most effects are created with computer imagery, and there are often hundreds of people involved. Ray did it all himself. He was a one man visual effects studio. He was mainly a stop motion animator, and truly a great stop motion animator. His films inspired generations of stop motion animators. Without Ray we may never have seen Wallace and Gromit, Nightmare Before Christmas, Coraline and ParaNorman. But he also inspired lots of other visual effects people. You can hear them tell how Ray's work was the thing that inspired them to go into the business. Ray Harryhausen is one of the very few technicians who has been elevated to a position above the directors of the films they worked on. If you ask people who made The 7th Voyage of Sinbad or Jason and the Argonauts, they'll most likely say Ray Harryhausen, not Nathan Juran or Don Chaffey. Me, I'm a long standing Harryhausen fan. I've got all his films on DVD (and some now on BD), almost all books published about him, and still I learned new stuff from this film. Unfortunately, this title seems to be region locked to region B. Sorry Achim! ;-) It's available from Amazon UK on DVD as well, but the DVD is actually more expensive than the BD.
Rating

(From Reviews and ramblings by Gunnar on March 28th, 2013)

Paranormal Entity, a review by addicted2dvd

Title: Paranormal Entity
Year: 2009
Director: Shane Van Dyke
Rating: NR
Length: 88 Min.
Video: Widescreen :1
Audio: English: Dolby Digital: Dolby Surround
Subtitles:

Stars:
Erin Marie Hogan
Fia Perera
Shane Van Dyke

Plot:
Twenty-three-year old Thomas Finley was arrested for the murders of his nineteen-year-old sister, Samantha, and fifty-two-year-old Edgar Lauren, professor and paranormal investigator. Police were called to the scene by Thomas Finley himself. He was found with his sister's body cradled in his arms.

Despite evidence against him, Thomas claimed that the victims were attacked by a demonic entity of unknown origin. Days later, he committed suicide.

At the request of those close to the Finley family, this video, found at the scene, is being released to the public for the first time as a testament to what really happened inside the Finley home. Decide the truth for yourself.

Extras:
Scene Access
Digital Copy

My Thoughts:
My brother gave me this DVD a couple weeks back. This is one of those movies that try to make it seem "real" by trying to play it off as real types found from someone's camcorder. Much like Blair Witch Project or St. Francisville Experiment. This one obviously a rip off of Paranormal Activity... so I went into it not expecting a whole lot. I must say though... I really enjoyed this one quite a bit. But I found where many people do not... I like this style of movie. The whole illusion of making you think you are watching some real lost tapes of unexplainable happenings... I just find it fun for some reason. I don't really feel right about comparing this one to Paranormal Activity... only because it has been a while since I watched it so I don't think I could do it fairly. As it has been almost a year since I watched it. But I do like where this one went... the urn of their father's ashes... the sister in the attic... footprints on the ceiling,, they had some decent ideas for the atmosphere of the movie. It is worth checking out if you like this style of movie.



(From Weekend Movie Marathon: Unwatched DVDs on January 28th, 2011)

Xena: Warrior Princess Marathon, a review by addicted2dvd

1. Orphan of War
When Xena tries to help the centaurs protect a sacred stone that contains their evil, she encounters someone from her past...her son.

My Thoughts:
A good episode. As the plot says in this episode we learn of Xena's son. I didn't remember this from when I watched this series on TV. So not sure if we ever hear from him again or not. In this episode Xena has to go against one of the men that used to be in her army. A man very greedy for power.

My Rating:

2. Remember Nothing
The Three Fates offer Xena the opportunity to erase her past - including her brother's untimely death - but only if she vows to never shed blood in anger again.

My Thoughts:
Wow... impressive. This is another episode I don't remember ever seeing before. It is nice knowing I have episodes in these sets that I never seen before to look forward to. This one is an alternate reality/What if episode that I thought was very well done. I enjoyed every minute of it.

My Rating:

3. Giant Killer
Xena is caught between a rock and a hard place when she's pitted against her friend Goliath in a battle between the Israelites and the Philistines.

My Thoughts:
Whatta ya know... Xena was there when David put down Goliath. Not a bad episode... though not the best I have seen. Entertaining anyway.

My Rating:

4. Girls Just Wanna Have Fun
Xena is forced to take on the Bacchae - bloodthirsty minions of the wine god, Bacchus - to get to their power-hungry leader and foil his plan to take over the world.

My Thoughts:
Somehow I completely forgot about this episode till I got to it. I don't know how I could forget they did a take on the Vampire legend. And yes... I of course loved every minute of it. It is definitely a favorite.

My Rating:

(From Xena: Warrior Princess Marathon on December 30th, 2009)