DVD Collectors Online

The Duel at Silver Creek, a review by Rogmeister

The Duel at Silver Creek (1952)  77m
Director: Don Siegel
Cast: Audie Murphy, Faith Domergue, Stephen McNally, Gerald Mohr, Susan Cabot, Lee Marvin

Hey, this movie came out the year I was born...this DVD has a terrific-looking print of this 58-year old movie, though it has no extras apart from the theatrical trailer.  The movie deals with a large group of claim jumpers who force miners to give up deeds to their claims...and often repay them by killing them.  Audie Murphy plays a young man whose father is killed...he winds up the deputy of the fast-drawing sheriff.  The action is fast and furious in this oater filled with gunplay and horse chases.  For some reason, most of the main cast members have nickhames...Audie is The Silver Kid, the sheriff is known as Lightning, a couple of the bad guys are Rat Face and Johnny Sombrero and the girls are referred to as Dusty and Brown Eyes.  One fly in the ointment for the good guys is the marshal has suffered a wound and can no longer pull the trigger on his six-gun with his good hand.  Of course, you know the good guys are going to prevail...right?   

(From DCO fourth Alphabet Marathon - discussion/review/banter thread on July 5th, 2010)

Saving Private Ryan, a review by KinkyCyborg

Title:Saving Private Ryan
Year: 1998
Director: Steven Spielberg
Rating: R
Length: 169 Min.
Video: Anamorphic Widescreen 1.85:1
Audio: English: Dolby Digital: 5.1, English: Dolby Digital: 2-Channel Stereo
Subtitles: English

Stars:
Tom Hanks
Tom Sizemore
Edward Burns
Barry Pepper
Adam Goldberg

Plot:
June 6, 1944. D-Day. The Allies launch the biggest invasion in military history as millions in war-ravaged Europe wait and hope. But even as vast armies storm the beaches, a crack unit of troops is ordered to find and retrieve one man: Private James Ryan.

From Academy Award-winning director Steven Spielberg comes the World War II drama Saving Private Ryan, a co-production of DreamWorks Pictures and Paramount Pictures.

Saving Private Ryan is a story of heroism and sacrifice set in France during and just after the D-Day invasion of World War II. On the beaches of Normandy, great military forces are converging for the battle that would decide the course of the war. But behind enemy lines, a squad of U.S. Army soldiers, led by Captain John Miller (Tom Hanks), are putting their lives on the line on a perilous mission to find paratrooper James Ryan (Matt Damon).

As the soldiers push deep into enemy territory, moving from one danger to the next, Captain Miller and his men find themselves questioning their orders. Why is one man worth risking eight...why is the life of this private worth more than their own?

Extras:
Scene Access
Feature Trailers
Featurettes
Production Notes
Closed Captioned
Exclusive message from Steven Spielberg


So I deviated from my normal method of selecting a movie to watch and instead grabbed Saving Private Ryan to watch again, one on my top 3 favorite war movies. The occasion? Just the arrival of my brand spanking new 50' Panasonic plasma tv.

I swore to myself a long time ago that the day I got myself a kick-ass tv and surround sound that SPR would be the first movie I watched.... and man, it sure didn't disappoint!

The whole house shook with every explosion, I could hear the bullets whipping by my ears and the visuals were stunning, even with just an upconverting dvd player. My wife was completely disgusted with all the noise she was hearing upstairs which made it all the more satisfying. 

The movie itself has among the greatest rewatchability of any in my collection and I like to revisit it every year or so. While the battle scenes were epic, this goes well beyond a war story as it asks the question... What is one mans life worth? Often brutal in it's depiction of war, it offsets that with brilliant, thought provoking moments where the expectations of duty are questioned. An outstanding cast, well done stories within the story and a final touching moment of closure. This takes a spot in my Top 10 favorite movies to date.

I somehow missed Paul Giamatti's role during my earlier viewings.   

All in all it's been a fantastic day!! 

KC

Rating:

(From KinkyCyborg's Random Reviews 2010 on June 23rd, 2010)

Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles: The Complete First Season marathon, a review by Achim

Dungeons and Dragons

Yeah, another good episode. Some mysteries were being set up so that there is some suspense to find out what will develop from that. Seeing a T-800 during those flashbacky-forwardsy thingys (just a look-a-like though...) was nice. I thought the future scenes was quite well done and help to develop the "back"story for Derek. ("Dereks don't run." )

I too can hardly wait for Monday so that I can continue (I have a day off Monday, in fact the whole next week, so I just might finish the last disc in one day


No one ;liner stuck in my mind this time


I just checked and found that Season 2 is apparently a full-blown one, according to IMDb there's be 22 episodes. ...for more content  ...for higher price when purchasing the Blu-ray set later this year

(From Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles: The Complete First Season marathon on January 21st, 2009)