DVD Collectors Online

Fantasm, a review by Jimmy

Title : Fantasm (1976)

Overview
Group sex, religion, role reversal, lesbianism...FANTASM is a sexy, sin-sational comedy spoof of classroom sex education films. Join Professor Jurgen Notafreud as he takes you on an erotic visual tour of the top ten most erotic female fantasies.

My Impression
We start with a little trivia : The movie Phantasm is known with the title "The Never Dead" in Australia because of this movie. But the comparaison between those 2 movies stop there. This film is an Australian take at the movies made in the fifties and the sixties using a doctor to give them an educational value to pass the censorship board. The doctor who made the link between each short stories is a well known British actor : John Bluthal. His interventions present the case and give some psychiatric explications (don't take them seriously since it's as credible than the doctor intervention in Dammaged Goods). The cast is what make this movie great, this is a dream cast (at least for me) : Rene Bond, Uschi Digard, Mary Gavin, Serena, Maria Arnold (my love for her had started with this movie), Gretchen Rudolph and Roxanne Brewer. The only other movie that I own with an even better cast is A Touch Of Sweden that I've already reviewed here. Some segments are particullary good : Card Game, Wearing the Pants (that deal with my own fantasm) and Mother's Darling. In fact the only segment that I don't like is Black Velvet, because it's not original and the girl is really ugly (she looks like a transgender and not even a beautifull one like the Thai one).

Very good movie, not perfect but a nice way to pass 1h30.

Rating :

(From My Alphabet Marathon Review on November 7th, 2008)

Avengers Confidential: Black Widow and Punisher, a review by Danae Cassandra

Avengers Confidential: Black Widow and Punisher
Year of Release: 2014
Directed By:  Kenichi Shimizu
Starring: Jennifer Carpenter, Brian Bloom, John Eric Bentley, Grant George
Genre: Action, Animation

Overview:
After interfering with a top secret mission, THE PUNISHER is taken into custody by S.H.I.E.L.D. AGENT and AVENGER, BLACK WIDOW.  At the orders of Director Nick Fury, Punisher and Black Widow are sent on a mission to stop LEVIATHAN, a global terrorist organization, that plans to sell stolen S.H.I.E.L.D. technology to the highest bidder.  Now, the vigilante and spy must work together to prevent this technology from falling into the wrong hands.  The fate of the world, and of the AVENGERS, hangs in the balance.

My Thoughts:
It's a pretty standard comic story, and makes for a pretty decent superhero tale. It's made by the same folks who did Iron Man: Rise of the Technovore, and has much of the same look and style. I liked the character designs, the animation was quite good - except for a few closeups of Natasha's face, where they didn't get the expressions right, and the big battle scene at the end where the CGI was super-fracking-obvious.  If you liked Technovore then you'll like this - and if you haven't see it, do you like anime style?  Normally I'd say if you enjoy superhero fare then you'd enjoy this, but the style is very anime, so if you don't like that style then don't watch this or Technovore.  Also this is a bit violent for the younger set - this is definitely aimed at teen and up.

However, the most interesting thing to me was the (subtle?) critique of traditional romantic tropes. Natasha has a love interest here who didn't feel worthy because she was strong and powerful and he wasn't. So he set out to change that about himself. It's a problem we see in comics (and paranormal romance) regularly - how to write a romantic story for a strong, powerful, independent female character. Inevitably we get either the female character pretends to be less than she is, or she has to go out with someone who is a bigger BAMF than she is (in which case she loses independence), or he occupies a weaker position and the story ends tragically. We are only just beginning to see partnering of these women with men who can hold their own with them without the ladies giving anything up (Wonder Woman/Superman). Or, here, Punisher - no there's no romance between Frank and Natasha, but Frank doesn't treat her any differently because she's a woman. He treats her as an equal, and she is shown to match him. And that's good to see no matter what.

Bechdel Test: Fail

Overall: 3/5

(From Avengers Confidential: Black Widow & Punisher on June 7th, 2014)

Tom's Random Reviews, a review by Tom

Being Erica: Season Three (2010/United States) IMDb | Wikipedia Just Bridge Entertainment (Netherlands) Director: Writing: Length: 585 min. Video: Anamorphic Widescreen 1.78 Audio: English: Dolby Digital 5.1 Subtitles: Dutch

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Another great season. In the beginning I wasn't sure I'd like the direction this season was going, but it turned out okay.
The second to last episode was a great episode, which really felt like a season finale. Including the feeling to want to see how it now continues. And I thought, great that there is another episode. I get to see it continue. But as it turned out it really was the season finale, and the last episode was a christmas special, which obviously disregarded the episode before that. It was obviously set before the finale. It's a typical special, which doesn't further the storyline and just takes the characters and setting to "teach" you the meaning of christmas. Not a bad episode, but I was left disappointed that I didn't get to the story continue.
Now I have to wait a long time to see it. The fourth (and last) season hasn't even aired yet in Canada.

#	Episode	Rating
01	The Rabbit Hole
02	Moving On Up
03	Two Wrongs
04	Wash, Rinse and Repeat
05	Being Adam
06	Bear Breasts
07	Jenny From the Block
08	Physician, Heal Thyself
09	Getting Wiggy With It
10	The Tribe Has Spoken
11	Adam's Family
12	Erica, Interrupted
13	Fa La Erica

(From Tom's Random Reviews on September 13th, 2011)