DVD Collectors Online

The Wolfman, a review by Achim

The Wolfman (2009)

Saw this in the cinema and found it to be a rather mixed back (the friend I watched it with thought the entire film was utter garbage).

The story follows the original fairly loosely, with some rather liberal changes (unless I am remembering the original wrong), such as
. Lawrence Talbot is once again injured by another werewolf, which in turn obviouisly will make him the same. He returned home after his brother had died (turns out he was killed by a vicious creature) to help his father and the fiancee of his now-dead brother. He is institutionalized in an asylum for thinking crazy thoughts, turnign into a werewolf is just ridiculous; or is it? The professor of the asylum presents the crazy man to his colleagues on a night of a full moon...

All the main elements are there. We even get good acting from Benicio Del Toro, Hugo Weaving and others in the cast and Anthony Hopkins is there too. The special effects are up to standards and the transformation scenes look painful and ferocious. The killings are extremely violent and ferocious.

But why do we get the werewolf shown as a rabid animal, killing everyone in site, even hunting them down, without purpose, like a lunatic serial killer? I always felt a werewolf kills for food or because he's provoked, so this was just wrong to me. Then there is the highly underdeveloped love story, which should have been given more attention to more powerful at the end. Then there is the music, which painfully reminded me of Bram Stoker's Dracula more often than it should have.



(From The Wolfman (2009) on February 24th, 2010)

The Parent Trap, a review by addicted2dvd

Title: The Parent Trap
Year: 1961
Director: David Swift
Rating: G
Length: 129 Min.
Video: Anamorphic Widescreen 1.85:1
Audio: English: Dolby Digital: 5.1, English: Dolby Digital: Dolby Surround
Subtitles: English, French, Spanish

Stars:
Hayley Mills
Maureen O'Hara
Brian Keith
Charles Ruggles
Una Merkel
Leo G. Carroll

Plot:The Parent Trap. Mills stars as Susan and Sharon, identical twins separated at birth. Neither twin knows the other exists until a simple twist of fate finds them at the same summer camp. Then, realizing who they are, they plan a little twist of their own. They switch places with high hopes of getting their parents back together. This delightful and heartwarming comedy will have your whole family doubling up with laughter.

Extras:
Scene Access
Feature Trailers
Bonus Trailers
Featurettes
Music Videos
Interviews
Closed Captioned

My Thoughts:
While I knew I seen the remake with Lindsay Lohan... going into this movie I couldn't remember if I ever seen the original. After watching it I can definitely say I didn't. Being over two hours... it is longer then I expected from a family movie. But it is one I enjoyed quite a bit. I did notice that the remake does follow this one pretty well. I just can't decide which I like more the original or the remake.  I guess all I can say on that is I enjoyed them both. This movie has some good laughs in it. It does look a little dated... but the movie is almost 50 years old now.

This movie came in a 2 movie set with part 2.  It is a nice release... with lots of extras as well. Though I did find it odd how they put the set together. The two movies are on disc 1... it is a single sided disc... so when the menu comes up you just pick which movie of the two you want to watch. Then there is a second disc with extras for both movies. I would have thought it would have made more sense to put each movie on it's own disc with the extras for each movie on the disc with that movie. But oh well... what can you do but take it the way they decide to give it to you.

I still haven't watched the second movie yet. That one I never seen before either. The second part is a made for TV movie made 25 years later and once again Hayley Mills returns to play Sharon and Susan. I am looking forward to watching it as well.



(From My Alphabet Marathon Reviews on July 9th, 2010)

"Stargate SG-1" Marathon, a review by DJ Doena

Synopsis:My Opinion: A very good pilot which takes upon the events of the movie and continues to tell the story. It simply ignores the contradictions to the movie instead of giving some cheesy excuses. Only Teal'c's switching of sides was a bit too fast, he doesn't know Jack at all. But I can't come up with a better plot on how to manage this.

Synopsis: Kawalsky has more and longer headaches and phases of black outs after which he can't remember anything. Back on Chulak he was taken over by a Goa'uld larva and now they fight for the mastery of the body. Meanwhile Teal'c is being interrogated by a men from Langley who wants to learn more about the Goa'uld.

My Opinion: I liked the fact that they didn't accept Teal'c blindly in their team, even though Jack thought that he deserved it. It still went fast in the end but at least they mentioned their doubts and pointed out the problems. Now SG-1 is complete: Jack O'Neill, Daniel Jackson, Sam(antha) Carter & Teal'c.

Synopsis: SG-1 arrives on a planet where the population leads a life like in the times of Genghis Khan. It is forbidden for women to appear unconcealed in public, neither is it allowed for them to speak unless spoken to. Carter soon collides with these laws.

My Opinion: "SG-1 arrives on a planet" - I wonder how often I will write this sentence in this marathon. I didn't like this episode much, mainly because they tried to communicate the morale with the grace of a sledgehammer. I nonetheless like the fact that they at least argued about the fact whether it is right to interfere with local customs and affairs.

(From "Stargate SG-1" Marathon on February 29th, 2008)