DVD Collectors Online

Son of Rambow, a review by Tom

Title: Son of Rambow
Year: 2007
Director: Garth Jennings
Rating: 12
Length: 96 Min.
Video: Widescreen 2.35
Audio: English: DTS HD Master Audio, English: Dolby Digital 5.1, Audio Descriptive: Dolby Digital Stereo, Commentary: Dolby Digital Stereo
Subtitles: English

Stars:
Neil Dudgeon
Bill Milner
Jessica Stevenson
Anna Wing
Will Poulter

Plot:
A long English summer in the early '80s and two boys are about to form an unlikely friendship. Will Proudfoot has been brought up in a strictly religious household, forbidden to watch TV or listen to music. But after Lee Carter, the school trouble-maker, blows Will's mind with a pirate copy of Rambo: First Blood, Will's easily persuaded to act in Lee's home made movie sequel. Armed only with a camera "borrowed" from Lee's brother and their limitless imagination, the pair plot stunt after stunt, dodging teachers and family all the way, as they do whatever it takes to finish their masterpiece in time to enter it in the Screen Test competition.

Directed by Garth Jennings (The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy), SON OF RAMBOW is a heart-warming nostalgic comedy about two boys with a big video camera and even bigger ambitions.

Extras:
Aron: Part I
Commentary
Featurettes
Interviews
Scene Access
Trailers
U.S. Competition Winner Footage

I enjoyed this movie. The child actors are very good in this film. Especially the one who plays Carter (the left one on the cover). He has monologues which he delivers better than most of the adult actors would.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CsAChn35HSo

Rating:

(From Tom's Random Reviews on May 7th, 2009)

Enigma, a review by Silence_of_Lambs

Summary:
During the heart of World War II, in March of 1943, cryptoanalysts at Britain's code-breaking center have discovered that the Germans have changed their Enigma Code. Authorities enlist the help of a brilliant young man named Tom Jericho (Dougray Scott) to help them break the code again. The possibility of a spy within the British code-breakers' ranks looms and Tom's love, Claire (Saffron Burrows), has disappeared. To solve the mysteries, Tom joins Claire's best friend, Hester Wallace (Kate Winslet).

My Thoughts:
Nice one.
This movie has everything a good spy-thriller needs, a broken (anti)-hero, a mysterious beautiful woman, a conspiracy that was built to cover-up another (even greater) conspiracy ... all packed into enthralling 2 hours.
The plot turns and twists so that until the very end you never know where exactly it may want to take you. It's never actually misleading though, you just follow the traces with the main characters until the whole thing is lying spread out before you.

Nice to watch, mediate paced thriller that actually makes you want to know the end.

My Rating: (out of possible 5)

(From Michael's random reviews on November 25th, 2010)

Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles: The Complete Second Season marathon, a review by goodguy

2x09 Complications
Synopsis: Fever dreams convince Sarah that a "three-dot" symbol will lead her to Skynet.  Derek wonders if they've changed the future.
My Rating:

At this point of the series, TSCC is certainly on a roll, one excellent episode after another. Once again I cannot agree with Achim that the parts involving Sarah were boring - their introspective and metaphoric quality nicely balanced the intense stuff going on with Derek. I wonder how Achim will think about the Sarah plot in the next episode, because that is the first time *I* will find it to be pretty weak.

With her breakdown at the end of 2x08, Sarah and John have actually become closer again and that continues here as they talk more openly with each other. Sarah turning over the turtle on the roadside is a Blade Runner reference (the empathy test to distinguish between adroids and humans), nicely used here to characterize her and to provide more food for thought for the always-curious Cameron, who will mimic her later on with great effect.

Sarah's dreams did make sense to me on first viewing, they do so even more when considering the whole series, but I will leave that part out. Sarah's first dream is the least transparent, but the liquid metal cactuses seem to point towards Weaver, who is yet an unknown to Sarah. It is safe to assume that the Weaver and Connor story lines will converge at one point in the series, however that may play out. Sarah's second dream is the most obvious, her humanity prompted her to safe the turtle and the kid in the bowling alley, which played right into Cromartie's hands. She knows what to do, but just can't do it, she sees herself as her own worst enemy, pointing a gun at her reflection in the window. John, however, doesn't think so. The third dream brings her back to reality, there isn't really anything she can get from talking to Dr. Sherman, considering the secrets she has to keep from him.

I didn't talk about Cameron and John in the previous episode (who had a great scene together that only at the surface seemed slightly creepy). Here they are great together again as they drive back to Mexico and then go after Ellison.

Ellison didn't surprise me. Based on the ending of 2x08 and given what he knows, his progression here seemed pretty straightforward to me.

The main story however is of Derek and Jesse and Charles Fisher, who collaborated with the machines (the bits were the "grays" are expositioned are the only slightly clunky parts in the episode). Robert Shiff (Toby from West Wing) as Charles Fisher was amazing and bringing in Adam Bush (robot expert Warren from Buffy) as the younger Fisher was an inspired casting choice. I agree with Achim that we can see that Jesse really cares for Derek, but there also was a strange vibe coming from her. One can attribute it to being completely rattled by discovering Fisher, but her caressing Derek while saying "You need to beat the hell out of him." was a bit too NBK (or whatever) for me.

While talking about 2x07, I said that Jesse was as ruthless as Cameron when killing Moishe, but here it is Derek again who has no moral scruples at all and would have killed the younger Fisher preemptively just as he did with Andy Goode. Jesse has no qualms killing people, but seems not be willing to go that far.

Time travel makes my head hurt, so I usually go with whatever spin is given to it. The "different futures" are an interesting turn, especially as it also means that Derek having changed the future means that he may have created the events that Jesse remembers, but he doesn't. The counterpoint to that is young Fisher. As Ellison's VO drones on to justify his choice (we can't allow history to repeat itself), we see young Fisher thrown in a cell, ensuring he is available to the machines on Judgment Day.


(From Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles: The Complete Second Season marathon on February 8th, 2010)